The Little Things

It's the little things that make life worth living!

 

TJ

What's Your Story?

Your life is a story. The days flip past, too quickly to absorb, a mess of seemingly random events. So you look back and highlight certain moments as important, as turning points in the main plot. You trace each thread back to its origin, finding omens and ironies scattered along the way, until it all feels inevitable, and your life makes sense. You know how this story is going to end, but you’re still eager to skip ahead, dying to know what happens next.

But there are times when you look up and realize that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore. You thought you were following the arc of the story, but you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don’t understand. Either everything seems important or nothing does. It’s a tangled mess of moments that don’t even seem to belong in the same genre, that keeping changing depending on what you choose to highlight.

What kind of story is this? Just another coming-of-age tale, the same one your parents told, with the names switched around? Is your everyday life part of the origin story of something truly epic? Are you unwittingly getting by on other people’s charity, mistaking your own luck for your own success? Are you a character in a romance, a tragedy, a travelogue, or just another cautionary tale?

As you thumb through the years, you may never know where this all is going. The only thing you know is that there’s more to the story. That soon enough you’ll flip back to this day looking for clues of what was to come, rereading all the chapters you skimmed through to get to the good parts—only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure.

TJ

Want To Get Ahead In Life?

Don’t get too wrapped up in your feelings.
Feelings change throughout the day and they are unreliable. Don’t let them rule your life, or interfere with your goals.

Don’t worry so much because worrying, more than likely, will make things worse.
Focusing on your worries will drain your energy, and the source of your worry, what we’re dreading, doesn’t happen anyway.

Stop the caustic internal commentary.
Stop telling yourself that things are going to fall apart, or that you will probably fail, or that no one does, or will like you. Keep trying, moving forward, and keep living your life.

Stop being self-critical.
You must be your own cheerleader and your biggest fan. Keep a journal of your successes, and the times your perseverance, attitude, and inner strength helped you overcome something. Be encouraging and kind, and always lean into what makes you successful.

Stop feeling guilty.
Feeling guilty changes nothing. You are going to make mistakes. Accept you aren’t perfect and then get up and try again.

Stop worrying about what others think of you.
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what they think. Choose your own goals for your life and remember you’re not accountable to them.

Don’t worry about set-backs or changes to your plans.
Plans always need adjusting and things always go wrong, but that doesn’t mean “it’s over” or you’ll never reach your goals. Expect to make some changes. Just be adaptable.

TJ

Honesty. What does it look like?

 What does honesty look like? 

Being open about yourself, your feelings, and what you have done. When you are asked a question, tell the truth, even it is embarrassing. Do not make excuses for your weaknesses, just be truthful.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to a healthy version of honesty is exposing yourself too much and too early in any relationship. The optimum way to build an honesty bridge is to open-up one step at a time and try to do it at the same rate as the other person in the relationship. 

Use personal, truthful, stories to gently encourage the other person to also expose themselves, or just to stimulate normal conversation.

Openness can also include disagreement. When others express views with which you disagree you can gently state your disagreement with the view, and be careful not to reject the person.

When you expose a personal vulnerability to another person, you are offering them a way to criticize or attack you. This shows them that you are trusting them not to attack. By being trusting, you encourage them to be trustworthy and trusting in return.

It is important to be careful when exposing vulnerabilities because you can embarrass others and make them feel they should be open in return when they are not ready to do so. This is why you should start small and move forward incrementally as they open up to you.

Openness implies you have the confidence that you will not be attacked and can be a unspoken indicator of power. In effect you are saying 'I am so powerful I can admit weaknesses or express views because I can repel all criticism or attack.'

Open disagreement is also helpful in creating a bond because it also encourages trust by saying 'I know you understand me well enough not to take this the wrong way.' Of course this level of openness requires a lot of care in accepting the person even if you reject their argument.

TJ

Looking Back on Your Life...

While you're in them, seasons of life seem extraordinary.  Fiery, fragile, and erratic. But once you have some distance from them, the moments seem to get smaller, until they are almost out of focus.

When you look back over your life, you can see more of it now than ever before. And yet it seems somehow diminished. Unassuming. Almost charming.

So you begin scanning your life, looking for something interesting or beautiful. You see an ordinary house, with an ordinary yard, on an ordinary street. It looks smaller than you remember. You once had wild dreams and obstacles and risks looming all around you, but now they look smaller too.

You remember giants and goddesses and villains you encountered, but all you see now is ordinary people assembled in their tiny classrooms and work-spaces, each of us moving around in little steps, like tokens on a game board. No matter how many times you rolled the dice, it was always these little moves, here and there.

We do a little work, take a little rest, make a little friend, throw a little party, feel a little boredom, and have a little rebellion. There are so many of these token moments, that were supposed to represent some other thing. You keep adding them all up, as if there was something you forgot to count, some bundle of glory that fell off the back of a truck.

You may love the life you have, for everything it is. You know it isn't groundbreaking, but you wouldn't change a thing. Maybe when you first started building the life you wanted, you left plenty of room for what might happen, and somehow lost track of what was happening.

Or maybe you were never 'in it' to begin with. Maybe you knew even then that this wasn't the world you expected. A world so low and common you tried to keep your distance, floating somewhere above it, where nobody else could look down on this life you built.

Nobody else but you.

TJ

Life Can Change!

https://youtu.be/dJyz6iK8VXE

Christmas is Over, now what?

Your Life

Your life is a highlight reel: a gradual search for a handful of memories. We like to think that every moment has potential, that there’s something transcendent, hidden all around, that if you would only stop to seize the day, you could hold onto it and carry it with you. But the truth is, most of life is forgotten instantly, almost as it’s happening. Chances are that even a day like today will slip through your fingers and dissolve into oblivion, washed clean by the tides.

This is the rhythm of ordinary time: the featureless stretches between one memory and the next, the thousand acts of maintenance you do every day. You keep your body going, hauling it back and forth from one place to the next. You breathe in and out. Things fall apart, you clean up the mess. And it all washes away in the night, to be built up again in the morning. You throw the week against the wall to see what sticks, hoping you will remember something that happened today, anything.

Most of our lives are spent in the wilderness, those areas we fly over to get to the good parts. And you wonder how you could spend so much time just pushing back against the current, trying to keep your small boat afloat, watching for a glimmer on the horizon, waiting for those moments when you can finally say, “I’ve found it!”

But it’s all happening. It’s all real whether you’ll remember it or not. So you might as well say "I've lost it!" As if to mark the passage of yet another opportunity, flushed down the hourglass. A final toast to the endless forgotten days, whose humble labor has given you everything you have, at least for the moment.

As the song says: long live the high tide and long live the low, but above all, long live the difference.

TJ

Why are you holding on to the Past?

1. You can’t, or won’t, talk about it. 

2. You’re constantly being hit by “those same old feelings”. 

3. You can’t relax and be yourself with certain people from your past. 

4. You’re attracted to people who treat you negatively. 

5. You over-react, and find it hard to calm down. 

6. You have poor boundaries, and always feel you’re being used. 

7. You’re always making poor decisions, and repeating old mistakes. 

TJ

You Feel Depressed. What Now?

1. Acknowledge how you feel, and accept that this is going to be a more challenging day.

2. Commit to doing the absolute essentials but don’t push yourself to do everything. 

3. Prioritize what’s important. Do what needs to be done. If it is something that can wait, set it aside for now. 

4. Work through your to-do list in small chunks of time – making sure you take plenty of breaks.

5. Tell someone who will understand. We need to get support when we’re feeling low, but not everyone will be there for you. Figure out who will be there, and who won’t be there, for you. 

6. Be wise in your use of social media. It may be good to go offline for a while, to switch off your phone and to protect yourself from stuff that just exacerbates the way you feel. 

7. Make sure you leave the house and get a change of scenery.

8. Deliberately invest in some form of self-care … and make sure it’s something that you know will help your mood. Also, remember that tomorrow is another day. 

TJ

How Can You Change Your Life?

Questions to Help You 

For Best Results Write Out Your Answers!
 

1. If you had all the money in the world, how would you choose to spend your life?

2. What makes, and when do, you lose yourself…and later realize that you lost all track of time?

3. What lifts your spirits on a dark day?

4. When you are old, and you look back on your life, what things will matter to you the most?

5. What are 3 things that you really hope to achieve in life?

6. What kind of person do you want to be?

7. Who would you say is a role model for a life well-lived?

 

 

TJ

Living Life...

While you're in it, life seems epic. Fiery, tenuous, and unpredictable. But once you have some distance from it, everything seems to shrink, until it's almost out of focus. 

When you look back over your life, or try to put it down on paper, You can see more of it now than ever before. And yet it seems somehow diminished. Humble. Almost old-fashioned. So you begin scanning your life, looking for something interesting or beautiful. You see an ordinary house, with an ordinary yard, on an ordinary street. It looks smaller than you remember. You once had wild dreams and obstacles and risks looming all around you, but now they look smaller too.

You remember giants and goddesses and villains, but all you see is ordinary people assembled in their tiny classrooms and work-spaces, each of us moving around in little steps, like tokens on a game board. No matter how many times you rolled the dice, it was always these little moves, here and there. Do a little work. Take a little rest. Make a little friend. Throw a little party. Feel a little boredom. Have a little rebellion. There are so many of these token moments that were supposed to represent some other thing. You keep adding them all up, as if there was something you forgot to count, some stash of glory that fell off the back of a truck. 

You may love the life you have for everything it is, and even though you know it isn't groundbreaking; you wouldn't change a thing. Maybe when you first started building the life you wanted, you left plenty of room for what might happen, and somehow lost track of what was happening. 

Or maybe you were never 'in it' to begin with. Maybe you knew even then that this wasn't the world you expected. A world so low and common you tried to keep your distance, floating somewhere above it, where nobody else could look down on this life you built. 

Nobody else but you.

TJ

 

Ever Want to Pause Life?

Strange how strong the instinct is, to see something incredible, and reach for a camera or a phone with a camera. As if to lend it some credibility, to prove that it's real, that 'I WAS HERE.'

We live our lives in moments. Those rare experiences we stop to notice, and carry with us, in the hopes of stringing them together, trying to tell a story. But even in the moment, you can feel it start to fade.

So you try to capture it, and convert it into something that will last longer than just a flash. And over time a photo feels more real than its subject. It lets you build a version of the world that you can take with you.

A world flattened, and simple. A world that doesn't change. That fits in the frame. A little brighter and more colorful. With everything under control.

You can travel the globe looking for memories, and still find yourself standing behind a camera waiting for the world to hold still.

With every click of the shutter, you're trying to press Pause on your life. If only so you can feel a little more comfortable moving on living in a world stuck on Play.

A part of you knows you can't take it with you but that doesn't stop you from trying. "What if I could stay just a little longer?" "What if we didn't have to go?"

We try to capture moments as if we're afraid they'll escape, but they'll get away eventually.

Take one last look. One more shot. So years from now you can flip back through, and try to relive it all over again.

But maybe even then, you'll be thinking to yourself, "Ah well. I guess you had to be there."

TJ