Now that we all know that the ultimate goal in life is happiness, the question is how do we achieve it?
The good news is that it IS achievable, very much achievable! The not so good news is that it will not and does not happen by accident or by chance. If you really want to have happiness you must work at it, every day and in every way. This may not be what you wanted to hear, but everything worth getting in life is worth the work you have to put into it. Right! A hard day of work makes a relaxing evening even more enjoyable. This is the same for happiness. By working hard to get to your view of happiness, it will truly be the best feeling ever.
Let’s think about the steps it takes to get there. It is no different than any other goal. You have to set goals and objectives. You have to be proactive and positive. You have to want it and it has to relate to your personal values. Whew, a lot of work, but again the rewards can be amazing.
Be proactive in this journey. Do not wait for happiness to come, rather make a plan. First ask yourself; what does happiness look like? What is your ideal state of happiness? By answering these questions you can begin to see what goals you will need to make for yourself. Of course you need to write all of this down. Write it down and make it real.
Next, take your happiness view and compare it to your values. Do they match? Can you see the connections between them? If not, you need to go back to either your values or be more honest about what happiness really looks like to you. If they do match up you are on the right path in your happiness journey.
Let’s say for the sake of moving forward that your ideal state of happiness and values match up and you can see the connections, now what?
The process is really a three step process. The first part of the process is to take responsibility for your life, for your goals, for your journey to happiness. Taking responsibility for your life means no blaming of events, circumstances, thoughts, feelings, or decisions on anyone or anything other than you. That’s right you are responsible for it all. If you don’t like something that is happening it is yours to change and not someone else’s to fix. Yep, you must change yourself as others will not and should not change for you. It won’t work.
The second part of the process is to explore further your view of happiness as well as your values. It involves asking hard questions of yourself. What areas can you improve? What am I willing to put into my journey? How much energy, time, and commitment do I have in each goal? What are the positive and negative consequences of my actions? Remember there may be negative consequences to the change, so be honest.
The three step of the process is to start planning out the activities that will make your goals come to life. These activities must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. SMART! One of your goals should be to revisit this process every two weeks or so to make sure you are on track!
This is not going to be easy, but it will be rewarding, I guarantee it! Happiness is an ultimate goal and one that we can all attain with a little hard work and dedication. Take control and be proactive in your happiness journey!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Happiness is....
A few of you have asked me to elaborate on my last post on happiness. Is it directly related to satisfaction and how do you know if you have really achieved true happiness? So, let’s look at this more. First, we should explore the meaning and use of the word ‘happiness’. No I am not going to go in to a detailed view, but do want to set some context of the word.
We have all heard of the line from the United States Declaration of Independence “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” but what did Thomas Jefferson mean when he wrote this into the declaration? Many have made interpretations of what they believe it means, but the interpretation I like is from the historical perspective that describes that from that era the pursuit of happiness would have been grounded in the ‘goal of human virtue’. It is a basic goal of each individual as well as gives each person a purposeful meaning to life. This did not mean material goods or money, but a state of being based on your virtues.
Looking further at the word we can look back to the origin of the word.
The word happiness comes from the Greek work eudaimonia. From what I can tell on readings of this eudaimonia is the sense of ethics and virtues. It is related to understanding that there is an overall measurement of the quality of life—what I see as life satisfaction and there is a measurement of desirable life—what I see as happiness. What is interesting is both of these descriptions of happiness are grounded in the virtues and ethics of an individual. Does that sound familiar? Remember the discussion on values? Hum..so happiness is grounded in virtues or ethics, or values.
Well enough of the history and word lesson, I know there are many others that could do more to describe it academically, spiritually, and even mentally, but I don’t think going into that deep of a conversation is necessary right now. I am going with these two descriptions and say that happiness is based on your virtues or values.
My thoughts, first happiness comes from how close your actions, words and deeds match to your values. It does not mean satisfaction. You can be satisfied in a task or accomplishment, but that doesn’t always mean you are happy. An example would be that I get very satisfied when I eat. I love to eat so a big meal of all the things I love really satisfies me, but does that make me happy? NO! My values and goals do not match up with me not being hungry. So, the task of eating is very satisfying but my happiness will come when I achieve my goal of feeling healthy.
Happiness flows from my values.
So, again I have to go back to the point that you must understand your values in order to truly be happy. Without that first step you may be satisfied and you may find short bouts of happiness, but it will be empty. Understand your values, and live them. The pursuit of happiness is living your values. Once you do that, then you will be truly happy.
We have all heard of the line from the United States Declaration of Independence “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” but what did Thomas Jefferson mean when he wrote this into the declaration? Many have made interpretations of what they believe it means, but the interpretation I like is from the historical perspective that describes that from that era the pursuit of happiness would have been grounded in the ‘goal of human virtue’. It is a basic goal of each individual as well as gives each person a purposeful meaning to life. This did not mean material goods or money, but a state of being based on your virtues.
Looking further at the word we can look back to the origin of the word.
The word happiness comes from the Greek work eudaimonia. From what I can tell on readings of this eudaimonia is the sense of ethics and virtues. It is related to understanding that there is an overall measurement of the quality of life—what I see as life satisfaction and there is a measurement of desirable life—what I see as happiness. What is interesting is both of these descriptions of happiness are grounded in the virtues and ethics of an individual. Does that sound familiar? Remember the discussion on values? Hum..so happiness is grounded in virtues or ethics, or values.
Well enough of the history and word lesson, I know there are many others that could do more to describe it academically, spiritually, and even mentally, but I don’t think going into that deep of a conversation is necessary right now. I am going with these two descriptions and say that happiness is based on your virtues or values.
My thoughts, first happiness comes from how close your actions, words and deeds match to your values. It does not mean satisfaction. You can be satisfied in a task or accomplishment, but that doesn’t always mean you are happy. An example would be that I get very satisfied when I eat. I love to eat so a big meal of all the things I love really satisfies me, but does that make me happy? NO! My values and goals do not match up with me not being hungry. So, the task of eating is very satisfying but my happiness will come when I achieve my goal of feeling healthy.
Happiness flows from my values.
So, again I have to go back to the point that you must understand your values in order to truly be happy. Without that first step you may be satisfied and you may find short bouts of happiness, but it will be empty. Understand your values, and live them. The pursuit of happiness is living your values. Once you do that, then you will be truly happy.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Pursuit of Happiness
The theory of positive psychology has two foundational parts. The first is that people really do desire to have deep and meaningful happiness based on positive goals, events and actions. The second is focusing your mind, body and action on positive character strengths. I talked a little about this yesterday with the “tell yourself how good you really are” and will touch more on this later this week.
Today I want to talk about the Pursuit of Happiness. I will not spell it Happyness as the movie with Will Smith did, but the message in that movie is a nice connection to this post. The Pursuit of Happiness; what does that mean? We all have the right to pursue happiness, but how many of us actually achieve this in our lives? A more interesting question is how many of us actually set a goal for ourselves of being happy?
If you remember in the fact based movie “The Pursuit of Happyness” Chris Gardner was a single Dad with no job, no income, and no hope. One day he was offered a non-paying position at a brokerage firm. He worked hard every day and did the best he could to not only care for his son, but to show him how to persevere in even the hardest of times. This movie is one of my all time favorites because this guy never gives up and always goes back to his values and beliefs. His pursuit of happiness comes not from a dream of being happy, but by every day, even when the day was the worst ever, telling himself that he could do it and he would make it and he was good at what he did.
The pursuit or goal of happiness is not some pie in the sky feeling; rather it is an action of taking what you have, what you believe, and what you dream of being and putting measurable steps behind the goal. It is telling yourself every morning and evening that no matter what, you are going to keep to your goal of being happy. It is grounding your future in your values. It is finding the strengths you have and growing them. Remember, it is a pursuit not a given. Remind yourself what pursuit means. It is to obtain, practice, be driven to and achieve your goal. It is real and it is obtainable.
Do you live with a pursuit of happiness? It is the first foundation of positive psychology. It is one of the first steps in goal setting. It can be the first action that solidifies your value. The Pursuit of Happiness, do you have it and how are you doing to achieve it?
Today I want to talk about the Pursuit of Happiness. I will not spell it Happyness as the movie with Will Smith did, but the message in that movie is a nice connection to this post. The Pursuit of Happiness; what does that mean? We all have the right to pursue happiness, but how many of us actually achieve this in our lives? A more interesting question is how many of us actually set a goal for ourselves of being happy?
If you remember in the fact based movie “The Pursuit of Happyness” Chris Gardner was a single Dad with no job, no income, and no hope. One day he was offered a non-paying position at a brokerage firm. He worked hard every day and did the best he could to not only care for his son, but to show him how to persevere in even the hardest of times. This movie is one of my all time favorites because this guy never gives up and always goes back to his values and beliefs. His pursuit of happiness comes not from a dream of being happy, but by every day, even when the day was the worst ever, telling himself that he could do it and he would make it and he was good at what he did.
The pursuit or goal of happiness is not some pie in the sky feeling; rather it is an action of taking what you have, what you believe, and what you dream of being and putting measurable steps behind the goal. It is telling yourself every morning and evening that no matter what, you are going to keep to your goal of being happy. It is grounding your future in your values. It is finding the strengths you have and growing them. Remember, it is a pursuit not a given. Remind yourself what pursuit means. It is to obtain, practice, be driven to and achieve your goal. It is real and it is obtainable.
Do you live with a pursuit of happiness? It is the first foundation of positive psychology. It is one of the first steps in goal setting. It can be the first action that solidifies your value. The Pursuit of Happiness, do you have it and how are you doing to achieve it?
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Tell yourself - I am a wonderful person
Growing your strengths may be a new concept for many. Once you hear about it though it seems to make sense. It is a new and growing realm in the world of coaching called Positive Psychology. If you are into life or personal coaching you will enjoy my next book. It is called Positive Psychology Coaching: Putting the Science of Happiness to Work for Your Clients, by Robert Biswas-Diener and Ben Dean (2007).
It is more of a research and practical book on coaching and consulting through positive psychology, but for those out there that want to learn more about strategies to create happiness as well as coaching personal and social strengths, this is a book for you. If you do not want to buy the book let me give you some highlights to think about.
The main idea behind positive psychology is that it can answer the question of what is going right in a person’s life, rather than looking at only what is going wrong in someone’s life. Why look at the right vs. the wrong? Well think about it. If you always concentrate on what is wrong in your world, what happens? You get depressed, tired, frustrated, moody…all of those negative feelings come into play. In short, concentrating on what is going wrong eats away at your personal self-esteem!
So what happens if you change the question from what is going wrong to what is going right? What kind of mood and attitude do you bring to the table when you concentrate on what is going right? You have a good job, you have positive relationships with your partner and friends, you live each day to the fullest, you look for continuous learning, you like where you live, you work out, and you are good at ‘x’. Now what happens to your attitude? Even reading the last two paragraphs how did you feel by reading them? I know for me reading all the negative thoughts I get anxious and down, but this paragraph I feel energized and ready. I get a ‘bring it on’ attitude rather than a ‘now what’ attitude.
Positive psychology is just that easy. Concentrate on the positive strengths and the not so positive stuff gets left by the side where it belongs! I will talk more about this as this week goes by and about this book, but let’s take our time with this one. So, what are your positive statements, your positive strengths? List them out, not in your head rather write them down! Yes, write them down! Then read them out loud to yourself today. Yep, 3 or 4 times today, read your strengths out loud to yourself! How does it make you feel when you concentrate on your strengths? Do you sit up a bit; do you smile; do you feel confident to face anything that comes your way? I want to know what happens. Three times today tell yourself out loud your strengths!
It is more of a research and practical book on coaching and consulting through positive psychology, but for those out there that want to learn more about strategies to create happiness as well as coaching personal and social strengths, this is a book for you. If you do not want to buy the book let me give you some highlights to think about.
The main idea behind positive psychology is that it can answer the question of what is going right in a person’s life, rather than looking at only what is going wrong in someone’s life. Why look at the right vs. the wrong? Well think about it. If you always concentrate on what is wrong in your world, what happens? You get depressed, tired, frustrated, moody…all of those negative feelings come into play. In short, concentrating on what is going wrong eats away at your personal self-esteem!
So what happens if you change the question from what is going wrong to what is going right? What kind of mood and attitude do you bring to the table when you concentrate on what is going right? You have a good job, you have positive relationships with your partner and friends, you live each day to the fullest, you look for continuous learning, you like where you live, you work out, and you are good at ‘x’. Now what happens to your attitude? Even reading the last two paragraphs how did you feel by reading them? I know for me reading all the negative thoughts I get anxious and down, but this paragraph I feel energized and ready. I get a ‘bring it on’ attitude rather than a ‘now what’ attitude.
Positive psychology is just that easy. Concentrate on the positive strengths and the not so positive stuff gets left by the side where it belongs! I will talk more about this as this week goes by and about this book, but let’s take our time with this one. So, what are your positive statements, your positive strengths? List them out, not in your head rather write them down! Yes, write them down! Then read them out loud to yourself today. Yep, 3 or 4 times today, read your strengths out loud to yourself! How does it make you feel when you concentrate on your strengths? Do you sit up a bit; do you smile; do you feel confident to face anything that comes your way? I want to know what happens. Three times today tell yourself out loud your strengths!
Monday, January 11, 2010
Growing your Strengths
One of the books I have on my shelf that is an amazingly easy read, yet very informative personally is called Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath. I have set up Amazon.com links to the right for those of you interested in ordering these books so you don’t need to go far to get a copy of this one. One word of caution is buy new on this one as there is an online assessment that you have to take and if the ‘used’ copy code is already used, you will have spent money that will get you nothing.
So what is this book, Strengths Finder 2.0, about? One of my values is achievement, mainly helping others achieve all they can be. In order to do this you have to start by understanding what you are good at and what you are not so good at. This book gives you one set of criteria in which to begin your personal exploration.
Why start with strengths? There use to be a lot of emphasis placed on ‘fixing your improvement areas’ even if those areas were the hardest and nastiest ones imaginable to you. These areas are probably the ones you hated in high school, still hated in college, and now dread them as a grown up. Some typical areas are finance, budgeting, management, people supervising, office work, and project management.
How hard has it been to ‘fix’ these in you? It is like hating to play basketball in high school but thinking now that if you were only better at shooting a basketball you would enjoy it more! It has nothing to do with shooting a basketball but more to do with playing that game. If you don’t have a passion for it or consider it part of your values, why put energy into it!
So if you don’t have to ‘fix’ what is nasty to you, where do you or should you put your energies? The answer is in your strengths. They are things you are good at, know you can do, have a passion for, and most of the time will fall in line with your values. Let me share with you my strengths and how this all works.
First my values are giving, achieving, and believing. My passions are to improve my quality of life, assist others at achieving more, assisting others at growing their strengths, finding innovative and new ways of solving problems and leading people and projects.
Here is my summary of what the assessment said about me: Chances are good that you distinguish the fine points of each person’s contribution to a conversation. You guide exchange of information and draw out perspectives of everyone involved. You help individuals bring forth their viewpoints. You honor the uniqueness of each human being, and can have a dialogue with nearly anyone you meet. Driven by your talents, you sense people appreciate the advise you give. You believe that you can help people deal with problems by helping them identify their personal strengths, limitations, ideas, goals and experiences. You are someone people can trust and are a desired friend. You make a good partner at home, work, school and community because you thrive to make the world around you better. You tend to do more than is expected of you because you worry about wasting time. You consistently ask and volunteer for projects and duties as you are a high achiever.
For those who know me, I hope you agree that this description fits me pretty well. How did this summary come together? Through my strengths!
When I completed my Strength Finder 2.0 the strengths/themes that were recorded from my personal assessment were: Individualization, restorative, positivity, arranger, and ideation.
1.Individualization – Your ability to see people as unique individuals is a special talent. Your talents would serve well in counseling, supervising, teaching, writing human interest articles, or selling.
2.Restorative – You have a good ability at figuring out what is wrong and resolving it. You would enjoy customer service areas, medicine, consulting or management.
3.Positivity – You will excel in any role in which you are paid to highlight the positive. You tend to be more enthusiastic and energetic than most people and you prefer to focus on the good things, while never naïve about the negative.
4.Arranger – You are good at helping others learn about their goals and strengths and then setting them up for success. You intuitively sense how very different people can work together. You track deadlines of multiple tasks and have a way of getting many projects and tasks completed in short timelines.
5.Ideation – You are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena and are fascinated by ideas. You excel at creating innovative ideas and experiences from raw materials and events. You have a mindset of visionaries and dreamers and enjoy spending time putting together things, projects, tasks, or events.
So, these are my strengths. I will ask you the question “how am I doing”? What do you see in the strengths above that I do or have done? Here are some thoughts from my view. Planning a cruise, financial budget plans, reorganizing work and employees.
I use my strengths and increase my overall personal and professional value by improving my strengths. Now that is something to celebrate.
Take the assessment and see what it says about you. The book takes 30 minutes to read, the assessment 30 minutes to take, but what you learn can fill a lifetime!
So what is this book, Strengths Finder 2.0, about? One of my values is achievement, mainly helping others achieve all they can be. In order to do this you have to start by understanding what you are good at and what you are not so good at. This book gives you one set of criteria in which to begin your personal exploration.
Why start with strengths? There use to be a lot of emphasis placed on ‘fixing your improvement areas’ even if those areas were the hardest and nastiest ones imaginable to you. These areas are probably the ones you hated in high school, still hated in college, and now dread them as a grown up. Some typical areas are finance, budgeting, management, people supervising, office work, and project management.
How hard has it been to ‘fix’ these in you? It is like hating to play basketball in high school but thinking now that if you were only better at shooting a basketball you would enjoy it more! It has nothing to do with shooting a basketball but more to do with playing that game. If you don’t have a passion for it or consider it part of your values, why put energy into it!
So if you don’t have to ‘fix’ what is nasty to you, where do you or should you put your energies? The answer is in your strengths. They are things you are good at, know you can do, have a passion for, and most of the time will fall in line with your values. Let me share with you my strengths and how this all works.
First my values are giving, achieving, and believing. My passions are to improve my quality of life, assist others at achieving more, assisting others at growing their strengths, finding innovative and new ways of solving problems and leading people and projects.
Here is my summary of what the assessment said about me: Chances are good that you distinguish the fine points of each person’s contribution to a conversation. You guide exchange of information and draw out perspectives of everyone involved. You help individuals bring forth their viewpoints. You honor the uniqueness of each human being, and can have a dialogue with nearly anyone you meet. Driven by your talents, you sense people appreciate the advise you give. You believe that you can help people deal with problems by helping them identify their personal strengths, limitations, ideas, goals and experiences. You are someone people can trust and are a desired friend. You make a good partner at home, work, school and community because you thrive to make the world around you better. You tend to do more than is expected of you because you worry about wasting time. You consistently ask and volunteer for projects and duties as you are a high achiever.
For those who know me, I hope you agree that this description fits me pretty well. How did this summary come together? Through my strengths!
When I completed my Strength Finder 2.0 the strengths/themes that were recorded from my personal assessment were: Individualization, restorative, positivity, arranger, and ideation.
1.Individualization – Your ability to see people as unique individuals is a special talent. Your talents would serve well in counseling, supervising, teaching, writing human interest articles, or selling.
2.Restorative – You have a good ability at figuring out what is wrong and resolving it. You would enjoy customer service areas, medicine, consulting or management.
3.Positivity – You will excel in any role in which you are paid to highlight the positive. You tend to be more enthusiastic and energetic than most people and you prefer to focus on the good things, while never naïve about the negative.
4.Arranger – You are good at helping others learn about their goals and strengths and then setting them up for success. You intuitively sense how very different people can work together. You track deadlines of multiple tasks and have a way of getting many projects and tasks completed in short timelines.
5.Ideation – You are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena and are fascinated by ideas. You excel at creating innovative ideas and experiences from raw materials and events. You have a mindset of visionaries and dreamers and enjoy spending time putting together things, projects, tasks, or events.
So, these are my strengths. I will ask you the question “how am I doing”? What do you see in the strengths above that I do or have done? Here are some thoughts from my view. Planning a cruise, financial budget plans, reorganizing work and employees.
I use my strengths and increase my overall personal and professional value by improving my strengths. Now that is something to celebrate.
Take the assessment and see what it says about you. The book takes 30 minutes to read, the assessment 30 minutes to take, but what you learn can fill a lifetime!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Survival of the Fittest Mind!
What a glorious morning. It’s 6:30 in the morning, stars are still out, a good night sleep, the dog is eating, cats are fed, and I am having my coffee, what a glorious morning. This blog has created a lot of energy for me, especially Sunday mornings. Not sure why, but the past two Sundays I have woken up with a writing idea, that is glorious.
As I was falling asleep last night I had the TV on watching Man vs Wild. This is one of my favorite shows where this guy named “Baer” gets dropped in the middle of unforgiving areas and tried to survive and get out alive. He does have help if needed, but it really is quite interesting watching these types of shows as it excites me to think that in survival situations ordinary people can and do extraordinary things. Now yes I understand this guy is a professional and not real ordinary for the situation, but he does it. Over and over again he challenges his body, mind, faith and soul to do unbelievable things.
After I turned the TV off I started wondering what if I was ‘dropped’ into a survival situation. Not so much death defying, but something way outside each of my comfort zones. Do I have the mental, physical, emotional fitness to survive? How about you? Do you have the fitness to survive? It got me thinking that survival of the fittest isn’t about physical as even Baer will say “it is your mind that will make you crazy not your body”.
It is now January 10th and my New Year’s Resolution of losing weight is going okay. I have been to the gym 6 times, worked out with a trainer 3 times and have been watching what I eat. Physically I am doing okay and think I can survive, but what about mentally and emotionally? What challenges have I given myself to become more mentally and emotionally stable? What challenges have I given myself that would allow me to survive any situation?
Maybe this blog is one way to challenge my mental capacity, but it really isn’t outside of my comfort zone. My thoughts on paper are not outside of anything. Maybe the spelling is a challenge as that has always been an issue for me, but Word takes care of most of that, so what am I doing to challenge my mind or my emotions?
These were my thoughts last night and after finally falling asleep I woke up with my challenge. As I sit here writing I see 50 or so self help and coaching books that I used for writing my dissertation. None of which I have opened in the two years since I completed that. None which I have even referenced in my daily life or in planning my life, but all that have important and meaningful messages.
My purposeful challenge is to get back into an uncomfortable state of learning by revisiting the books on the bookshelf. They should not be there to collect dust, rather clear a mind. A challenge to go outside of my box and read, study, learn more about mind and emotional survival. Let’s see where this takes me.
Do you have a mental and/or emotional challenge?
As I was falling asleep last night I had the TV on watching Man vs Wild. This is one of my favorite shows where this guy named “Baer” gets dropped in the middle of unforgiving areas and tried to survive and get out alive. He does have help if needed, but it really is quite interesting watching these types of shows as it excites me to think that in survival situations ordinary people can and do extraordinary things. Now yes I understand this guy is a professional and not real ordinary for the situation, but he does it. Over and over again he challenges his body, mind, faith and soul to do unbelievable things.
After I turned the TV off I started wondering what if I was ‘dropped’ into a survival situation. Not so much death defying, but something way outside each of my comfort zones. Do I have the mental, physical, emotional fitness to survive? How about you? Do you have the fitness to survive? It got me thinking that survival of the fittest isn’t about physical as even Baer will say “it is your mind that will make you crazy not your body”.
It is now January 10th and my New Year’s Resolution of losing weight is going okay. I have been to the gym 6 times, worked out with a trainer 3 times and have been watching what I eat. Physically I am doing okay and think I can survive, but what about mentally and emotionally? What challenges have I given myself to become more mentally and emotionally stable? What challenges have I given myself that would allow me to survive any situation?
Maybe this blog is one way to challenge my mental capacity, but it really isn’t outside of my comfort zone. My thoughts on paper are not outside of anything. Maybe the spelling is a challenge as that has always been an issue for me, but Word takes care of most of that, so what am I doing to challenge my mind or my emotions?
These were my thoughts last night and after finally falling asleep I woke up with my challenge. As I sit here writing I see 50 or so self help and coaching books that I used for writing my dissertation. None of which I have opened in the two years since I completed that. None which I have even referenced in my daily life or in planning my life, but all that have important and meaningful messages.
My purposeful challenge is to get back into an uncomfortable state of learning by revisiting the books on the bookshelf. They should not be there to collect dust, rather clear a mind. A challenge to go outside of my box and read, study, learn more about mind and emotional survival. Let’s see where this takes me.
Do you have a mental and/or emotional challenge?
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Hooters in my Backyard!
No, not ‘that’ kind of hooters, real ones! I let the dog out last night and as I stepped outside to see how the temperature of -14 felt the first thing I notices is how quiet -14 degrees is! No one on the road at 10:30 at night when it is this cold, no kids playing basketball in the street or riding bikes across lawns screaming, no dogs outside just barking, nothing but quiet. In the quiet of -14 all I heard was “whoo whoo who whoooooo”. I wasn’t sure I heard it as I have never heard an owl in the neighborhood, but as I stayed still there it was again, “whoo, whoo who whoooo”.
I did my best owl imitation and did “whoo, whoo, who whooo” back and waited. Yes, I do owl calls as well as a darn good moose call as well (you can ask my brother). Again I heard the big bird sing. Whoa. 10:30 at night, -14 degrees, clear skies, stars shining bright, moon at half crescent and hooters.
It reminds me of something I am trying to do more of and that is listen, well more like shut up so I can hear others, but I like the positive way of saying it. Yes I am trying to “listen” more and talk less. Not even just talk, but be quiet, be still in body mind and voice. My head goes a million miles an hour and sometimes my body does the same, and I know I am never short on words.
This new habit is completely outside of my comfort zone. I love to talk, I love to think, I love to challenge, I don’t really enjoy quiet –it bores me. So that is one of my purposeful living adventures this year is to find enjoyment in quiet. Last night I was shown the value of quiet. I was shown that in the busiest of lives a moment of silence can create a memory. I have hooters in the backyard!
What memories does your silence bring?
I did my best owl imitation and did “whoo, whoo, who whooo” back and waited. Yes, I do owl calls as well as a darn good moose call as well (you can ask my brother). Again I heard the big bird sing. Whoa. 10:30 at night, -14 degrees, clear skies, stars shining bright, moon at half crescent and hooters.
It reminds me of something I am trying to do more of and that is listen, well more like shut up so I can hear others, but I like the positive way of saying it. Yes I am trying to “listen” more and talk less. Not even just talk, but be quiet, be still in body mind and voice. My head goes a million miles an hour and sometimes my body does the same, and I know I am never short on words.
This new habit is completely outside of my comfort zone. I love to talk, I love to think, I love to challenge, I don’t really enjoy quiet –it bores me. So that is one of my purposeful living adventures this year is to find enjoyment in quiet. Last night I was shown the value of quiet. I was shown that in the busiest of lives a moment of silence can create a memory. I have hooters in the backyard!
What memories does your silence bring?
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