being better together

I've read your comments and emails, and I think that we can really help each other. I have been giving a lot of thought to some of the problems we seem to be collectively facing, and how we can collectively kick the habit this year.

We are too hard on ourselves. I was in Salt Lake the other day, throwing my little Asher in the Rye a birthday party. On one of the days I was there, I met this lady, and we were talking about art and what not and she started talking about how hard she is on herself, and the expectations she puts on herself, and then she said, what I feel is the common thread with all of us, "No one expects it of me but I figure if I don't do it, it's not going to get done right". So, I think this is one of our issues. We are taking on so much, and when we don't accomplish everything we get so down on ourselves... when we were the ones!

I taught myself a lesson in this. You have to be realistic. Simplify. Remind yourself how many hours there are in a day, remind yourself who shares your time, remind yourself of your resources; financial/mental. When we were planning Ashlee's party, we knew that we didn't have much money to put into it, and we only had the day hours to prep everything for the night. I went from having a menu with a cake, and 3 different appetizer things, to no cake but six kinds of profiteroles; 3 savory and 3 sweet, to finally, cream puffs. We just had cream puffs, and everyone loved them. I just made up four batches, whipped some cream, dipped the tops in chocolate. No one complained about there not being a cake... or more stuff, we just had cream puffs, and everyone danced.

I could have done it. I could have baked the cake, and made the appetizers. I am more than capable of making everything I want to have happen, happen. I would have spent more money then I had and driven myself nuts...But I wanted to spend that time with Ashlee, on her 23rd birthday. I didn't lower my expectations of myself, I was just more realistic.

I started on this path to simplification my senior year in college, when I was finishing up. I had all these crazy expectations of myself, because I felt like it was what other people expected of me, what I came to expect of myself... but one day, I was too tired, and too worn out, and not everything I had had planned worked out... and amazingly enough, the world didn't end. It's like in A Boy Named Charlie Brown when Charlie Brown looses the Spelling Bee, and Linus comes to visit him when he doesn't come to school the next day, and he says... oh just watch the video

the other thing. Times are hard right now. I know that sometimes it seems like you have been sold up the river without a paddle, and that you have been left alone. Forsaken by friends or family, or worse, forsaken by God. This is an imperfect world we live in, made to shape and change us. I've known financial troubles, and family troubles, heart ache, and disappointment. But you can't loose hope. You can't loose hope that there is something better and brighter. We are innovative people. We have an oppurtunity everyday to better our situations. 

I look at my different issues like a design problem. And often times I find myself running into the same problems. I keep hitting the same brick wall. Why? How? I need to step back. I need to assess the situation, and see if there is anything that I can change. 

If we are approaching things, like we always do how would things ever be different if we are staying the same? If you look at it in an equation, you are the control in your life, and everything else is the variable. So, you always have the oppurtunity to change, and better still have some say over your situation.

That's something else too. You can't wait for other people to change. You have to be the one. Things get better when you decide to make them better. And the beauty of the whole thing is, the better you take care and love yourself, the better you are, the better you can love other people. It's amazing how the whole thing works. And to add to the beauty, we have each other. We're in this together.

So, those are just some thoughts I've been having. I want to hear how you feel about it. What are some of your ideas to simplify, and be better to yourself or better your situation this year? 

Embarkation (2003) by Gordon Senior from the private collection of the Crocker Museum in Sacramento California