The Beginning Of All Action Is Thought

Zen Master – “The beginning of all action is thought.”

Yes, thought is the beginning of all action. “No duh”, right?

But, we need the right kind of thought. I am not talking about the thoughts that are flying around in your head all the time. I am talking about those thoughts that arise when you are in a state of calm and quiet. Like those brilliant thoughts that come to you about 3:00 in the morning, only better.

Now, take a few extra minutes to think about what you will do tomorrow that will contribute to making tomorrow a better day for you and possibly for someone else. Perhaps your action for tomorrow is setting a reminder to repeat the breathing exercise from yesterday’s post. By doing only that, you will further develop your ability to get in touch with your body, realize the tension you are carrying around and use breath to calm and relax you. Perhaps in a renewed state of relaxation, your mind being calm, a new idea will come to you. One you thought about many years ago:

- a hobby that you want to start up again
- a place you want to visit alone, or with friends and family

Make a commitment to yourself now to take an action to make that thing happen. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. Start small and work your way into bigger things.

The Best Year of Your Life

I read another book during my vacation break. It was a relatively short one, 300+ pages or so, called The Best Year of Your Life, by Debbie Ford. In the book, Ford offers three general areas of focus, or phases – Dream It, Plan It, and Live It. It sounds pretty simple, and it is, if you take the small steps necessary to take yourself through each phase. I’ll let you read it for yourself, but wanted to introduce it here briefly, in the event anyone was interested in checking it out from their local library.

If you recall my post from yesterday, my stated “challenge to myself” of writing 300,000 words in a year is part of my initiative to make 2012 the best year of my life.

Writing 300,000 words in a year may very well require more than just posting to a blog. In fact, I am sure it will require much more. But, this is a good thing as it may very well lead me down other avenues and open doors to new opportunities. That is my true goal for 2012; open new doors and explore new opportunities for myself to make it my best year.

How will I do it? I am sure I’ll find that out along the way. That is part of the fun and excitement of starting a journey without necessarily knowing the destination. Don’t get me wrong, this is very challenging for me as I am a planner. When I go on vacation, I like to have my trip pretty well planned out. Just ask my wife and she will attest that this is true. If we are away for a week, I pretty much know what I will be doing five out of the 7 days. But, this is a new journey. An important journey to be sure. It is a journey of discovery (more properly, self-discovery). I will plan along the way, taking care to ensure I do the things I need to do to achieve my dreams and live my best life.

What are you doing to make 2012 your best year?
What steps did you take today to make tomorrow better?
What steps can you take this week to improve next week?

Perhaps you have yet to take action today to make 2012 your best year. Maybe you are saying to yourself that you are too tired, or too busy. We’ve all been there. If this is you right now, then I am asking you to do me a favor. Stop for a second and follow these steps – it will take less than 30 seconds of your time.

- Stop what you are doing and concentrate on your breathing.
- Breathe in two or three times and really concentrate on the flow of your breath in and out for those few seconds. This will force your mind to stop chattering about whatever was flying around in your thoughts before you started reading this.
- Close your eyes and feel the tension in your body, then, release that tension.
- Stay in that state of relaxation as long as you want, or for as long as you can. If you struggled to remain quiet and calm for very long, don’t lose heart – you’ll get better at it the more you try it.

Now that you are calm, take satisfaction from the fact that you have now accomplished something today that will contribute to making this your best year. Congratulations, you are on your way already!

The 300,000 Words in a Year Challenge

I am going to challenge myself in 2012 to try and write 300,000 words, or essentially 1000 words a day, six days a week. I "borrowed" the idea from Chris Guillebeau, the author of The Art of Non-Conformity, which I read over the holiday break while in Kauai.

I guess you could call it a resolution for the New Year, but I don't really do resolutions as my will power generally isn't up to the task. However, this challenge intrigues me for several reasons.

First, I like the feeling I get when I create something through the written word. It gives me a sense of accomplishment so often lacking in my day to day life.

Second, it is a viable discipline for me to create what hopefully some would call art. I wouldn't consider myself an artist in the classic sense of the word, i.e., drawing and the like. Although I have dabbled in that area very minimally and may have some talent, I have yet to make the necessary allowances of time to develop any kind of real ability. Writing is something that comes more naturally to me and hopefully it will flow naturally to many readers as well.

Third, I am hoping it will help me with my ability to focus and to also clear the slate as it were, to keep fresh ideas coming.

Fourth, writing is an opportunity to share something and contribute positively to others. One of Chris's concepts is that in whatever you do, you need to ensure you contribute to the well-being of others, and I agree holistically.

Lastly, it is my sincere hope that as I continue to write, my writing will improve, both grammatically and conceptually.

In my reading, I have come across several similar recommendations around how to capture ideas to write about later. Some call it a wheel book, which is what the Captain of a ship would use to capture daily events, e.g., the captain's log. The concept is simple - keep a small journal, small enough to be carried anywhere and be available at all times, so that when an idea comes, it can be captured in the near term and expanded upon later.

In having a notebook available, you can write ideas as they come so as not to forget them - alas, ideas are fleeting. But also, writing ideas down allows one to park them and free up their mind from the clutter that is rolling around inside. And I totally need that. Not that I have a zillion ideas or anything, but I get a good one every now and again, and it would be nice to be able to park it for later reference.

As a for instance, one idea I have is to take quotes that speak to me and create blog posts for those on this blog. I mean the blog is called Cathartic Squirt, and what better way to provide some catharsis through sharing intellectually stimulating quotes and opinions about said quotes. You know, how the quote speaks to me, asking for other’s opinions on how it speaks to them, thus creating a dialog which may lead to more ideas. I’ll start with the two below, the latter elaborating on the former.

Quote from Jim Rohn taken from Chris's blog (http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/how-to-write-300000-words-in-1-year/):“We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret and disappointment.”

Quote from Chris Guillebeau:
“In choosing to write, you must choose the pain of discipline. Good news: it’s not that painful, once you get used to it. You just have to make it more important than other things you could spend time on. Make your art your obsession. Fall in love with it. Experience withdrawal symptoms when you don’t give it your attention.”

I need discipline, and I need a sense of accomplishment. Doesn't everyone? It helps get you through the day and is what gets you up the next morning so you can feel it again. Writing is a great way to productively fill the dead space within a day. If I can become an artist through the written word, I will have accomplished something very significant.

Writing allows one to put oneself out there for others to judge, aka you, the reader. That can be a frightening prospect, but again, I am optimistic that I can provide something through writing that others (you again) will receive positively. Will it all be art? Most assuredly not, but all art is subjective, and as long as someone likes some of it, then it will be worth it. Even if no one likes it, it will have been worth it as I will still have accomplished the goal I set for myself. That is, assuming I can stay at it day in and day out. But, I need to look at it not as a task, but as my obsession.

All we have is now, so isn’t it better to use any dead space productively? Again, productive may be subjective here, but you get the point. Stick with me, and I promise my writing will get better.

For those less adventurous types, this is an opportunity to live vicariously through me. Hopefully you will be motivated in some way and as I face setbacks and overcome obstacles you can share in the successes. I have a real opportunity to be an example for others to follow. And then those that do follow can be the inspiration for even more people. Pay it forward, as they say.

Off to a start, maybe not a strong one, but no one said it had to be strong. As long as it is a start - but more on that tomorrow.

Making every blog post 1000 words or so every day is probably not the best way to get a blog off the ground. I suppose not everyone has the time, or inclination, to read someone else’s 1000 word opinion, so we’ll see how it plays out. I will try to spare everyone after this initial plethora of verbitude.

So, how long does it take to write 1000 words you may ask? Well, to create this post it took approximately two hours and it contains approximately 1000 words, not including the title or the ones I lifted from Chris's blog (although I did count the word verbitude (twice) which isn’t a real word). I hope you won't hold me to that.

If you made it through the post, you accomplished something today as well - you read over 1000 words - congratulations, and thanks for sticking with me to the end! Or should I say the beginning? 1000 down and 299,000 to go!

Koi Pond #1

This is the first in what I am planning to be a weekly series of video posts I will be making in 2012 to contribute to folk's sense of inner peace. The idea being that you can take a minute or two out of your busy work week to reset.

This is your cathartic squirt for this week. I am hoping you will take the opportunity to put everything else in your life aside for one or two minutes and enjoy some tranquility.

I hope you will enjoy, and I welcome your comments, on the one minute video of a Koi pond at the Kauai Marriott in Lihue, HI I made and posted below.

I find it helps to just concentrate on my breathe in and out while watching - it helps calm the mind chatter.

Human Nature = Human vs. Nature

I was watching television this morning (halogentv.com if you care) and on a commercial break there was an advertisement that struck me. It was Bono from U2 talking about how the current generation wants to do something to be remembered by. The reason it struck me is it seemed to ring true that the main reason people do things is to be remembered and not just because they are the right thing to do which seems selfish.

Sometimes, probably most times, it feels good to do something because it is right, or because it helps someone else. But, is there still a selfish aspect to this? I suspect it is so.

Will our selfishness wipe us out as a civilization? I don't think we'd be so selfsish as to do that knowingly. If things got bad enough we would band together to survive. But even that would have gone too far. Is survival the end game? Are we willing to sacrifice what we have, what was here before us?

While people for the most part probably agree that climate change is real, and human technology has had an impact, are they willing to be unselfish enough to do things during their lifetime to minimize the impact and not just because it is en vogue?

What if we consummed less? Will making less of an impact today make enough of an impact tomorrow? This generation will never know the damage it has done and many don't think of the impact we have made in the last 3000 years as damage at all, but consider it progress. Ultimately I fear it may be 1 step forward and 2 steps back.

Will we survive? I think so. What legacy will we leave behind? Is our concern over our legacy the only thing that will drive us to do the right thing? Or will it even motivate us at all?

If we are waiting for our legacy worries to kick in, we may be waiting for an event that never comes.

In 100 years, all the people here now will be no more and the world will be totally repopulated. Let us ask ourselves what we can do for them. Not because we care what they will think about what we did or didn't do, but because it is the right thing to do.