Ten Minas

what's the point

 

Why build when it might fail?

Why sweat to see it through?

Why should you bother with it, when it might not last?

Why work so hard, to have it all fall on deaf ears, be ignored or easily forgotten?

Why sacrifice yourself in this cruel way? Why do it?

What’s the point?

For what?

 

Why build without certainty that you’ll make a difference? 

Why build and bother wasting your time in the first place?

Why care and expand the effort?

Why open yourself up to waves and waves of criticism that are sure to come?

What’s the point? For any of it.

Why should you even bother?

 

It’s easy to pretend these thoughts don’t haunt your mind. 

It’s convenient to pretend that these questions don’t exist or never come up. 

It seems easy to ignore them. Easy to distract yourself with bright shiny things and problems that need your immediate and undivided attention. But if you stop and search your mind once in a while, you’ll discover that those questions seem to creep up again and again, and usually during your weakest moments. They relentlessly press you for answers.

And what will you say?

What is the point?

 

Life is not easy. 

It was never supposed to be black and white. You won’t discover your purpose written on a stone wall and you can’t take it to the bank.

If you are asking yourself these questions, you are probably fishing for something. Fishing and exploring. Looking for  an easy excuse to quit. To walk away. 

And you probably won’t need much effort or have to search for too long. The world is full of quitters and excuses are predesigned and come predestined. Those who quit form a very supportive and understanding community.

Anything and everything, no matter how trivial or petty, can always serve us well if we want to quit. After all, it’s a hell of a lot easier to give up and destroy, than it is to persist and patently, painstakingly build. 

Much easier.

 

But quitting is so damn fun.

It tempts us with finality.

Quitting offers us an immediate sense of relief and the luxury of many years of feeling sorry for ourrselves.

And who wouldn’t love that?

And that’s the point

Maybe you have an opportunity to do something special here.

Maybe you have a chance to dance and sing because you are able.

Not because you have to, but because you can.

The value of your life and what will come if you see it through shouldn’t be dismissed so quickly.

Neither should your capacity to build and unite. Your capacity to hope and love.

Nor should your passions be negotiated away or traded for a pension plan, or some promise of great retirement savings.

Maybe you need to come to grips with the fact that if you quit and stop to sweat to see your dreams through, you will find yourself in the exact same place after as before. You will be the same person and you’ll have the exact same time to fill. Except now after quitting, instead of struggling and pushing, you will be bitching, moaning and complaining.

 

So thats the point?

Know if you’re tired or on a dead end road.

Decide to pay now or pay later.

Struggle now or bitch later.

 

Don’t ignore the questions.

Face them.

Your dreams won’t build themselves.

Your work won’t create itself.

 

try a little compromise

 

You’ve joyfully undertaken and suffered through several 30 day systems that promised you unbelievable and lasting results, just to end up back in the same place, and you’re probably a little worse for wear.

But why not try a little compromise?

Why not try a bit of compromise before giving up, before getting discouraged, before starting yet another mental assault against yourself?

Try a little compromise.

It will do you some good.

It may not be as glamorous as wagering your happiness against all or nothing, but it might just work.

It can’t do any worse.

And it might get you close to where you want to be.

It might be the only thing that can get you closer to where you want to be.

So learn the art of compromise.

I think its silly if not dangerous to believe something meaningful or lasting can be arbitrarily brought about in 30 days or you get your money back. Minus the shipping of course.

Of course.

But why do we hate to compromise?

Why are we so stubborn to let go of the way things should be?

Why can’t we learn to embrace how things are and might be?

I’m not talking about moral or ethical decisions here. 

Let’s not get carried away.

What you do with your life and how you choose to nourish your conscience is your business. As a matter of fact I don’t understand how anyone finds the time to ever judge anyone else, when their own life leaves so much to be desired. I guess rose coloured glasses and a few bible verses are a very dangerous thing, in the wrong hands.

So why not compromise?

What is it?

Compromise is like a reed in the water. When the storm comes it bends but doesn’t break. Compromise is an act of choosing the path that maintains steady momentum, no matter how small, no matter how painful, and no matter how seemingly insignificant or unnoticed.

Compromise helps you to bend. Stretch. Wait. Reexamine. Edit. Reconstruct and rebuild. 

All or nothing burns, blows up, and puts you in shackles.

But what’s the hurry?

You’ve been fat for most of your life and now that you’re getting married, you want to give yourself 30 days to fit your tux or your wedding dress? 

You skipped most of your classes, got drunk and high and never learned how to read and write properly but you expect an evening English class online to do the trick?

Your marriage just fell apart, but you expect the first or second Christmas to be festive? You expect your former spouse not to be angry? You expect your children to understand? Like they don’t need time to grieve? You expect them not to be angry or take it out on themselves or you for that matter?

All or nothing is a dangerous proposition.

It’s how you became fat, learned nothing, and got married or divorced in the first place.

Maybe its time to enter a period where you compromise.

A time where you learn that it is better if you mend and bend.

Better if you don’t lose hope, threaten to quit, or break.

It’s time to put on your big girl panties and big boy tighty whities.

It’s time to try a little compromise.

It’s time to believe that you can do anything you want in life. You can do anything as long as you help others along the way. As long as you know you cannot give what you don’t have. 

Don’t compromise your dreams and well being.

Compromise your methods.

 

duality of time

 

When you seem busy, time feels like its at a premium. There doesn’t seem to be enough of it. There is a need for some more of it and you wonder why it is that time moves so damn quickly. You begin to ponder why it never shows you the courtesy of slowing down when you’re on vacation.

But when you live your life with meaning. When you choose to awake up with a purpose, time moves slowly and yet quickly, all at the same time.

It is a strange and mysterious duality of time of sorts and I have experienced this parallel existence ever since I awoke and decided to live again.

Prior to that I was most oblivious to anything.

Time stood still for me. 

It dragged me around like a limp body, not that I have much experience dragging around limp bodies. It was a hell of a weekend, you should ask my uncle Bernie.

Every action that builds our dreams seems to take place in purposeful slow motion. 

As strange as this may seem, I find myself thinking about thinking. I become conscious of being conscious about doing what needs doing.

I can’t explain it.

Every day I have enough time to write just enough. I have enough time to read a good book just enough. I have enough time to nudge a bit forward just enough.

Everything is calculated, slow, and purposeful.

I’m not sure why that is, but it seems like I’m on somebody else’s clock. Like I’m not on my own time. I’m always just a few steps ahead of where I was yesterday, but never more than I want to be. I am never more than a few minutes ahead of yesterday, no matter how hard I try, how hard I push, or what to do list I craft together the night before.

At the same time hours seem to turn into days, days into weeks, and weeks disappear quickly into months and years.

In a blink of an eye, like some checkers game,  I have skipped two whole seasons, and I have reawoken to the coming of spring.

It’s unimaginable. 

Unimaginable and unbelievable how quickly the many things that pull us away from ourselves seem to fade away and die. The endless hours spent in useless staff meetings, the hour and hours of following worn out procedures, not to mention, the endless tasks that only fill our day, but serve no real ultimate purpose.

I have come to accept that just like sunshine that travels a great distance in the form of various rays and little packets called photos, so our days are filled with a real duality of time.

The things that matter. The things that are worth doing are on a different plane. They take a lot of effort, persistence, and a whole lotta moxie to build. Everything else dominates our lives, but disappears quickly. It fades out of our lives like the morning fog that hovers ever so briefly over a luscious meadow.

Take heart and don’t become discouraged in you daily struggle.

Time moves at its petty pace for a reason.

It’s not for you to know.

You were given the task to respond.

To wake up with meaningful purpose.

And to move things forward just a little.

 

try not to follow

 

Trust yourself.

Believe in yourself.

Follow your heart.

I know its hard. 

Very certainly uncertain. Full of pitfalls and fraught with failure.  

It’s a hell of a lot easier to follow the herd. Much simpler to just follow along. A lot safer to do what is expected you. But that will only drag you to places where you’d rather not go, surrounded by people you’d rather do without. 

(And they might smell).

So follow your heart, not the insistently bleating herd.

Or at least pick the right shepherd!

I know how this all sounds.

It seems very poetic, but its not meant to be.

Consider this a cold, hard invitation to a new life of possibilities.

A chance to lead instead of follow.

A chance for a meaningful existence.

A call for a reflected life.

A well lived life.

A happy life.

Following your heart and believing in yourself will be a daily struggle. 

A continuously raging conflict. A war against comfort and complacency.

Trusting yourself demands change and transformation and if  you don’t, you’ll return to your old scripts and the boring stories that you tell yourself.

You are full of stories.

Stories about who you are. What you can’t do and why you can’t do it.

Stories about who’s hurt you. Stories about who you’ve hurt.

Tall tales you’ve accepted as true in your early childhood. Scripts that were pre-written for you, old worn out scripts, and some that you helped to co-create yourself. But none the less, stories that don’t serve you any longer. Truths you’ve come to learn at school, in the playground, and in your heart.

You learned that its a tough old world out there. That statistically speaking, you’re bound to be a victim of some mindless crime, or some random casualty of an unfortunate accident. 

You’ve learned about the dangers of sex. About divorce. About death. Abuse. About cancer. About bullies. About getting fat. About keeping your hand down, so your classmates don’t label you a teachers pet, or that you never have to feel the sting of getting the question wrong. So you can avoid failure and shun mistakes. 

So you can pretend that everything is perfect.  

You’ve learned that there are no dumb questions, but you can’t avoid seeing that there are dumb people who pose them. 

So its much better to play safe. Its better to stay quiet. To bleat quietly, and only when called upon.

Through it all, you’ve learned that no matter how good you are, how hard you try, how successful you become, there is always someone better than you, so whats the point?

That exactly the point.

You should follow your heart because life is a chorus, not a lead performance.

As a human race, we are much better together, united, than we are isolated and alone.

We are better living in the open, than we are when we run and hide.

There is no enough music out there that can reach every ear.

So share yours.

There is not enough good ideas either.

So share those too.

There is not enough kindness out there.

So be kind.

There is not enough of anything.

So everything. No matter how small makes a big difference.

You can make a difference.

Perhaps not to the many, but certainly to the few. 

Sometimes you will only matter to only one.

So trust yourself.

Believe in yourself.

Share yourself.

Follow your heart.

Write a new story.

Sing a new song.

Live a new life.

Lead.

Try not to follow.

 

art of compromise

 

You will only find happiness when you allow perfection and compromise to meet. It’s their warm embrace that makes a difference. It’s their unabashed dichotomy that can bring forth success.

Dreams can come true, but they don’t exactly arrive how they are imagined.

Perfection is a trap. An illusion. But we know that.

No human being will ever be capable of perfection.

No human being is even remotely capable of ever grasping what perfection means. Just ask the poor mathematicians who have been labouring so painstakingly for many decades and are still so far away from discovering the definitive, perfect, final value for pi. 

It’s 3.141526 something. 

Something.

Our human happiness hides in that very something.

Our happiness is only possible if we learn to compromise of our will with perfection. You will only experience peace when you learn to compromise and behold ‘something’.

You will never be able to discover the definitive value of the circumference of a circle and it really doesn’t matter. You know what you need to know about whatever it is you need to know. You have what you have. You have your life. You have time. You have some means with which to move forward and being perfect doesn’t matter. It’s a trap.

A deadly trap. 

A spiritual quicksand.

One that causes much pain and ill will between men and women.

Perfection is not the trap.

Our uncompromising pursuit of perfection is the trap.

And you do have to aim to be perfection in order to be happy. It would be silly not to. 

You have to look up to something.

If I gave you the option of drinking a full glass of water or a half empty one, only a fool would debate if the glass was half full or half empty, and remain thirsty. The smart person would drink the full glass of water, or they would find a way to top it up. 

At the beginning. Yes. When you begin to dream, there should be no room for compromise. 

You have to behold what is perfect. 

You have to try to solve for Pi.

Compromise comes later and it too is a deadly trap. It will destroy your should if you don’t employ it near the end, but give into it at the beginning. 

You have many talents. You have great value.

Don’t every compromise who you are and who you are meant to be.

Always aim high. Aim far. Aim deep.

Don’t capitulate your dreams, and don’t take them for a Sunday drive.

At some point of your journey, life is bound to get hard. Your determination is bound to slow down. Your dreams will become foggy. Your hand unsteady. Your steps unsure.

That’s when you need the art of compromise.

If you fall, and you will, you can’t expect things to be the same.

You will miss your beat.

You will play the wrong note.

You will mock things up.

And when you fall, your movements will become slower. Your body will be broken. Your mind will want to give you. You will feel every ache and pain imaginable. You will feel every stinging word, especially as they come at you from deep insideyou.

Learn to compromise.

Don’t give up.

Giving up is a form of perfection too.

All or nothing. Both are perfect.

One has everything. The other one has nothing. They are both complete.

They are part of the same coin. They are children of the same mother.

Learn to compromise.

Learn patience, perseverance, and persistence.

Little over everything. Something, anything, over nothing.

Learn to be kind to yourself. 

Make a vow to keep moving forward.

Learn that happiness is fought for not stumbled upon.

Learn to compromise.

Let compromise embrace perfection.

Don’t stand in your own way.

do what you can

 

Do what you can.

No matter how little. How small and how insignificant.

Do it despite the half-hearted effort.

Do what you can because the teeter-totter habit of doing all or nothing will ultimately lead you to nowhere. It will very likely drag your limp mind, to some dark places, where you’d rather not be, and might not be able to get out of, for a long, long time.

When you do what you can, it won’t feel like you’re doing much. It will feel like what you’re doing doesn’t matter. It won’t feel right at all, or good, but do it anyway.

There will be days like this.

Perhaps many days like this, but they too shall pass.

Do what you can.

Eventually you’ll recover from that terrible cough you’ve been stubbornly harbouring for weeks now. And you won’t remember any of the tedious work that sprung up unexpectedly while you were away from the office.

Sometimes your dreams will be a bit neglected, while you are given no choice but to watch your coworkers scramble and push to new corporate heights. Watch them scramble in a new glorious direction.

This corporate and unionized world runs on new initiatives. It is lost without them. It thrives on reinventing, repackaging, and reselling what already works.

Be patient and keep doing something, because you will always stare down new and fresh initiatives that are meant to replace the old and stale ones. They always replace the work that never had a chance to mature or bear fruit, which was implemented not that long ago, but that is of no one’s concern now, because everyone is encouraged to be giddy with the new.

You have to do what you can.

When you can.

As often as you can.

No matter what.

No matter what the circumstances you’re facing. No matter what the excuses in your head are telling you. Those sons of bitches are concocting an offer for the easy road; a peaceful resolution. They give you permission to stand down.

It’s ok to do nothing.

You’ve earned it.

Wait until you’re ready. Wait until that stubborn cough leaves you. When you get some free time, perhaps next weekend. Do it when you find a new job or get a new boss. When the weather turns nicer. After the holidays. When your finances are in order. When your kids are a little more grown and in need of a little less attention. Wait until those aches and pains in your back work themselves out. Wait a little longer. A little bit longer.

Wait.

Come to think of it, you should probably have a little nap. To refresh yourself. You need it, after all you’ve been through. You’ve worked so hard. Too hard.

There is nothing for you to do really. Under the present circumstances all you can do is wait and hope your problems work themselves out.

One day.

Some day.

Don’t listen.

Do what you can instead. It really does add up. You have the ability to grow and change by doing little things and doing them for a very long time, and then one day, someone will notice and falsely believe that you got to where you are because you’re just lucky. It’s just easy for you.

It won’t be easy.

Weight training when you have a head cold will feel exhausting. Helping your kids with their homework, when you have so much of your own work to do will feel like an utter waste of time. A coffee date with a dear friend, in the middle of all the chaos, when there is so much work to do, is not only irresponsible, but truly insulting to the company you work for.

How dare you make decisions for your own life?

How dare you want to be happy?

Who gave you the right to live meaningfully?

Ignore them.

Do what you can.

When you can.

How often as you can.

A little bit of I can, will uplift your soul, and will guard you against the awful tragedy and terminal submission of I can’t.

 

there's no magical fairy dust

 

So maybe somewhere out there, in a mystical castle, and probably in a dungeon, someone has managed to abscond with barrels and barrels of magical fairy dust, but I can’t for the life of me find any.

It would be nice to have it too. To have that magic bullet. The secret formula. The hidden path to riches. A path to love and to uncover an escape plan from all suffering. An easy way to get what we want out of life.

We can, but we would have to take ourselves out of the equation first, because our life complicates everything. It mucks it up. Only our demise makes everything nice and rosy.

People are the problem.

We are the problem.

You are an unquantifiable mystery. Prone to weave right, when you should weave left. Often getting things wrong. Regressing. Getting things right. Reluctantly moving forward. Forgetting. Jumping to conclusions. Making a mess of things.

You and I are the problem, and magical fairy dust is the solution.

Except there is no magical fairy dust, and we are still left with the question of how to grow, how to improve, and how to live a meaningful life.

You just can’t will yourself anything. Can’t sprinkle anything. Can’t will yourself a new you. A new life or a new wife.

You cannot make the life you don’t want just disappear. You can’t be unborn or unmistake your mistakes.

Mantras help, but they are just words, meant to change the way you think. They work, not because there is sorcery in the words, but because through relentless repetition you begin to believe what you hear and do what you should have done in the first place.  

Your thoughts are the key to everything. Your mind is the true gatekeeper of your reality.

If you think you will have a horrible day, you will. If you think you’re too poor to travel, you are. If you think you’re unwanted or undesirable, people will turn away from in droves, and hide themselves from you at every turn. 

You have to change your thoughts.

Over a long period of time, repeating mantras or transcendental meditation does help. It helps to make you think differently.

But in itself it is not a secret formula. It’s not magic. You cannot substitute waking up and engaging yourself in the art of living.

You don’t have to meditate or use mantras. You can achieve similar results with prayer or by reading good books. By surrounding yourself with successful, loving, and driven people. By having the courage to fail and not take yourself so seriously.

There are many ways to success, but there is certainly no such thing as magical fairy dust.

I have recently come across the work of Carline Arnold, the author of Small Move, Big Change, and I’m in love with her idea of Microresolution.

Imagine the infinite possibilities of Micro Self-Development!

Imagine what lasting impact changing your toothbrush, or the radio station you listen to in the morning can produce in the long term? Imagine what arriving at work five minutes early could do for you? Or five minutes late, if you’re a perfectionist.

Imagine what taking a few extra steps each day could mean not only for your heart, but your entire life. Imagine what trouble you could find along the way. What scandalous thoughts you could dream up. What a tremendous transformation this could all lead to, one day.

One day begins today.

With little things.

Not Magic Bullets.

With micro things.

Not secret formulas.

With insignificant, unnoticeable, ignorable little things will ultimately help and bring you to the life you’re longing for.

Forget the dungeon and the castle.

Forget the barrels and barrels of magical fairy dust.

Focus instead on your uniqueness.

Accept that your life requires rare and tangible actions. Choices and movements, only you can make.

Start making things happen.

In little ways.

Through tiny thoughts.

In miniscule bits and bits of change.

 

a thousand words

 

A picture is worth a thousand words.

One thousand.

Or so we were made to believe.

Isn’t it funny though? How the rate of exchange on pictures and words, has remained the same for quite some time now?

Funny.

And so, the rate is set.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

What a multiplicity of decalog proportions!

How powerful those pictures are. Look how much influence they’ve yielded over us. How much we obsess over them. How much importance we place on our own ability to see.

After all, seeing is believing.

And we love what we see.

All of this excitement certainly explains our selfie craze, that we’ve managed to linger in, for quite some time now. It’s not a bit surprising, considering that everyone has a professional camera in their pocket.

But let’s get back to the math.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

I beg to differ.

I think we give far too much credit to our eyes. Care too much about how we’re seen and what we perceive. Work way too hard to make sure our grass is as beautifully manicured as our neighbours.

Its madness.

Words have never stopped yielding their tremendous power.

No matter what value, or exchange rate you wish to yield.

I’m not going to swing the pendulum in the opposite direction and lay false claims that words are somehow worth more than pictures. My only desire is to bring back some of the desperately needed dignity to our language, and to point out the hypocritical imbalance of our obsession with seeing.

Words are worth a lot.

You cannot give them a permanent mathematical value. Assign them an arbitrary weight.

At different times, as we grow, and in different circumstances, different words, mean different things. Some cost us everything. Others lead us to much happiness.

Oh, how I would do anything right now, to hear my mother and father’s voice utter something. Anything. Pronounce any word. Make any sound.

How much I long to hear, that they still love me, and that they are most proud of me. Yet, when they were still alive, and when I could spend any time with them, they reminded me of their everlasting love, a thousand times over.

I wouldn’t trade a single word for a thousand pictures.

How truly powerful are the words; I’m sorry.

Just three lowly words.

As strong and equally as powerful in their essence as; I love you.

That’s if you mean them, of course.

Three little words.

Seven and eight letters strong.

Not a thousand.

Those three words are more powerful and more meaningful, than any photograph, you could ever have the misfortune of enticing me with.

So why do we shy away from words?

Why do we have a propensity to reject them? A stubbornness of avoiding them.

For most of us, pictures remain the dominant force in our lives. Most people are stuck with a vocabulary, they acquired, shortly after graduating primary school.  

As a human family, we seem to have no desire in expressing ourselves with words.

We like to point and grunt. Gossip and curse. Snap and pose.

But I encourage you to ignore the photograph and embrace a thousand words.

Start with three.

Build from there.

Share and express your thoughts openly.

Share what you think.

Forget what you see.

Even if it’s for an afternoon, or just a fleeting moment.

 

tiny little things

 

We all love big moments.

We love stories of momentous transformation. Rags to riches. Overcoming addiction. Massive weight loss. Finding the courage to walk away from an abusive relationship. Stories that make us pause and reflect on our own lives. Stories that give us hope. Adventures that give us as a reason to change.

Yet.

Those momentous moments are extremely rare, and upon some analysis, often do so very little in our lives.

They bear no lasting impact. Produce very little change. Influence and move us to do nothing. Achieve a mouse’s fart of energy.

The momentous moments are very nice, of course, and we should pause once in a while, to reflect on them, but it’s the tiny little things, the insignificant moments in our life, that will have a deeper and more lasting effect on your life. Far more than you might care to believe or give them credit.

Those tiny little things.

Those tiny little decisions.

One less cigarette. One less beer. Or one less cup of coffee.

A small French Fry instead of the usual large or medium. A ten-minute walk. A quick and unimaginative text message, to someone who’s voice you haven’t heard in a very, very, long time.

Perhaps a new book. A new album you’ve never heard. A conversation with a random stranger.

How about distancing yourself from a verbal or digital confrontation? Turning away from complaining? How about being silent and not saying what you’re really thinking?

What about having a little patience with yourself? Giving yourself a chance to breathe. A chance to be forgiven. An opportunity to try again. A chance to rest. A moment to forget. A little instant to remember.

Trust the little things.

They come and go so quickly. They appear suddenly. Uninvited and they leave without permission or without uttering a sound.

But there is no need to chase after them. No need to be sad at their departure. Unlike the big moments we always gather to stare at, little things, come and go, all the time.

The next one is just around the corner.

The next tiny little moment, is practically at your beck and call. And all you have to do, is to decide, and go out to greet it. Embrace it. Reach for it. Find it.

You are the only one that can meet that moment. You are a tiny little thing too.

Don’t expect an invitation.

Don’t expect angels announcing any arrivals. Don’t expect the Magi, or the star from the East. But do expect greatness from yourself.

Expect it, because there is tremendous dignity in being who you are. Despite the fact that you’ve left some parts of your life a bit dormant, for a bit too long.

You’re a bit dusty, me thinks. A touch stale and musty.

It’s time for a change.

A little change. A tiny, calculated movement, towards something new.

No matter what you do however, remember, that there is always another chance. Another moment. Another turn. Another opportunity, and you don’t need a formal invitation.

No matter what you do, you can always return. You can come back, time and time again.

You can return to your life amongst the tiny, little things, and that’s because life has hidden her mysteries, in those tiny, little things.

So, have a beautiful day.

Full of insignificant tiny little moments. Unaccounted. Unobserved opportunities, that show you who you are and desire to be.

If the whole world is too big of a place, perhaps you can reveal yourself to someone you love. Someone that would really love to steal a moment of your time.

A moment of time.

Such a tiny, insignificant, little thing.