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It’s January 2^nd and I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions this year. And, I feel pretty good about that decision.  In the past, I have made resolutions that I didn’t end up keeping.  Ultimately, I would feel worse about myself for not living up to the promises I had made.

This year, however, I decided to do two things instead that I think will lead me in the right direction for 2020 and not leave me feeling like I let myself down by not reaching a too lofty goal that I might have set. 

First, I intend to take one good habit that I started in 2019 and continue to work to improve it.  This past year, I started journaling one page every morning.  In 2020, my goal will be to continue this habit but increase my writing to two pages a day.  For me, this is a small but important step on my writing journey.  It is also achievable and worthwhile which will give me much greater odds for success.

Second, I have chosen a guiding word for 2020.  A single word that I can use as a simple reminder of what I intend for this year.  Some good guiding words would be Shine, Abundance, Confidence, Freedom, or Gratitude.

If you like the idea of a guiding word, I suggest that you find some time to sit down and reflect on 2019.  Find a place where you will be undisturbed and have time to think.  Then, ask yourself some questions such as, what challenged you the most last year?  What was neglected in 2019?  What was wonderful?  What were your top achievements?  In what areas do you need closure?  What habits are not serving you?

Once you have considered some of these questions, see if there is a common theme.  Is there one area that stands out to you that you would like to improve or leave behind?  Is there one word that sums up what you hope for in 2020?  Once you pick a word, spend some time deciding how you will incorporate that word into your life.  Create a vision around it.

My word this year is shine.  Some definitions for shine are “quality of brightness, especially from reflected light”; “to give out a bright light”; “to be talented or perform very well”.   I particularly love the idea of reflecting light into the world.  2020 is going to be a great year so keep excelling, keep pushing and shine on!

When I was in school I was a straight-A student, however, I didn’t share that information freely.  If you were a close friend of mine you probably already knew this about me. But if I told anyone who didn’t know it would typically elicit an exaggerated eye roll from them.

But that wasn’t the reason I didn’t tell anyone. I can handle some exaggerated facial expressions.  The real reason I never wanted to fess up to being an A student was that I never felt like I deserved to be an A student.  School came very easily to me.  I never had to work hard for those grades.  Okay, I can tell you are rolling your eyes now.

All kidding aside, I liked school.  I enjoyed learning and I never really needed to study that much to retain the information that was presented.  I suppose it was really a gift.   But the message I got from other people was that if you didn’t work hard for something you probably didn’t deserve it.  If it came that easily there must be something wrong with it.

I began to feel guilty for not working harder for my achievements.  I started to feel like an imposter and I placed little value on my status as an A student.  I felt that probably anyone could do exactly as I had done if they wanted to.  I assumed that I was just lucky.   Why else would it all come so easily?

But what if everyone has an “easy streak” in them?  Something that comes to them naturally.  Easily.  Should it be discounted because they didn’t work hard for it?  Some people have the ability to draw or write or sing or play a sport without any formal training whatsoever.  When something comes to us naturally it’s easy to convince ourselves that it isn’t special, that anyone can do it.  We overlook our own talents, perhaps abandon them altogether, in pursuit of something that takes “real work” to achieve.

But why can’t easy just be easy?  Why can’t we allow what comes naturally to be natural? What if we took that one thing, that incredible gift that we were given and enjoy the ease of it?  Lean into the ease of it and form it into something that we can appreciate and value about ourselves.

I say find your easy.  Find the thing that you love that comes to you with ease.  You may not know exactly what it is but if you spend a little time looking for it you will find it.  You will recognize it by the way it makes you feel.  By the way you lose track of time when you are immersed in it.  And maybe by the way you discount it and pass it off as nothing.  As something that “anyone” can do.  It may be hiding as something that seems frivolous.  As something you keep telling yourself that you will do “when you get the time”.

Once you find it, claim it.  And know that it was given to you for a reason.  Believe in yourself and lean in.  And if people want to roll their eyes, then let them.  

I love Thanksgiving.  It’s the official kick-off of the holiday season.  As I sit this morning and reflect on Thanksgivings gone by I am reminded of one particular year that my sister came to visit and the disaster that ensued that day.  Normally, I would be up bright and early to start preparations for the big day.  On this specific day, however, my husband offered to let me sleep in a little longer.  He said he would get up and start preparing the turkey and would let me know if he needed any help.  What could possibly go wrong?

A short time later I was shaken from my slumber by the sound of my husband bellowing at the top of his lungs.  Bleary-eyed, I jumped out of bed and jammed on my slippers.  I ran as quickly as I could down the stairs.  I envisioned the dogs stealing the raw turkey and running wild through the house with it.  That was the only logical explanation I could think of as my husband shouted my name in an utter panic!  Surely the dogs had stolen the bird and were now playing tug of war with it!

I made it to the bottom of the stairs and ran into the kitchen fully expecting to see my husband in an all-out battle for the bird.  That was not the case, however, as the turkey was sitting on the kitchen counter just as pretty as you please.  I was confused now and not sure why I had been summoned in such a state of panic.

As I stepped into the kitchen, however, my slippers were instantly soaked with water.  I froze and looked down.  What I saw was incomprehensible.  The entire kitchen floor appeared to be several inches deep in moving water.  I couldn’t make sense of the situation.  First, how had my kitchen been turned into a river and second how could such a flat surface hold so much water?

I know that I probably screamed something at this point which promptly brought my sister downstairs. Perhaps she joined in the screaming as well, I don’t quite recall.  I do remember that it was all hands on deck at that point as we tried to manage the catastrophe that was quickly unfolding before our eyes.

My husband ran over and turned off the overflowing sink that was causing the flood.  He then began chasing our large, water-loving Labrador retrievers who were having a fine time jumping up and down in the water.   Meanwhile, I grabbed a dustpan and tossed my sister a big plastic bowl.  My idea was to scoop the water out through glass sliding door in the kitchen onto the back deck.

I thought this was a great idea until I rolled open the door and realized that it was pouring down rain outside!  Immediately, gale-force winds whipped the curtains back and drove rain into our faces as my sister and I knelt on the floor in our pajamas trying desperately to scoop up water and toss it out the back door.  I felt like the Gorton’s fisherman besting a storm on a ship as it tossed on the waves.  If only I had a large yellow slicker instead of the soggy pajamas that were now plastered to my body.

My husband began gathering towels and anything else that would absorb liquid from every corner of the house and eventually we managed to mop up the remainder of the Chattahoochee River that had crested in my kitchen.   We managed to dry everything out, including ourselves, and were even able to cook a fine Thanksgiving meal. 

The insurance adjuster arrived a few days later.  As it turned out, I got a brand new kitchen out of the uproar!  New countertops, new backsplash, new sink and even new flooring!   What some may have called a disaster I simply called a remodel.  So remember, whatever happens, even if you run across a “disaster” today, just chalk it up as an excellent story for the future. 

I hope you all have a wonderfully-thankful-and-disaster-free Thanksgiving!

I have an old picture of myself from grade school that I have kept all of these years.  It’s a little blurry but in it, you can see that I am wearing an Indian costume.   My arms are crossed defiantly over my chest and my bangs are crooked but it is one of my all-time favorite photos.  It makes me smile every time I see it. 

It was taken several weeks before Thanksgiving in my third-grade classroom when we made costumes for the holiday.  Pilgrim costumes for the girls and Indian costumes for the boys.  It was a fun and creative idea for a group of kids unless you just happened to be the girl that wanted to be an Indian instead of a Pilgrim.

You see, the Indian costumes were cut out of a large roll of brown paper and could be decorated with all sorts of colored markers, Indian symbols and fringe cut along the bottom.  The pilgrim costumes were black and white and consisted of aprons and hats.  Obviously the Indian costumes were much more creative than the Pilgrim costumes and I couldn’t understand why each person wasn’t allowed to choose what they wanted to be.   I remember that it took a fair amount of coaxing to get my teacher to allow me to be an Indian but after some persistence, I finally got my way.

I have been telling that story ever since.  Not because it is a riveting story.  Not because it is even all that interesting either.  I tell it for one simple reason.  It reminds me that I don’t always have to go with the flow.  That sometimes it’s good to cause a disruption.

Sometimes we need to disrupt our standard way of thinking.  We need to be willing to do something we have never done before.  Say something we have never said before.   So that we can be the people we have always wanted to be.

We have to be willing to run, leap and soar even knowing there is the possibility that we might fall.

Sometimes we need to ask ourselves the questions that make us take a look at our life and then disrupt it if necessary.  That disruption might just cause you to become bold and audacious.   It might cause you to affect other people.  And if that happens, people will take notice of you and they will be inspired by you. 

Often times we look for others to inspire us but maybe we are here to be the inspiration.  Maybe the world is waiting on us to inspire them by the way we rise above our own circumstances and the way we show up every day.

Maybe you are the change that the world is waiting for.

I started this thing called NaNoWriMo at the first of this month.  If you are not familiar with it, don’t worry, you are not alone.  I just heard about it earlier this year.  The acronym stands for National Novel Writing Month.  It’s an annual writing event where you must write a 50,000 word novel—from scratch—in one month. To break it up, you have to write 1,667 words a day, every day, for thirty days straight. 

That’s a whole lot of words.

Now, you certainly don’t have to sit around and wait for November to arrive each year to start writing a novel.  You could sit down and write one anytime you wanted to.  But would you?   This platform is a way to commit yourself to the task of writing and receive encouragement from others doing the same thing.

I have been writing for eight days straight.  Fortunately, I have about two hours a day on the bus to complete this task so time is not an issue for me. So, what’s the problem you ask? 

The problem is, I don’t always “feel like” writing.  Especially 1,667 words a day.  Even if I have the time to do it.  And, by the way, I still have to write a post for this blog.

That’s even more words.

My point is this.  Many times, perhaps most times, we are not going to “feel like” doing the things that challenge us.  If we wait to “feel like it” it will probably never get done. 

Here’s the thing –  Actions don’t follow feelings.  Feelings follow actions. 

Have you ever gone to the gym when you didn’t feel like it? You just forced yourself to go anyway?  I bet you felt better after you went . I always do.

So, even though I don’t feel like writing, I write anyway.  And I feel better when I am done because I did what I set out to do. 

Now, if I could just figure out how to credit these 300 or so words to today’s NaNoWriMo word count that would really make me feel great!

I ran into someone the other day who asked me about the city that I live in.  They wanted to know what the people were like as they were considering moving there.  I asked them what the people were like in the town that they were currently living in.  They quickly answered that the people were rude and inconsiderate and not at all friendly.  I told them that they would likely find the same kind of unfriendly people living in my town as well.

Later, I ran into another person who asked me the same question about the people where I live.  They were also considering moving to my town.  I asked them what the people were like in the town they were moving from.  They said that they were wonderful, caring people and that they would miss them very much.  I told them that they would likely find the same kind of caring people living in my town as well.

So what happened?  Did the people in the town change?  Did they somehow go from being bad to being good?  No, the people themselves did not change, but the perception of the people did.

This was actually a story I heard on a podcast by Wayne Dyer but I thought it was worth repeating.  This story has stuck with me for quite some time because it was so surprising to me.   It is a story about how we choose to see things.  And, I think it’s true.  

Basically, I believe that we get what we look for in life.  If we are seeking the worst in people we will find it every time.  If we are looking for the good in people we will find that as well. If we are certain that a situation will turn out poorly, then it most certainly will.  

Everything is neutral until we place our attachment on it.

I work in downtown Atlanta.  As you might expect, I have seen and heard some fairly disturbing things there.  I could easily view the entire city negatively if I chose to.  The simple fact is, however, that would be incredibly depressing and I probably wouldn’t be able to continue working there for long if I did so.  Instead, I choose to place my focus on what is positive.  On the lady in our building who greets me with a smile every single day.  On the man who plays music on the corner with the biggest smile you have ever seen.

Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or think you cannot – you’re right.”  I have changed his quote to say, “Whether you think it’s good or think it’s bad – you’re right.”  Your thoughts alone will determine how you view a situation.

Even Albert Einstein said that the most important decision we have to make in our lives is this:  Do I live in a friendly or hostile universe?  Based on your answer you will create the world that you see.    

We had music class once a week in middle school.  I dreaded music class for several reasons.  First, I almost always had the wrong answer to any question that was asked and second, we had to sing out loud.   This terrified me beyond measure.   Furthermore, it was the only class I had with Jill.  Jill was the girl who, when called upon, would always sing out at the top of her voice.   She would stand up and belt out any tune that was requested of her. 

I remember being embarrassed for her in class.  Most of us refrained from drawing attention to ourselves.  Not Jill.  Most of us held back to see how others would act before we acted.  Not Jill.  She appeared to be oblivious to everyone and everything around her.  

Didn’t she realize that she was singing way too loud?  Didn’t she realize that she was supposed to follow the crowd and be like everyone else?  Her defiant refusal to conform irritated me.  What is it about someone who stands out in a crowd that causes us discomfort?  Someone who goes out on a limb, risks it all, dares to be different?

It wasn’t until much later in life that I realized I was actually envious of Jill.  It was not for her singing, however.  It was for her ability to do what she wanted to do.  What she loved to do.   What her heart lead her to do regardless of what others might think about her. 

In my life, I have found that it is much easier for me to pretend that I don’t care if someone else is achieving their dreams while I do nothing to achieve mine.  It is easier for me to stand on the sidelines and judge someone else rather than jump in and do the hard work that I need to do. 

Seeing the success of others can be a painful reminder of our own shortcomings.  But it doesn’t have to be.  We need to trade comparison for celebration.  Trade envy for admiration.  Envy says to us, “I’m not worthy.  I’m not enough.”  Envy leads us down a dark path if we let it.  Envy is fear-based.

Admiration offers us a way to see the light in others.  It helps us emulate the traits we admire in others.  It also helps us to see our own light and act on it.   Admiration is loved-based. 

If you find yourself feeling envious the best way to defeat it is to admit it.  Then, flip it over.  I believe that you will find that admiration is on the other side.

I peered over the edge of the cliff and immediately felt a wave of nausea sweep over me.  I closed my eyes and swallowed hard.  The low fence that had been installed by the parks department for my safety did little to quell my fear.  The crowd of people surrounding me at the canyon’s edge seemed to be unaffected by the daunting views.  Many of them leaned against the treacherous looking fence or worse yet climbed up on nearby rocks to get the perfect selfie.  

The Grand Canyon has been on my list of things to see for as long as I can remember.  Now that I was finally here and looking across the dizzying landscape, I began to wonder why I hadn’t settled for the colorful postcard at the visitor’s center instead.  

We had come here to do some hiking despite my fear of heights and there would be no turning back now.  We stepped onto the dusty, rocky path that would lead us approximately 1200 feet down the Bright Angel Trail.  In my Columbia hiking pants and boots and a North Face backpack, I certainly looked the part of the confident hiker.  I started to feel a little better about the whole endeavor.  I was beginning to get a feel for the canyon and had even looked off into the distance while sipping water from my backpack. I was pretty certain that REI would be contacting me soon to model for their ads.

My husband nudged me out of my daydream to start the descent.  I quickly found myself weaving in and out of people coming up and down the trail.  I found out that the traffic on the trail is much like road traffic so at times you must walk on the right side or the outside of the trail.  This is the side closest to the edge. When this happened I kept my eyes glued to the ground and avoided looking into the canyon.  My husband looked at me nervously and asked if I was ok but I just waved my hand to assure him that I was fine and up to the challenge.

Then I found out there was mule traffic as well.  Yes, I said mule traffic.  And the mules have the right of way.   If you happen upon them you will see why.  These huge, powerful animals leave little room for anything but themselves on the trail.  At one point we pressed ourselves to the side of a cliff to allow these massive animals to pass.  A line of at least a dozen mules loaded with gear quickly plodded past.  I was transported back to the old west as the cowboy riding the lead mule offered us a friendly “howdy” as he lead his team on the narrow trail.

After hiking a little over an hour it was time to make the slow ascent back to the top of the canyon.   It wasn’t long before my carefully considered Columbia outfit was sweaty and covered in dust.  My backpack felt like it had been packed with rocks and my lungs felt like they would collapse in the thin air.   Each step toward the top was grueling.  My legs screamed for me to stop.  It would take twice as long to go up as it had to come down.  I began to realize why it was called the Bright Angel Trail.  I figured I was going to see angels right before I died in the canyon.

Eventually, exhausted and dust-covered, we reached the top.  I decided it was time to make good use of the buses that circled the park.  We hopped on the orange line and headed back to the visitor’s center where I bought a pack of postcards and called it a day.