If I’m honest with both of us, I’m not really sure what I need to say right now. When deciding between my journal or my blog this morning I felt compelled to write to you instead of me.
I write these posts because there’s a part of me that wants to connect with part of you. I know that there have been so many times I have read something at just the right moment when I really needed to hear what was written on the page.
That’s what’s so magical to me about the written word. Someone sits down to write words that they feel inspired to scribble or type out with the intention that someone at some point in time will read them.
Writing is a kind of a hopeful endeavor in that way.
The hope that words will find someone and will spark something in them. It’s very often weeks or even years later that the reader finds this body of words.
We still read things written hundreds sometimes thousands of years ago. Isn’t that wild!? To me it certainly is.
So let me setup the scene here for you a bit in case you’re curious as I often am.
It’s just before 8am on a Saturday morning. This is my little nugget of quiet time during the day. Maybe alone time is a better way to put it.
My boys are awake and quietly talking to themselves around this time every day just like they are right now.
The dog and cats have been fed and often mill around the house. Our black and white cat Brutus who often insists on sitting in my lap while I write and meditate has opted to sit on the ottoman we use as a toy box that’s directly in front of me. Our dog Auggie and gray tabby Antoni are standing guard outside my bedroom door waiting for my wife to wake up. I know they’ve got a solid 20 minutes ahead of them, but they don’t mind.
I’m sitting cross legged in our brown recliner with a pillow on my lap to hold up my iPad because it’s much easier to type on the tiny keyboard that way. I’m listening to a randomly chosen Solfeggio sound recording on an album by Meditative Mind. I like to play a game when I put it on in the morning where I go to the album and press shuffle and whatever one starts playing must be the one I’m meant to hear in that moment.
You can figure that pretty much any time you read one of these posts that there is a high likelihood that this is the exact setup I was writing it in. Variations include sitting at our dining room table whilst the boys are watching their morning cartoon or are napping in the afternoon and occasionally I write at my desk sitting at my laptop surrounded by my music and recording equipment.
Again friend, I’m not at all sure why I felt compelled to tell you this today.
I think it’s my love of knowing what goes on behind the scenes. I’ve always loved the “how” of things. That and I didn’t feel compelled to share anything deep and contemplative today. Just a little peek behind the curtain as it was.
I’d be remiss though if I didn’t say something a little contemplative though wouldn’t I.
Here it is. Remember that every single person you meet spends most of their time doing the same mundane things as you and me.
There is a Zen proverb I love.
“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”
It doesn’t matter who you are, how famous or obscure, how rich or how poor, there is a lot more that we all have in common than we often let ourselves believe when we’re tossing comparisons around in our head.
Spend enough time listening or reading and you’ll see that we all go through times where we feel worthless and unsure of ourselves. We all have heartache. We all have days where we’ve slept like absolutely dog shit and all we want to do is climb back in bed.
This is true of the two of us and every single person you have ever looked up to in your entire life and every glossy super cool person you’ve ever followed on social media.
So be kind to yourself and be kind to other people any chance you get. And if you’re not, then try again next time because no one gets it right all the time.
If you have the chance, apologize any time you can. The simple act of acknowledging that you didn’t get it right can be cathartic and it allows the other person that chance to witness your humility.
With that said, I apologize if any of this was intensely boring. If you got all the way down to here though, I reckon it must not have been that bad.
I appreciate you. More than you may ever know. Whenever you’re reading this just know that I am wholeheartedly appreciating you across space and time. Now go do all that boring stuff you need to do for the day.