Sarah's Issues Blog

http://sarahsissues.wordpress.com/

I've started a new blog, mostly work-related. See what you think.

uh...

Thanks for the comment Helen, to remind me to come back to this. Of course now I've forgotten whatever it was that had been on my mind. I guess I was going to write about being laid off and working freelance and landing with the most incredible luck in a wonderful new job just before my severance pay ran out. I lead a charmed life. I keep getting little tastes of bad things happening, but they always work out to be the mildest version of whatever bad thing they are.

I'm outta here for now though, hoping for only a mild case of insomnia!

do I have time for this?

Apparently not. I just typed 3 paragraphs and then either Blogger or my fingers had a spasm and it disappeared. It's hard not to get mad about that! There's no "undo" button here. I'm going to go do something else and try this later.

Hi. I'm back. I have a lot to tell you.

the year of working hard

After listening to President Obama's inaugural speech, I have never felt so motivated to work hard in my life. Funny, I did start this new year with some personal hard work in mind (finding self-discipline, for one thing), but this is different and better. I feel like my own hard work does or could contribute to my country's hard work, somehow. The trick is not to spend too long trying to discern my exact calling, but just to jump in whenever and however I'm led. I do believe that when we are doing something we love, losing track of time and shedding self-consciousness, that's a clue to our own life's purpose.

a thought

I read someone quoting someone else saying something like the following: "Who we really are is revealed by our daily schedule." It got me thinking, what are the things that I actually do every single day (more or less)?

* I pay a lot of attention to my child.
* I do, plan, or just daydream about something that contributes to making the world better for my child and everyone else.
* I drink some form of caffeine soon after waking.
* I delay getting dressed and brushing my teeth as long as I can.
* I analyze, obsess over, or maybe actually learn from some past mistake.
* I connect with friends through some medium (these days it's facebook).
* I make some token attempt to clean or tidy my home or office.

Who we really are is revealed by our DAILY actions, more so than by our dreams or plans or occasional actions. Or intentions. I found this a useful thought for the new year. I don't know if I agree that the dailiness is more important than other things, but it is a useful reflection. What do these things say about me?

a poem

Two Kinds of Intelligence

There are two kinds of intelligence: One acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,
and it doesn’t move from the outside to the inside
through the conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.

(Mathnawi, IV, 1960-1968)
Rumi

3 levels of tolerance?

Someone told me at lunch a nugget of advice attributed to Eckhart Tolle. Our real goal for whatever we do should be enthusiasm. If we can't muster enthusiasm for what we're doing, we should at least enjoy it. If we can't enjoy it, we should try to just accept it. If we can't accept it, we need to CHANGE something.

I don't know if this is about everything in life, or more about our jobs and roles. I can muster great enthusiasm for eating, then find myself with fat that I can't accept. So it may not be as simple as it sounds. Still good words for making me think about stuff.