Synchronicity

Slept though the alarm this morning. Well, actually, I guess that’s not 100% true. I heard and I did wake up, just long enough to turn it off and go back to sleep :P. Stayed up way too late last night reading The Artist’s Way at Work – just couldn’t get myself to put it down. It was one of those times when I felt like God or the universe was messaging me directly through the words on the page. Everything just seemed to be hitting home and melding perfectly with the goal I decided on last night on the drive home. It’s really making me a believer in the whole synchronicity concept.

I started reading when we got back to our house with the boys while Logan watched TV. The Artist’s Way at Work is a book I actually purchased before Logan was born, while Glenn and I were both still working in the City. I bought it at a discount bookstore on a whim. When I tried to read it at that time, I quickly lost interest in the book after a few pages. I couldn’t seem to keep focused on the reading – the words weren’t striking any chords at that time. Then just last week, before I got the email to start the Heidi Swapp BPS class, I looked down at the bottom shelf of my bookcase, where the book had been collecting dust for close to 4 years, and just thought “hmm, maybe I’ll give it another go.”

For me, that’s the amazing thing about books and writing – it allows people to share their thoughts/feelings/emotions/experience with other people without having to be in the same room, country or even lifetime. That’s amazing. What’s even more amazing is that because people are so different and shaped by their own thoughts/feelings/emotions/experience that impact their perceptions and points of view, the same exact words read by two different people can be interpreted in completely different ways. And both interpretations can be right! How cool is that?!

Over the past year, I’ve daydreamed of writing some sort of self-help, advice book that would start off with an intro where I describe the synchronicity of books – how I’m not a professional psychologist or trained psychiatrist, but more of a human nature enthusiast – listening, watching, observing, analyzing, noting behaviors, communication patterns, expressions of emotion; how I am sharing what I’ve observed because “something” compelled me to capture my thoughts/experiences/observations on paper. Later on, someone else may be compelled, perhaps initially attracted by the color combination or visual appeal of the cover, to pick it up and read it. That compelling force is a manifestation of the synchronicity of the universe. The message contained in the pages of a book may not ring true for the person at that point in time, perhaps they’ll let it collect on a shelf somewhere for a bit, but when they or someone close to them comes to need the message, they’ll remember the dusty book is there and pick it up.

Wow, I’m really feeling the affects of not having done my morning pages today. The words and thoughts just aren’t flowing as they did with yesterday’s entry. I find myself hesitating, rechecking, and misspelling noticeably more. I must’ve edited the paragraph above about 50 times! The flow’s just not there. Tomorrow morning, it’s morning pages, first thing, for sure.

Having trouble capturing creative images for my Project 352 Photoblog as well. I’m just not capturing anything that’s visually interesting…I think I’ll have to Photoshop the hell out of something to get it worthwhile enough to post. I’ll start working on that now. Maybe I’ll have better luck with that than I’m having with this journal entry.

-- AGR

Commitments

Lots of journaling and introspection for me in the New Year. Have committed to doing morning pages a la The Artist’s Way and in addition signed up for Heidi Swapp’s Year to Remember class where the first assignment includes journaling as well. I’m used to the introspecting and analysis, I’m just not used to the journaling piece of it. I just think the thoughts and let them go when they will.

In many ways, I think both of these things (the daily journal and morning pages) will be good for me because it’ll allow me to capture and perhaps make some sense of all the stuff that runs through my head on a daily basis. I do a lot of mental processing all throughout the day and it gets lost the minute something distracts my attention. I think I’ve come up with some pretty profound stuff in the past too! But since my memory is for shit :P, I can’t make use of any of it now. This way, I’ll be able to capture both the raw, random stuff in the morning pages and then maybe do something more structured with my journaling.

I’ve decided to do the journaling electronically too (maybe post it in a blog even). I spend so much time in the car, commuting back and forth from Vallejo to Redwood City for work. Since starting at Informatica, I’ve tried several different ways of making use of this time – reading, sleeping, talking to DH (the driver J); I’ve even considered purchasing books on tape or some sort of language CD – but I think journaling will be even better. Especially during our evening commute when it’s too dark for me to read.

I need to decide on a goal that I want to work on for the year…I’m sort of trying to decide between a really practical thing like “Purchase our first investment property” and something more personal like “Find my creative voice.” The second one might be a little challenging to make tangible, but I think I could do it with a little effort. A third idea I’m tossing around that’s kind of a middle-ground is to come to terms with my dissatisfaction at work. That would entail spending the time to do some true, hard soul-searching to find what I really want to do with my life OR finally coming to terms with the fact that I’ve got a good job that I should be thankful for and after accepting that, finding some way of working the fulfillment aspect into it. The end goal would be that by the end of the year, one way or another, I will LOVE MY JOB (whatever that job ends up being).

The more I think about that third option, the more I like it. It’s a problem that’s plagued me for a number of years…almost since I started working. I’ve always been torn because I love the paycheck of course, but my line of work has always sucked up so much time (either due to long working hours or long commutes or as was most often the case, both) I don’t have much left to pursue personal interests. Yep, I think that’s it. That’ll be my goal for the year:

By December 31, 2007, at the very latest, I will wake up every morning with a positive attitude toward (and hopefully excited and looking forward to) the work I will spend my precious day doing. I chose this goal because:

• Life is too short to spend your days dreading what you do
• It will force me to take a good hard look at my job and examine what it is exactly that I find dissatisfying or unfulfilling about my work and address it, OR find a new line of work that better suits me
• It will still allow me the opportunity to explore my creativity, both in my definition of what creativity means and how I express that creativity in my day
• It appeals to both the practical and explorative parts of me
• It will be challenging yet engaging enough to keep my interest for the year.
  

Almost forgot, I also started a Photoblog for a project I stumbled upon online – Project 352. Basically, for the whole year, I’m going to try to take a picture everyday that will visually represent that day. I’m hoping it will be an easy way for me to capture the everyday-ness of life in a creative and hopefully visually appealing way, and help me to notice and appreciate the little things that I too easily overlook and take for granted. I’m also supposed to take a self-portrait at least once a month. I think it’ll be interesting.

I sent a comic strip to Gina today that I found on Danny Gregory’s blog (I LOVE that guy! He’s totally insightful and inspiring at the same time) – it’s a simple cartoon of a roughly sketched guy with just a single speech bubble that says “How much of my life should I devote to contemplating my life?” I thought that was particularly appropriate for the both of us. We both have a tendency to analyze things to death and when we get together, you better WATCH OUT, ‘cause some deep thinking is definitely going to go down :P. Love her to death though, she’s the only person that close to understanding (or really knowing) me.

Also did some searching on Amazon today for books on how to write more eloquently. I didn’t use the right keywords though apparently because the results were totally not what I was looking for. I did come across a really interesting book though (I forget the exact title) that I “searched inside” that talked about the concept of emotional currency – that’s not the phrase they used, but that’s essentially the idea the author was conveying: figuring out what your partner finds emotionally valuable, what makes them feel loved and appreciated. I think that’s an excellent idea.

I asked DH on the way home from work tonight what his emotional currency was. He gave some really good responses that I’ll try to work on providing more of. I’m a little disappointed though that he didn’t ask me the question in return. I didn’t want to push it though because I didn’t want him to think I was just asking him as a segue way to getting him to do more stuff for me. Instead he switched to the topic of work (as he often does). It’s been heavy on his mind lately because he’s been dealing with a bunch of crap at the office. I would truly have to have his job. Seems like a really thankless position where you get scapegoated for stuff that’s totally out of your control. His manager and director are not very supportive either. I hope something better comes along for him so he can get into a better place.

As for me, I’ve had a pretty productive work week so far, coming back from the holidays. I had a ton of crap on my to-do list before I left for vacation and I didn’t finish it because I totally couldn’t focus!! Well I’ve already knocked off most of the list and still have tomorrow to finish off the biggest and most tedious piece which I left for last. I need to get it done tomorrow so my director hopefully doesn’t notice it wasn’t done before I left, and he gets back from his vacation next week.

That’s it for tonight I guess.

-- AGR