I don’t mean to sound like one of those “find your authentic self” people, but that pretty much is what I’m trying to do. I was telling a good friend tonight that I default to “work” mode. It’s great for my employer, but not great for me. If I’m going to throw myself into hours and hours of work, I need to do more work on myself. If what I decide is my passion (for now) relates to work, then all the better for them. But I’d like to have a little something to default to after the 6-6 shift ends.

So, here’s a question for you: What do you default to? TV? Video games? Reading? Let me know in the comments!

When I found this quote recently, I found the truth in it. I’ve spent many a day planning for when my life would begin. At work, I’m going to write that press release after I just answer a few more emails. I’m going to get in shape as soon as I get caught up at work. I’ll learn to rock climb or swing dance or finally figure out a trip to France when something else happens.

Recently, I’ve felt more like my life had finally begun. I’ve started feeling again, and feeling things more deeply. I’m happier. I’m sadder. When things hurt, they hurt more. But that’s all just a good part of being alive.

Its funny – I can watch hours of soap operas where everyone has slept with everyone’s best friend, their significant other’s brother, and their parent – and they all get over it and get along. They forgive and move on. (They never forget, because you never know when they’ll need to pull that out in some knock-down, drag-out fight.) My local best-friend slept with my long-time on-again off-again boyfriend several years ago. And even now, if I think about it, the wounds will open right up.

Of course, the flip side of this is that when I’m happy, I’m happy. Like undenaibly, float on clouds, dance like a durvish happy. I think I’ll have more of those days in about 21 days … but for now, I’ve been trying to figure out why I can’t focus on the impending happiness. Instead I burst into tears on drive home or when certain songs come on the radio.

As it turns out, at least according to an article from Oprah, it’s because of the major life changes going on. I started a new job 11 months ago that has been in a constant state of change. I moved, and even though I’ve been here 10 months, it doesn’t really feel like home quite yet. I started a relationship with a wonderful, wonderful man who makes me happy (which, quite honestly, is a bit of a change too).  And because of all this change, the old me is dissolving… turning into people soup. And the author is right – it is scary. I’m one of those people who likes the feeling of being in control of the situation – and melting into a human puddle of goo (both emotionally and metaphysically) doesn’t fit into that need to control.

Phase 2 is Imagining – focusing on where your life is going after the change, and focusing on that. I’m ready for that phase to start. Starting…. now.

Buttons and buttonholes may be considered a euphemism for other pairings in our lives: a person and their work, soul mates. Buttons and buttonholes seem to be how we define ourselves. We are the buttons that fit into holes. I am the daughter that fits into the “hole” of my mother. Without me, she wouldn’t be a mother, and I wouldn’t be a daughter.  We base who we are, and how we’re valued in the world on these relationships.

Relationships are comforting for us. They give us a solid place. As long as you have a definable relationship with at least one person (or place, or thing), you’re attached to the world. There is security. Just like a neatly buttoned shirt.

But without a button, a button hole is just a hole.

No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.

Rice farmers worked throughout the course of the year – unlike European farmers who would rest, and essentially hibernate while the fields lay fallow. The rice farmers worked at side tasks during the off-season, making baskets and taking care of the fields so that they were prepared for the next growing season. During that season, they were in the fields starting before dawn, weeding and working.

The rice farmers not only worked hard, they had meaningful work that defined their lives. They figured out how to do things on their own, and perservered against the odds. They worked three thousand hours a year, and taught their children to do the same.

I’m not sure if I am striving to be like a rice farmer because I admire their 3000 hours of work (That’s 8.2 hours a day, 365 days a year), or their perserverence. Either way, I do love me some rice.

If you don’t have plans to attend some spectacular party that allows you to get wasted among 300 of your closest friends, then you’re framed as being “lame.”

The truth, as I see it, is that very very few people are going to truly change because of another trip around the sun. A new calendar isn’t going to organize your house, and saying at midnight one night that you’re going to start exercising doesn’t mean that you will. Every day is a new opportunity to make these resolutions. Really, the success of your resolution depends on how much importance it has in your life.

Oh, and Happy New Year. I love new calendars.

Today, an article from 43 Folders caught my attention: “Real Advice Hurts“. It provides a great point – no matter how many how-tos we read, no matter how many tips we collect – we don’t really get better at doing anything by reading about it. We get better by doing. I can read thousands of articles about doing a better ustrasana, but until I get myself to the yoga mat, I’ll never achieve the perfect backbend.

Does it mean those tips are less useful? I don’t think so. I still find value and inspiration in my newsletters full of tips; but I (and I’m guessing along with their thousands of other subscribers) need to actually start putting those tips to use!

• A corporate lawyer (yes, even at 9 I wanted to be a corporate lawyer, not just a lawyer)
• President of the United States (at 10, I was securing votes from my mom’s college professors)
• A librarian (seriously, I thought that librarians got to read all the books in the library when there weren’t people who wanted to check out the books).

Now that I’m a bit older, and a bit wiser, I don’t want to be a laywer. I don’t want to go to law school. And after this debacle with the election, I’m 99.8% sure that I don’t want to be the President. That leaves being a librarian. And unfortunately, I’ve learned that librarians don’t get to read all the books. So, how in the world can I read all the books that I want? Well, easy. I’m going to start my own book review site. Everything I read, I’ll write a review. Maybe I’ll start reaching out to book publishers – if they send me copies of the books, I can guarantee I’ll write an honest review. And I’ll build a network of people who trust my reviewing abilities.

And maybe, someday, my job will be reading. In the meantime, I’m quite content in continuing at my day job, and spending my nights reading and writing.

I’ve had my fair share of humiliation and suffering from putting things in writing that I didn’t mean for public reading. And, of course, those things were read.

So, from a novice, here are a few things that I wouldn’t post on open blogs, for what little it’s worth:

• Don’t complain about your job on a regular basis unless you’re ready to look for a new one. You would be incredibly surprised at what your boss is reading (hi boss!)
• Related, don’t give away company secrets on a blog. Especially with the economy the way it is, all of our companies need to be somewhat guarded on when it comes to future planning.
• Don’t give the gory details of your personal life. Sure, your blog is your space to share your stories. Be funny, be cynical. But be wary of posting all the photos from your weekend drinking binge.

Alright, I’m off my soapbox. I’m off to read more blogs.

True, deep forgiveness accesses the recognition that all humans, however terrible or hurtful their actions, exist with basic goodness. This realization can transcend into an acknowledgement that we are all intertwined as part of a greater whole, and when we forgive someone else we are forgiving another part of ourselves.

I’ve found myself frustrated a lot lately. Frustrated with the way that others let each other down, the way that they let me down, and the way I let myself and others down as well. And while frustration is not the anger that we typically think of when thinking of forgiveness, the way to release frustration is through aknowlegement and release – aka forgiveness.

Do all people exist with basic goodness? Yes, I believe so. In Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice, Memnoch tells God that the best of life and humanity is our capacity to love. We build communities and families based on love, not on species identification. And we should be saved, in this case by being allowed into Heaven, because of this capacity to love. Akin to that capacity to love, we should embrace our capacity to forgive.

Forgiveness stems from love. When we truly find it in our hearts to give a baseline level of love to all whom are a part of our lives, then we can find a greater place to which we come to forgiveness. The basis for that love the basic goodness. Its a cycle of which we are all a part, and to which we all should contribute. As we forgive others (and ourselves) we open up a greater capacity to love as well.