I love when people send me inspiring videos that include their own thoughts, voice, and illustrations. It’s like gaining access to a piece of their soul in one entertaining, thought-provoking work of art.
This short film by Mike Biagiotti really spoke to me. In his own words, it’s “a meditative journey about one man’s escape to his back country cabin.”
What does you inner child need today?
“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the world.” ~Marcus Aurelius
At the end of August I moved to Madison, Wisconsin. This was my second major move in a year.
In both cases, I was separated from almost my entire prior social network. After college, making friends seems like a totally different ball game.
Here in Madison, I wake up before five in the morning to go to work and don’t get back until six or seven on most days of the week. This leaves me feeling exhausted, but it hasn’t stopped me from going out …
“Silence is a source of great strength.” ~Lao Tzu
For over two years I spent one out of every four weeks in silence. At the time I was living at a Zen Monastery and every month we would have a week-long silent retreat.
During this retreat we sat meditation in silence, ate in silence, worked in silence, and only communicated through hand gestures and written notes.
At first living like this was hard, but over time I learned to grow to appreciate silence. By the time I left I learned that silence was my friend and teacher.
What did silence …
“Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great.” ~Orison Swett Marde
I stood at the library counter waiting to check out a stack of books when I overheard an overworked woman explain to the librarian why her books were late.
“My boss has me running his errands after hours. It’s a miracle I made it on time to pick up my daughter from daycare,” she said.
“Are you a personal assistant?” the librarian asked.
“No, I’m a paralegal,” the woman explained. “But staffing is tight, and if I don’t take on the extra tasks I might …
“Good relationships don’t just happen. They take time, patience, and two people who truly want to be together.” ~Unknown
Out of our six loving years together, my partner and I spent two and a half years in a long-distance relationship. During these years there were times we communicated nearly daily, but there were also times when we couldn’t even email or text for a month at a time while I was living in an African village.
Being separated by an ocean from the person that is the most important to me was of course difficult and painful, but I …
“The most important distinction anyone can ever make in their life is between who they are as an individual and their connection with others.” ~Anne Linden
After growing up in a household with extremely loose emotional boundaries, I soon learned the importance of establishing my own personal boundaries as quickly and clearly as possible. And, in recent years, I have even managed to become more eloquent about when and how to set them.
I grew up in a home with my grandmother, mother, and older sister. Grandmother was an immigrant from Hungary who came to America right after WWI. Her …
“Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke
When I was twelve years old, I figured out how to get out of things.
It was a rainy Saturday morning and I was supposed to be getting ready for choir practice—an eight-hour rehearsal before a big concert. Eight hours! I began to obsess about how much time this was in my then tiny life.
As though by my own will, a heavy sensation of dread and nausea arose. I wasn’t aware of …
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” ~Mahatma Ghandi
My childhood was in many ways a nice childhood. I feel like a complete twit to complain about it. I know other people have gone through so much worse. I’ve read really difficult childhood stories and my heart literally bleeds for these people.
Growing up I was shy, un-confident, and withdrawn. I treated school mostly like a prison sentence. I put my head down and tried to do my time without falling in with the wrong crowd.
My parents were, and are, good parents. They provided …
“If you do nothing unexpected, nothing unexpected happens.” ~Fay Weldon
In September of 2012, I flew from Idaho to Spain and began a 500-mile pilgrimage walk on the Camino de Santiago. I arrived in St. Jean Pied-de-Port without any expectations and a blank canvas in my mind. I will treasure the imaginary painting that developed over the next thirty-five days until my last breath.
This trail has attracted at least 2,000,000 people over the past 1,300 years.
From prior experience, I know that being in an environment where everything is on the outer edge of comfort zones always results in …
“Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything.” ~Jack Kornfield
I learned one of my biggest lessons in life when I ran into a high school bully many years ago. He was totally different from the last time I saw him. He was now passionate about life and adventure, and he looked very happy.
He had a thriving textile trading business and he was set to open a clothing store in less than a year.
After hearing his story, I couldn’t help but feel ashamed of myself.
I realized that in my resentment toward …
“A diamond is just a piece of charcoal that handled stress exceptionally well.” ~Unknown
I’m great with short-term goals. In fact, I prefer them. Work my butt off for a few months to reach a goal? I’m down with that. I’ll give up a social life, down time, spending money, eating yummy food (read: sugar), drinking alcohol—whatever it takes, for the short-term. Long-term goals… ugh, not so much.
Despite this preference for pretty immediate gratification, I have followed through with many long-term goals in my life (school and various trainings, long-distance relationships, starting and re-starting businesses, to name a few).…
This video is three years old, but I just saw it and it moved me. I believe this is the greatest kind of love, the kind that makes the mundane magical and the banal beautiful. It’s the romance of everyday living with someone whose very presence makes the ordinary seem extraordinary.
From the YouTube description:
Danny Perasa and his wife, Annie, came to StoryCorps to recount their twenty-seven-year romance. As they remember their life together from their first date to Danny’s final days with terminal cancer, these remarkable Brooklynites personify the eloquence, grace, and poetry that can be found in …
“Believe nothing no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and common sense.” ~Buddha
Dad, who at the time was a fighter pilot in the United States Marine Corps, taught me how to navigate using a compass. The family was on a vacation in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. I was nine.
He got me up that morning before dawn. Mom made us a huge breakfast. I was so excited because I knew that day, I would climb my first mountain.
No, it wasn’t …
“Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~Howard Thurman
From center stage I looked out into the crowd as the stage lights warmed my face and did their best to obscure my vision.
In the half-light of the seating area I spotted the faces of family, friends, many other members of the local jazz community, and other people who had come out to support me. Smiling. Clapping. Congratulating.
I didn’t feel happy. Not exactly. The situation was too surreal to …
“Why compare yourself with others? No one in the entire world can do a better job of being you than you.” ~Unknown
For fifteen years I gave up on art.
I’d been an “artistic” kid, always drawing and painting, but by first or second grade I was already comparing my work to that of other kids and judging it as inferior.
At thirteen I quit making art altogether. There were other kids who could draw so much more realistically than I could—kids to whom anything artistic just seemed to come naturally—and I jumped to the conclusion that their superior skills …
“Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.” ~Eckhart Tolle
I was very shy growing up, especially in lower and middle school. I moved from the US to London when I was five. Although I don’t remember a lot of my experience in lower school in London, I do know that when I first started I refused to speak or read aloud.
I was in a completely new environment. I was confused and anxious, and it made me afraid of new situations.
As the year progressed I settled in pretty well. I made friends and would not have …
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