Category: Brownness

This past weekend. I got the chance to begin my non-fiction reading for December. Last year, I decided to stop buying books altogether to a) reduce clutter b) become more intentional about what I read and c) cut down on discretionary spending. I have re-discovered the library and each month I have checked 1-2 books a month. The great thing is that it adds a bit of a time pressure to finish reading since the books need to be returned, and it’s allowed me to explore books that I normally wouldn’t partake in.

This month I got lucky and got to check Think Like A Monk by Jay Shetty. I’d vaguely heard his name, but I didn’t know much more. I am 80 pages in, and already the book has given me pause, forced me to reflect, and excitedly share with anyone who will listen about my “new” find. As I get through each chapter, I realize that I have spent so much of my life with internal self-that does not always serve me. I learned that Fear is something I should strive for as long it forces me to keep moving forward, to keep growing. If I allow it to paralyze me, or make me run away, or worse, bury it.

I look forward to applying all the lessons from this book, and am content in my choice of no clutter by not buying and it hits me that small changes in my habits this year have begun to pay off bigger dividends than I intended. And that is just like life. Small steps that lead to big changes as long as the small steps are pushing one forward.

Happy Monday

^{Balance is not something you find, but something you create- Jana Kingsford}

As the week begins, it is not without a bit of excitement that I dive into work, working out, and hanging out with loved ones. When these things are in harmony, I feel there is not much that stands in my way. But when they are not (which is often), I lose my focus, and pay attention to smaller things that shouldn’t matter in the long run.

It’s not easy to be in harmony all the time, but it also doesn’t mean I stop trying. I got this message as I continue to go to Crossfit regularly and now make sure I make it harder on myself. There are a lot of days that I fail, or I am last or I don’t get near enough reps that my friends do, but its the constant reminder to myself that this is about me.

It’s hard not to make life about others. To get them to be a certain way, to treat you gentler, to be kinder, to be more giving, to be so many things out of my control. It’s hard to let go of that habit of wanting to fix things and people. It’s not easy to learn to just listen, and make the other person feel heard. To keep my mouth shut, and just be present. To seek out loved ones, and just be there, to spend time, to break bread together, to get counsel. To not take my career for granted, to keep learning, to keep trying, to be in service.

So I keep working towards a fine balance. I don’t always succeed, but when I do, the effects are glorious.

Happy Monday!

This year has brought me strange gifts. From appreciating loved ones, to falling in love with working out in a different way to establishing closer friendships with people who a few years ago were just familiar faces.

I am grateful for it all. Even the pain, the sadness, the frustration, and most of all, the rejection. But not in the way you might read this. I rejected being content. I rejected doing what’s comfortable. I rejected avoiding tough conversations. I rejected focusing on being right. I rejected the stories/excuses/games I played and did the harder thing.

It can be lonely sometimes, but then I remember that I am surrounded by so many who are invested in my success, happiness and love that all I have to do is open my mouth.

And that has been the strangest journey of all. To seek support. To express my fears, and frustrations. But the fear has subsided as each time I opened up people showed up, they heard me.

And so I plan on continuing this strange journey.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind. It’s hard to believe the loss of another friend, a mentor, someone who has been around in my life for decades and just like that: no more. More death, more grieving. It hits me that as I get near to 50, this is something that is going to happen regularly yet this one is hard to believe.

Someone who I emulated, did all the things I am doing health wise and still not here anymore to enjoy the fruits. I get that we pay for our past actions in some ways, but this one, this one is difficult to swallow. Was it better to just keep doing the wrong thing. Is that the lesson?

Or is that the person went happy even though the time was immensely short here. Was it worth it? I struggle with these questions while new challenges and options come up.

Sometimes it just seems pointless to be on this trackwheel called life. It seems to lead nowhere, and yet sometimes it drops you at paths never imagined.

I miss you, my friend. I miss you, and I will do right by you. I will make you a lesson in own life, but I so wish I didn’t have to learn it by losing you.

This past week I got a chance to participate in my first pandemic influenced wedding, and to call it strange would be a huge understatement. But you know what didn’t change? The love, the laughter, the crying, the stress of being on time, all the things that take place during multiple occasions.

And then just like that, it’s over and a certain sadness looms in the rooms when just hours early so much joy was shared. And then there I got some news about a beautiful soul transitioning from this planet. At first, a small numbness and then memories flooded in about someone who has been around all my life and even longer.

I found it interesting that while one person begins a new journey as a husband, another is reaching their time here. Both events caused pain, joy , sorrow, but most of all a appreciation of being to experience them at all. Sometimes words can’t make up for what’s inside me so I choose to just feel.