Inspiration

Body, Heart and Mind are waiting for Inspiration .  They need Inspiration to write but as always, it isn’t easy to get her to appear when they need her.  The last time Inspiration paid them a visit; Body, Heart and Mind had to jump off a cliff.

There isn’t a cliff anywhere near where they are so Body, Heart and Mind do what Mind thinks can draw her in. They bombard her with text messages which say, “Inspiration, we need you.  Please come”.

Time passes, and Inspiration does not come.

                                    

“I’m tired. I want to rest,” says Body, yawning.

“We need you to be awake when Inspiration comes.” Mind says.

Body decides to send a different text message to Inspiration, “Inspiration, we need you.  I’m tired.  Please come soon.”

The phone vibrates and Body reads the response, “Abandon all hope, only then shall I come.”

Mind stands up, paces back and forth, and then blurts out, “What does that mean, abandon hope?  I won’t abandon hope!  I need hope to get this writing done.”

At that moment, Phobos, their pet dog starts tugging at Mind’s pants.

“Mind, I think you should take Phobos for a walk.”

“That’s a good idea Heart.  I don’t think Inspiration is coming. I give up. Come Phobos, let’s go for a walk.”

As soon as Mind and Phobos get out the door, a lady in a tutu appears in the room.

“Hello my friends,”   she greets Body and Heart.

“Oh sweet inspiration, you came.”

“I’m happy to be here. Where is Mind?”

“He went out to take Phobos for a walk.”

“Perfect! It’s hard to make Magic with Mind around.  He always hope that he can control my magic.  I just wish he learns how to give up control sooner and let us do our work.”

“Are you ready to make magic?” Inspiration asks.

“We are ready.”

Inspiration sings a song.  Heart and body dance with each other to her song.  Words start to appear on the screen of the computer.   The trio is surrounded by Inspiration’s creative light.

When inspiration sings the last note, she says, “It is done.”

“This is wonderful,” Heart and Body say.

The door opens and Mind yells.

“Inspiration - you’re here. Let’s start working?”

“Hi Mind.  We’re finished. Read this and tell us what you think.”

Mind reads the piece, “This is horrible. Inconsistent tenses.  Missing punctuations.”

                                        

“My dear friends, I’d love to stay but I need to go,” Inspiration disappears.

Heart says to Mind, “Can you do us a favor and edit the piece? Make it better.”

“I will make it perfect.”

Heart and Body smile. They are happy with the piece but they trust that Mind will not be satisfied with it until he thinks it’s perfect.

“Read this.”

“Good job Mind.  Whatever can we accomplish without you?” Heart gushes.

“Nothing,” Mind says.

                              

“Can I go to sleep now?”  Body says.

“Go ahead and sleep Body.  We are done for today.  We did well.”

I Know Nothing

How is it to live a life of curiosity? How is it to discover how it feels like to live, to truly live?

Can we be curious about how our body feels like when it experiences love, anger, fear, joy, disappointment? 

Our mind will say, I already know how it is. I know the ending to this story - and I don't like it. So the mind will refuse to cooperate and protest against this thing we will call "living our life".

Then the heart tricks us to doing as it pleases, disregarding the quiet protest that the mind has displayed - with its arms folded across its chest. Then we live life - and we experience the love, or anger, or fear, or joy, or all the other emotions we experience in our lives everyday. Then the mind speaks after all this and say "I know nothing".

In Love, Not in Might, I Fly

I was once the sun.  Mighty in the Sky

Those dare look at me - their eyes burn and die.

Bow down, Command of mine do not defy

My Word is all truth. All else is but lie.

Then my Death came when day turned into night

Once Mighty Bright Light snuffed out beyond sight.

In sorrow, I looked up, then saw a sight

Benevolent moon, with her Tender Light

"My love," She called, "Wipe the tears from your eyes …

We are one in love, The stars, you and I.

Bow down you must not, Look here to the skies

As we see our light - it shines in your eye”

Thank you, Oh sweet moon, now humbled am I

In your Love  - not my might, my soul does fly

I love My Job ( Even on a Monday)

The office chime is blaring from the speakers signaling the end of today’s work day. It’s a Monday – and Ben thought that the end of the work day couldn’t have come sooner.

Ben packed his bags – and walked out of his office

“Good bye everyone, y’all have a good evening.” Ben said to the people who sit next to his office.

Ben got to his car – which like many times before – is being driven by his father. He gets teased a lot by his office mates for that. He's a forty year old Papa's boy.

Ben asked his father about his pain therapy – to which his father replied. “OK lang --- mukhang gumagana naman yung therapy” (It was ok – it seems to be working).

“That’s good.” Ben said.

“That’s good,” Ben repeated and like all other car rides before this, his thoughts were no longer inside the car.

“I love my job but …”

Yes – Ben loves his job but it does feel like there are days like this when he thinks, “I love my job but …” He loves his job – but he can’t seem to think that most days – it’s drudgery. He doesn’t like the days when his mailbox is full and with each e-mail screaming "answer me". Or those days when there are a gazillion invoices and expense reports to review.

“Ugh!"

Then he paused and said to himself, “But those e-mails are nothing compared to the blessing of being able to connect to the people I work with.”

This again is the truth – Ben loves his team. It’s the best part of his job.

“I love my team but …”

Again – that word – BUT. Today he spoke to George who set up a meeting with him because he needs to bounce off an idea with Ben. The meeting went too long - and by the end of it - both Ben and George were confused. Ben recalls saying to George when the latter was expressing his frustration, “I know what you are saying and I understand where you are coming from and if I were in your shoes – I will feel and think the same way.”

That’s a lie. He doesn’t know where George is coming from. Ben is a people pleaser and he has the gift of saying what seems to be the right thing to say to others. This is why people like him because he makes them feel better when they talk to him. Ben likes the thought that people like him and he thinks that if his team mates don’t like him – he is nothing.

“But I wish I can just tell them the truth ... when they need to hear it ... even if they can't handle the truth.”

He muses, "I wish I can tell someone to fuck off when he or she is being a pain in the ass"

The car stopped – which halted Ben’s contemplation about his job. Ben hears his three dogs barking. He is home. He got off the car and headed on to the door. He opened the door to be welcomed by his dogs who seem to have missed him so much. He smiled – this is the highlight of his day.

“I love my job and – I live a good life. I should just be thankful.”

As Ben thought about this – he knew that these were just affirmations – that most days they are true but today – it’s a Monday --- and today he wishes that all the words were true.

What Happened?

Dear 30 Year Old Me,

Today - I decided to revisit this blog.  I laughed at the articles I wrote to you - but all in all I was actually impressed with the writing.  It was very personal and I realized that as much as I really wanted to help other people with the blog posts that I wrote,  I actually found that it helped me more than it helped others.  In fact I don't even know if other people read this blog.

So I read the posts from the beginning.  I enjoyed reading them and I don't know why - but I also learned from those ideas - even if I know I wrote them.

Then the blog posts stopped - and the weird thing is that the last blog post was written on December 22, 2015.   Today is December 22, 2016 - so it's exactly a year from the last time that I wrote anything for this blog.

Here's the thing - when I read the last letter - I realized that there was a lot of excitement and hope in that letter.  I was talking about my intention to publish a self-help blog which comes from conversations that I have with myself.   Those were really powerful pieces - and after reading the last letter that I had for you - I dug through my archives and wanted to see why I never really published those conversations.

Then - as I read the unpublished articles - I realized why I stopped writing them.   Those articles were scary.   They remind me of the Gremlins that I just read about from the books "The Gift of Imperfection"  and "Daring Greatly"  by my favorite author at the moment: Brene Brown.   When I wrote those articles - I have not even read any of Brene's work --- and the transcript of those conversations with the Gremlins were buried in my subconscious - and I think it's fortuitous for me to find them now that I just finished reading "Daring Greatly".

You see - there's a lot of shame that I bared in those transcripts.   I guess - you can say that frightened myself too much - that's why I never published them.   They were the manifestations of the "You're not Good Enough" and the "Who Do you think You are?" gremlins that Brene referred to.

But today - I have resolved - I will publish them and it may not be the best thing to do.   But I do know that I want to publish them because it helps me get through the fears that I have buried wiht regards to the topics I actually talked about.  To be honest - I won't call it bravery that I'm publishing it because I know that nobody reads these blogs --- at least nobody that I know.

So my dear young self --- I hope you're still there reading my letters.   I hope that you didn't grow tired of waiting.  I'm back and I do hope to correspond with you a lot more regularly from now on.

With much Love,

Your Forty Year Old Self

I Started Following Live Your Legend

Dear Thirty Year old me,

A couple of weeks ago,  I read a heartfelt post from Leo Babauta's blog: Zen Habits about the grief that he felt from the death of his friend Scott Dinsmore.  I have never heard of Scott before then.   To be honest - it is odd that I have not discovered him in the past because three other blogs that I follow are run by good friends of Scott:  Nerd Fitness,  JamesClear.com,  and The Art of NonConformity.   I don't know why I have not discovered Live Your Legend before Scott's death - I will not bother to try to understand that - but what's important for you to understand is that after discovering his blog,  I jumped in and read through his posts voraciously.

As I write this,  I am actually going through a paid course that I bought from Live Your Legend.   The course's name is Live Off Your Passion.  The course was worth $ 197.   To be honest - I'm not sure if this is going to be money well spent.  However - after reading Scott's and his friends' posts on how each and everyone of them are living lives where they actually get to earn a living from something they're passionate about,  I decided - why not take a chance on that $197 and see what I can learn from the course?

So I took a chance and bought the course.  I watched the introduction from Scott.  I watched his TED talks where he talked about how someone can live and earn from doing what they are passionate about.   I watched a video of Simon Sinek called How Great Leaders Inspire Action.  These videos,  the words that Scott wrote - spoke to my core.  I want that life.   I want the life where I can actually truly say that I am doing what I'm passionate about.   Take note that as much as I do want to earn from this endeavor - in my heart of hearts,  I know that this encounter with Scott's blog has awakened this feeling inside of me that had laid dormant.   I remember,  when I was younger that I had visions of myself being a great man - a man who helped others.   It had laid dormant because life happened - I started working,  I had a family to support,  I had debt to pay,  I had a lifestyle to sustain.   And so as I aged from being the bright eyed twenty year old gung-ho and inspired to do great work --- I grew older and I reached the age of 30 and that bright eyed me as you know has changed into this weary soul.   I'm telling you - I really hope that with this hard earned $ 197 that I spent on the Live Off Your Passion course,  I will be able to discover that bright eyed man that I used to be.

I will keep you posted.   This may actually be one helluva ride.

Truly Yours,

Your Four Year Old Self