I don’t believe that there is any decent writer who isn’t also an avid reader. Most days before I start writing, I do a fair amount of reading. Interestingly, no matter how randomly I seem to choose my reading materials in the morning: news stories, essays, book chapters, tweets, horoscopes, old journal entries of my own, text exchanges, magazine articles etc., a common theme often seems to evolve. Today, from my various readings, I jotted down these ideas that seemed to be “the message” which my most intuitive self was trying to bring to the forefront of my mind and into the guidance of my everyday life:
Don’t fixate on the negative.
Enjoy and fully appreciate the everyday modest delights in life.
Keep it simple.
One of my readings this morning included this quote:
“A multitude of small delights constitutes happiness.” – Charles Baudelaire
This morning, not long after I jotted the French poet’s astute quote down into another one of my almost full leather bound notebooks (On an aside, I consider these notebooks of mine to be some of my greatest treasures in life. These ever-evolving notebooks contain thoughts and wisdoms that provoke my own thinking, and they guide me and inspire me to my own innate wisdom and peace. These personal treasure boxes are available for anyone who can read and who can think and who can feel, to create and to accumulate and to savor. If you don’t have a “thought museum” journal/notebook/scrapbook, start one today. They are like potato chips. You won’t be able to stop at just one.), I started reading another excellent article by the New Zealander, Karen Nimmo. Karen Nimmo is a psychologist and a prolific writer and this particular excerpt from her article stood out to me, and enforced and validated this one main message that seems to be the theme of my reading today:
“Life is challenging, that’s the deal we all sign on for. But if you find one thing — one thing — that gets you excited even in small doses, one thing that makes you come alive, preserve it. Nurture it. Build it. Sneak back to it. Invest in it. Because it’ll be there for you all the days of your life.” – Karen Nimmo
I have often thought that if I am fortunate enough to grow old and feeble, I hope that I will always have the ability to read, and hopefully, even to write. (More than once, I have even pictured little old lady me, perched in her comfy bed, in the nursing home, reading to her heart’s content, all day long until it’s time for dinner, and then I even hope to be able to read, while I am eating my dinner.) Reading gets me excited, even in small doses. So does writing. Writing makes me come alive. And so every morning, as Nimmo suggests, I preserve these activities. I nurture them. I prioritize them. I sneak back throughout the day to look at my blog, and to read any comments, and to read other various written communications that have caught my fancy. I invest in these activities on a daily basis, because they are an investment in my own happiness and fulfillment and feeling of purpose. My happiness and excitement and contentment is positive energy that spills out to my home environment, and to my family, and to my pets, and to my friends, and to my community and to my world. My investment in my deepest, truest self (even in small doses) ends up being my gift of joy to the world. Win-win. What is “that thing”, that “one thing” that makes you come alive? What’s that “one thing” that brings out your most beautiful, positive, alive and happy energy, so that when you do “that thing”, it only adds to the bank of positive energy that our world so desperately needs right now? Whatever that activity is for you, doing “that thing” is your gift to yourself, to your family, to your friends, to your community and to your world. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to all of the rest of us, to do that thing that makes you feel the most alive, even if it is only in small doses. In a world where we are facing a horrific crisis that has absolutely no winners, we need loads and loads more of the magnificent, light-filled, uplifting, excited, loving, positive energy that is a “win-win” for all of us. As Nimmo says, find “your thing”. “Preserve it. Nurture it. Build it. Sneak back to it. Invest in it.” Do it for yourself. Do it for all of us.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.