Finding Joy in your Mistake

I love this photo I took. When I showed it to my Sweetie and our photography teacher, they both said "Shake". It seems that I had not held my camera as still as I should have.

Stillness in the moment is important as our Yoga teacher tells us every week. However, ever so often you can enjoy the "shake" even while you realize that it is not ideal. I might not have done the shot well, but I still enjoyed the moment!

Appreciate your special moment, and learn something from it. That is all we can ask for in our journey, perfect snapshot or not.

What do you do Now? Answer: Nothing!

Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time of which you have any control: Now.

Denis Waitley Author and Speaker

Creating Trust

Trust – hard to earn easy to lose. I’m currently reading Stephen M R Covey’s “The Speed of Trust”. Have you ever noticed how a particular book “finds” you? Someone recommends a book about Italy, when you’ve just started to think about a trip there, or a book about Divorce is on the best seller list when you are trying to figure out how to extricate yourself from an unbearable situation. Or a book crosses your path on how to deal with a lack of Trust.

Covey’s book on Trust reached me at just the right time. It takes a lot of reflective inner searching to know when to give up on someone and when you just “know” that they cannot be trusted. It hurts. You feel like you’ve given it your open-hearted best efforts, but let’s face it, we are just human. We too, have our frailties, we are constantly bruised by our interactions. We do not need to keep hitting our head against the wall, and giving away our freedom to someone who doesn’t deserve it.

Preserving a positive relationship with a colleague or family member,  of not rocking the boat, and knowing that this person would not or is not willing to share the life-preserver is painful. It is difficult for anyone who does not perform at this survival level, to understand how some only behave at this level. We expect more of ourselves and more of others. But some people are not capable of this; they are vulnerable in their lack of confidence, their anxiety, their borderline honesty. All we can do is what does not come naturally to us, and that hurts the most.

We watch our back and cover our butts.

How do you behave when you know that you are being thrown to the wolves?

I highly recommend The Speed of Trust. It will surely provide you with tools and strategies to stay honest and live with integrity.

For the Love of Music

Today, count how many times you hear music. We take it for granted, but for others it is not so easily accessible. Please think about this video.

Running for Time

Spokane, May 5

There are days when all of us feel like we are running out of time. Time to be a truly good at something important to us. We may want to be a great creative artist, photographer, walker or runner, business man or cook. I've talked to those who regret taking a different path than what made their hearts sing.

Is it ever too late? Is there not always something within our grasp that makes us feel super, fantastic and happy to be alive? Should we ever stop? Are we ever to old?

My answer is NO, and I will tell you why by the end of this post.

We gathered from many regions and countries. Some of us had trained in winter and the heat was welcome but presented a different challenge. I know that I sure needed the first water station at 2.7 miles. That little niggling feeling that I hadn't prepared enough scurried around my brain now and then. But when you are surrounded by motivated folks who are determined to have a great time, you are swept along.

Doomsday Hill

When the final race results came in, I was quite pleased with my numbers. I had done it alone and I had done it faster than I had hoped. Far more encouraging than that was that there were at least six age categories older than me! I still had time to be really, really good at something that I enjoy.

I give applause to all the participants but especially to the three most senior age categories. This past week, I've thought about the 49, 80-84 year olds; the 20, 85-89 year olds; and the 4 over 90s who participated. What kind of dedication do you think these people possess? Do you think that they feel they are too old to try?

I would love to meet Vincent. He was the final over 90 who finished in 3:07:33, coming in hours after the first person. However, he finished, he won.