“Do something new and different, beyond the familiar. Feel its magic and juiciness.” When I dare to do something different, new, or beyond what’s comfortable, I feel more alive. Restless, awkward with the unfamiliar, maybe a little scary, I become more alert to what’s around me and focused on what I am doing. Over the years, my daily journal-writing has taken different forms. Lately, I’m doing free-form journal writing for a specified period of time, where I notice and record my mind chatter in the morning. This is a new way of writing for me, which is different, emotional, and at times feels magical. Similarly, once we notice our life,…
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8 Things I Did to Change My Perception of the World
I have been feeling overwhelmed and powerless the past few months by all the anger, violence, and hatred in the news. The problems feel so big, well beyond my capacity to do anything meaningful to make a difference. I became irritated, short-termpered and wasn't sleeping well. Rather than focusing on the big events, I decided to shift my focus to living my best simple life every day for the next 30 days. At first, it felt like denial, escaping from the "tragedy of the day", or I was becoming uncaring and out of touch. I made a few conscious consistent changes in my everyday activities to see what happened.
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Traveling Solo: The Myths and The Magic
Not long ago, a good friend shared with me her horror story of the travel companion from Hell! She had asked someone she knew casually in her hiking group to join her on a week-long Road Scholar Grand Canyon hiking trip. This travel companion made the trip miserable for my friend–very demanding, moody, rude, and inflexible with just about everything. After that trip, my friend said, “No more , never again will I invite someone I don’t know really well to travel with.” Fortunately, she has continued to travel solo and had some wonderful experiences. When we were younger, leisure travel was most often with a spouse/partner, children, or girl…
