Banishing Discontent

Happiness Project

My inspiration for finally starting this blog comes largely from reading Gretchin Rubin's daily blog - The Happiness Project.

She writes about test driving as many tips and principles about being happy as she can, then reports about it. The blog is very appealing to me for several reasons, number one - she is very very smart. A lawyer who has clerked for a supreme court justice no less. Two - she has actually written 3 books already not just talked about writing them. Three - she is the mother of two little girls. On my score card that says she has a very good life and yet is driven to seek something more. Something even smart people can't seem to pin down. She's my kinda people.
A few days ago her post "How Not to Be Happy" set off a firestorm of angry comments. They called her Narcissistic, superior and all sorts of not so nice things. Some claimed she was being insensitive to people battling clinical depression (?) insensitive to introverts and insensitive to couch potatoes. Truthfully - I didn't really care for the post. She was on vacation and I thought she was trying to look at things in a different way - be funny and kind of turn things upside down, - and that is what you have to do as a creative person - pick the snow globe up - shake it around - see where things fall - and they are not always going to be a masterpiece. Okay, the snow globe was a bad example because who ever shakes a snow globe then looks at it and goes "well that one sucked, look at the way the flakes stuck to the top of the tiny church.." but you know what I mean right?
I admire her courage to put herself out there. Try some things out. You have to make mistakes to proceed forward. This is screamingly hard for me - as a perfectionist and I imaging it is hard for her. Reda her blog - let me know what you think.

Good Deed for Today

And I can't hardly stand it myself! Today I found a copy of my Great Uncle's (my uncle's father - is that whatca'ed call him?) book "In Search of Heroes" and bought it. It is his story of survival in Poland during the Holocaust and he published it himself instead of letting anyone else alter it. The friggin' thing is out of print and cost me a whopping $84 but, gulp - how else do I want to spend the money. Come on - I just spent $60 on a facial.... Anyway! Then I contacted the Weisenthal Center to see how to include it and his second book "Polish Indians and Other Short Stories" ($38!) in their archives. So good on me! I'll let you know what they say.

A Woman Without Apologies

One year for Halloween a friend of mine decided to go as "A Woman Without Apoglogies." I thought this was a fantastic idea Fantastic! But funny how adopting that attitude required and entire new persona. It is that hard for some people. Me included. I would like to try on a life where I explained myself less - apologized less and always wore splendid underwear. When we arrived at the party that night she accidentally let the door swing back on me, "Oh - sorry" and that was that.

He meant women too...

"Insist on yourself; never imitate... Every great man is unique."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mark Twain - pretty smart guy

"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure."

Jesus as Zen

Jesus said in Thomas:
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
Personally - I think this sounds exhausting - the constant reinvention of self. A very wise teacher once called life an elegant tumble. So here I am to blog about my forever stumbling forward.