-image-The Trials of The Hard Way

June 27, 2007 | A Kick in the Butt

I recently had a very similar conversation with my little sister. (In case you didn’t know, I was an only child till the age of nine when my sister had the nerve to come along. Finally, as adults, we get along; it only took me 20 years or so to forgive her intrusion into my life.)

She has been faced with one or two very difficult decisions lately. Decisions that take facing people, possibly hurting people, and choosing what you know to be right over what would be easiest to do (that is: leave things as they are). I promised her that if she took the Easy Way I wouldn’t hold it against her. She’d never had to make these kinds of decision before and I know it takes a lot of working up to The Hard Way (even if it is the right way). I promised to love and respect her despite copping out; which is exactly what I’m doing right now. (I know she sometimes finds time to read this blog so I hope she sees that as the statement of fact that it was meant to be and not some ill-disguised jab.)

At the time of our conversation she wanted to know if life got easier the older you got (remember, I have almost a decade on her). Sad to say, I couldn’t offer her that comfort. I’d like to say that the hard decisions get easier to make, but I think that’s only true when you are truly convinced that making them will be worth it in the end. Talk about maturity.

Taking the Hard Way truly is, well, HARD. Choosing to just stop where we are, have a rest, and let life roll by for a bit always seems like the more agreeable option. The thing is, no matter how agreeable it is at the time, taking the Easy Way almost always demands a sacrifice of us, a compromise. It may be something we can stand for a week, or a few months, some of us even endure them for years on end; the truth is though, in the end these compromises eat away at us. They eat away at our very core selves; they kill us; they are roots for bitterness and unhappiness; worst of all, they are contagious. Once they take root in our lives they have the audacity to spread their venom into the lives of those we love.

Ask any woman, now in her forties or fifties, who gave up her dreams and passions for the sake of being a wife, or mother (or because someone told her she “shouldn’t” pursue them). (And then look at the ripples this decision has caused in the life of those children.) You can’t live a life of compromise forever.

I have spent a lot of years trying to figure out why we are here on this earth (I truly believe there is a reason; both one for people as a whole and you as an individual.) and I think I’ve gotten it. We are here to grow up. We, each one of us, are meant to mature, become better people, blossom and fulfill our individual purposes. Frankly, life is meant to be a mountain climb - the resting part comes at the end - whether we like it or not.

That’s why all the rewards are in the Hard Way. It’s when we are doing the hard work of changing and growing that we are really hitting our stride of purpose; all the little treasures are strategically placed along the steep trail to keep you moving forward. This I am throughly, one hundred percent, convinced of.

Besides, life may never get easier, and choosing the Hard Way may always be difficult, but once you’ve gotten over the hump of decision-making the whole thing tends to get easier; momentum and anticipation push you on through the toughest parts. (If nothing else, knowing that everything you’ve already put into it will be wasted if you quit now can be an excellent motivator.)

If I had to leave you with only one message, I’d tell you what I’d tell my sister: Fight for what matters. Whatever that means for you, keep fighting to discover, create, or hold onto what matters to you. That’s where really living begins.

(p.s. if you want to see a great movie about the routine of the Easy (complacent) life and the power of Risking the Hard Way watch Stranger Than Fiction - excellent (And motivating) movie.)

-image-The Hard or the Easy Way

June 26, 2007 | A Kick in the Butt

Friday, while the Kung Fu Master was at work, I went to watch Evan Almighty. I didn’t set out to watch Evan Almighty (although, I will admit to wanting to see it, eventually), I was just looking for a way to kill 2.5 hours when I didn’t even have a book on me to read (bad planning on my part). The movie had perfect timing and was being shown at a “cheapie” theatre - what could be better?

I enjoyed the movie, but that’s irrelevent; Jana’s comment on my Not a Fluff Post (basically, she said she wanted to think about my point further) reminded me of a scene in the movie.

Often, when I moved in church circles, people would talk about “how to know if you were following God’s “will” or had gone off in your own direction”. The common assessment was that if things were difficult than you had clearly taken a wrong turn somewhere. That was (apparently) obvious. Because, “if God closes a door; he always opens a window”; it’s taken for granted that God didn’t intend us to open the door back up, or find a different door a little further down the corridor.

Easy = Good (or Right). Difficult = WRONG WAY!

Whether you consider yourself a “church” person or not, I’m sure this particular theology is familiar to you. I myself have flip flopped back and forth on this issue; one of the things I realized when I had my “change is hard work” epiphany was that this way of thinking is dead wrong.

I think I agree more with Morgan Freeman (aka God), who says that what God provides is not the answer on a platter, but rather an opportunity to create (or maybe discover) the answer yourself. God is a god of opportunities. We live in a Universe full of opportunites (which any Quantum Physicist would be happy to provide you with the evidence for).

To paraphrase God (aka Freeman), when you pray for patience, God doesn’t give you Patience; he creates the opportunity for you to develop patience (in other words, he gives you a whole lot of trying crap where you are forced to learn to be patient or loose your mind); you have to do the work of building - or tapping into - patience yourself. (By the way, this is exactly why people tell you to be careful what you pray/wish for.)

In every choice, in every issues, in every step of life you are presented with a Hard Way or an Easy Way. Everytime; without fail. The Easy Way is not the right way; it’s the cop out. The Hard Way is, without doubt, difficult - full of work and trial - but that’s what it takes to keep moving in life. (I’m very much aware of a friend who recently commented that’s she’s sick of “personal growth” even if she knows she needs it. So, I’m using a different term, which if you think about it, really is interchangable. To grow is to keep moving in life.)

What opportunities is God presenting you with right now?

-image-i Choose Trust

June 25, 2007 | Get Inspired!, A Kick in the Butt

How you seen this yet? I awoke to an email in my in my inbox talking about this site: i Choose Trust. The company hosting this site/initiative (trust givers) is a business selling memberships to teach you more about trusting yourself (which I don’t necessarily support - I don’t know anything about them), but the initiative itself… well that is definitely something I can support.

Go check out the video on the i Choose Trust page. I love two things about it. First, I love the message of trust itself (although, I’m not sure I’d have picked a word that’s often seen as being so passive to represent what they are saying); I love the idea of asking people to commit to trusting themselves and taking a big step forward in their lives. Second, and I love this part the most, I love that for every commitment of trust made on the guestbook they will plant a tree.

In Canada, a new commercial series (what do they call a run of advertising that promotes the same thing?) is running. David Suzuki (a famous naturalist and TV personality up here, I don’t know if you Americans know him though) is trying to convince people to switch to those florescent bulbs - the energy savers. The thrust of the commercials (and billboards, and …) is that you are one person who can make a difference if you do your small part - switch your lightbulbs.

If you think about the situation we have gotten ourselves in with deforestation; how much work, time, and effort it takes to replace those trees; that can all be a little overwhelming. We are tempted to ignore the needs of our world (and our grandchildren) to keep from thinking about the hugeness (is that a word?) of the task. But, if Suzuki is right: one person can change the world, then think how much power you have by simply being willing to voice your decision to trust yourself. I think it’s an amazingly simple, yet powerful, initiative - something I can definitely stand behind.

Besides, we all need to trust ourselves a little bit more. The Trust Foundation says their mission of trust is:

To inspire people to move beyond fear and hesitancy to discover the life, love, and livelihood they crave.

I’d be tempted to say what they mean is that we all need to believe in ourselves a little bit more, but you get the point.

Watch the video. Be inspired. Make a pledge; plant a tree. Simple isn’t it? (And, now that I think about it, an excellent tangible example of how helping ourselves (at our core selves) is the same thing as helping the world!)

-image-Not a Fluff Post

June 22, 2007 | A Kick in the Butt, Do Something, Already

Last week I was crawliing around my living room painting. (There is only one floor of this four floor house that we have not painted - as yet.) I was at the limit of my capabilities. I had spent every day since moving in painting, buying things we needed, painting, unpacking, and painting some more. I was wiped.

We finished the walls in the living room (which is really being used as a dining room but I still call it the living room) only to find that the yellow pine trim (this was the only room in the house not to already have white trim) totally clashed with the colors and needed to be painted over white. So, I finished all the edging only to have to go back to crawling around the room (thank God there was no crown moulding!) priming and painting the baseboards; by the time I was on the second coat I was so worn out I thought I was going to cry.

(I know you may think I’m exaggerating a bit here, but despite having moved in on the 31st the house wasn’t done until the 17th - that’s a lot of days of painting and unpacking!)

All I wanted to do was quit. Wakizashi kept telling me to take a break, but I knew if I did I’d be tempted to just give up altogether. The last thing I wanted was a half finished house. Plus, I needed everything unpacked and put in it’s place so I could finally relax.

Back to my story: at some point while I crawled around the living room, physically and mentally exhausted, I decided that I really didn’t want to paint anymore. I just wanted to stop painting. I was done with the whole painting thing. Until I looked around and realized that until I finished that room it could never be organized, I couldn’t have my table set up, I wouldn’t have any semblence of order. I wanted to quit, but more than that I wanted it to be done. I just wanted to finish something.

Which is why I kept painting.

While painting I realized something: Change is hard work. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could have just sold our old house, moved into the new, set a few things up and then picked up where we left off? I suppose we could have done that. It wouldn’t be a permanent solution though, eventually we would have had to make changes (and think how much more work it would have been if we’d already had the furniture set up!); eventually we have to change. Yet, so often we deal with life changes in exactly that way. We “decide” that we are going to change X, Y, Z; we move all our belongings to the new address; then we expect things to just keep rolling - no work, no painting, no shopping for coordinating oven mitts. When things begin to unravel we wonder why, stomp our feet like children, or decide we must have misinterpreted and taken the wrong road.

It doesn’t occur to us the problem occured because we didn’t do the work to make the place our own, to get ourselves all settled in properly.

We want change to be simple and natural; like taking a left turn. Smoothly go around the corner and then go back to driving straight. But, I don’t think life was meant to be like that. I think that doing the work of change must be essential.

Until we had done the work the house was lovely, but it was just a house we were staying in (it took days for us to get over the “staying in a hotel” feeling we had). As much as I hated doing the work, I can’t tell you how worth it it was. This is most definitely my house. When the painting in each room was done and the furniture and tid bits (art and such) were set up it took my breath away. It wasn’t until everything was done that it really became our house.

It may be worth it, but changing is hard work, and it’s about time that we wake up and realize that I think. (Or maybe, just time that I do.)

June 14, 2007 | E.R. News & Such, Just Me

Ok, so seriously, my (almost) two weeks without phone or internet I was just dying for interaction. Here I was stuck in my house painting, painting, painting (I’m sure I’ve mentioned how much I hate painting right?) and I couldn’t even talk to someone while I did it! So, instead I composed blog posts in my head, as if you were actually going to read them. (Stupid me, if I had written them down, even the ideas, you might be able to read them!)

Really, I’d be driving down the road blogging in my head at you. Painting my living room blogging. Sorting my office blogging.Maybe some of the more perceptive of you picked up on my mental blogs?

Maybe not.

Anyway. How goes the house? Well I’m estatic (yes, I mean estatic!) to say that it’s nearly done. The main floor is fully painted and unpacked and sorted and tidied (clean even). The basement (The Kung Fu Master’s domain) is painted, mostly unpacked and tidied; I’m planning on doing a run through to make sure it’s fully done. The bedroom (or 2nd floor) is painted, most the new furniture is built, today I have to clean up, put away, and unpack that floor. We were going to paint two walls on the the third floor (yes, I now have a three floor - four with the basement - house), but Wakizashi has insisted he loves it the way it is. I, personally, just think he doesn’t want to have to paint anymore, especially that awkward corner over the stairway. So, I’ve relented. I think once the (orange) couch is up there we will need some paint color to keep it from standing out and looking odd, but I’m willing to wait till then (and take a break from painting) before I put my foot down. That room also needs some kind of unpacking done, but it’s a little sparse on furniture up there at the moment…

All this must be finished by the weekend because my in-laws are coming for Father’s Day. So, a) we want the house looking lovely and perfect when they come through it and b) they are bring the boxes we had stored there and I’d really like to have everything else already unpacked before I have to figure out where to put all that stuff! Once that’s all done then we get to start on the outside - yes, we haven’t even tounched the exterior. (We’ll be mowing before the weekend, but gardening can wait.) Actually, that’s won’t be too bad. Wakizashi has next week off (notice, he waited long enough to take his holidays so that all the big inside work would be done, don’t think I didn’t notice that!) so he can help with the yard work. I’m thinking this weekend, once the inside is done, I’ll take some photos and blog a house tour for you. Seeing as you’ve had to endure my house ramblings and absences you should get something out of it don’t you think?

I’m also hoping to be able to knock myself back on track when it comes to work (which has really been the last thing that I’ve wanted to think about for the last month or so). Now that my office space is set up it’s much easier to consider actually doing work. I’m finally feeling like I can breath again. Which is a good thing.

Anyway, I can hear my messy bedroom (and grumbling stomach) calling me. I shall return (I just wanted to reassure you on that)!