Tag: paul coelho

It’s All Routine

The Seed Sower – Jeremy Sams Art

“Sow a thought, and you reap an act;
Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.”
― Samuel Smiles (1812-1904)

Four days before the Spring semester was to start – the university announced, to be safe, that we would do classes completely remote for the first two weeks. Well, that sent me into a scramble, launching a new plan. What it also did was delay the normal routine of life that keeps me sane and safe, something I take for granted but that’s essential for living a life that’s moving in the right direction. That’s what I want to do, keep moving toward future chapters.

“It’s amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterday.” ― John Guare

As I think about it, routines in my life do three things:

They keep me moving in the right direction. This past year has been a mess for me. A series of starts and stops. It’s not just the dramatic changes in my work and social routines – but my basic life rhythms are off balance as I adjust to living alone. They don’t give names to tidal waves do they?

UPHILL BATTLE | LOVE YOUR SPOUSE


I need to be thinking about where I want to go and the steps necessary to get there and so order my days in that direction. I teach college students to think about their learning like a 9-5 job (that metaphor is quickly going out the door!). Work on class assignments, reading, projects, etc. each and every day. Take specific steps as you plan your day that are carrying you toward your goal. Let’s see if anyone is listening.

While I’m sitting at home, on the couch – not going to my office, interacting with students one-on-one via messages, I try to keep a daily routine running. I write a list of tasks that need to be accomplished each day/week. Big and little, each must be done. There are also routines related to larger ongoing projects that I nibble on most days, like building an online course, painting a picture or writing those books.

These routines hold my focus on what’s important. It’s been too easy to lose whole days (even a week here and there) during solitary confinement. I always thought getting old would take longer (I stole that line). Time really is moving faster. I don’t want to lose days that had something essential in them that needed to be done.

It’s easy to wander off the trail and get confused about what I’m supposed to be doing. This prolonged time of separation and isolation can make anyone wonder about larger purposes. It seems as if there’s so much more time to fill. When I’m asking myself big questions related to mission and purpose, keeping the daily routine helps me to trudge on. You wouldn’t believe how much out loud talking to myself I’m doing!

“Whenever you want to achieve something, keep your eyes open, concentrate and make sure you know exactly what it is you want. No one can hit their target with their eyes closed.” ― Paulo Coelho

Doing work, reaching out to students, devotional/reflection, contacting friends and family, putting ideas on paper – all of these practices have been important and are still. It doesn’t matter how I feel or what the plans are for next week. Shaping each day around these sign posts help to show me what’s important. One day after another.

Routines can replace inspiration. I’m too often looking for burning bushes. Most of life is buttering the toast and putting the washing into the dryer. God’s presence in my daily life is very evident, but that doesn’t mean I don’t often feel trapped in the backwaters of sitting here.

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” ― Jack London

Let’s be honest, these days motivation and encouragement can be hard to find. Isolation is one cause, fewer social interactions can be another. Inspiration is something that’s often taken for granted. When it’s run dry, we notice, usually too late. I don’t always feel like it, but getting up at the same time, working on my list, getting online and running all the errands – most of the time the inner drive is very half-hearted, but routines keep the ship (me) afloat for another day.

When you put into action each day what you believe and know to be true – it becomes a lived out kind of inspiration. Waiting to be inspired is a death sentence. The trick is to keep walking in the spirit of what’s buried deep within you.

“God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.” ― J.M. Barrie

Brick Projects | DoItYourself.com

Turning Loose

“The beginning is always today.” ― Mary Shelley

Saturday arrives and I’m reminded of so much that’s missing from my life right now. I even made a list. Of course in moments like this I don’t think about all that’s been added by friends and family to my life. So many good things that ought to be put on my list. But that doesn’t fit the immediate narrative.

Bad news comes to all of us. Sometimes it’s relatively minor but still very hard, can you imagine being quarantined on a cruise ship? Life threatening diseases, auto accidents, or economic disasters can drastically change everything in a moment or take long years to devastate.

“But in real life things don’t go smoothly. At certain points in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news. It isn’t always the case, but from experience I’d say the gloomy reports far outnumber the others. The messenger touches his hand to his cap and looks apologetic, but that does nothing to improve the contents of the message. It isn’t the messenger’s fault. No good to blame him, no good to grab him by the collar and shake him. The messenger is just conscientiously doing the job his boss assigned him. And this boss? That would be none other than our old friend Reality.”  ― Haruki Murakami

I was in the grocery looking at items I would never buy again (tomatoes). On Saturday mornings I always used to cook tomatoes for my wife’s breakfast in bed.

“The past beats inside me like a second heart.” ― John Banville

While gazing at those crates full of Saturday morning memories, I thought about that man I had just passed in the parking lot. He was sitting out just past the parked cars. It looked to me as if he was wearing pajamas and a ski cap. I think he was waiting for someone to come and pick him up. He was sitting there patiently in his wheelchair.

With that “poor me” list in my head and pushing my cart through the produce section I realized that guy in the parking lot was a dramatic sign. He was a message for me about my here and now. I think there are signs like that all around us and we usually miss out because our spiritual eyes aren’t attentive enough.

You and I both know how the past can hold us back from moving on:

  • unforgiven friends and relations
  • people and places you missed
  • conflicts that never got resolved
  • wonderful memories that can be no more

Some of the most difficult obstacles in anyone’s life involve dealing with the past in healthy ways. Problems like these are part of the human condition.

“In magic – and in life – there is only the present moment, the now. You can’t measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. ‘Time’ doesn’t pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we’re always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn’t act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we’re going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don’t want and how to get what we have always dreamed of.” ― Paulo Coelho

Who wants to spend today, sitting in the crippling past, waiting for who knows what future to come? Instead, get up each day and make something new out of your life. That’s my challenge. Find something new in the produce section to buy! On this trip I bought some bok choy.

 

 

What Do You Do When You’re Alone?

“If you are never alone, you cannot know yourself.” ― Paulo Coelho

As I thought about it the other day, living alone for the first time in my life has created all kinds of new options and realizations:

  1. Extra time to think about lists of what you can now do while living alone!
  2. It’s okay to walk around without your pants on
  3. You don’t have to make dinner, you can actually eat meals whenever you want, or not at all
  4. Every mess in the house has only one culprit
  5. The TV is okay company, I leave it on, but usually have to watch a program several times to understand what’s going on – I’m not paying enough attention the first time
  6. You never run out of hot water – although I did, had to have the water heater replaced
  7. It’s okay to leave the door open when going to the bathroom
  8. When you’re alone you (with no pets) you do more out loud talking to yourself, at least I do – even in parking lots, at the store and while waiting in line. I have to be more careful though. You can imagine.
  9. There isn’t anyone else who’s going to pick that up
  10. I’m not always certain that what I’m wearing matches

“There is a wilderness we walk alone
However well-companioned”
― Stephen Vincent Benét

When the internet and cell phone were introduced into our society, the boundaries between work and home began to fall. We are busier because of technology. It has not liberated us as was promised.

Cell phone addiction strikes at a very young age and even begins to alter your brain. Many of the leading innovators in technology, people who invent Apps for example, won’t let their own children have cell phones!

As we get older, we will spend more of our time alone. But what will we do with this time alone?

I don’t think you’re ever going to make much progress if you don’t consistently spend time alone. But not just in seclusion. Alone and thoughtful about yourself, others and the situation. It’s going to take a long time. Your whole life. But in the noisy chaos that invades each moment, you’ll never find who you really are and what needs to happen until you (1) put down that phone, (2) walk out on the routines that trap you, and (3) unpack all the fear, frustration and dreams that are crammed into your soul.

Come close to God, and God will come close to you.  – James 4:8