Pleasure delayed

Let the ice cream soften on a hot summer day.

Stop and smell the flowers while they're right in your way.

Let the mint melt, rather than take a bite.
The only way of being sure you take the full delight.

Take a little sip, if you really want a taste.
a chug is for the greedy and always such a waste.

I think you'll find walking is better than a drive.
Savoring every moment you're blessed to be alive.

Listen to the end before you formulate a thought.
The thing you started thinking isn't worth a lot.

The beauty lies in waiting. Pleasure, best delayed.
The work of a moment should sometimes take all day.

Consistency over effort

We tend to put a premium on effort, but consistency is the real key. In fact, often effort is the enemy of progress. Consistently leaving something in the tank means you don't get stuck on the side of the road. Hemmingway famously would stop his days writing mid-sentence. We should try to apply that to all the areas we seek growth and progress.

Think what we'd have if Tolstoy had tried to write the 1200 words of War and Peace in a week rather than the six years he took. Besides, the joy is in the doing, more than the being done. So stop working until you fall asleep at your desk. You're hurting your creations and worse, you're hurting yourself.

Savor the doing, stop when you have lots left to give and you'll be excited for tomorrow.

Shortcuts

There are no shortcuts. Finding a "cheat" that shortens your building time or lessens your learning curve only cheats yourself of the experience. Or worse, the feeling of achievement.

It's no coincidence that the more valuable a skill is to you personally, the longer it will take you to master. But, if you're concerned with how long 10,000 hours will take, then that's probably not a skill that speaks to your heart anyway.

Trees don't grow overnight. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to become the person we imagine we can be. 

Things

It's nice to have things. The right things can make your house a home, enhance your life, or just bring you a little joy. Even the simplest things, like shoes, can be a great luxury if they make it easier to walk. Or even if they just make you smile at your feet. Just be aware that there's a cost of acquiring things that go beyond the financial. There's a cost to your freedom.

Every time you add a thing to your life you make it harder to be fluid. To answer if the universe calls you away. Also, too many and you run the danger of filling your life with only giving the things the care or attention they need. Or worse you stop giving being mindful of what you're surrounded by. Things carelessly owned should be given to people who need them. Get lost in life, not your things.

Hope is scary

Hope that our hearts are right is a key to happiness. Hope and faith.

Hope that you're learning and growing. That tomorrow you'll be better equipped to be filled with acceptance and gratitude, for the gifts the universe has presented and will present to you. Faith that what we hope for matters. That we're a part of something bigger than ourselves.

But hope is scary. It's scary because you might get let down. You might find out that you were foolish to hope. That none of it matters and you're not connected. It would be easier to be cynical and jaded and snicker at the hopers.

The thing is, deep down I feel a connection to everyone and everything. I think we all do. So I have faith in hope.

Release and persevere

Release your idea of what's right. You don't know. It's not for you to know. All that's required is for you to persevere. When you know in the pit of your stomach what to do (and you do know), you persevere. There will be obstacles, no doubt. Most of them will come from within. There will be days you lose faith. Release and persevere. There will be days you feel you're not doing enough. Release and persevere. When you find those things that sing in your heart and are too beautiful to be anything other than rooted in truth, you release and persevere.

Call them, write it, quit the job, make the move, hold their hand, take the job, demand respect, give your love, be heard, listen. Create. Release and persevere.

Art not manipulation

Somewhere along the way we started confusing art with manipulation. That the point was to trick the observer into seeing our brilliance. Then, we tried to define what defines good art for some unknowable reason. Even tried to find a simple meaning for a word that was a meaning. 

Art is available for us to try to communicate an idea that's too big for simple communication. To connect us through the pieces of us that aren't easily explained or calculated. It takes on all sorts of forms. Some of them even look nothing like what we've come to think of as art. But, the minute we start manipulating that, putting our rational brains to it, it ruins it. We all have an artist inside us. The only way to let them out is to release.

Picking teams

You are not defined by your political party, what color you find most attractive or your gluten aversion.

Be careful when picking a team that you aren't just using it as an excuse to stop being mindful. Sometimes when we pick a side, we eliminate a way of thinking that could have tremendous value. Or, in the case of political parties, we could be picking a side that doesn't actually always line up with what's inside. Then we trap ourselves in an idea of how we are supposed to think.

Now there's something to be said for having a closet full of grey t-shirts, so we don't have to waste energy deciding on something mostly meaningless. Just be careful that you don't get so attached to this idea of who you are or how you think you should be, that you become blind to when your bliss is in a different direction.

The end of "good job"

The minute we tell ourselves "good job" we set up an expectation we can't possibly live up to. We unwittingly trap ourselves in a moment that has already passed. Then, when similar circumstances present we try the impossible. To do again what we did before. Except, these are similar circumstances, not the same. Then, we end up feeling like we didn't live up to some idea of what "good", or worse "great" is. When in fact all we failed to do was be open.

Let's leave the judging of the outcome to the kinds of watchers who like to judge, if that's what they'd like to do. For us doers, let's focus on the journey. Let's celebrate the process, not the outcome.

It takes no effort to be kind

Our backs are up so often that we have come to assume it's easier to be defensive and self-serving. But when you release that you find that it actually takes less effort to be kind.

Simply holding the door for the person behind you means that you don't have to waste mental space making excuses about how "they're too far away" or "what a rush you're in" or whatever grumble you tell yourself. Don't discount how much of your energy that kind of negative self-talk takes. Then, multiply that by how often in a day that might happen and you get a sense of the toll it can take. How that can start to create a negative cloud around everything in your life.

Combine that with the fact that sometimes we react to negativity with more negativity. The coffee shop worker had a bad morning, gets your order wrong or is short with you. Then, you take it personally eventually transferring it to the next person you see. It creates a chain reaction of bad feelings that infects everyone and everything.

Instead, hold the door, feel empathy for the barista, smile. It takes that little effort to make the world a better place.

Becoming

Life is about becoming. We are constantly evolving and we can only deny evolution for a short time before the death of being stagnant catches us.

Becoming is in fact, life itself. The very cells we took for granted as self are constantly changing. Popping in and out of existence, dying and being born. You can't fight your personal evolution. You have to quietly and calmly listen to the change that calls in you.

Would we think so much of the butterfly if it hadn't started as a caterpillar? If a flower lasted forever would it be beautiful?

What's in a name?

The minute you give something a name you create ownership and ownership is the death of creativity and by extension any truly important ideas.

Once we feel we own something it stops changing and evolving. Worse, people feel they have to defend the thing they own because the idea WAS very right. They're right it was very right. The exact right invention, technique, method, religion. Until it got defined and stopped evolving. Then the great idea dies with the name.

Religion maybe being the ultimate example. I feel a connecting force, a lot of people do. But somehow once we start trying to define it too specifically we start fighting wars over the minutia.

Maybe if we all released ownership and listened instead of defending we could allow room for the possibility that none of us really know anything. Not absolutely. We won't ever know anything and that's more than okay. It's one of the things that we all share

Happiness is earned

Here in the consumer societies we're taught our whole lives that happiness is deserved. That we simply deserve to be happy for being alive. The reality is it takes work. Work maybe being the wrong word. We have to put ourselves out there.

We have to start by being open to happiness, which is scary. Being open to happiness starts with being vulnerable. We have to be brave enough to put the fear aside. To leave our safety, trust and be open. We have to make the effort. Happiness doesn't come when you're passive or mindless. We have to stop allowing ourselves to be distracted, get out there and put ourselves in the way of happiness. Otherwise, it will just pass us by our whole lives.