Finding your bliss - what makes you happy ? - finding your direction in life....

I'm still wondering what I'll be when I grow up.... and I'm not the youngest anymore...

For some reason recently I felt that simply being very efficient getting lots of stuff done no longer was enough... I started to feel like a machine.

So what if I get all the things on my list done ?

It's nice, but my body hurts and I feel like I've been doing just admin work sorting out stuff.

What's the point of being so efficient ?

Then just at that point I got an email from a Lady called 'Nok' who runs a Kinesiology website:

The bit I really liked was this:

quote by Joseph Campbell, a famous American writer and mythologist, from the book "Power of Myth": "The way to find out about happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you really are happy - not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This requires a little bit of self-analysis. What is it that makes you happy? Stay with it, no matter what people tell you. This is what I call 'following your bliss'.

Find your heart and your will find your way It's essential to balance personal time with work time in everyday life. This involves looking honestly at what's important in your life right now, and possibly rearranging your priorities to make time for pursuing personal growth. Here are some tips to help you connect with your heart. To deeply connect with your inner self, it's absolutely essential to spend 30 minutes to one hour each day in solitude. Some effective self-awareness techniques include meditation, prayer, chanting, yoga, qi gong, tai chi, breathing exercises etc. Make time to engage in activities you love or that which give you deep joy. These help you connecting with and expressing from your heart. People tell me, 'I used to love doing this or that activity but haven't done it for ages.' It's time to start doing those neglected pastimes again. For others who haven't found what brings them joy - it's time to explore different activities and discover what makes your heart sing. There are so many channels for creative expression i.e. dancing, singing, painting, drawing, writing, photography, cooking etc. Just keep an open mind and don't be afraid to try something new - in the process you'll likely discover your true passion. For me, the "free-form" dancing I did while living in Melbourne a couple of years ago turned out to be a very healing and liberating experience. The freedom to express myself creatively by moving to different styles of music was amazingly powerful. I love practicing regularly here in Bangkok with a small group of like-minded people. I wish you all the best in finding what makes your heart sing with joy and trust you'll find within yourself the great source of inspiration. Follow your bliss! Nok

Hmmm... talk about synchronicity.

I had not really believed this stuff about having to make time for myself, to relax. I thought it was all just stuff by lazy people. I kept pushing myself after work - working on my novel, on stories... and I thought time for relaxing and being quiet was just weakness and an excuse.

I got a lot done for sure, but I felt more and more out of sorts and wondered what the point of it all was ?

There is ALWAYS more I can do.

Then I realized: it is BALANCE I needed, balance of work and rest,

Balance of sleep and other things.

But why do I write such obvious stuff here ?

Because I always knew it - intellectually - but had to learn it deeply from my guts !

That's deeper learning.

I might KNOW it all, as head knowledge. But to really know it, it has to become PART of me, I have to live and breathe it and BE it.

I didn't believe that doing NOTHING was a necessary part of the total Balance. I often feel I HAVE to DO !
True I do have much to do.
But for the whole to be balanced: I need time to do nothing.
Take off the shackles and the discipline and have a rest.
There is a story that even the Creator rested one seventh of the time.
Who am I to argue :-P
Yet to be honest: I've not given myself that much rest.

And I know that at some time I'll forget, and then I'll have to re-learn it at an even deeper level... :-)

My question about direction it is not just about personal balance, it is no longer ONLY about me, and my art or my writing, or my dancing, or my reputation or my money, or my personal happiness, but about the world out there... what can I do that helps ? what most needs doing NOW ?
More time fixing myself or more perfect stuff for ME, I'm over it, spent too much time on it- sure it matters and sure my personal stuff needs to be in balance but - BUT for me NOW it is about: What needs doing out there in the world that I CAN do and which ALSO brings me bliss in the way Joseph Campbell talks about it ?
I'm going to play bliss detective and see what direction that takes me in.... ;-) .

Once upon a time I would have kept this writing totally private, a part of a diary of agonizing thoughts, - now in a slightly different way it is on the Web for the world to see.

---o(O)o---

Qu: When I think about it: what was the reason I kept on working too much too long too hard ?
A: "It's just me, I don't matter as much. That is true to a degree, and there is some merit in sacrifice, but only to a degree."
Qu: "To what degree ?"
A: "To the degree if you looked at yourself and treated yourself as you would treat another. Would you ask this of another person ?
Qu: "Who ?"
A: "Another person, and by "person" I mean not a friend and not an enemy, but simply another human being."
Qu: "I see."
A: "I don't know how to treat myself fairly, until I learnt to treat others fairly and well. Love others, then you know and learn how to love yourself."
Qu: "Many say it is the other way round."
A: "Yes, many do say that."

---o(O)o---

There is yet another deeper level:

Work done in resentment, is more painful and more damaging.
A friend, Jan, said once that work done with resentment wastes 80% of the energy, and that energy comes back and lashes you in the face.
From my own experience that makes sense.

For me this quote sums up the reason for working when I don't feel like it....

Sometimes the threads on the loom suggest the picture to come. 

Then we know that our children-to-be hope for us in the Bardo.

For them we weave until out arms grow tired.
 

from: The years of Rice and Salt - by Kim Stanley Robinson

though of course I could always work on acceptance...
One of the simplest and hardest things in life I was told once is 'acceptance' - yep, I believe that.

Living the adventure story: - how to enter a 'mood'

When people tell me to just 'be positive' or to 'see the bright side' or other well meant advice, it does not really do much for me.

What does more for me, if I tell myself a story and place myself INSiDE the story. It goes something like this:


When I feel overwhelmed by things in life, when the problems (or "challenges") start to feel like a ton of rocks and there is no fun at all in life, then I tell myself a story that I told myself in 1987:

"I remember in Kobe, Japan, in 1987 standing on a hillside at a Shinto Shrine overlooking the city and the sea and playing mind games with myself of pretending I was visitor from another planet and I had the choice to bail out or stick it out with humanity & go down with the ship if it came to that worst case scenario. I felt this love and commitment to the beauty and good things in human beings . I decided to see "it" through all the way, to take the risk of humanity destroying themselves or of struggling through to a new greater freedom. Weird stuff really but it kind of makes sense in view of the things I have learned since. Basically it was an affirmation of life and willingness to continue - how much else it was & in what way and in what context is hazy.

The way I actually decided was to imagine myself in a perfect world where I had all I wanted and then I asked myself if I was happy to just enjoy happiness there ?
Then I thought I`d get bored there and would go in search of adventure ( like the Fool of the Tarot) and where would I go ? I’d go to this life, this planet, & I’d be right where I am NOW ! So in fact I was a visitor from this perfect world... having an adventure of life right now, right here.

I imagined also that since Ultimate Reality (god, source, Buddha, whoever...) is perfect and that one day everything & I mean everything will be all right and so this perfect world would always be there, waiting for me. No matter what happened, it would be there, so enjoy life and do the best you can and smile... :-)

.... anyway something like that was what went through my mind as I stood looking out over the city of Kobe, from the Shinto Shrine on the hill... in 1987"


When I feel frustrated with the society I'm living in, frustrated by the bureaucracy and the stupidity (of course I never contribute to any of those ha ha ha ) then I tell myself this story:

I come from a place of no restrictions and as a game I'm trying to expereience different ways of living. So I tell myself that I am a traveller from another country. I am here to living in this country to experience life from just THIS perspective.

It feels a little like being a game designer: Let's create a world where the people don't see and know anything except what is written down for them ... etc...etc... Then I enter that world, in fact that worls is where I am right NOW. (funny coincidence that)

I got this idea above from having lived in different countries. When I lived in Laos for some strange reason I did not mind the restrictions, the things that were less than perfect in my eyes, because I had come to experience a different country and I was a curious visitor. The same attitude helped me in Japan: I was there to experience life from a Japanese perspective, and I accepted things that I would never have accepted in my home country.

Then I realized: I had no home country, every country, every society has its unique 'take' on things, its set of restrictions and freedoms and it is part of the game of life to play by the rules of the current game.

Thai people have the concept of 'sanuk' = fun, enjoyable. They make everything they do bearable and 'sanuk' in some way. They add the little curly bits and the small extras and suddenly things ARE bearable. If you have ever lived in the Kingdom of Siam, or Laos you will know what I mean.

These are the ways of HOW I "enter" a story - or a 'mood' as Carlos Castaneda calls it.

I found that story lets me get into the 'mood' better than simply trying to follow simple advice like " be positive " or "cheer up" .

When a friend was trying to decide what to do, I wrote a story for her here. Stories give people more room to move, they give a three dimensional perspective. Advice is like a picture, a story is like a sculpture, you can walk around it and see it from different angles.

There is a great essay called "On Desert Islands" which talks about the life attitude sense of adventure by Dororthy L Sayers, I'm trying to find it and want to quote bits of it here.
More on Dorothy L Sayers here.