Numbers

So I follow my views of this blog.
Seems kind of silly, does it not?  After all, there is no financial benefit for me from this blog and it is not as if as if the Meteor of Success has suddenly fallen on my head as a result of someone reading this and saying "Good Heavens, we need you writing right now!"  Still, it is a form of vanity that the purveyors make far too easy:  with the click of a button on the side, you can see daily, weekly, monthly, and forever listings.

As I wrote in December, I finally passed the 33,000 view mark.  Not too shabby, I thought to myself - after all, that was after 5 years of writing (more or less). And if I look today it is at 34,614, almost a 5% increase in 4 months.  April was my second highest month ever in terms of views.

And then I start getting visions of grandeur that I probably should not have:  what would happen if I got 2,000 views a month?  3,000?  What if got so focused on driving people to the site that I was getting as many views in a year as I got in the last 7? What if?

Except I know part of the reality.  Many of my "views" are really spammers just seeing that if they can find a way to post something in the comments section (surprisingly, I am popular in Russia.  No idea why). Another large chunk is actual a small group of people known to me (family and friends) that come here to see what my latest concerns or issues of the day are.  A third group (no idea who you are, but welcome!) are those new folks drifting around or through, either directed here by the kindness of people like PioneerPreppy or the faceless Google search because some word caught the search engine's fancy.

The worst part about becoming concerned about numbers?  It makes the writing all about the numbers, how many people can I drive to the site and how many can convert to do (fill in the blank).  That was never the point of this when I started it.  It was much more an exercise in writing what I wanted to write.  The people reading it were just the extra nice part.  

The secret, of course, is just to stop looking at the numbers at all.

So welcome if you are new here.  Feel free to kick the tires and try the car door locks. You will find we lead a pretty simple life here: No social trends.  No politics.   Some religion as it relates to my own struggles.  Lots of thoughts about how I deal with life as it comes and my struggles to become a better person.

We are happy to have you.  And please believe me when I say that you are never, ever  a number.

Remaining Goals

Time to pick up on the rest of my goals.

Of the eight I listed this year, three of them are now officially completed and one of them is either going to be completed this Saturday or will have to wait until Autumn (new PR for Braemar Stone).  That leaves four for the year, one of which - testing for a level in Japanese - happens in December.  So really I effectively only have three that need invention and action (the Japanese, of course, is pretty straightforward:  study, study, study).  What are the remaining ones?  Financial and career, of course. The ones it is always the most difficult to succeed at.

Why?  I suppose it is because at some level both of these are out of my control  - financial less so of course, but it is bounded by the fact that we live in a household of growing girls where expenses happen as well as the general living of life.  Career, as I have written about earlier, is ultimately out of my control - I can do a great many things but still not make any headway.

Yet these two areas have the greatest impact on my life right now.

Personal goals?  I have achieved them and then some this year.  That has never been a problem for me.  I am fortunate in that I have many and they stretch me in ways that keep my life interesting and entertaining.  No, it is these two areas that I struggle with so much.

But the struggle cannot be all bad.  Within each of these is the power to greatly enhance my day to day existence, if I can only master them.  Imagine a life with a job that I really love, not just a job I have to tolerate.  What would that do for my mood?  What would that do for my energy?  What would that do for my sleep (yes, we have reached the point that it is affecting that as well)?

Here is thing I need to fix on.  I have accomplished the other things. I  have made remarkable progress in personal areas of my life.  The question is this:  how do I translate these into the more difficult things that are not fully in my control?

Kesa no giri

Breathe in, commit, draw.The hamon slides out, flashing;
straw wara slides down

Passing Last Days

And so another round of transition comes to a close as the wave of Hammer Fall II prepares for their last day.

It is an odd thing, this unwilling but conscious leaving by some - and the fall out from that decision.  Within the week the composition of my workplace will be significantly altered.  Within a week, the group that I enjoy lunch with will be changed once again.

One would think I would get used to this - after all, we are rapidly approaching my five year anniversary here.  I have seen plenty of people come and go in my time, the composition of the workplace ebb and flow.  Individuals one works and eats and laughs with go from coworkers to acquaintances seen occasionally while in the workplace fewer and fewer who know them still work there; stories move to legends and individuals move into the workplace pantheon, forms and caricatures of the totality of their experience who would not be recognized as such if they were met in the street.

It saddens me because I see friends I have made over the years leaving, friends that have made the work environment a better place to be.  Others will come of course and there will be new legends and new stories but things always seem a little dimmer to me when those that I came in or have worked with for a long time depart.  It is not just a coworker that departs; it is part of a life and a lifestyle that is leaving as well.

Next week will come of course and the workplace will move on as it always has.  I will probably take a moment to walk by the cubes where my coworkers used to sit and look at the places that we had good conversations.  As I get coffee in the lunch room I will listen for the ghostly laughter shared over food.

And then, sighing and squaring my shoulders, I will take my memories and head back to my desk.

Finally Writing Goals

So this week I finally managed to put some 2014 goals to paper.

Yes, I know it is April.

What surprised me was my supreme reluctance to undertake this task. It is a little surprising - even to me.  It is not as if I did not spend time working on these at the end of the 2013 with my usual process of dividing and subdividing.  It is not as if I did not draft them and have the available for final approval.  I just could not bring myself to do them.

I came up with excuses of course.  At first my excuse was that I did not have a planner/book for 2014 (I changed formats this year).  But then I got one.  Then my excuse became "Well, I am not really sure that these are my goals" - but I made no forward movement in actually writing them down.  Then my excuse became "I am not sure that these are really the goals that I should be striving for - I need to have less, more focused goals."  And so on.  You get the idea.

But on Monday night I finally made myself write them down.

The odd thing to me was that as soon as I wrote them down I found that I could (or was close to) crossing almost half of them off already.  In April.  That has almost never happened.  That should have made me happy, correct?  It did not really - instead I sat looking at the ones that were remaining.

Of the eight listed, six of them are completely within my control to accomplish.  They are everything a goal should be:  specific, time bound, concise, clear.  The problem is the two that are neither of these yet are the most important: the most important of these is find a new job/career.

Why did I sigh?  Bogha Frois said it concisely to me more clearly than I could have said it to myself:  because it ultimately out of your control.  I could work and study and search and find, only to find myself at the point that this is not something I can achieve.

It bothers me even as I think about it now.  I have eight goals listed, four of which I am super close to having achieved.  Why is it I cannot look at those accomplishments and instead focus only on that which I have not done?

Nighean Gheal

Fifteen years are gone:
You  mature so beautifully,
I am quite humbled.

Reality

Our innermost souls,
suddenly pierced by events
seek that which matters.

Control

I have an issue with things I cannot control - more specifically, I have an issue with compensating for the things that I cannot control.

There are a great many things I feel that I have no control over in my life.  In fact, these things seem to fill my day every day.  Events I cannot control, things I cannot make happen, tasks that I cannot turn aside from - every day and every week, a life full of that which is not controllable.

My solution?  To find those things that I can control in my life - and do those.

The issue, of course is that generally such things are not good for one.  They run from the fairly benign (shredding my nails in frustration) to the not really good for me (binging).  They have consequences of course, consequences that I cannot avoid - but I do them anyway.

Why?  Because they are the things that I can control.  They are the things that I can choose or not choose to do (and generally they fall into the "choose category for me) because they are the things that I have power over.   I cannot turn away the task at work that is useless but no-one else will do it.  I can choose to eat or not eat a sugar laden snack.

I am not sure how to remedy this.  The easy answer is "find ways to take more control of more things in your life" - but that seems about as useful telling a penguin to fly:  without the ability to do so the thing becomes impossible.  Yet exerting control in these small things does not do anything for me either - the behaviors are at best not good for me and they do not really solve my underlying problem.

What I want to say the solution is is to find those things that I can control even in the uncontrollable situations and build on those.  I think that is the correct answer - but it does not feel like it resolves anything.  How do I find a sense of moving forward in the midst of small tasks in the midst of larger items?

A thought to ponder for the day:  Are all situations truly beyond my control?  Or is just some?  And if some, why or why not?

Burying The Dead

I need to bury the dead.

I realized it yesterday when I was having a conversation with some fellow coworkers about my former boss, who was caught in Hammer Fall II.  As we got to talking, we moved from the foibles that all boss (including myself) seem to have to a certain level of bitterness which was evident to the point that one of coworkers made the comment "I detect a note of satisfaction in your speech."  I thought for a moment and said that after getting the bus run over head enough times and being undercut it was difficult not to be too upset.

And then I realized I had to let him go.

I have conflicted feelings about him.  He was not a bad person, especially outside of work.  Certainly he only wanted to do what was right and best for the company.  And yet of all the managers I have had, his was the most fractious and least productive relationship I have had.  Of all my managers, his is the only example I can think of for what not to be like.  And even though I should not, I still let the bitterness from various incidents and comments in my review live in my brain:  Advancement may have been delayed, perhaps now  made unattainable, because of the fact that (at least from his perspective) he based as much of his response to me on the fact that I did not humbly acquiesce to his will without question.  I may never be able to resolve all of the issues that his decisions or lack of will have left behind.

But I need to let go.  For better or worse, he is gone never to return while I carry my anger and bitterness and rage with me as if he were still present and I had another staff meeting coming up.  Really I should be working on forgiveness - right now I would just settle for a tamping down of the virulence in my soul.

Why?  Because now I have tied myself to him - or rather, to his memory.  It is as if took the corpse to a grave and laid it there, buried it, and then continued to walk around as if I still had it on my back.  Once the dead are buried, it makes no sense to continue to act as if they are still alive, nor to carry their weight.  The stream of time has moved on; it is only I that continue to keep myself in that place.

"De mortuis nihil non est nisi bonum" - Speak nothing but good of the dead, said the Romans.

Or perhaps, better not to speak of some dead at all.

Job Change and Excuses III

So we have established that the thought of a job change is heavy on my mind.  We have also established the fact that the true reason I do not seem to want to do it is not for lesser reasons that can be resolved but that I have an image in my mind of how I view myself - a beggar pleading for a career rather than someone confidently making a career and being a valued resource.

How does one find this confidence?

It is not as if this is an unsolvable problem.  I have plenty of friends I know that have done this:  Miss C with her art or Himself with Real Estate or friends that have gone on to consulting jobs in companies they have founded.  People I know have done this - why cannot I visualize the much less difficult task of simply confidently looking for a new job?

Is it the system?  Sure, the job search system as it currently exists does not help.  One becomes a faceless number submitting a form - and even if one is fortunate enough to land an interview, one finds more often that not that a follow up is never given - more often than not, unless you get the position you never know that you did not get the position.

And there is always a high sense of competition in the interview process - not just that you are trying to do well but that you are competing with others not just on experience, but on price and your location.  To me it really does feel like you are are in a competition.  And if an competition long enough without results, you begin to suffer doubt.

So how does one overcome this?  Some thoughts:

1)  Remember:  Remember what you have done in which you have been successful.  For me, I have that string of things in recent history - Iaijutsu, Heavy Athletics- things where I have succeeded in learn to do something and accomplishing something.  If I have done it once, I can repeat the experience.

2)  Support:  Part of any successful effort is the people that one surrounds themselves with.  I am fortunate in that I have found activities where such support is readily found - Highland Athletes are by far the most supportive group I have met in a long time and my iaijutsu training partners give me confidence in areas where I feel week.  But I realize now it is just not enough to surround yourself with them - you need to engage their active support as well.  The reality is that most people are willing to be quite supportive but they can only so when they know there is a need.  Do not be afraid to ask.

3)  Fix:  Fix those things you can control.  If there is a skill to learn, learn it - now more than any other time in history the knowledge is available and the concept of self taught is not something that puts people off.'

4)  Be confident:  This is the hardest thing of all for me - but the most important.  If I do not believe in myself, no one can really believe in me either.  There is an aura of one that is self confident that is hard to define but easy to recognize, a sense of "I can do this - and if I cannot do it here, I will do it somewhere else.   My value rests with me, not with your opinion of me."  Believing this turns the most cringing of individuals into the most confident of interviewees or one who can face an uncertain future with the confidence that they can make their way through it.

The reality is that what I feel is not forced on me by anyone else.  I am saddling myself with it.  But if I put it on myself, then I have the power to take it off again.

Job Change And Excuses II

Why do I make excuses for why I cannot - or will not - look for a new career?  This is the outcome of my pondering on yesterday's consideration and going through the process of living through my day at work.

What are my excuses?

- Money, of course.  As Pioneer Preppy pointed out so well yesterday, money is a huge consideration.  The thought of disrupting the money flow is a terrifying thought at the best of times, and as The Firm proved, making a bad decision about money can haunt you for years after the decision both financially and personally.

- Experience.  I argue with myself that I have "invested" 16 plus years in my current line of work and starting from the bottom again will just be an exercise in futility that I do not want to undertake for a second time.

- Difficulty.  Yes, it is hard to find a new career field.  Lots of searching, lots of applying, lots of rejections.

But in writing them out, those are pretty tame excuses considering my rising level of unhappiness.  Not enough money?  Find a way to make more.  Not enough experience?  Be creative - how does your current experience level translate into other areas - or simply learn new skills.  Difficulty?  Sure, it is difficult - but lots of things that I have done in my life are difficult.  What is my point?

The last is the most telling to me.  Difficult.  But I have done many difficult things - I have sung in front of people, performed on the harp, created and written four books, wrote 50,000 words in 30 days, learned a sword art form, and competed in Highland Athletics.  Any one of those things could be considered difficult - yet I have done them all.

It comes down to self belief.

I do not believe that I can do this thing.  That is what it is.  I do not have the internally energizing belief that I can find a new line of work - or even create one for myself.  Always in the back of my mind I see myself as the one with my hand out, begging for a job rather than being desired for one.

How did I end up with such an image in my head?  Years of the job process I suppose, always applying for multiple jobs while hoping against hope that someone will say yes, that someone will beneficently agree that you are the one.  But in every other example I listed there was no deus ex machina which made it happen. Yes, I have had more help in each of those things than I could have ever dreamed off.   But that help would not have made a difference - indeed, would not have been offered - unless I made the effort to do the activity, and believed that I could.

So there is the key - changing my image from a beggar pleading for a career to someone confidently making a career and being a valued resource.

How does one make this happen?

Job Change and Excuses

The thought of changing jobs keeps haunting my mind.

It occurred again last night when I was tying up the final edits of my next manuscript, waiting for it to upload to CreateSpace.  I reminded myself again how much I really enjoy writing (no idea if I am any good at it, but I sure do enjoy it). And then I started going through my list of things that I want to be about this year:  two more books, more Highland Games, more God, more Japanese, more Iaijutsu, more gardening and cheese making and mead making, more family.

You will notice what is missing from that list of course.  My current employment.

I keep trying to nudge myself that way subconsciously - and then I keep beating myself back, convincing myself that such a thing is impossible.  As if my most recent manuscript was not about self imposed limitations (which it is).  Just like I thought that Highland Athletics were impossible - until they were not.  And writing was - until it was not.

It comes down to that self confidence thing that has bedeviled me for year.  A man without self confidence will not do many things if even he can.  The man with self confidence will do many things even if he does not know how at the moment.

And a priority.  I need to make it priority. Yes, I know that I love to do these things and yes, I know that career changes are never much fun, but what I am finding is that I am subconsciously burying this desire to move on by not making any attempt to change anything.  "It's not the right time"  I tell myself, "I do not know where to begin."  Silly when I type it out of course, because there really is no better time than right now to start anything.

It comes down to this:  if you do not love what you do, why are you doing it?  Or more precisely, what excuses are you giving as to why you cannot change?

Running in Weather

Looking out the door to run this morning I had my usual second thoughts.  It was hot and humid, hardly the sort of weather that I enjoy running in - coming back soaked in a shirt is not something that I do not really enjoy.  Still, running is running, so I compromised, took off my shirt, and headed out.

The air was warm and a bit sticky but with an underlying hint of cold in it.  I rounded my first corner and then my second.  The wind was blowing briskly but nothing to significant. It was a pretty good day for a run.

Right until the cold front hit.

I have been inside when cold fronts hit.  The wind is amazing - in one case, it sounded like a freight train hit the house.

But being outside is something else.

Suddenly as I turned the corner and headed North I was hit by a huge blast of wind that just blew and blew and blew.  The humidity of earlier was blown away in an instant, replaced by sprinkles of rain.  It was significant enough that I thought about ending my run earlier and going home but thought "Hey, it is only another mile.  How bad can it be?"

The rain started about a quarter mile later.  And not "Oooh, I hear laughter in rain" rain.  Large, heavy, driving drops that spoke more of the cold weather behind than us in winter than the spring we are supposed to be in.  And it just kept coming and coming and coming, until when rounding the final corner it finally let up.

My time was not too bad for a 5K: 25:10.  The temperature dropped 11 degrees during the course of that run.  The most ironic thing, of course, is that I came home soaking wet - without a t-shirt.

Maybe, on the whole, the T-shirt really does not make the difference.

On The Cutting Of Anchors

One of the activities I do five days a week is post a quote on Facebook.  I do not know that one can say that posting a quote on something is a "calling", but I like to believe that I am improving the lives of my friends by giving them something to start the day with.  Sometimes (at least to me) thought provoking, sometimes humorous, it has actually become a game to find them and post them.  You get responses of course:  some funny, some with additional words of wisdom, some just "agree" or some such.

Yesterday something happened which has happened before:  I received a response from someone that was...sarcastic.  Political.  And not, in my way of thinking, all that funny.

I was conflicted.  Part of me wanted to respond with an equivalent drive-by remark.  Part of me did not want to respond at all, as I have learned that arguing on Facebook or in any electronic media leads nowhere.  And part of me simply wanted to delete the comment altogether without addressing it, a sort of passive-aggressive response.

I started thinking about it more and realized that the only time this individual seems to respond is with some sort of sarcastic or internally funny comment. Not that this is any indication of the individual, of course:  good human being, very caring, has lots going on and has done lots for others.  It is just that the interactions we seem to have via electronic media always end up in this sort of intellectual cul-de-sac where nothing can be discussed.

And then I realized:  why am I continuing to allow this incident and this person to bother me?

The reality is that,  especially since the move, my life is filled with tons of wonderful people.  Supportive people, goal oriented people, people who are focused on not only making themselves better but making everyone else around them better.  People that are moving forward, not people that seemingly snip at every turn.

And then the thought came:  Why are you letting them hold you back?

Is it habit?  Is it comfort?  Is it holding on to something that passed a long time ago because I am unwilling to realize that I am someone different than what I was and I have found people that fit into that new situation?  Or simply the potential regret of cutting back on long time relationships that no longer fill a gap?

I am not sure.  What I do know is after thinking about it for a while, I instead let my mind be filled with all of those people who are part of my life, who do enlarge my borders and my make days brighter.  There are so many of them in all different walks of my life.  And my heart was much happier.

I am still holding the rope to that particular anchor in my hand as I face another morning.  I am undecided about what I will eventually do - but I do know this:  without releasing the anchor, one cannot sail on.

On Deciding in Writing

I am almost through my backlog of books I am working on.

Just getting to this point is always a struggle for me.  I tend to be one that likes to get to a certain point and then immediately move on to the next project, leaving this one almost finished.  I have had to set aside the manuscript I was working on to finish proofing the one that I had just finished (editing - not my favorite thing).    But that is almost done now and I can move to editing/proofing the manuscript in my possession (the goal is that I finish with that by the end of April).

And then what?

Well, I have one or two projects of course (I always seem to have more than I can do):  one more fable and one more theological book (comparing Highland Athletics and what the Church is supposed to be - I kind of like the concept). As with the rest of my writing, these could potentially be done by the end of the year depending on how quickly I write (I am trying to set aside some time on regular basis for that now to make sure that I start consistently doing it).

And then what?

A splendid question and one I do not know I fully have an answer to yet.  I have one or two conceptual ideas but at least one of them is something that I have never written before:  fiction.  Real fiction, not the sort of fable that I have written heretofore.  I find that a little daunting, actually - it feels like I would be writing something which is totally beyond my abilities (if you have read good fiction, you know how rare it is).  And yet I suppose I should not - 5 years ago I did not believe that I could write anything at all and I have self published 3 books with two more on the way.

So maybe the question is not so much what I will be writing next, but if I am willing to step things up to the next level to do so.  After all, I love writing - a great deal.  Why would I not try to get better at it?

A Change In Doing

I have been giving a great deal of consideration this week to what I should be doing next.

Oh, not the rest of my life.  That is going pretty swimmingly, thank you very much - I have more than enough activities that I enjoy to do, An Teaghlach is doing well, and there is really not a great deal to complain about, except that I never seem to have enough time to do things.

Which leads me back to my employment.

This week has been a little rough - not so much from the work side but from the personality side of work.  Add to that the fact that by staying late it actually means that the commute is less (but my time is more) and you begin to see the difficulty.  It is that sudden realization (or maybe gradually revealing realization) that things really are not going in the direction one would be hoping for and they are not likely to change any time soon.

But what next?  Therein lies the rub.

I have come up with a few items.  I do not really care to manage people again - I do not mind it, but I find my management style to be primus inter pares, not a hierarchy (which most places are).  I would prefer not to spend scads of time driving to and from somewhere - in fact, the less I am in the office facing people the more productive I seem to be.  And with the exception of a few particular experiences I have exceeded my limit on learning new things - instead I will be doing the same things over and over if I stay in my current line of work.

But what does that mean?  It means that the solution will not be easy because finding something that has those elements is not easy.  It probably means figuring out a way to do something outside of the box, something which I excel at in my personal life but not so much in my professional life.

But I can do it.  That is the thing.  My personal life is a series of events where I have figured out ways to string things together and make them work when there is no real reason to do so.  I have grown gardens in the worst of locations, made cheese and sometimes even recovered it, figured out how to recover initially bad batches of mead.

It is not that I cannot, it is merely that I have not applied the same sort of innovation to the other parts of my life.

But guess what?  I need to figure this out too.  Because coming home feeling defeated and small and trapped is no way to go through life.

Fire

I need to find fire.

No, not the fire as we typically know it, the sort that we warm our toes by or roast marshmallows by or young boys are incredibly drawn to try and make.  I am referring to the fire within the soul, the fire that drives us on.

I have found that I am lacking in the fire lately - and it shows.  It shows in the activities I do and how I do them - not that I am powerfully driven to do them, but rather that I just go through the motions.  This works itself out in the fact that my performance tends to level off and I am somewhat slow and sedate (or lazy, depending on what you want to call it) in execution.

Is it the competitive spirit?  Maybe - although I have never been a huge competitor.  I trace this mostly to the fact that I have never really been so good at a thing to be in a competitive mode. I am always "second best" - not bad in a world that needs second violins as much as first violins mind you, but hardly the sort of thing that will drive someone on to do better.

Perhaps it is finding that goal, to be driven on to achieve that goal.  But what does that goal look like?  Most of the things I do hardly result in the sort of thing that a man can handle or hold in his hands or put up on his wall.  They are the invisible markers of the soul that exist only in the mind.  But even if invisible, there is still that fire that needs to be there.

And is it finding or stoking?  Perhaps I am looking at the wrong factor.  The fire may certainly be there but what I am doing to make it hotter, brighter, more engulfing?  Is it that I cannot build up enthusiasm, or that I fear building up enthusiasm because I fear that I will inevitably fail and reveal my failure to others?

I need to know.  As Brian Tracy says, there's only one way to coast - and balloons will only rise with the hot air of fire, not the cooler air of settling expectations.

Caber

Rough under fingers,
rising up in grainy bliss,
breaker of spirits.

Gone

Ash drifts from my hands,
bearing the dreams that failed
into the night wind.

An Appearing Sadness

After yesterday's strong post today is a letdown:  I feel completely sad and defeated.

I have no idea where this feeling came from.  It was there when I woke up - in fact, I woke up feeling that way from a dream I had.  But then I got up and there it still was.  Prayed - could not shake it.  Read my morning Bible verses - could not shake it.  And so there I sat, my morning routine completely shattered by a feeling I did not understand and could not shake.

I hate it when this happens. 

Ideally I would like to be able to track this back to something - some event, some comment, some thing - that I can analyze, look at, and say "Okay, this is coming from that.  I just need to resolve this/let this go/do something different and shake the feeling."  But that is not happening apparently - instead, I am stewing in the juices of a sadness which I cannot remove from my soul.

The rest of day is looming before me of course and I have not choice but to engage in it.  Everyone else and everything else does not stop just because I am under a cloud.  I will need to pick myself up and carry on about the day.

But even within this I almost feel my eyes tearing up over the thought.   There seems to be something really, really unsettling in my life today.

And I do not seem to understand what it is

Wrong Place and Time

I am in the wrong time and place.

At heart I am a man of romance and heroism, a man of noble deeds and glorious causes (some of them lost).  I long for causes to lose myself in, evil to fight, great deeds of heroism and romance to accomplish. 

Instead I find myself in the role of a bureaucrat, a small man doing small things of little import and little lasting value beyond my stay at the particular place I happen to be.

Not surprisingly this creates a cognitive dissonance in my life.

I know, I know: make the problem statement and then resolve the problem.  Fine.  The problem statement is this:  I feel a calling to something that I simply cannot seem to live.  I want to live in a world of great deeds and heroes and romance.  I do not.

Okay, so how do I fix this?  Surely the world is not going to rearrange its time/space continuum to address my particular need, and my time travel/fabric of space bending powers are simply not what they used to be.  So that is not really going to work for me.

The next option,  I suppose, is to find a way to live in such a way that this is a possibility.  Again, this seems to be a little difficult.  Meetings cannot be resolved by whipping out my katana and battling my way to the door.  Evil bosses and opposing departments (not that they are really evil or opposing, I suppose) cannot be thrust aside against overwhelming odds, nor will throwing down my gauntlet get a document signed.

That leaves one option:  live as if you were this thing.

Live as if you were the thing you seek to be.  If I seek heroism and romance and glory, live as if this was the ordinary way life should be.  Be a hero in the smallest of things.  Be romantic in the largest of ways.  If something does not suggest itself as a quest, make it one. 

And never give up trying to find a way to make your life even more this way.  Because I firmly believe that even in this technologically advanced and seemingly socially disparate age, heroism as a way of life remains possible.  Great deeds of glory and romance are still possible - in fact, we still seem to crave them (look at the entertainment industry and tell me they do not understand this).  Most people just refuse to acknowledge this.

Be different.  Be a person of romance and glory and great deeds.

Be a hero.

The Heart Speaks

What is that, you say?
My heart wishes to speak?
Excellent, dear friend.  It been long
since we have heard from you.

What is that, you say?
Let me think about it:
No no, I think you must be wrong
in the matter.

You speak to me of clouds
and I live on the ground.
You speak to me of wisps
and I live in the rain.

Fine, fine;
I will take your considerations
under advisement.
All advice is welcome.

It just, sometimes,
I find myself troubled
by the suggestions
you give me.

Although I wonder:
Is it because of
expanded fear?
Or contracted vision.