Fear

Recently I have been reading a lot about conscious living, mainly on Steve Pavlina's blog. A friend of mine turned me on to it. The two of us talk quite often about wanting more out of life and not being content just to work and exist like most people. For a long time I have been thinking of getting out of an office job and into something more fulfilling. But things always pushed it off. When I first started working after college back in 2001, I thought I'd work for a couple years, save money, then go off traveling somewhere. Then of course I met my wife. Then my dreams became ours. We talked about saving money and going off doing something fun and extraordinary. But we had to take care of a bunch of stuff first. We had to save money, she wanted to get her degree, then after that it was planning our wedding. Then off course saving money again, getting out of debt. And always things come up. Car payments, new stuff for the apartment, spend money on this or on that. And now finally, we are getting divorced. So we have to make sure we separate without either of us getting screwed over. Soon back to single life, no more shared bills, getting back "on my feet".

It's life. And still the whole time I have had my dreams. I am starting to think all the past 6 years have been preparation for what's coming. This is what I'm hoping at least, maybe I have come full circle to being single again so I can get back to basics and focus on fulfilling my dreams instead of merely thinking of them.

Anyway, to get back to my point, my friend who I talk about all this with says that fear plays a large role in the way we live. For instance, in my case, I've wanted all these things and justified to myself why I don't have them. She says if you strip it all away it comes down to fear. Basically my life has been this way because I live in fear. When she first told me I totally disagreed, but now I totally agree. Here's why:

I was thinking in terms of fear and "being afraid" which I disagreed with. I would justify saying I need to save money and this or that is going on at work and I can't quit my job just yet or I can't ask to work flex time because I'd never get it. Or another thing is that I say I have a strong work ethic and don't life to disappoint my co-workers or my boss. And she simply says "It's all about fear" and I say "No, it's not, I have no fear, I'm realisic and have respect for others." But now I realize that it DOES come down to fear. Not the physical fear I initially thought about, but a deep seeded fear of letting people down, of disappointing, or not living up to expectations. I give them my respect and try to live up to their expectations of me, but in turn I don't live up to my own. It's not unique, I think most people are like this. Same goes for the past 7 years of my life. Excuses or complaints are for the most part how we justify our fears. It's sort of like dating and trying to meet people (something I need to get better at in Phase II of my life now), I will see someone I would like to talk to, but I don't. Why don't I? I make an excuse... "Nothing would come of it", or "I'll have nothing to say". But the real reason? Fear. There it is.

If you think about it, any one of us at any time could say, "This is it, I need change, I quit", and we could start doing exactly what we've always wanted to do. But why don't we? Because at some level we have a fear, a fear of the unknown, a fear of not making the right choice, a fear of letting people down.

It took me a while to wrap my head around it, but now I do truly believe we can manifest our intentions. Listen to Steve Pavlina's podcast about fear and it will make sense.

In a strange way now I feel sort of empowered. In the back of my mind I've decided to not take any shit at work, not get suckered into deadlines and things of that sort. It's sort of a first step for me. I've realized that my boss is no longer in control of me, I am in control of him. What's the worst that happens? Getting fired I suppose, though that's extreme and will not happen in my case. Loss of respect? Maybe. But who loses and who gains? I gain. I gain my freedom and control of my will and my desires.

I am going to post an excerpt from a book I'm reading by Paulo Coelho called The Pilgrim in a little while, which is what made me think of all this.

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A couple quick notes

I love where I live. I've finally found a place in San Diego where I am actually content. I can be at the beach walking within 5 minutes of walking out my front door. And how can you complain when you have a morning like I had this morning? A short jog, ending up at the beach, and then taking a quick swim? All before work.

Next up, you can tell summer is in full swing here. I saw two people within the past hour, one guy and one girl, with black eyes. That only means drunkeness. Not anything new in San Diego, but it's been hot and humid, which I'm sure makes people drink more

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Big Dreams

But when ... ?

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Feedburner?

Does anyone use Feedburner? Can you explain to me what it offers that my regular blogger feed doesn't?

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Spam I got at work

I laughed my ass off for like 15 minutes.



Subject: I just started having sex, and my boyfriend keeps popping out when we do it.

Message: Virgins always laughed at me and even blokes did in the unrestricted toilet!
Well, now I hee-haw at them, because I took M eg ad ik for 7 months and now my putz is immensely best than civil.

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Glacier Meadows - John Muir

Except from John Muir's "The Mountains of California", describing Glacier Meadows, first published 1894.

I cannot give anything like an adequate idea of the exquisite beauty of these mountain carpets as they lay smoothly outspread in the savage wilderness. What words are fine enough to picture them? To what shall we liken them? The flowery levels of the prairies of the old West, the luxuriant savannahs of the South, and the finest of cultivated meadows are coarse in comparison. One may at first sight compare them with the carefully tended lawns of pleasure-grounds; for they are as free from weeds as they, and as smooth, but there the likeness ends; for these wild lawns, with all their exquisite fineness, have no trace of that painful, licked, snipped, repressed appearance that pleasure-ground lawns are apt to have even when viewed at a distance. And, not to mention the flowers with which they are brightened, their grasses are very much finer both in color and texture, and instead of lying flat and motionless, matted together like a dead green cloth, they respond to the touches of every breeze, rejoicing in pure wildness, blooming and fruiting in the vital light.

Beautiful isn't it?

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Increase "available" hours - Day 1

I previously came up with a plan to increase the number of available hours in my day. Here are the results, day 1.

Well I didn't make it to bed last night until after 11, so my wake up time was 6:30. Not so bad for the first day of my new "program". However, my cat hasn't been waiting until 5 to stir me, the past two nights she's started making noise at 3. Ughh.

Also, I managed to sneak in a 2.5 mile jog, so I suppose day 1 has been a success. I'm going to the movies tonight so hopefully I can make it home and get to bed by 10:30 to try again.

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Terracycle

I saw a special about the company Terracycle, which makes plant fertilizer by composting waste using worms, then collecting the worm castings and liquifying them and then packing their product in reused (resused, not recycled!) soda bottles and selling it. Sounds incredible doesn't it. Well I went to their website to check up on them and apparently they're being sued by Scotts Miracle Gro because "Scotts claims that the two companies' products look similar and will confuse customers because some TerraCycle plant foods have a green and yellow label with a circle and a picture of flowers and vegetables on it."

Seems ridiculous to me.

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Increase the number of "available" hours in a day

So I was thinking today (as I walked down the beach watching the sunset :) ), I feel like during the week I have maybe 2-3 hours of "free" time by the time all is said and done with work. I started pondering that a little bit, thinking "well I work 8 hours a day" and I sort of wondered where the other two thirds of the day went. So I decided to figure out a way to suck a little more useful time out of my day.

My thoughts went like this. So 8 hours of work (which I find too much, but we'll deal with that later), maybe an hour for lunch, and then an hour combined taking the bus to and from work. So 10 hours. That leaves 14 more hours. Where does it go?

Well, typically I get home from work around 6:15 or 6:30, I mess around unwinding for maybe half and hour, spend maybe another half hour or 45 minutes making dinner. Which gets me to 7:45. Then this is where it comes into play that I have only 2-3 hours for chores and relaxing and exercise if I want to get to be at a decent hour. And then usually I end up screwing around online and all of a sudden it's almost midnight, which then puts me sleeping until 7:30 if I want to get my allotted sleep. Hmm. Well this is a problem. It's just not acceptable to me to have only 2 or 3 hours for myself out of a 24 hour day. And not to mention this doesn't include working out and any physical activity. And basically no matter how early or late I get home from work, my mornings are wasted with the exception of showering and eating.

So here is my plan to basically double the amount of "me" time in a day:

Say to make things easy I accept that 10 hours is given up for work. It's crap I agree, but for right now it's reality. Ok, let's split the remaining into 7 for sleep, 7 for me. Here's the plan. Set my sleeping time from 10:30 to 5:30. This is way too early for me to wake as of now, but this is around the time my cat starts stirring me so it's probably a decent time to think about waking. Also, this is less than my typical sleep, but we'll work with it for now. Maybe I can allocate one day a week to sleep in and catch up on that.

So assuming I get to sleep at 10:30 and up at 5:30, that gives me 3 hours in the morning, and 4 in the evening. Already, this is much better. In the morning I can plan to do my exercise, hit the gym, go for a run, a bike ride, whatever. Say that's an hour or an hour and a half, I still have extra time. Maybe do some cleaning around the house, make breakfast, etc.

Now I get home from work at 6:30, I've already exercised, my house is clean, the dishes are done. Awesome. I've just given myself 4 hours in the evening, and no guilt about trying to cram stuff in.

Obviously this is not rocket science, I have not done anything magical, I simply have tweaked my schedule and changed my mindset. Now I just need to put it into action. I plan on starting tonight. Updates to come. I've also decided if the mornings become wasted, I can just push it back, and sleep 11:30 to 6:30, and increase my night hours to five, thus minimizing my wasted time.

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This is not good

Islands emerge as Arctic ice shrinks to record low

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To be free

I went down to the beach by my house after I got home from work, and as I sat on the jetty watching the sun go down and what seemed like hundreds of surfers, I looked over to Dog Beach, which is right at the end of the beach next to the jetty where I was sitting. The dogs were running through the sand and the surf, chasing balls, and sniffing butts. If they were capable of smiles I'm sure they all would have been wearing shit eating grins. And it just made my evening, watching all the dogs running around just loving life. I get the same feeling of happiness when I watch my cat stretched out on the ground without a care in the world. She will look up at me, stretch her paw out towards me, meow, and roll over.

What a feeling it must be to live like that. Without cares, without knowing what they might look like, without wondering what others are thinking of them - just pure life in that moment. It may sound silly, but I feel like we have a lot to learn from these animals who most consider inferior to people. They have a purity and an innocence to them, kind of like kids, they have no real fears, no concept of proper, no feelings of taboo, just whatever goes through their brain is what happens. It is primitive, yes, but it is pure and most of the time it is a beautiful thing.

On a side note, about the same time, I saw a girl in pants and a tank top walk straight up to the water, kick it to make a splash, roll up her pants, walk up to her knees and just stand there. Then she kicked more water and spun around, then proceeded to jump over the wave as it came it. She went a little deeper, and you could tell her clothes were getting wet, but she just kept kicking and splashing. She didn't seem to care less that she looked silly and childlike, but she looked like she was having a great time. It was another beautiful moment. The sun went down, she jumped in the water to make another splash, and then walked back up the beach, to the parking lot, and got into her car. What a wonderful way to end the day.

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Green flash

I saw a green flash tonight. It's always nice when that happens, as it isn't a regular occurence. Too bad I didn't have my camera.

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A match made in heaven

Every now and then I post on the resumes section of Craiglist to see if I get any hits. I would be looking for a different type of organization, and I make that clear. I pepper the post with words like "socially responsible", "world changing", "non profit", "environmental", etc, etc.

And EVERY time I do it, without fail, I get an email from a goddamn motherf-in military recruiter. The military has stooped so low that they are trolling craigslist. The military couldn't be further from what I have indicated that I am looking for. And the emails generally look something like this:

Hello my name is SGT Chris [last name removed to protect an innocent person sharing this guy's name]. I work with the US Army Recruiting
Command out here in San Diego. My job is to find highly qualified,
potential future employees for the Army and Army Reserves. I believe
you may be one of them. Upon entry into the Army you may qualify for up
to a $40,000 bonus, repayment of past school loans, the payment of
future education, and the job of your choosing on paper. As of right
now the Army is giving $20,000 to anyone who wants to leave before
September 30, 2007. If you would please reply to this email and let me
know if you would be interested in either a local job (Reserves), or
something outside of California (Active) please let me know. I will
then explain to you the qualifications needed to apply for a position.
Thank you for you time.

What a joke, huh?

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Just got home - looking down the alley

These two wispy clouds struck me, so I took a photo.

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I unplugged my TV for 3 weeks

I plugged it in and turned it on... What's with these crappy new shows?

The Singing Bee? WTF?

America's Got Talent?

I should just unplug it again now.

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Quite an experience

My view yesterday from 13600 feet. I'll be writing more about this you can be sure.

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