Stage Two - Days 10 & 11 - The Hammer Falls

One thing you can pretty much count on (or at least I can pretty much count on, I won't speak for you) is that the first hints of Fall... the Halloween/Day of the Dead period... will most assuredly bring me the old post-nasal drip, leading to a full out hacking coughing cold accompanied by little energy and less ambition.

Welcome to late October!

The last two days have been that kind of experience.

The good news, however, is that I've actually been able to stay pretty solidly on the things I'm working on. Work's been a challenge, but it hasn't been abandoned. Life goals sort of fade off into thick haze where my head feels like it's a Macy's Thanksgiving Day balloon, but for the most part I am able to hold them lightly and intentionally and keep more or less on track.

Like the song says... I'm still here!

I attribute THAT fact to the groundwork I laid last month, the daily meditation I continue to work with, and a certain sense of openess and humor that has recently become an interesting side-effect of the whole process.

Onward... Through the fog!!!

Part Two - Days 6,7 & 8 Late To The Party... Just In Time

Another terrific weekend. Time from work. Time to help out. Time to reflect. Time to have fun.

Most people reading this probably think this scenario is pretty ridiculous. What's to be so pleased about in "taking time off?"

Nothing... except... THAT, in fact, would be the point.

For pretty much my entire adult life I almost never took any time off. At the same time, I didn't work a "normal job" like most people. I didn't clock in at 9 and out at 5. I didn't have scheduled weeks of paid vacation, I didn't have health insurance, etc. etc. etc. I was fortunate enough throughout my daughter's young life (and that of my "step-kids" as well) to be the parent who was at home, because I worked at home. The problem was, that while I had the opportunity to volunteer at my daughter's school, to pick her up and take her to friends, to play the music she danced to in the living room, and to make dinner almost every night, I was also the person who basically never stopped working. I almost never took time off. We rarely spent time "as a family." I got up early in the morning and went to bed late at night, sitting at the computer while all of life ran around me. I had one eye on the kids, one hand in the kitchen, and almost never ANY complete presence to the moment. I was spinning plates, and while I only lost a few to spills and crashes and flying saucers, I also missed out on much.

That is probably the greatest sadness of my life.

What began for me a little over a year ago, has, with these 40 day plans, come to full flower. I am finally, for the first time in my life, finding out what all the fuss is about. I am learning that getting away from the work, not only makes your life better, it makes the WORK better too.

Hence, the story of Day 8... a day of long hours and as yet unfinished business, ALL spent doing what I most want to do... WRITING.

Writing... and getting paid for it.

If there is one target goal in all of this (and there really are many, but if there WERE just one) it would be that one. To write for a living.

The dream is in fact slowly coming true. Resting and reflecting and not simply barreling full speed ahead is the process that is making it happen.

Why couldn't I have learned this 30 years ago?

Part Two - Day 5 - Stepping Into The River Twice

Coming to the end of the first week... a second time around... I thought that things would be mo' different than they are. I have had, just as I did 6 weeks ago, a difficult week of settling into my plans, finding my stride getting things into some kind of orderly and productive reality.

The last two days have both been pretty chaotic, while at the same time definitely being more productive than similar days used to be.

What I'm trying to say is that while SOME things are still pretty much as they were, the differences are significant. The base changes I made have helped me through my weaknesses and I feel like, while I am starting over again, I am not starting over from the same place. The classic saying about not being able to step into the same river twice is clearly at work here. Despite the fact that my days, my work, and my attitudes have changed very little... they have in fact changed much.

What has remained the same, I see ways of altering.

I'm pretty excited about this... I don't quite know where it's all going... but it's definitely going somewhere good.

Part Two - Day 2 - If I am not better...

So the day did not fit into my beautiful plan... BUT it fit pretty well into the the rest of my life.

Good work... good connections... good plans... and, at least potentially, good income.

It's been a day where I really do feel like I'm working off a new and stronger base. Many realities are still the same, but overall I am better able to handle the twists and turns (I jumped on TOP of the car hood this time).

I've got some new plans for tomorrow as well... But there is definitely momentum and I'm feeling good about it.

"If I am not better, at least I am different." - Jean Jacques Rousseau

40 Days 2.0 - Day 1

Okay... here we go again.

I spent much of the day (among many other things) pondering what structure to give to an ongoing process to move forward on the things from last month that I still want to work on.

Following the exact same schedule as the previous 6 weeks, and ending in 40 days has the advantage of arriving at day 39 on Thanksgiving Day, and Day 40 two days before the beginning of Advent. this works for me in my weirdly convoluted symbiosis of pagan, neo-pagan, christian, buddhist, and "american" ritualistic constructs.

So.... another 40 Days it is.

I've got some slightly different plans for this go 'round, as well as a sense that I am working from the base that I talked about in the previous post.

Like living inside a sine wave... my intention is to create a congruity that magnifies the resulting wave form rather than countering and diminishing it. That is to say, I want to make the wave, and its subsequent effect, bigger not smaller.

I've got more to say on that... but I think I'll save it for later.

Like we always used to say at the end of the roller coaster.... "Let's go again!!!"

Day 43 - What's Next?

I spent Saturday and Sunday resting, playing, spending time with my daughter and her hubby, seeing a great play, going to church and staring off at the waters of the bay. Mostly I have rested and thought. The last six weeks have given me much to reflect on and I am trying to find a better way of incorporating that necessary reflection into the daily schedule.

So... What was accomplished in the 40 Days?

• I have improved my meditation practice with at least once a day sitting… Striving for twice a day, but not there yet

• Have begun a more solid reading and journaling routine. Every day reading and reflection

• Have finally begun a true rest and recuperation routine for weekends, removing myself almost completely from the internet dance for two days a week

• Established, and have mostly kept up with a plan to regulate email intake/obsession to three times a day… It is my new goal to reduce this to twice daily

• By organizing my financial and business records I have increased my follow through and income

• To that end I succeeded in covering my rent and bills before they were due

• I have begun paying back some old debts

• I have begun a new running routine, though it did not reach the level I had targeted

• I have begun studying French

• I have improved my diet, though again, more needs to be done to reach my actual goal

• I have begun new medical followup, including having necessary blood tests, and finding a new doctor

• I have been more personally awake and aware and intentional about my daily business, personal, and interpersonal dealings


I did not:

• Complete any of the several writing projects I had targeted for completion

• Seek out a new agent

• Reach my target weekly income

• Complete incorporation, budget and investment materials for new business development

• Start saving or giving to the extent I had targeted

• Start playing guitar again

• Apply for my passport

• Get new health insurance

• Surf


--

From both my own sense of what the last six weeks have felt like, and from looking at the list of tasks I pulled off, started, and didn’t even get to, it seems like this last 40 days has been a sort of ground laying process.

As with building a house… The basics have now been laid out. Most of the architecture has been completed, the framing is mostly there and the foundation has been poured (though I’m not sure that it’s quite dry).

There is, however, no there there.

What I feel is necessary now is to return to the tasks I did not accomplish… study why and why not, evaluate the extent to which they are still valuable and whether there are things I want to either remove or add.

THEN… I want to start again.

What I have not fully decided is when to start again and how to alter the plan. At this point the process feels like the first steps of a small child. It is only by continuing those steps that I feel I will gain the real momentum that I have been seeking over the last six weeks. I must build upon what I just finished. I do not want to start all over again...I want to continue.

It isn’t time to stop… It’s time to keep going.

In the words of one of my all-time favorite television characters - President Bartlett on The West Wing - "What's next?"

Day 40 - The Finish Line?

So... Here I am... Six weeks later.

For the last several days the biggest thing on my mind has been what do I do now?

I've even given a lot of thought to what to say right here and right now, but I'm feeling uncharacteristically speechless at the moment, so I think I'll just leave the words (and music) to Robert Earl Keen.

As for the rest... I'll have to get back to ya on that.

Days 38 & 39 - Wrestling at Peniel

One of my favorite stories in the Bible comes from the Genesis 32 where the story is told of Jacob wrestling with an Angel through the night and into the dawn.

In the story, the Angel tries a bit of trickery in order to get the upper hand; he wounds Jacob in the thigh. Jacob, however, struggles on, and when the Angel is frantic to go at the break of day, Jacob demands that the angel bless him. The angel asks Jacob his name and then transforms him with a new one... Israel, stating, "... for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed." Jacob names the place where this nocturnal wrestling match occurred Peniel for, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.”

It would seem that, both in "sacred" literature, as well as popular culture, Angels like to do battle with someone or some thing. It's in their nature. It's a metaphor for the struggle of existence... the move through each day... the search for something more. A search that is never really over and which most likely, as with Jacob, defines who we are.

That's been the nature of this whole past 6 weeks, but especially the last couple of days. By virtue of work and life, practical and impractical circumstances, the struggle to keep moving forward has indeed begun to feel like the sun rising over the horizon while I lie on the ground wrestling with some commanding, though mostly invisible, being. A being that I have a hold on, but which also has me; all the while, the outcome remains in doubt.

I don't know where to go from here. I'm pretty sure that it's not really even time to be asking that question, but that's the question that keeps coming up. As I slug through the last bits and pieces of my goals from six weeks ago, as I evaluate what I can still finish and what I will ultimately have to let go of or redefine, the thing that I feel most intensely is the need to remain clearly and intentionally here.. right now. In the battle.

Of course... with the battle... also comes the dancing.

Day 37 - The Final 10%

As of this morning, there are four days left.

10% of my six week program ahead... 90% behind me.

What have I accomplished?

What have I left undone?

These are the questions that have been running through my brain almost constantly for the last several days.

The fact is that I have FULLY accomplished only a few of the tasks I set out to complete. I have however made major progress on most of them and in most areas of my life. There are another few tasks which I have not even touched on as of today, but one of my goals for this week is to at least touch on even those. I want to have, at least in some way, addressed each one.

What I am looking at this morning is the question of where do I go from here?

In his book "Beyond The Summit", Todd Skinner comments on the challenges of the last 10%. "In the last ten percent of any endeavor, you are asked to do the most with the least resources left. As you approach the summit, you have less strength, fewer supplies, and more hostile conditions." He also makes some very encouraging observations. My favorite is, "... this is a much smaller mountain than the one you started with." He points out that having made it to this point you have learned a lot of new skills that make you a better climber, and while the task may be harder... it is indeed a smaller task.

Now that I think of it... the task really isn't "where do I go from here?" Right now, the task is FINISHING.

Where do I go from here???? Up!

Day 36 - Beginning Badly

I spent much of yesterday in a strange funk that seemed to have something to do with what I was (or was not) eating, as well as a shift that the pharmacist had recently made in my epilepsy meds. Every once in a while this happens; I can go on for days, even weeks, at a time with my brain feeling like everything's in sync, and then for a whole day (or two) I will be completely unable to focus, I won't be able to stay on any tasks, and my head sort of spins, first one way and then the other.

The most frustrating aspect of the whole thing is that I typically get next to nothing done on a day like that. It would be great if I could schedule such interruptions, for then I would move them to the weekend and simply take them in stride. When they occur on a Monday or in the middle of a deadline driven project... It starts to piss me off.

Some days when it hits me like that I feel as if I am one of the ordinary super heroes in "Heroes", while on other days I feel like The Elephant Man

Yesterday was something in between.

But then... as it did last night... the condition passes, I get my brain back, and I am able to move on.

Days 34 & 35 - Miracle of Miracles!

Another weekend passed with a lot of activity, pretty much all of it relaxing.

I'm sure that for a lot of people this seems like a really ridiculous element to be focusing on in this program, but with each passing week it becomes more and more clear to me that the idea of rest and recharge for body, mind and spirit, is one of the most central factors in achieving new goals; it may in fact be the MOST significant factor.

Comparatively, it's easy to set goals. It's harder to work productively toward those goals, but it may be hardest of all to rest on the journey. It is the difference between REST and QUITTING that is important here. It is a difference which I have had a hard time seeing for most of my life.

Until about a year ago, I had pretty much lost all sense of what it means to truly rest. I would work incessantly... in the early mornings, late into the evening, all weekend, and during even the little short "vacations" we might take away. I was extremely inconsistent with staying on point with tasks I wanted to complete, but that didn't keep me from staying busy.

BUSY-ness was more of what I was doing. Business took a back seat.

What I had begun to put into practice before I started this 40 day cycle, and which I have gradually developed into a habit over the last six weeks, is the idea of actually resting and rejuvenating whether that is through recreation, family time, cultural enrichment, spiritual pursuit, or taking a nap.

The work requires the rest.

Day 33 - Who Do You Think You Are... Anyway?

One more week to go.

This is when it begins to dawn on me that there are some things that I am not going to accomplish by the end of this 40 Days and some other things at which I have done very well.

The most significant thing about the whole process, at least as I look at it right now, is the key awareness that awareness is key.

Whatever it is that I have accomplished over the last month, it has been accomplished for one reason only, and that is because I have been paying attention. The most important think I take away from the time, is an intention to keep that focus, that awareness, foremost in my mind. [I was going to correct think to thing in the sentence above, but upon reflection I'm going to let that Freudian slip stand.]

My Merton reading for the day is entitled "Godlikeness Begins at Home" and contains Merton's personal reflection, made in 1958, that the secret to his ambition to "be a saint" is centered and grounded in his basic acceptance of who he is. "Finally, I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be who I already am." He expands on this, not in a way that suggests that there is nothing to be done - the kind of response one might expect from a new age, magical thinking, kind of non-discipline - but rather that the doing is really much simpler than we generally might imagine. He writes, "... I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself - and if I accept myself fully, in the right way, I will have already surpassed myself."

In a separate reading from the collection "Echoing Silence," Merton makes the comment that "... the artist might well be brusquely invited to go home and consider the question: Who do you think you are anyway?" and this to me is central to the whole concept. Each goal, each task, each step along the path of the last month, ultimately comes to this question, and the answer remains the classic Zen conundrum of who is asking whom and is there a self there to answer?

Or to put it more simply still... Perhaps you really are what you do.

Day 32 - Do... Do... Do... Dah... Dah... Dah...

Winding down toward the last week of this six week program I am inevitably having to face into the reality of what I have accomplished, what I haven't accomplished, what I want to keep working on, what I really don't care about.

To that end, I was working today on a series of "Do Lists."

In his book "Good to Great," Jim Collins discusses the idea that it's as important (maybe more so) to create a Stop Doing List as it is to create To Do Lists. The To Do Lists are easy, there's always more to do, but the real secret to getting things accomplished the way you want to is making decisions and making cuts.

To my mind there are a couple other Do Lists that are important to consider: in addition to the Do and Do Not lists, I have added two more, a DON'T Do List, comprised of items that I do (both constantly and intermittently) that I want to cease doing immediately (as opposed to the Stop Doing List which made up of things I want to phase out of my life on a more gradual basis), and a Bucket List, modeled after the recent film and consisting of things that I consider vital to accomplish sometime between now and when I die.

So that's what I did this morning... I went back to all the things I've been doing (both befpore and since the 40 days started) and compiled my current Do, Stop Doing, DON'T Do, and Bucket Lists.

Unfortunately, in the midst of all this I did, at both the beginning and the end of the day, one of the things on my DON'T DO list; I started and ended the day watching the news... BIG MISTAKE.

Day 31 - Anything Can Happen Day Part Deux

I'm beginning to think that "anything can happen day" just ain't gonna happen. Maybe it's the fact that Wednesday is just too active sitting there right in the center of the week. Maybe it's that I need better discipline on Monday and Tuesday in order to make way for Wednesday.

Whatever it is... I once again missed my "afternoon of creative exploration" because I was slogging away on a work project that I didn't even know was going to exist 24 hours earlier. In addition, this day's activity not only did not fit into the plan, it actually took away from other work that's been coming along. I did a pretty good job of managing the chaos; a far better job than I have done in weeks, months, and even years past. However, this is still NOT my beautiful life.

At the same time... I can't really complain though. IT was good work, I did a good job, and I handled the basic reality of the situation with grounded stability and an open head and heart.

I DID have a surprising and delightful morning. I even got some solid writing done before stubborn reality kicked things up a notch.

Any way you slice it, it was a good day... Not THE day I was hoping for... but definitely a good day.

Day 30 - Free Beer At The Finish!

As this last section of 40 days comes into focus, it's a lot like running a race. I can see the finish line from here, but there's still a good solid bit of work to do.. some of the hardest work of the whole race. At the 2/3 point of a marathon you are at 17.5 miles and you have 8.7 miles left. That actually means that you still have two and a half miles left before that ultimate 20 mile crux point when so many people "hit the wall."

The first time I ran the Big Sur Marathon I was wearing a relatively new pair of shoes that were not properly broken in, and which had a particularly annoying strap that rubbed against my instep. About a mile into the race I stopped by the side of the road and ripped that strap out of the shoe, but the damage had already been done. It had rubbed a huge blister across my instep and by the two-thirds point of that race my right shoe was making a distinct "squish squish" sound as blood poured into the shoe with each step.

A few miles later - at a definite post-WALL point, I was walking the road, calculating my pace and praying to the Goddess that I would just finish the damn race and not have to be picked up by the rescue van. I saw a man on the side of the road with his shoe off. As I looked forlornly at the poor guy, and he looked forlornly at me, I thought to myself, "if I stop like that, I won't start again." With that internally generated motivation, I kicked back into my stride and began running again.

Several miles later, as I was cruising down a small hill toward the final bridge crossing, a slightly crazed, rather shabby looking dude jumped out in front of me and shouted, "Just cross that bridge and you get free beer!" Well... the beer was Bud Light, but at that point, it was the perfect carrot. For one last time, I kicked up my pace, raised my head and smiled. I crossed the bridge, cruised through the orange plastic chutes of the finish line, got my finisher's medal, my picture.. and my BEER.

There is absolutely no question that those last 8.7 miles were the hardest of the entire 26.2... The were also the most terrific!

Day 29 - The Final Third

Today begins the last two weeks of this 40 day program.

The final third.

Some time ago, and for a day too long, I was with a partner who ground into my head that I was "two-thirds Thom." The implication and attack in the comment was the accusation that I rarely, if ever, completed anything. The observation was that I was really quite good at getting two-thirds of the way through something and then losing track of the goal.

Like so many statements of this type (and I've noticed lately that we hear a lot of them in political campaigns), it was close enough to the truth to be troublesome but far enough from the truth to be debilitating. The comment was regularly used as an attack and a put down and I sucked it up as a basic reality in my life and accepted it as a declaration of my inadequacy.

Let's just say... it was not facilitative.

As I hit this point today, I feel some of the hesitancy that such a behavioral script tends to load into one's brain and I sort of draw back from the goal ahead. Maybe she was right for all those years. Maybe I don't have what it takes to accomplish anything. Maybe... fundamentally... I'm just a loser, a screw up, a wastrel.

At the same time, I am so pleased with the amount of stuff I have accomplished over the last month (not to mention the last year) that I am really supercharged for this last two weeks... this final third.

Days 27 & 28 - A real weekend!

So on Saturday I actually made it up bright and early, got coffee and a shower, packed the beer into the cooler, grabbed "my buddy and my girl" and headed of for San Francisco and Warren Hellman's Emmylou Harris Festival.

The day started out rainy but was followed by fog breaking to clear blue sunny skies by afternoon. The music was fabulous, the company was superb. It was a serendipitous Perfect Moment; it was a reminder of why I am diving head first into this whole process.

Sunday was a little bit crazy, but still a solid, restful, creative day that included breakfast, a teenage soccer match, work on the computer (something I try not to do, but this was special... and important) for a friend who was putting together a presentation on New Orleans, dinner with friends (complete with killer rice and Andouille sausage) and baseball on the couch in the living room with Karen and her mom.

There were several times during the day when I wanted to break down, where I was insistent that I MUST break down, and "work," but when it all came out in the wash, a cooler, wiser, more grounded spirit prevailed and I let myself rest... Ready for the week ahead.

Day 26 - Leaving room for life to sneak in...

I have yet to work out my schedule in such a way that I can really nail it down like the deep Virgo side of my psyche really desires. Intending to facilitate that, I have also tried to schedule in down time during the middle of the week. That time is SUPPOSED to be on Wednesday, but in the last four weeks I have not once taken that time on Wednesday. An alternative approach I have been testing involves allowing myself the half day (or perhaps even more) off during the week to remain flexible... movable... so that if I want to take in a museum exhibit, or a film, or I need to just take care of life's exigencies, I can do so without completely derailing my plans. This seems to work better... more or less.

Yesterday I spent the morning helping take care of family stuff for my sweetie. I then had plans to take in the opening set at The Hardly Strictly Blue Grass Fest in San Francisco, but that sort of fell through. Instead I returned to do some work, run some errands and spend the evening eating pizza and watching baseball. Rather mundane... but exactly perfect.

It's clear that making progress in all the other areas of life requires leaving some space for the mundane, the ordinary, and the serendipitous. It's the same lesson we all heard from Lennon back when he was raising his kid and baking bread, just shortly before he was killed...

Life is what happens while your busy making other plans.

Day 25 - Less News is Still Good News

I ended my two day "news fast" by watching the V.P. debate which served, more than anything else, to show me how much of a waste watching and fretting over every glimmer of "news" coverage can be.

Juxtaposed against the daily readings that I have been doing in Merton, readings in which he regularly laments the absurd overabundance of pointless and misleading verbiage spewed into the collective mind (and this written 40 years or more ago!!!) I am finding that one of the best ways to move further in what I REALLY want to accomplish in life, may be to spend more time ignoring the crap that is perpetually flying through the airwaves. Now... I have to admit, some of it I find extremely entertaining, but very little of it do I find informative. Additionally, for the first time in my life, I am coming to a place where I have some real questions about how valuable even the "informative" stuff really is.

It's probably subject to the 80/20 rule, in which 20% of what I pay attention to provides 80% of the value... but I'm even finding that a bit hard to believe.

Day 24 - A Day Without Wah Wah

Yesterday, in the midst of the psychotic meltdown, or at least the pretension of a meltdown, in the U.S. economy I decided that the best process for me was ignore the news. Actually, it went deeper than that; yesterday I chose to AVOID the news.

I went so far as to avert my eyes while deleting emails from my standard news sources, The New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and well-intentioned and/or sarcastic friends. While checking the mail I tried to avoid viewing subject lines in exchange for paying attention to where the email came from. Mostly, I succeeded, though even with a conscious effort to avoid all the input, I still caught bits and pieces of news from the headlines on newspapers on the street, or the ubiquitous television montiors in public places, and I ended the evening deep in a discussion of the economic bailout.

I noticed two things in this... Firstly, my day was not impoverished by not being instantly and perpetually aware of every little detail being played out by the power brokers in Washington and New York and expounded upon by the media priests and acolytes in New York and Atlanta. If anything, my day was expanded to take in more of the world around me, the thoughts in my mind, the work at hand.

Secondly, instead of eagerly running to find out what I missed, I now find myself digging deeper, looking for more softness, more silence, more peace. I am more keenly aware than usual that the random verbiage and the grand declarations, by all sides of the political conversation, serve mostly to keep the rest of us bound and gagged and impotent. While I am normally and enthusiastically a sucker for political alertness and playful disputation, I am this morning more interested in learning how to use my words, my time, and my life for something of real significance.

At least for right now... I don't need no Wah-Wah.

Day 23 - Zydeco Tuesday

Yesterday was a day of more chaos and disorganization than any day since I began this program. I didn't run, I didn't meditate, I didn't even eat. I wrote, but not in the same way, or on the same things, that I try to work (at least a little bit) with every day.

It was a flat out crazy-quilt day.

At the same time... my energy was definitely up and I got a lot of things done. It was probably one of my most productive days in the last three weeks. This is pretty much counterintuitive to the whole idea behind what I'm trying to do, but I guess that's another one of those lessons that I probably need to learn.

The fact is, you can plan your ass off, but no matter how well prepared you are, no matter how rigidly you try to fix the system to work in what you perceive to be your favor, SOMETHING is going to throw a wrench into the system at some point along the way.

When that happens you can fight it (my normal tendency) or you can dance with it. You can struggle to keep things moving in march time, or you can kick up your heels and dance with the music the band is playing.

Sometimes (most times?) dancing is the best choice.