We Argue over the Flowers, or Laugh83/100 in 100 Creative Challenge 8/21/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic on paper, moleskine, 5x8"
Ivy wanted blue flowers, but I didn't think they'd go with the green background. They were white at first. She cried a lot. We compromised with pink.
But you know what I've really been thinking about?
Life.
Ha ha. No small issues for me, just small kiddoes, big issues.
No, but really, I've been thinking about those things that make life enjoyable. Because it isn't always roses and moonbeams, you know what I mean?
What is it in our perpective, in our living, that allows us to be happy?
I really do think it's just relaxing into the reality of life and accepting it for what it is. If I go about with my agenda, and life doesn't fall directly in line, whether it's a kid interrupting my my blog posting, or a delay in finding a good job, I end up being dissatisfied.
So it seems the best way to be is to just live in the moment, accept what is, enjoy the day.
HOWEVER...
There are also things I want to do in my life. When I allow my life to be taken over solely by immediate concerns, I find that I end up in a stasis of physical needs and no movement to life.
I recently realized that in ten years, I will be very close to 50... and there are so many things that I wanted to have done by 50. But if I don't get on the ball NOW, I won't have them done by 50.
I need to focus on my goals. I need to remember my dreams. I need to take the daily steps to get down that path.
There is a tricky balance that needs to be found between these two things, living in the moment and working for your dreams.
Taking steps towards what you really want without harboring an agenda for what you think it's all supposed to look like.
I believe this is called nonattachment.
I believe it is the part of Buddhism I have always had trouble with... but it makes more sense now than it did when I was a kid.
Maybe by the time I'm 50 I will have it all figured out. :)
How do you balance your daily life with your deeper goals? Got it figured out? Still struggling?
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3 comments:
If anyone's got it figured out, please reply directly to ME, and bottle it and send me a case of it.
"Still struggling" . . . maybe a key part is to STOP struggling. Still love the goals and dreams. Still love the current moment. But stop the struggle. Maybe that means trusting more that I/We are on a path larger than we can currently see . .. and that our true self knows this.
My point of view is quite different from yours, Rowena, in that I followed the path I'd envisioned, but then my partner left and changed everything. So I'm thinking a whole lot more these days about letting go of a lot (all???) of the external plans and dreams I'd had, and listening at as deep a level as I can, to what I sense God is calling me to do. Listening to discover what my truest, purest self is---what I've been "born to do."
Lately I've not been thinking so much about what I might be doing "down the line," but rather trying to live RIGHT NOW as honestly and lovingly as I know how.
Don't know if any of this makes sense. I just know that "struggle" has just about worn me out, and I am learning that I have CHOSEN to struggle (without realizing it at the time). And now, I am choosing NOT to struggle. Am I successful at that? not very much, but I'm getting better. You might say I'm struggling NOT to struggle. Ha. Ha. Maybe there's a 12-step program for reforming strugglers.
Here I am at 57 and I wonder sometimes where the time has gone and how will I do all I want to do.
So I try to do a bit and not worry so much about time passing.
ha! still struggling here. :-) Some days are better than others.
I'm just loving all the beautiful art you're creating with your challenge, Rowena. The flowers, and flying girls, and commissions from the kiddos...so much beauty and great variety. love it!
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