An Old Year's Resolution

The date is January 10, 2013.  I suppose I'll do a journal entry for the New Year:

Usually, I approach a New Year with excitement. Though, I haven't felt like this New Year was anything special. With working more than a full-time schedule, my spirits have been rapidly deduced into apathetic gestures.  I don't like it. This isn't me. The person who I long to be is six months past--running around the beach, listening to "chillwave" twenty-four-seven, riding the buses for fun, and taking each day as an adventure--as I should be!

When work sucks the soul out of you (and don't get me wrong, I love my jobs and am ever so grateful for them), but when they really take all of your best effort each day and leave you feeling dry, then what's left but to change your attitude!

I've been reading a lot of zen lately, though hardly practicing it. The conundrum is doing those things you set out to do--those things you love. Making time for what's important.

Now I am about to really get cheesy and sentimental. Here's my self-motivating guide for 2013. It's a journal entry, but the ideas are universal.

________________________________________________________________________________

I am my own personal motivator.
I am positive energy & good thought.
I know the totality of myself, only. 
I am reason.
         but I am also extreme emotion.
And I can just as easily bring myself down if I don't stop each day and take inventory of how special my life is.

So, my New Year's resolution is going in place today. Which is, I want to absorb as much out of life as possible. I don't want to dwell on negativity as I already do. Every day is a new day. And there are endless opportunities in this city. I believe I am taking advantage of them.

I want to start fresh. No more self-doubt. Stick up for yourself! You're a smart, creative, lovely young woman. Don't let one restless night of worry bring you down. Don't let others bring you down! You know when you're being mistreated. And in that momemnt you must stick up for yourself & not put up with other people's bullshit. Not ever! It's a waste of your energy to even care. You know in your heart what is right. Use that as a compass.

Because if you've learned anything since high school, it is that people can be terrible & they can be terribly wrong. You know when either occur, so do not tolerate injustice inflicted upon yourself or others.

Remember hearing about that old lady somewhere (this story always stuck with me): She said she used to worry all throughout her twenties, and then when she hit 60 she woke up and realized she was living in the best time of her life because she let go--let go of self-doubt and worry.

It's all zen. Just be in the moment. You can handle life, moment by moment. Nothing is ever truely wrong when it is all just 'being'. 

Passing all their lives in wasted toil, they do not see the sublime peak of realization of being as is. 
    *Pao-Chih

Be, in 2013.

(Photo by Andrea: Big Sur March 2012)

Riding Buses For A Hobby

As a Southern Californian advocate for public transportation I just had to live in San Francisco. Moving liberated me from my automotive chains. No longer do I worry about finding a parking spot, paying outrageous gasoline fees, or receiving a ticket. But the transition from LA freeways to life on the bus took some getting used to. Often I am away from home the entire day, so I learned how to be resourceful and organized before venturing out in the city. I always ask myself, “What’s the forecast? Where am I going and how do I get there? Do I have enough food to last me seven hours?” Not that I’ve become a nomad, but living in San Francisco has brought out my adventurous spirit.

Though Belle and Sebastian sing in The State That I am In, “Riding on city buses for a hobby is sad/Why don't you lead me to a living end,” taking the bus is more pleasant than most would believe. You have shelter; you don’t have the anxiety that driving brings; you can sleep, read, listen to music, meditate or daydream. Of course you’ve got to accept what comes with travelling by bus: a mix bag of personalities, being off schedule, breaking down, and having less personal space. But anyway you commute there is always some small sacrifice. I find myself riding the bus, for what feels like 60% of my waking time. Because of it I’ve become more productive with other aspects of my life. I base when I leave the house, how much I am going to carry, and where I’ll end up in the city all on riding the bus. No longer do I sit in traffic in Southern California or feel too lazy to commute. Here in San Francisco the bus has become an extension of my home—a place where I can sit and ponder as the world pans by.   

Build That Dark Wood Stained Craft Table

There’s always been this trend of looking nostalgically towards the past. After a few decades, we look back. Either we hate the fashions or we wear them with pride. These last couple of years has been heavily influenced by minimalism. We crave the simple life: farms, rooster calls, summer linen drying in the breeze, homemade jam, shared gatherings underneath the stars. Currently, blogs are ranting about how you must DIY your life—drink mint lemonade or Tennessee whiskey out of mason jars, sew some flowers on your shirt, and collect shells for a necklace. It’s been enough solicitation that I am starting to get sick of it. Why do we need to be constantly reminded of the simple pleasures in life that already exist? If they are so simple, then we shouldn’t need to make an endless effort to complete them. Why has slowing down become exceedingly hard for us to achieve?

Perhaps our forgetfulness is linked to technology. We’ve got everything we could want at our fingertips. We are lazy. Let’s watch another episode of Portlandia. Take-out sounds good tonight. We aren’t required to physically work for our food like our father’s father’s did in the past—hunting deer and slow cooking it over the fire. Dinner comes in a can now. The grocery store has everything we could ever want, year round. Unfortunately, that isn’t how nature works. We shouldn’t be allowed to buy a banana from Jamaica or Kiwi from Australia 365 days a year. Nonetheless we do it because we have outsmarted Mother Nature. Thus, our own skills have turned society around full circle. We are at the point where we can’t think for ourselves. (I always use a calculator because I avoid doing mathematical equations in my head at all costs.) We longingly gaze back at where we started from: simplicity in the 1800s never smelled sweeter (minus the diseases).  

We don’t, however, live in the age of Thoreau where we can chill at Walden Pond for unlimited months and write about dandelion seeds scattered in the wind. We’ve got work to do. But, in today’s tech world, with everything able and ready for us, we should have a lot more time to make that dark wood stained craft table seen in Kinfolk. So what’ the problem? We are over stuffing our schedules with additional work. We are neglecting our leisure agenda and not setting aside enough time to do things we enjoy. Also, the thought of making something ourselves is tiresome when everything else comes instantaneously. What we need is to reprioritize.

I guess all of those fancy blog posts about listening to the sound of the waves or making your own apartment herb garden have worthwhile intentions. Though it’s all I see 24/7 on the blogs that I read, it is necessary to keep repeating the mantra: Slow down. Enjoy your life. Slowing down takes time. That is the entire point. And in the twenty-first century, every day gets harder and harder to move into this backward mindset. Just the same as setting a morning alarm, we have to remind ourselves that we are living to live.

Words + photo by Andrea Dumovich