I should lose things more often.
I know, that's a funny thing to say. Losing something is never good. However, looking for something can actually have some benefits - like a tidier room.
You see, I'm the type of person who, while being preponderously messy, 99% of the time, knows where everything is in the giant mess of things I call my room. And yes, I did just make up the word "preponderously."
So today, I happened to have lost and started looking for my violin mute, which I found, after clearing my desk of about 50% of the clutter that was on it. Thus, my opening statement - I should lose things more often because I think if I did, I might actually take the time to tidy things up a bit more. Generally tidiness is considered a good thing.
But, having been blessed with good visual and spatial memory, I don't lose things. So unless I have some other motivation to keep tidy, like moving (again) or not being single (no sign of that happening in the near future), my room will probably stay at its current level of messiness.
But at least, for now, my desk has 50% less clutter, and I'm using my mute, and, well - life goes on.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Friday, February 7, 2014
Febrewary, life, and what makes me tick.
A lot of people don't realize that they're pronouncing the name of the month wrong. It is, as my title indicates, FEB-Roo-Ary, with an R: Not FEB-You-Ary.
Speaking of which, I noticed that it's also a neat little pun: Fe-BREW-ary. That could be just because I'm hankering for a beer right now.
There's nothing in particular I wanted to blog about. I just realized I haven't posted in a month. So.... hence some random updates and thoughts. Also, it's raining right now, which is awesome. We desperately need rain and snow here in California. And I still want a beer. But... I'm kinda broke right now. Gotta have that money stuff.
So life. Life is interesting. I'm renting (sub-letting, technically) a room in a house with a number of other "friendly strangers," as I've decided to call them. I've met all of them, had short conversations with a couple. They're mostly busy people. I'm at home the most often, along with the guy who is renting the house.
The rest of my time I'm teaching/assisting at Harmony, the after school program teaching violin and choir to kids for free, hanging out with friends, playing the occasional jam or show or event or whatever.
These last few weeks I've remembered that I like math. Odd, I know, and I didn't discover this fact until my first year of college, when, somehow, Algebra finally clicked.
This new resurgence is thanks to the Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.com), which has this neato little dashboard thingy which allows you to "master" all the math skills. I am now on a mission to master ALL THE SKILLZ. So far I've got 35% of 593 skills mastered. w00t!
Sadly, they're pretty much all just arithmetic. Oddly enough, the skills proceed in a mostly sequential manner. Who woulda thunk.
HOWever, I am getting to refresh some of my trig skills and, since it's been like 4 years since I've done any calculus, I will be pretty much relearning it too.
On a deeper level, my mission right now is to kind of figure out what makes me tick. What I mean by that is, how I can tap into the focus, energy, and motivation that I think I have, but has been mostly lacking over the last 3-4 years. Part of that is sleep. Part of that is what & how I eat. Part of that is exercise (haven't quite gotten there yet) and part of that is also the mind game of the I-don't-want-to's, which in my case have always been heavyweights in my decision-making.
One of the things I've really been trying to develop more is just having space in my day. For instance, when I get up, having a drink of water. And just sitting there. Not checking email or facebook, not even turning my computer on.
It's harder than you'd expect.
But I've discovered something. When I give myself space to think, it gives me energy. It gives me the willpower I need to make more decisions instead of waiting for time and procrastination to make decisions for me.
If I stop the flow of 99.9%-unnecessary information into my brain, it allows my brain to direct its own flow.
I'm not a very driven person. Well, I haven't been. What I'm starting to wonder now is if I really am more driven than I thought. But most of the time I have this weight or anxiety because I like so much to do things perfectly - yes, a definite perfectionist - that I'm afraid to do them at all. It takes too much energy to try to do things because I know I'll fail. I make the choice of not doing, instead of doing and failing, and doing again, and succeeding.
I remember when I was 13 or 14, thinking about making a commitment to do something every day. I thought, "Well that's pointless, I know I'm going to eventually break that commitment. Why make it in the first place?"
What I didn't realize then about commitments like this was that, as the saying goes, I wasn't seeing the forest for the trees. Although I still think making a commitment to do something every day in and of itself is kind of silly, there is a much more important idea behind it. In order to build the habit of doing something every day, or twice a day, or every other day, or how and whenever it is to be done, a commitment MUST be made. That commitment is to Keep On Trying until the habit is established. The commitment is to Keep On Going no matter how many times failure happens.
There have been some things I've been wanting to do every day for a while. Right now, I'm not doing them every day. Sometimes I'm not even doing them every other day. But every week, I keep trying. I think about what is hindering and helping me meet my goal. I have days that suck. I have days that are kind of almost there. I wish I could say that I have days that are awesome and that happen exactly how I plan and want them to. But I'm going to keep on working, because I know I will have those days. I know I will reach the ideal I'm working towards.
I also know that it's ok that I'm nowhere near it right now.
I'm learning how to be committed.
Still, every day, there's part of me that holds back. Morning and evening, sometimes in the middle of the day too. But the more time and space I give myself, away from information, distraction, internet, TV, facebook, etc. etc. etc., the more that fades away, and the part of me that wants to do things like practice and work on math and write a blog and read a book, takes over and can begin to experience the joy and freedom of forward motion, learning, and success.
Speaking of which, I noticed that it's also a neat little pun: Fe-BREW-ary. That could be just because I'm hankering for a beer right now.
There's nothing in particular I wanted to blog about. I just realized I haven't posted in a month. So.... hence some random updates and thoughts. Also, it's raining right now, which is awesome. We desperately need rain and snow here in California. And I still want a beer. But... I'm kinda broke right now. Gotta have that money stuff.
So life. Life is interesting. I'm renting (sub-letting, technically) a room in a house with a number of other "friendly strangers," as I've decided to call them. I've met all of them, had short conversations with a couple. They're mostly busy people. I'm at home the most often, along with the guy who is renting the house.
The rest of my time I'm teaching/assisting at Harmony, the after school program teaching violin and choir to kids for free, hanging out with friends, playing the occasional jam or show or event or whatever.
These last few weeks I've remembered that I like math. Odd, I know, and I didn't discover this fact until my first year of college, when, somehow, Algebra finally clicked.
This new resurgence is thanks to the Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.com), which has this neato little dashboard thingy which allows you to "master" all the math skills. I am now on a mission to master ALL THE SKILLZ. So far I've got 35% of 593 skills mastered. w00t!
Sadly, they're pretty much all just arithmetic. Oddly enough, the skills proceed in a mostly sequential manner. Who woulda thunk.
HOWever, I am getting to refresh some of my trig skills and, since it's been like 4 years since I've done any calculus, I will be pretty much relearning it too.
On a deeper level, my mission right now is to kind of figure out what makes me tick. What I mean by that is, how I can tap into the focus, energy, and motivation that I think I have, but has been mostly lacking over the last 3-4 years. Part of that is sleep. Part of that is what & how I eat. Part of that is exercise (haven't quite gotten there yet) and part of that is also the mind game of the I-don't-want-to's, which in my case have always been heavyweights in my decision-making.
One of the things I've really been trying to develop more is just having space in my day. For instance, when I get up, having a drink of water. And just sitting there. Not checking email or facebook, not even turning my computer on.
It's harder than you'd expect.
But I've discovered something. When I give myself space to think, it gives me energy. It gives me the willpower I need to make more decisions instead of waiting for time and procrastination to make decisions for me.
If I stop the flow of 99.9%-unnecessary information into my brain, it allows my brain to direct its own flow.
I'm not a very driven person. Well, I haven't been. What I'm starting to wonder now is if I really am more driven than I thought. But most of the time I have this weight or anxiety because I like so much to do things perfectly - yes, a definite perfectionist - that I'm afraid to do them at all. It takes too much energy to try to do things because I know I'll fail. I make the choice of not doing, instead of doing and failing, and doing again, and succeeding.
I remember when I was 13 or 14, thinking about making a commitment to do something every day. I thought, "Well that's pointless, I know I'm going to eventually break that commitment. Why make it in the first place?"
What I didn't realize then about commitments like this was that, as the saying goes, I wasn't seeing the forest for the trees. Although I still think making a commitment to do something every day in and of itself is kind of silly, there is a much more important idea behind it. In order to build the habit of doing something every day, or twice a day, or every other day, or how and whenever it is to be done, a commitment MUST be made. That commitment is to Keep On Trying until the habit is established. The commitment is to Keep On Going no matter how many times failure happens.
There have been some things I've been wanting to do every day for a while. Right now, I'm not doing them every day. Sometimes I'm not even doing them every other day. But every week, I keep trying. I think about what is hindering and helping me meet my goal. I have days that suck. I have days that are kind of almost there. I wish I could say that I have days that are awesome and that happen exactly how I plan and want them to. But I'm going to keep on working, because I know I will have those days. I know I will reach the ideal I'm working towards.
I also know that it's ok that I'm nowhere near it right now.
I'm learning how to be committed.
Still, every day, there's part of me that holds back. Morning and evening, sometimes in the middle of the day too. But the more time and space I give myself, away from information, distraction, internet, TV, facebook, etc. etc. etc., the more that fades away, and the part of me that wants to do things like practice and work on math and write a blog and read a book, takes over and can begin to experience the joy and freedom of forward motion, learning, and success.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
Revolutions & Resolutions
So here it is, the next year in the ever continuing succession of earth's revolutions around the sun.
My sister and I were discussing how the holidays had seemed different in recent years, somehow not as significant and monumental as they once were.
When it comes to celebrating the new year, however, I have never really taken stock in the whole "resolutions" idea. The true resolutions are the ones you make when you realize you need to change something in your life and proceed to do so - slowly, inconsistently, at first, but then improving.
Many people also take it as a time to reflect on the past year, going in hand of course with the making of resolutions for the new year.
It has been a while since I wrote a blog post and I wanted to do one for the end of the year. I didn't particularly want to write a reflective post talking about the year past - I don't know what I could possibly reflect about that would be any more than a bunch of random wandering and mostly pointless thoughts.
And today, I realized that I already do that throughout the rest of the year - reflect on my life. And my resolutions, I make, as I believe true resolutions are made, at points along my life when I need to change something, whether that's the middle of the winter or the middle of the summer.
So when it comes to honoring the new year, I eat food, drink drinks, play games, spend time with people I like, and yell loudly and make noise and maybe light some fireworks when the clock hits midnight.
Happy 2014!
My sister and I were discussing how the holidays had seemed different in recent years, somehow not as significant and monumental as they once were.
When it comes to celebrating the new year, however, I have never really taken stock in the whole "resolutions" idea. The true resolutions are the ones you make when you realize you need to change something in your life and proceed to do so - slowly, inconsistently, at first, but then improving.
Many people also take it as a time to reflect on the past year, going in hand of course with the making of resolutions for the new year.
It has been a while since I wrote a blog post and I wanted to do one for the end of the year. I didn't particularly want to write a reflective post talking about the year past - I don't know what I could possibly reflect about that would be any more than a bunch of random wandering and mostly pointless thoughts.
And today, I realized that I already do that throughout the rest of the year - reflect on my life. And my resolutions, I make, as I believe true resolutions are made, at points along my life when I need to change something, whether that's the middle of the winter or the middle of the summer.
So when it comes to honoring the new year, I eat food, drink drinks, play games, spend time with people I like, and yell loudly and make noise and maybe light some fireworks when the clock hits midnight.
Happy 2014!
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