Frozen Buds. Meaning. Karma Yoga.

 Alright, new week, I am at least not going to get further behind.

As I get better at being organized, focused, prioritized, and productive, something else becomes more clear: doing all those things is not going to make my life feel meaningful. It's useful to have those skills and habits, but it's unwise to do them with the expectation of fulfilment and happiness, though they can reduce stress.

So what is it that I can focus on, that will lead to feeling like I am living a worthwhile, meaningful, purposeful life. That just fundamentally, feels good?

Current hypothesis is a mixture of the habit of following my felt sense of rightness (talked about in some previous posts) and the approach to action ("karma yoga") advocated for in the Bhagavad Gita. Haven't talked about that so much recently, but I should probably do a post on it, as much to clarify for myself, as for anyone reading.

OK, that's another short one for the week. Spring is here but it's going back to winter each night, the crazy storm system mostly left us alone, aside from some heavy winds and a bit of thunderstorm, thankfully. I wonder what the fruit trees will do, with all the highs and lows in temperature. That might end up freezing the buds or flowers, and then they wouldn't have fruit.

Happy spring to all,

-Isaac

Budding

 I wonder what it was that got me so behind on my blogs. It wasn't that I had especially less time than usual. It seems more like, when I'm really pushing to add something new into my life, like integrating a realization, adding in a new habit, pushing to complete a big side project, that a lot of my regular optional things tend to get pushed to the side.

I've been working on a few things, which I think have been bearing fruit, and which have been taking that energy and focus. I've been trying to work through a bunch of my little miscellaneous small tasks that fill up my todo lists. I've also been trying to work with more rigor. That just means, instead of spending time goofing off, I'm spending it on things that matter. If I'm taking a break, I'm doing something good, like playing or quality time with a friend or Suzannah, or a walk outside, etc. I'm not just 'killing time,' like on an app or solo game or fun but not actually that good book or a netflix series. I still do it, but I'm doing it less and less, to a satisfying degree. Most of the things that are currently 'wasting' my time, are not conscious choices I'm making anymore, but things I accidentally get sucked into and then go "whoops" once I surface for air. And even those, I'm getting better about. Though I still do it all the time. Lots of distance to travel yet. But feeling movement.

The key difference is when I have a break or something (like spring break which just happened), a good chunk of time. Rather than squandering my days, I'm spending more of that time, working on tasks that I've put on my lists, as important things I really want to get done. It feels fantastic, to be focused and checking off my lists and choosing what I work on intentionally. And it's not cutting into my quality fun and rest time. In fact, somewhat the opposite, as I'm practicing being more disciplined about wrapping up work at a set time, so it doesn't bleed over into time I've set aside for quality connection or play.

There is a whole mix of factors that I've been working on, and may be helping me with this (hard to tell which or which combo is actually making the difference). Practicing with my 'focus' mental muscle. Challenging my beliefs about 'not having enough time,' exerting/practicing my willpower, self-control, leading to more willpower and self-control. Practicing my love, self love, trust, and faith. Connecting more intimately and lovingly with Spirit, the Higher Consciousness. And what I mentioned earlier, connecting to and letting my felt sense of rightness guide me. Whatever it is, or all the confluence, it feels good.

Maybe some of it is just how nice spring feels though. It's beautiful out! Sunshine, refreshing breezes, birds chirping, new plant life budding and sending up green shoots.

The Silver Maple catkin buds have opened, probably sending out the little baby seeds, but too far away to see. I identified two songs of the bluebirds we have around, which was a treat. usually I don't get to see clearly which bird is making which sound. Bluebirds have a really unusual song. And then another, more crow 'caw' like bird call. I think a magnolia tree on my morning run route, is getting ready to open its buds. There is so much going on now after the months of hibernation, it's hard to keep track of it all, but fun to try.

OK! Two blog posts down, six to go. 🤣

-I Out

Amazing Levels of Behind-ness

The level of behind-ness on my blog is kind of amazing. I don't know if I've ever been this behind. Or maybe it's just that I've got a task manager keeping track of it and adding a new one to my list every week. In any case, it's super behind, so it's definitely time to use my handy escape clause that I built in right when I set the weekly requirement for myself: my blog posts can be super short. They can be one word, I think. Maybe I should check what that original post said. In any case, something like that.

This was originally from when I was thinking about habit formation, and the idea that just doing a tiny thing, consistently each day, was a great way to form a habit, that could then turn into something I did automatically, and which could then be expanded to take a little more time.

In the spirit of that, perhaps instead of doing a whole bunch of blog posts one after another, I should just try doing one every day for a bit, to catch up. Then some will be shorter.

Though often, once I get on a roll, I have additional ideas and so I end up writing more. That's perhaps part of the problem, as I shy away from writing when I've got other stuff I want to get done, because I know I can lose a lot of time to it. I think that's one of my strength/weakness things, where it's just a feature of who I am, and depending on the situation, could be either a strength or a weakness.

I think that we should find those things in ourselves, and try to shape our lives so that they end up acting as strengths, as much as they can. (And that we do so in service to something bigger than ourselves, and something that brings goodness to the world and those in it.)