Tag Archives: Gratitude

Making Choices

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I made two choices this week that were pretty significant. One is I finally decided (letting go, with much sadness) that I wasn’t going to Authentic Inspiration: A Writing and Meditation Retreat this weekend with Susan Piver at Shambhala Mountain Center. The other is that when the first round of tickets were released yesterday for World Domination Summit 2013, I didn’t buy one, (I’d already made this choice once this summer, while at the conference, when current attendees were for a limited time offered a discounted ticket).

It isn’t that I didn’t want to attend these events. In fact, my desire to go to both is strong. It’s also not that I can’t afford them, because I could. It’s just that there are compelling reasons to chose otherwise, and my heart and gut are telling me that I am making the right decision. This is something I’ve learned in the past year: after you trim your life down to the only things you really want and love, you will still have to make choices, and sometimes it means choosing one good thing over another, one longing over another.

Another choice I made is what I’m going to do with the $100 dollars I got at World Domination Summit (WDS) 2012. If you remember, each attendee was given a hundred dollar bill on the last day of the conference (watch the video below to see Chris Guillebeau’s explanation) along with a note that said “We’d love to see how you can put these funds to good use. Start a project, surprise someone, or do something entirely different–it’s up to you!”

I’m not going to lie, this gift, this challenge came with a lot of responsibility and some anxiety. I wanted to think of something “good enough.” I struggled with what to do for the past two months. I donated a similar amount to Save the Lyric, a Kickstarter campaign to save our local independent movie theater. Then I gave a similar amount to the John F. Ptak Relief Fund. John is married to one of my favorite writers, Patti Digh, and was diagnosed with kidney cancer while uninsured. I felt good about giving to these causes, but they didn’t feel like THE cause, the one where I should put my WDS $100. I kept waiting for that special feeling, the magic moment of realization, of awareness, of connection, that rush of certainty, but nothing was happening.

And then my cousin Sarah commented on one of my recent blog posts, and I noticed she’d started a new blog, Eulogy Postponed. When I read it (it’s new, so it’s only a few posts and an about page), I knew. This was it. I was giving Sarah my $100 so that she could “Go somewhere. Be a voice. Do something.”

I don’t have a life that allows me to do this. Yes, I can be a voice, and I can do something, but I can’t easily go anywhere. I have a house, a tiny family, and a full-time job, so whatever I do, I have to do from here, but Sarah can go, and I can help her.

Sarah at the beach, where she came to visit me the summer before she left for a semester in New Zealand.

On Sarah’s about page, she says, “My delusional mind also believes in the idea of helping strangers. If each and every person in the world is serving, then everyone is also being served. Karma. The Golden Rule. Love is the only rational act,” and

What if life wasn’t what ifs? What if we all actually did those things we talk about doing? What if we were each serving our families, friends, neighbors, cities, countries, solar systems as best we could? What if you let yourself be the gloriously passionate individual you are and shared that with the rest of the world? What if you stopped telling yourself no.

I tear up every time I read that. There’s an odd family pride, a sense of gratitude that she is “my people.” I am also flooded with nostalgia and love, memories of the sweet little girl she was, her love of dogs, how she could keep up with the boys, all the times she made me laugh, and how much she loved fresh fruit. I remember all this, and am amazed by the woman she’s become, strong and compassionate.

So, this hundred dollars is hers, an investment in the plans she has to help, to serve, to do good. I wish her all the best, and am sending her (along with the cash) so much love and gratitude.

Happy Birthday, A Thousand Shades of Gray!

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Today is the one year anniversary of my first blog post on A Thousand Shades of Gray. When I pressed the publish button that first time, I had no idea where this was headed or what it would become, I just knew I had to start, I had to do it. And that’s exactly what the initial post was all about–the starting, the beginning, and how hard it could be. And yet, as I said then, “That wish, first whispered when I was in the second grade, was still there: I want to be a writer.”

Fortune on my computer monitor

the picture from that first post

Even though a year ago, I felt uneasy saying it, I have since claimed it.

I am a writer.

But what came first is “I am a blogger.” This first year was about starting, about maintaining a writing practice in a public space, connecting with an audience of kind and gentle readers as well as a community of like-minded and like-hearted bloggers, developing my craft, finding my voice.

In the next year, I would like to continue these things, but I also have a few new goals. I’d like to get professional pictures taken. When I met Andrea Scher for the first time in person this summer, she said something like “you should get new pictures taken for your blog, the ones you have don’t show how beautiful you really are.” I agree that someone who knows what they are doing would do a better job capturing my likeness than my attempts at self-portraits. And almost every picture that Eric tries to take of me turns out terrible, makes me look older, angrier, tireder, and heavier. I’d like to have some better shots of me to use “professionally.”

I’d also like, in the next year, to have a “real” site. I want to design, build, and host my own blog, so that it is more individual, unique to me than is possible with a WordPress template, to learn those things, develop my skill set, and make my blog more professional, (there’s that word again). I aspire some day to no longer need my paid work at CSU because I am instead writing and publishing, teaching ecourses, running workshops and retreats, teaching writing and meditation and yoga, helping people discover a wholehearted life. I’d like to build a robust platform for my work, a place I can grow into as I develop such offerings.

our fortunes from last night’s dinner

And yet, the most important things will continue on as my priorities: the writing, my readers, my mission to remind all of us of basic goodness, to inspire us all to live wholehearted lives, supporting that aspiration in any way I can, and continuing to connect with a larger community that shares these goals.

The most important thing to recognize on this anniversary: You, my kind and gentle readers. Without you, this would be a worthwhile exercise, a valuable effort and practice, but emptier and certainly lonelier. I feel so much gratitude and so much love for you, am so thankful that you continue to show up, to listen and respond, to encourage and allow me to sometimes do the same for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.