Wednesday, August 31, 2011

If I think about it hard enough...

... can I make it happen?

Some people would say yes.  There are people out there who believe that if you believe strongly enough in something, if you put all of your effort into think about the way something should be, or the way it should happen, that you can indeed make it happen that way.

I'm not sure I believe in this theory, because I've never seen evidence of it myself.  But then, if I don't really believe it could happen, that probably taints how much effort I'm putting into the actual thought, and so I don't have the "juice" so to speak to make it happen.  Know what I mean?  So, how does one prove that something actually can happen, if that person isn't quite sure that it's possible, and so takes some of the effort out of making it happen.  It's a never ending circle.

Maybe this is a situation where I need to try meditation or another way to make myself more mindful.  It would probably lift my basic mood, and make things seem as if they're happening just because I'm concentrating on wishing for them to happen, when really it's all about positive energy.

I don't know if I'm making any sense.  This is becoming more like a stream of consciousness kind of thing - typing any thought that comes to mind in this basic theme...

Maybe if I think about it enough, I can puzzle it out.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Trying something new

I want to blog.  Really I do.  But often I find that while I want to write, I don't really have anything worth spending the time writing, or that anyone would likely spend the time writing.  And I acknowledge that I am not actually writing for anyone but myself, but it seems so silly to do something publicly if it's not something that deserves to be public.

Anyway, I'm trying to plan ways to make myself a more fulfilled blogger.  I like words, and I like to use words to express myself.  I just need a topic on which to expand.  And so, that brings me to my something new.

I want to plan a theme (for lack of a better word) for each day of the week.  I may never share what the pattern is, and it may never seem obvious to anyone but me, but that doesn't really matter.  It's really just meant to act as a prompt for me; to give me a reason or an excuse to write something.  Anything.  For example, I'm labelling today (though not necessarily every Monday) Motivational Monday, because this post is about motivating myself.

See what I'm doing there?  It may work, if I can come up with the right particular framing for each day of the week.  Part of the issue is, as always, giving myself permission to stop whatever I happen to be doing at any time and make notes on something I may want to write about later.  There are a multitude of things that go through my head in a day, that I could write about, but by the time I get to writing they seem mostly all just wisps of thought.

Hopefully, this will be a way to keep myself more aware of what goes on in and around my life.  I need to be more observant, more aware, more mindful of my life. It seems so much of it just passes me by.  The point of the blog is to at least try to capture some of these moments, or thoughts before they're gone.  Kind of like capturing lightning bugs in a jar.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Hard work

Alright, so I'm trying to be more optimistic. Less volatile, if you can call it that, really. And just overall more pleasant, for myself, and for everyone around me, not just toward customers.

And dammit, it's hard work to be in a good mood. I'm not really sure that I'm doing it right, if it's going to be this much work. But I've never been super-up happy person before so I don't know.

And I think that's about all I've got for today.

Anybody got any suggestions on how to be happy?

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Death Star Canteen

it's been around forever, but it never gets old - highly amusing

"I'll kill you with a tray"

Random observation

There are an inordinate amount of blogs about families (kind of like that Christmas newsletter everyone gets from that one family member, only in blog form) and also Religious/Youth group blogs.

And somehow when I push "Next blog" these two kinds are always the next blog.

Why do these have anything to do with me?

Starting over

I've come to a conclusion: No one else is going to try to make me happier.

This may seem obvious to... well, everyone. But this is new to me. I'm not particularly unhappy in most of the aspects of my life. There is definitely room for improvement in every part, but I'm not hanging off a ledge by my fingernails or anything. I just think there's space to grow.

I should probably start from the statement that I'm currently reading "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. This is partially because it was recommended to me by someone I trust on the subject of books, and partially because I knew I wanted to make some kind of change in my life. I just wasn't clear on what that change should be all about.

I've been trying to make a work-related change for a while now. This is not news. It's just a tough market, and I'm not particularly skilled at anything beyond being a glorified administrative assistant or a quality control lab technician at this point. And neither of these things seem like the way to make my work life happier. So I've been trying to expand my search. And I think in the interim, during the time that I'm waiting for all those companies to start banging down my door, clamoring for me to come and work for them, I should try to be happier where I am.

Which is not precisely what I'm going to do. I'm going to concentrate, instead, on making every other part of my life more fulfilling, in an effort to counterbalance the misery of my current job.

Make sense?

I haven't yet come up for a plan for this but the book is giving me great ideas. I know I need to keep in better contact with the my friends - strengthen the relationships, because people with stronger social bonds tend to be happier. I also know that I need to take better care of myself - get more sleep, exercise more, eat better; even simple things like remembering to wash my face before I go to bed. And I know that I need to eliminate clutter. I live amidst organized chaos, and it's not particularly peaceful, or settling. And definitely not happy-making.

So those are the three current goals. Maybe by the end of this particular bout of self-discovery I'll actually be able to be outwardly optimistic, still keeping my inward pessimism, instead of being outwardly pessimistic with a hint of optimism.