Post 1320, Day 336 of 2014
- 1,432 days since I started this blog -
- 1,432 days since I started this blog -
Daily Comment
I've been on this high roll, this emotional 'up' time, for a little more than four years now.That I can put it on a time-line suggests something happened, something changed, influenced me to switch into 'happy' mode.
So I began thinking about it, and I had this insight:
I made a conscious choice not to let my unfavorable external circumstances dictate my mood, my emotional equilibrium.
It was that simple: I was unemployed, had downsized my life accordingly, sharing an apartment with a friend (previously, hadn't done that since the mid-70s), and was living on an unemployment check and some severance/savings while I looked for work.
I had no romantic relationship, and no family locally. I had some friendships, but only one person was close to me (my roommate)
I had been in the Syracuse area about fourteen months. My only recreation was playing bass at open mics. That was my only form of recreation. I was rehearsing with a couple of bands, but that had ended when, in one, my friend the drummer had a nervous breakdown and started hating me for no reason; and in the other because the leader got sick, then moved away. I was, at that point, put off from joining any new bands, because I didn't want and wasn't sure I could fullfill the commitment and because I felt it was important to avoid the interpersonal politics that goes along with being a band member.
My circumstances may not have been favorable, but they weren't desperate. Food, shelter, transportation costs were all covered. More importantly, when I was laid off from my job at the now-defunct Sensis Corp., I made some decisions:
First, and in this scenario, most importantly, I decided to ignore my fear and insecurity. Then, I decided to see my unemployment as an opportunity (without definition), which led to a decision to stay in Syracuse if a local job came along. I also decided to only look for jobs for the Federal government, because I knew, at age 60, I'd face extreme age-discrimination in the private sector, and State and local government jobs were too insecure.
Then I had this insight. I don't know how universal it is (I think it is), but it just came to me that, if my emotions were self-generated, then happiness was a decision. I decided to be happy.
I was unemployed for less than four months. Mid-way through that time, I was at one of my regular open mics and the trio calling themselves i am Fool made an appearance, and I decided that this was a band I wanted to play in, although I think I thought that it was a band I could 'help'. Inside of two weeks, I was in the band, and two weeks later I was moving towards my job at the VA.
Things were good, and when the hiring process was complete, and I started working, things took the shape they've remained since then.
The last piece of the puzzle - my decision to lose weight and start this blog - was an expression of having arrived in this positive, happy headspace.
In my mind, my attitude (my refusal to be anything but optimistic), my visualization of the new, not-yet-found job, my continued meditation, my ongoing ability to find joy through my music, and my daily expressions of gratitude are what set me up for the good times I've enjoyed these last years.
I've been happy for more than four years now.
Talk about things to be grateful for!
Food and Diet Section
Today's Weight: 208.8 lbs
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| 2014 Daily Weight |
Previous Weight: 209.4 lbs
Day Net Loss/Gain: - 0.6 lbs
Diet Comment
Oh, Ironwood, your delicious pizza, the only dinner item on your menu, is my bi-weekly big cheat, and no matter how good I am the rest of the day, you add to me. Luckily, not so much as to undo all my good behavior (adequate hydration, low-carb and low-calorie eating before and after dinner) yesterday.Diet Comment
Food Log
BreakfastA cocoa-hemp-kale protein shake (almond-coconut milk, kefir, kale, large organic egg, whey powder (24g protein), hemp seeds, hemp protein (7g protein), celery, raw organic cacao powder, fermented coconut water, chia gel, moringa leaf powder, cinnamon and stevia-inulin blend.
Lunch
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| Salmon salad (Wild Alaska pink salmon, celery, mayonnaise) on baby kale, baby spinach, chard, black beans and cole slaw mix. |
A Quest bar.
Dinner
Cole slaw and a Quest bar
A Quest bar.
Liquid Intake
Coffee: 28 oz. Water: 68+ oz.
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This commentary lacks humility.
ReplyDeleteI think that you may be deluding yourself, thinking that anything you experience is attributable to your decisions, which seem to me to be denying or ignoring one half of reality. When things align with your ego's desires and beliefs you are happy, and when they are contrary, you are not. Is this not true? Our reality is dual on one level and transcendent of that, on a higher, more subtle, immanent level, unity,
What makes you think that your decisions have any influence on how things go? Decisions are made after the fact. What you think is happening has already happened. Don't fool yourself.
Happiness and sadness are the results of past and future tripping, illusionary and imaginary.
I recommend "Be here now"
P.S.
ReplyDeletei know i am living completely when i an grateful for the positives and the negatives, without discrimination. "the grateful dead".
My decisions influence my perception and influence my behavior. They also reflect my conscious thoughts. My (yours, everybody's) thoughts, conscious and (mostly) unconscious, affect everything - they are vibration changes that are the fabric of everything, at least, everything that we experience. I accept that time is an illusion, a human construct, if you will. Everything is happening 'at once'. So what we will experience, what we have experienced and what we are experiencing in the 'now' are simultaneous. There is no reason to think that a thought that I have, a decision I make, is not the result of this truth - it occurs because, the simultaneous future requires it. All consciousness is simultaneous, too. However, here in linear time, we track things linearly. We say things occur now grow out of what occurred. That's how. I experienced the things I wrote about. This happened, then that.
ReplyDeleteMy lack of humility is legendary, so I can't disagree there,
As to gratitude, if you're grateful for everything, the opposite is also true, you're grateful for nothing, and I can't figure out how that contributes to living completely. You ingrate. We are living whether we're grateful or not. Our feelings are irrelevant,except to us - everything is just interpreting dreams.
i agree with everything that you said above. i guess "living completely" has different meanings to each of us. i believe we have will, but not free will. i hold that what we perceive as experience as individual being is only a sample of our experience as being. I am aware that what I think is determined by how my individually experienced life fits that which is happening now, yet I can know it in thought only afterwards. I am aware that my decisions are thought. I cannot claim responsibility for events that are decided before I thought of their occurrence. Even my own decisions must be shaped by being of greater awareness than my conscious thought. i accept this and am ok with it (as it is, not in my control or conscious influence).
ReplyDeleteI am also aware that there are two sides to every coin, unless the coin is regarded as the whole coin.
- Light - Love - Compassion -
I was "thinking" that, in case your idea of visualization might be right, I am visualizing a world and life of Light, Love, Empathy, Compassion, Harmony, Justice, Unity, Peace, Bliss.
DeleteI was thinking that I am more of a "nongrate ', until Denie pointed out that I wasn't any kind of "grate" at all.
Delete- Light - Love - Compassion -
Whatever you are, I'm grateful you're in my life.
Delete