Most times, I don’t really want to do x, where “x” = shower, work, walk, f*ck, sleep, cook and yes, write.

Really.

Relentlessly optimistic, workaholic, always-on me: most of the time, I’d just rather. . .not.

Because. . . ?

Because I don’t like feeling like I’m obligated. I don’t like feeling like anyone is the boss of me. I don’t feel like I get enough “off” time so I rebel during my “on” time, which ends up being “most of the time.”

And then there’s that weird hangover from growing up the only child around many bright and interesting adults: I do NOT want to go to bed when I know I will be missing out on the best part of the party.

Over the past 12 or 13 hours, I did a lot of stuff I didn’t want to do. Getting up, for one. (No earplugs + Snore-a-palooza + craaaaazy dreams = Poor Night’s Sleep.) Walking the dog. Making breakfast, doing a bunch of Stupid Monkey Work I’ve been dreading, doing a last-minute job I didn’t get until 7pm. (And for those of you reading in the far-off future, this is 7pm on a Sunday.) All fairly innocuous to outright delightful things. Whine, whine, whine.

I didn’t actually whine, of course. (Well, okay—maybe a little, about the 7pm gig. Which I really shouldn’t have done, because it was a nice chunk of change and helped out The BF, to boot. Hey, no one’s perfect. And I did apologize. . .possibly. . .)

I used to whine a lot, which I actually considered a vast improvement over my previous modus operandi, aka “suck it up, bitch.” There are times, of course, when we all must suck it up, but those times should not be all the time. Something will give, and it won’t be the backrub fairy handing out free massages. It will be your heart or your colon or some other relatively important part of your functional anatomy.

And speaking of massages, just to prove my point, I will never forget the time when, after working on me for half an hour, a visiting shiatsu practitioner at the agency I was freelancing for told me in a gentle but very firm voice that something was going to go massively wrong if I did not seek some kind of ongoing professional help when I returned to Los Angeles. And I hadn’t told her about my mom dying of cancer and my grandmother in and out of the hospital and my failing marriage: all she knew about were the ridiculous hours all of us high-wage slaves were pulling at the ad factory and the iron-like muscles in my scrawny neck.

So venting, my friends, is a good thing. Even better is to check in pre-vent, when the “ick” feeling sets in. As in, “Ick, I don’t want to (your task here)“.

Go to your mother-in-law’s. Review the presentation one more time. Brush your teeth. To acknowledge out loud—and by “out loud,” I mean quietly and to yourself—that there is some Thing you should do that you don’t particularly want to.

Seriously. Just the act of giving it some attention can be unbelievably helpful. It is oddly comforting to (briefly) commiserate with yourself, both to acknowledge that you’re undertaking something less than pleasant and to start to get an idea of how much stuff you’re doing that you’re resisting. For me, when I find myself saying it a lot, I actually begin to give credence to the idea that maybe it might be a good idea to get to sleep earlier, or to say “no” to the next thing that comes down the pike, or just to carry a spare pair of clean earplugs. As I said to a friend this weekend, when you’re in a place that feels helpless, it’s important to figure out where you can start to exert some control. And the place that starts is with voicing it. Getting it out there.

It’s nowhere you want to live. But it can be an exceptionally refreshing place to visit.

xxx
c

Image by walsh via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: 21 day salutes, change, happiness, Stop! Sucking!.

Like driving in Los Angeles (or electricity most anywhere else), change continues to be both a sticky wicket and the only game in town. In other words, I’m not the only one wrasslin’ this bear.

Exhibit A (from Andrew, in an email exchange generated by the last post on Change, that Bitch-Dog from Hell):

Lately, I find myself thinking a lot about all the aspects of personal integrity and how important it is to a person’s sense of identity. Some of it is the aftermath of events from last year and some of it has to do with my dissatisfaction with the way things are in my life and my commitment to changing them.

By amazing coincidence (or not), the very same day I happened upon this TED talk on happiness by ex-pat French Buddhist monk (say that 3x fast) Mathieu Ricard. It’s a fascinating talk—I mean, how can a discussion of the impact of mind training on happiness as measured by MRI patterns of high-level meditators not be?—and I’d highly advise a look-see, for the delicious fusion of book smarts (Ricard completed his PhD thesis in molecular genetics), humor (he’s funny!) and orange robes (he’s a monk!) (and he’s funny!)

But if you’re not into it just now, the salient point of his talk as far as this humble, little blog postie goes is that you are your own best shelter against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. In Ricard’s parlance, the trick is a high enough level of detachment to see that you are a part of The Whole, and that emotions are not the truth of you, but more like colors—light playing on the waters of you.

The bad news is that some people come to it more naturally than others: he uses the contrasting examples of the very poor man who seems content despite having “nothing”, and the very rich man who, ensconced in the most fabulous luxury, penthouse apartment, outfitted with the sweetest amenities, in the tallest building in town, sees his window only as a thing to jump out of.

The good news is that, according to tests like this on meditation and “happiness” (possibly better described as “peace of mind” or maybe “inner peace”), given a strong enough desire and a commitment of time and effort, one can alter one’s default setting.

Where integrity fits in, as I see it, is in helping to actualize that good-news change. Buddhist teachings are chock-full of references to “right” this and “right” that—living, thinking, work, etc. If you’ve got no integrity, or it’s on the weakish side, you’re going to be far more likely to spend time on the bad path, partly because it’s the easiest path and partly because you may, at a certain point, not be able to discern any difference, much less benefit, between various paths.

If, on the other hand, your integrity is shored up nicely, you not only have a keener eye for the salubrious choice, but you also have the spine (or the stones) to make it.

All of this stuff is pretty simple, when you get right down to it, which is why it’s so blasted confounding. I know that I’ll be better off if I keep it to two glasses of Pinot, a few hours of farting-around time and early to bed. But in the moment, the choice can be difficult, because—and I’m a little sheepish about this—my integrity is a little weak in places.

“But Colleen,” you say, “don’t you mean your discipline is weak? Surely one can have integrity and lack discipline.”

I used to think that; now I’m not so sure.

I don’t believe I’m a bad person for eating French fries when it’s been pointed out to me by my very own intestines that I shouldn’t; I believe I’m a weak person. But framed that way, I’d say “weak” equals “lack of integrity.”

Or let’s take another example from my pathetic life. I got in a big fight with The BF today, which both Jon from my new-favorite coffee hang and Neil, from That Blog About the Talking Penis will attest to. Ostensibly, it was about money, but as with most things, it turned out to be about other stuff: my inability to communicate, my fears about communicating, my fucked-up views about abundance and scarcity and my lack of integrity when it came to gossiping. Don’t worry, The BF wasn’t dumping on me. He was providing the valuable and needed service of Calling Me on My Shit, something that probably doesn’t happen enough these days.

And that last thing—the gossip thing—was what finally got to me. Because I understand the power of early patterning about money, and am working on repatterning mine. I can talk about what a petty bastard I am; I brought up the very topic of my petty bastard-ness. What I was deeply ashamed about—that is, what pierced my heart with the flaming arrow of truth—was that I was foaming at the mouth about someone else whose actions over the past year—AN ENTIRE TWELVE MONTHS—had progressively enraged me to the point where I blew a gasket (behind her back, to someone else) over an absurdly insignificant display of cluelessness which should have invoked, if it invoked anything, pity or compassion.

So much for enlightenment.

Here’s where the change part, and the integrity part, comes in: five years ago, I would have fought it, and him, and the whole #%$@! world. I would have carved out a bunker next to Mt. Self-Righteous and hunkered down for the duration. But I’ve been working on observing (first step of change) and acknowledging (second step of change) my self as expressed through my actions fairly actively for the past ten years, and assiduously for the past five. Simple actions, but with a significant effect on integrity. And, I’m starting to see, “happiness”—in quotes because, sadly, I think it’s become too often confused with “pleasure” or, more specifically, “fleeting feelings of pleasure.”

Oo-la-la. Such fancy talk. Really, it all boils down to another good news/bad news thing. If you get on board the integrity bus, both the good and the bad news is you’re responsible for your “happiness-in-quotes.” I think it’s good. I like the idea that if I make some possibly tough choices up front, I can change the way I see and move through the world. I like that anyone can do it, and that it doesn’t cost money. I like that personal change, or an investment in integrity, can possibly effect other kinds of change.

I like that I’m my own homeboy. Except when I hate that I’m my own homeboy.

But liking isn’t really the point. The point is, it is what it is.

Namaste. And out.

xxx
c

Image by silverlinedwinnebago via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: change, happiness, Mathieu Ricard, meditation, TED.

Alex Shalman has a lovely and ambitious project going on over at his eponymous personal development site this month. He got an impressive cross-section of people to answer a simple, five-question interview on their own feelings re: happiness, and aggregated the answers, along with some other various & sundry information, on his eponymous blog.

There are some big names on the list—800 lb self-dev gorilla, Steve Pavlina; 800 lb biz/self-dev gorilla, Tim Ferris (the 4-Hour Workweek guy); and 800 lb social media/self-dev gorilla (and my pal!) Chris Brogan.

What’s neat, though, is that not all the entries are from what would explicitly call the self-dev blogging pool. And their interviews are at just as fascinating and illuminating—BoingBoing co-founder, Mark Frauenfelder and Brian “Copyblogger” Clark turned in wonderful takes that owed as much to tight writing as right perspective.

Not that there’s a wrong perspective when it comes to happiness. The proof is in the pudding, and while the new, positive psychology has gone a long way towards illuminating certain consistent traits found in the happy person, ultimately, it’s a pretty personal pursuit. Another internet friend of mine, Gretchen Rubin, studied happiness for a year, turning herself into a lab for the experiment, much in the way I try to do with communicatrix; it was no surprise to me that her interview was one of the best of the bunch.

Of course, I’ve dwelved into and on happiness here, as well as created my one-and-only Squidoo lens on the subject. But Alex is welcoming submissions, and I think it’s good exercise to wrap my head around other people’s questions now and again. So here are the five questions, along with my answers. If you’d like to do a little thinking and sharing, too, you can either grab the list and post to your site (don’t forget to link back to Alex!) or write out your thoughts in the comments section of his post.

Either way, to borrow from one entrant, so much more happiness-inducing, to focus on the positive than its musty, sad sack cousin, Mr. Boo-hoo-hoo.

The Questions

1. How do you define happiness?

First off, to differentiate Happiness with a Capital “H” from the fleeting kind of woo-hoo! happiness, I like the phrase “deep contentment” or “private joy.” I mean, I don’t actually like these more—I’d have to be an utter asshole, as “happiness” is way pithier—but the word been been co-opted by too many hair care products to be truly useful anymore.

And to me, Happiness with a Capital “H” is either or both of those things: an abiding inner peace that’s matched by a sort of “thrum” in the heart area. Making me the world’s biggest cornball, I know.

2. On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your happiness now, versus when you were a child?

Until age 10, 8 or 9. From 10 - 40, around 4 or 5.

Today, praise jeebus, I’m back up to around 8 or 9. And plan on keeping it that way!

3. What do you do on a daily basis that brings you happiness? (and how consistent is the feeling of happiness throughout your day)

It’s not anything in particular, but an aggregate of right thoughts and right actions. To put it in Stephen Covey terms (I’m heavily into the 7 Habits right now), when I spend most of my time in quadrant 2 with a wee sprinkling of time in quadrant 4, I’m good. I need my quadrant 4; I’ve just got to be diligent about not spending too much time hiding there. (Here’s the time management matrix for those of you who have yet to drink the Kool-Aid; I know, I know—I’m on the tail end of this curve.)

Oh, and a little one-on-one time with Arnie will snap me back into shape if I veer too far off course. It’s good to have a short list of non-prescription mood enhancers for when Monkey Brain takes over.

4. What things take away from your happiness? What can be done to lessen their impact or remove them from your life?

As soon as I move off of what I have and onto what I don’t, I’m tobogganing down the icy slopes of Mt. Misery. You can pick up serious speed on that sucker.

Fortunately, a quick adjustment—looking at the myriad riches of my life—usually gets me back pretty quickly. That, or remembering the days of my colon being a greased and bloody chute.

5. What do you plan on doing in the future that will bring you even more happiness?

Committing to a life of greater service. Sharing more of what I know. Letting go of things that hold me back, and ceaselessly working to identify new outliers.

And treating myself to lots more walks with Arnie, of course…

xxx
c

Image by carf via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: happiness, memes.

It’s been an interesting week so far—and it’s only Monday.

First of all, something seems to have been dislodged in my brain—that thing that keeps me from processing stuff I don’t feel like, like paperwork and phone calls (wah wah wah, First World white girl) and from finishing things I’ve started, like work. Not that I’ve gotten everything tidied up and on its way: today saw the dispensing of my DMV registration, some queries about my post-COBRA world (universal health care cannot come soon enough) and a number of other annoying/scary if smallish items, but several others are getting rolled over (again) to tomorrow, my favorite day. (Just like my favorite week, month and year are “Next.”)

I made a dent in it though, especially by my standards. And I felt so gosh-darn good about it, I decided I would spread a little of that sunshine and head over to My Country House (a.k.a. The BF’s) to visit the dog (a.k.a. Arno J. McScruff) as his master (a.k.a. The BF) is living in the Land of the Stupid Day Job for the next several weeks and poor Arnie—well, he has dogly needs.

Now, this sort of thing does not occur to me usually, and when it does, to actually do it feels burdensome. Yes, I’ll go see you in the hospital or water your plants or take in your mail, but only if I’m allowed to feel grumpy and put-upon, at least to start with. Do not let the cheery photo fool you, my Internet friends! I am a crab and a bee-yotch of the highest order, and I’ve got plenty of real-life backup on that.

But today, I’m driving the five miles from my place to Arnie’s and practically whistling. At 3:30, no less—pretty much guaranteed that I’ll hit traffic going at least one way. In fact, I think I probably was in traffic; it just didn’t bother me, so it didn’t feel like traffic. And as I’m cruising through this traffic-that-is-not, I pass a place I’ve passed 1,000 times before. No, really: this is the route I take between my place and The BF’s; I could probably drive it blindfolded. Once, anyway.

It’s a shitty little storefront restaurant—nominally Chinese, but selling all manner of crap from gyros to boba tea like every other shitty little storefront restaurant I’ve seen like it. Might not—probably isn’t even run by Chinese people. Could be Koreans, could be Salvadorans, could be Armenians: it’s that kind of neighborhood.

But whoever owned it had hung one of those bright paper lanterns with the fringe on it that you see in Chinatown stores. It was kitschy and alive and pretty, and one thought flitted through my head:

I want.

Now let me assure you that while my taste in furnishings is somewhat eclectic, it’s not so boho-funky that a Chinese paper lantern would fit right in. In fact, it would look dreadful. I know this because I’m a designer, and I make my living knowing what will look right and what will look like ass. This would be the latter, trust me. There’s not one place in my place it would look right, including outside my front door, bapping about in the breeze just like it was in front of the not-Chinese restaurant.

Instead of feeling disappointed, though, I had this amazing flash of insight into why, for most of my life, I’ve been a hopeless accumulator of crap: I want that feeling.

That feeling that a particular shirt or dish or gadget gives me. The promise that’s inside that book—I want to retain that rush of inspiration I felt when I pulled it from the shelf. Or to be the person who has absorbed and processed its contents. Or to have a piece of that author (or artist, or musician) in my hands.

Or I want to be the person who can cook a perfect omelet with that pan. Who has pictures filling frames hanging on walls that burst with life, a host of beautiful craft projects made from these bolts of fabric, a lady who has the carefree life requiring, as my old art director, Sherry Scharschmidt used to call them, “Running-on-the-Beach Dresses.”

Maybe that’s why Peter Walsh and his ilk are making so much money these days: because we all have needs we’re shortchanging ourselves on; we’re all spending money instead of time, which becomes starting instead of finishing, which becomes a heap of never-worn, never-used crap we eventually haul off to Goodwill. And, since I’ve trained myself to understand that I never will have the time—that I will rush and rush, on and on, never stopping to take a breath and do the thing or even feel the feeling—I buy the souvenir instead.

It’s scarcity thinking in the middle of unprecedented abundance. And it’s a bitch of a habit to break.

I stopped myself today, though, in the middle of a thought of buying such a lantern. Because for ONCE, I realized I wanted the feeling of serendipitously stumbling upon a beautiful thing like that, blapping around in the clean, post-rain breeze. And I can’t own that any more than I can bottle happiness and save it for later. The wet jewels you find along the shore on holiday are just dull bits of rock when you get them home; a fleeting whatever is beautiful, in part, because it’s fleeting.

I’m not quite ready to do a spend-out yet, although I’m starting to see how it might help people like me who are used to going too fast and treating themselves too roughly. For now, though, I think I’ll try something else: going slower and treating myself more kindly.

Better. Cheaper.

And takes up a lot less room in a tiny apartment…

xxx
c

Image by Geopelia via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: clutter, communicatrix, consumerism, happiness, self-development.

I had an interesting chat today with my colorist (and good friend), Marc. Really, I have interesting conversations with most folks these days, since I discovered that the art of conversating (as the kids say) lies in the asking of questions and the hearing of answers rather than the spouting off of commentary. (Fancy that!)

Today’s conversation was interesting because it revolved around kabbalah, about which I know little save it’s an esoteric offshoot of Judaism that has something to do with red string and expensive bottled water (thank you, Madonna.) But Marc studied it (if that’s the term) for many years, and he was able to shed a surprising amount of light on what I confess has always been (to me) a dense, deep and impenetrably mysterious practice. After all, it is very old and complex and we only had about an hour, as I’m a single-process kinda gal.

The topline of kabbalah, however, is really easy to get, and lovely, to boot: the more we learn to give, the more will come back to us. It’s about “giving” as world view, which of course carries all kinds of other nice things along with it, like cultivating trust and fellowship, learning to communicate by finding common ground, and practicing abundance rather than scarcity thinking.

It got me to thinking about where to start. Because really, that’s what I would’ve loved to have known 20-odd years ago, when I was flailing around in a sea of my own misery: where the hell do I start? Just tell me where to point my damned guns, already! And, while I now think that “observing” is probably the absolute best place to start—the very critical first step of many, and a mode to stay close to always—I think giving is a really good practice to have in your head even while you’re in observation mode.

Part of what makes me think this is my many years of experience as a corporate tool. There was very little uncalculated giving in that world, and precious little happiness, too. Coincidence? Perhaps. Held up against the world of strings-free giving I’ve been blessed to live in these past five years, though, I think the causality is obvious: the nature of life is change, and we’re happiest when we let ourselves go with the flow of that. It takes awesome fearlessness or, as in my case, having nothing left to lose. When you weigh 90 lbs (45 of which is your enormous head), and your intestines are in tatters and you’re so weak that you can’t walk to the end of the bed without support, you learn to accept help—to accept giving—with the very clear understanding that you certainly cannot pay in kind now, and may well never be able to pay it back later. Get down with that, and you’ve got one big, honkin’ secret of life under your belt.

I’m not advocating sap-hood. I can only give to the extent I’m able and willing. Ironically, before I understood this, I used to give too much, receive too little. Now I finally understand you’ve got to let go to receive as much as you do to give.

To take this down to a practical level, Marc charges what I think is an incredibly reasonable price for his services, and I pay him. He gives me what I see as a deal, and I accept it. Occasionally, I get a bug up my ass and give him a bunch extra, just because. And he accepts that. I suspect that if I showed up one month and had no money, he’d give me coverage for free. He’s that kind of guy, is Marc. And I’d do my best to receive it, graciously.

If you’re not so good with the money yet—and I get it, I do, I have issues myself—start small. With compliments. Give one. Maybe give five. And be on the lookout for ones you get, and see how you are about receiving them. I used to answer every compliment about clothing with a rundown on how much I paid for it at the Goodwill. Still do, but at least I (usually) say “thank you” first.

Remember this year’s motto: “help is everywhere.” And the corollary, which I may not have shared yet, “…so ask for it, dumbass.”

It is. You should. We are.

xxx
c

Image by Mrs. Maze via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: change, happiness, life.