Sigh ...!

Yesterday I received a notice from one of my favourite magazines stating that this will be their last issue.  A magazine on "sustainable city living" that can on longer financially sustain itself.

It is not the first time that one of my favourite magazines closes its doors, but somehow this one affects me in ways that I am not sure I understand.  It seems that as I get older, more and more of what is familiar to me is quickly being replaced by the unfamiliar.  In an age of continuous fast pace "high tech" digital, I long for what is comforting to me, a slower paced and a somewhat simpler life.  I now understand what my grandparents meant when they would say "the good old days" or "back in the days."

For me, the continuous fast pace digital life lacks human connection; "high tech low touch" as Michael Bernard Beckwith would say.  And ... if we are not careful and monitor ourselves, the "high tech" can make it easy for some of us to forget that, at the other end of our internet connection is another human being, a being that has tender feelings ... someone that hurts just like us.  If you have read any comments on some blogs or news articles, you know exactly what I mean.  They call it "cyber bullying!"

We are a society that is so digitally connected that many of us live our lives via television "reality shows" or computer "cyber gaming/worlds".  I am not one to watch television or participate in cyber gaming/worlds, well does Club Penguin count?  Yes, guilty of waddling around a cyber world full of penguins! lol

What I do know is that the people around me that are continuous digitally connected, are quite anti social and seem to have lost their ability to connect with another human being on an emotional level.  Sad to say, but there are numerous new fields of psychology that deal with these issues.  Hum .... perhaps a PhD thesis?!

If I look at the last 25 years of my life, I left a stressful employment in the banking industry to pursuit a graduate degree in the history of religious philosophy.  Afterwards, I opened a quilt shoppe! Hum.... what next?!

I know that I have not worked through these feelings.  I mean, I know that it is not about the magazine closing but something much deeper.  Right now, what I know for sure is that there are a lot of changes that will be taking place in my life soon .....

Take time to enjoy the moment!  It is what life is all about, is it not?

Peak a boo .... you are seen

"A person who dreams of stardom but never puts in the work isn't dreaming, he's hiding."

I read this in What to do when it's Your Turn by Seth Godin and it touched a cord in me.  To be quite frank, many aspect of the book touched a personal cord!

I have a vision of writing a book, but do I sit and write every day - No! Ah... but dreaming about its so much easier.

At this point, I don't need to write a book .... I just need to write!

How often does one hide in one's dreams?  It is a lot easier to dream than it is to get up and do it.

Do it ... Yea!

Professor Deplands (Concordia University, Religion Dept) coined the term "the will to will".  A concept out of Augustine's writings.  Basically, one gets stuck in "the will to will" and not the doing ... "one day I will ..."  Will that day ever come?  One can change the "will to will".

Change begins with a thought. Once a thought is in place one works on the behavior and creates the steps for a habit to form.  Once the habit is formed, change has occurred.

Isn't it strange that negative habits are so easy to take on, but try a positive one and it can take weeks to establish.  I do not recall ever trying hard to maintain a negative habit.  It seems to come easily!

Sadly, you can undo weeks of work towards a positive habit by not doing it a couple of times.  The reverse is NOT true for the negative habit.  It takes weeks to undo it! No fair!

But, who ever said life was fair?

Namaste