Quest for Balance

10 Things You Should Know About Yourself (aka: “So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish!”)

Lisis — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 08:30:44 +0000

As many of you know, I just got back from spending 20 days in Costa Rica with my family. Hunter spent the entire time hanging out with his cousins. Jeff wasn’t able to go with us this time, and I made it a point to stay offline for the duration of the trip. For these reasons, I had a LOT of “me time”… time to think, and to get to know myself.

If I could only give you one bit of advice, it would be this:

KNOW YOURSELF.

I’ve come to realize that there are no right answers… but some feel more “right” than the rest. We each have to find what those answers are.

No matter how much time we spend with others, or how much of ourselves we share, no one else can ever fully know us. We are infinitely too complex and ever-changing to fit neatly into any pattern or profile.

Only we can know ourselves. In any circumstance, at all times, no matter what the variables, only we have full access to the secret chambers of our hearts, and enigmatic labyrinths of our minds.

There are at least ten things we should each know about ourselves, and be able to answer with ease:

1. What matters most to me?

2. What bothers me the most (about myself, others, or the world)?

3. Who enriches my life experience?

4. Who makes my life more difficult than it needs to be?

5. What do I believe beyond the shadow of a doubt?

6. What conditions make me happy?

7. What conditions make me miserable?

8. Is there something or someone I can’t live without?

9. Is everything that is in my life necessary, and adding value?

10. Am I making progress towards a goal of my choosing?

These are but a few of the questions I pondered during my three-week sabbatical, and I found my answers for each of them.

You may recall from my post, Costa Rica is Paradise (and Why I Don’t Live There) that, contrary to all probability, I’ve never been inclined to make Costa Rica my permanent home. It is a beautiful country; I love my friends and family there; the food is great, and it’s an all-around wonderful place to be. And yet, as I confirmed again on this trip, it isn’t the place for me.

I will greatly miss my family and friends, but must get back to my life… the one I have chosen, and created… the one that feels right to me. I can do this, and feel certain about my decision, because I know myself.

While I was in Costa Rica, I realized something else about myself: I am not a blogger. I have enjoyed my blogging experiment, and I am so grateful for all the friends I’ve met online, but blogging is not for me. There’s probably no way I could ever explain this in a way that would make sense to everyone, but I know it to be true.

Every great adventure must come to an end, and so it is with this Quest for Balance. The time has come for a new beginning. I wish I could tell you I know what this new phase of my life will look like, but I don’t. I’m just excited to see what comes next.

Of course, I’ll still be “around”… reading my favorite blogs, reachable by email, and socializing on Facebook. But I plan to spend most of my time offline. I don’t want to spend my time reading about life, or even writing about life. I want to be out there, Living it.

“Whatever we may think or believe, what we have done is our story.” (Fulghum)

I hope to DO a bunch of things with this beautiful Vermont Spring… go for nature hikes, grow vegetables in the community garden, dabble in art, take a dance class, visit some covered bridges, spend time with friends, frequent the farmer’s markets, enjoy local cuisine, ride bikes with my family, take lots of pictures, hang out in the library, look for shapes in the clouds… there’s no tellin’, really.

I just want Life, The Universe and Everything to know this:

I’m here… ready, willing and able to make the most of each day. I will not take this life, or the people in it, for granted. I am eternally grateful for all the blessings I’ve been given.

Thank YOU for being here for this awesome journey, and…

So Long!!

10 Things You Should Know About Yourself (aka: “So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish!”) is a post from: Quest for Balance

5 Awesome Things I’d Like To Share

Lisis — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 08:30:40 +0000

I wanted to take a moment to share some of the things that are currently making my life awesome. We’ll call this a gratitude post… or “a few of my favorite things” list (if you want to get all Julie Andrews about it.) Mostly, I just thought it would be a good time for a happy note. So here goes:

1. The Book of Awesome

Most of you have probably heard about Neil Pasricha’s blog, 1000 Awesome Things. I’ve been reading about it for months and, since I knew that practically everyone on the planet loves it, I figured I probably would not enjoy it (’cause I’m just that way). Well, to my great surprise, Neil recently sent me an advance copy of his new book… and I fell in love with it! I feel like such a goob now for missing out on all the Awesomeness he has published so far!

The book, you see, lists a bunch of simple, awesome things we often overlook. But when you take a moment to notice them, to pay attention to that feeling you get when they happen, suddenly, no matter what else is going on, life feels AWESOME. I keep the book next to my bed, and Hunter and I read through a few awesome things each night. Now he’s developed the habit of identifying awesome things in real life that could be added to the book. In other words, Neil’s book has turned us into silver-lining seekers!

Simple pleasures and great moments no longer go unnoticed or get taken for granted. Now, we highlight them, talk about them, and revel in their glory. Needless to say, I am now a 1000 Awesome Things groupie. I love the idea of it. I love the little things that are mentioned, and I really love Neil’s writing style.

So, if you were looking for a great blog, or a great book to give you a brighter outlook on life, Neil has you covered either way. Enjoy!!!

2. Raptitude

Raptitude is the blog I’m married to, mostly because it is a blog unlike any other. I discovered Raptitude about a year ago, and have been committed to it ever since. It has become my better half, reliable, and comforting. I can always count on it to deliver exactly what I need, when I need it.

When I read posts at Raptitude, I don’t feel like I’m just skimming the surface of an interesting subject. Instead, I am taken by the hand and guided, slowly and carefully, into an intricate web of ideas, beautifully presented, and artfully elaborated. I feel like I’m reading a book as it is being written, one electronic chapter at a time, and I can’t wait for the next installment.

I am not skilled enough to find the right words to properly describe how much I enjoy Raptitude. My relationship with this particular blog is made to last a lifetime. (David, whatever you do, don’t stop writing!)

3. Wandering Earl

This is the blog I’m having an affair with, because it takes me to magical and mystical places I can’t get to in real life. Earl is a 100% sure ’nuff modern day nomad. If he ever has to list his “permanent residence” I’m sure his answer is, “My Backpack.”

He’s been just about everywhere, it seems, and not because it would be a cool gimmick, or because it’s a personal challenge, or because he’ll make a lot of money at it. Earl moves around and visits random places because he wants to get to know them. He wants to know what life is like in other places… not the highlights and tourist traps, but REAL life, real people… he is a true citizen of the world.

I would LOVE to do what he does. Maybe one day we’ll figure out how to do the Family Pack version of Earl’s nomadic lifestyle. But until then, I travel vicariously through him. His blog, Wandering Earl, isn’t your typical travel guide. It is the journal of a man who lives for adventure (a rare breed these days). I visit this blog to read thoughtful stories with a unique and passionate perspective. It adds sparkle to my life.

4. Your Life. Live It. Love It.

This is a new e-book by my dear friend, Sherri, of Serene Journey. If there is anyone on this planet who can figure out how to make life simple and enjoyable, it’s Sherri. The book, as she explains it, is “designed to help people break mental barriers, confront insecurities, strengthen relationships, and redesign their life so they can live in a way that is true to who they are.” I’m sure we all could use a little help in these areas.

This e-book is 69 pages, packed full of sound advice, and organized into three major sections:

1) Focus on you.

2) Focus on your relationships.

3) Enjoy the little things in life.

Officially, the book comes out on Monday, March 29, but (as you’ll see in the next point) I won’t be online much that week. I wanted to go ahead and tell you all about it now, so you won’t miss out on Sherri’s beautiful contribution to the world. I am so proud of her for getting this done (with two little ones at home, no less!).

5. My Upcoming Costa Rican Adventure

Hunter and I will be heading to Costa Rica tomorrow, for three weeks!! Unlike last year, this time, I will not be thinking about the blog. I have not pre-scheduled anything to publish while I’m gone. I may post something along the way, if my Muse demands it, but most likely not.

After all, having real life adventures is… AWESOME. (Right, Neil?)

I’ll be back at the end of April. In the meantime, if you are looking for something to read, please check out the first four things I mentioned, or take a stroll through the over-stuffed Quest for Balance Archives. You might find a few more awesome things in there.

I look forward to having some great stories to write about when I get back.

Take Care,

Lisis

PS: Do you have any awesome things to share with us? A favorite blog, book, movie, song, or Ben & Jerry’s flavor? C’mon… there’s got to be something awesome in your life right now!

(Photo Credit)

5 Awesome Things I’d Like To Share is a post from: Quest for Balance

Remaining Calm in Stressful Situations

Lisis — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 08:30:46 +0000

Stress kills. Period. Stress, anxiety, worry, fear, panic… these sorts of things start as psychological or emotional discomforts, but end up manifesting as physical illnesses. Our bodies create symptoms as a red flag to our brains: “Whatever you are doing, STOP IT!!!”

Recently I told you I was waiting for a diagnosis, because I felt worse than I’d ever felt in my life. My blood work, chest X-rays, and EKG all came back squeaky clean. I’m fit as a fiddle (contrary to all probability, given my lifestyle). This was great news, but didn’t answer the question of why I felt like I was dying.

As it turns out, the answer seems to be… stress.

The doc and I had actually dismissed this possible diagnosis early on in the question-and-answer session because I’m about as chillaxed as a person can get. I don’t work, my kid doesn’t go to school, I don’t have complicated family relations, or any of the usual stress factors. I’m not over-scheduled, frazzled, or spreading myself too thin. I don’t exactly fit the “stress case” profile. So we went ahead with the testing, just to be safe.

Once I passed all my tests with flying colors (I’ve always been a great test-taker, you know) we started digging deeper… below the surface. What I’m realizing is that there is such a thing as too chillaxed. I may be relaxing myself to death. Because I am so determined to keep a mellow vibe, live a simple life, and not let things bother me, what I’m doing instead is bottling up stuff inside.

I don’t freak out; I internalize. I don’t take frustrations out on others (which is nice), but I swallow them whole (projecting them onto my vital organs). Remaining calm in stressful situations is good in that it keeps the stress level from escalating into dangerous territory, but this only works if the stressful emotions are resolved in a healthy fashion.

I need to find an outlet for life’s little “bite my lip and grind my teeth” moments. These are a few tricks I use, when something stressful happens, to stay level-headed and effective:

1. DON’T PANIC – This reminds me to keep my head on straight… and makes me think of Douglas Adams, which always makes me smile.

2. TAKE THE PLACEBO – Everyone has some thing or some ritual that they firmly believe helps them relax. Whether it is scientifically proven to work or not is irrelevant. What matters is that it works for the individual… maybe it’s yoga, meditation, exercise, drinking a cup of chamomile tea, whatever. I like to do the ritual upfront, so I can breathe deeply (oxygenate my brain for optimal function).

3. GATHER INFORMATION – This is like the discovery process in a legal case, when you gather all relevant information, files, research, phone numbers, and anything else that even remotely pertains to the problem you are trying to solve. The trick is to not spend too much time in this phase, so get what you really need and move on.

4. MAKE LIST 1 – These are the variables you CAN control… it’s your to-do list, items you will need to accomplish in the next day, or week, or month, in order to solve the problem.

5. MAKE LIST 2 - These are things that worry you, but you can do nothing about. For instance, you CAN book a last minute flight. You might panic that the weather may delay your flight, but you CAN’T do anything about the weather. So this goes on List 2. You have acknowledged it as an item that worries you, but you are putting it out of your head for the time being, in order to focus on List 1.

6. TACKLE LIST 1 – Start checking items off this list. Anything you CAN do, relatively easily, should be handled right away so you can make progress towards a solution and have something to occupy your mind instead of worrying. Getting some things accomplished will help you feel relief right away.

7. REACH OUT – Share your burden with someone else. Maybe you talk to friends or family, or a therapist, or the blogosphere, but find someone to talk to about things. Sometimes just getting the thoughts out of your head makes them a little less daunting.

8. REVISIT LIST 2 – When you have completed all the items on List 1, take another look at List 2. By this point, some time has passed, and you may be calmer (better able to deal with the uncertainties). You may also notice that much of what you CAN do has been done, and there isn’t that much left to worry about. Now is the time to practice faith, trust, and patience. Sometimes we just have to wait. Breathe.

(I had items 9 and 10 on this list, but decided they didn’t add much value… and I’m not that obsessed with round numbers.)

What I’m missing now is the “What to do with toxic emotions once a crisis has been averted” part.

Two options I keep coming back to are:

1. Write – Sometimes I write in journals, or I post on the blog. Sometimes I furiously fill a page with all my rage, then rip it to pieces or set in on fire. These things tend to get the thoughts out of my head, but don’t actually solve anything. I am still left feeling… helpless.

2. Play – Many times when I am facing stressful conditions, I step away from them and immerse myself in Hunter’s world. Kids live in the present moment, and focus only on the things they are interested in. This serves as a lovely distraction, for a while, but it isn’t a long term solution.

But the thing is, when I’ve exhausted all of my coping mechanisms, there are some “issues” that remain… that will always be there, that I can do NOTHING about, but must learn to co-exist with. Some issues are hugely painful, terribly unfair, and not at all things I’ll ever be OK with… but, so what? Who ever said life would be fair?

Sometimes the things that stress us out don’t go away, and don’t get resolved, and never get better. What then?

I’m asking, really, because I don’t have a neat and tidy answer… obviously, or I probably wouldn’t have ended up in the doctor’s office. So now I want to know:

What do YOU do when life sits you in a corner, against a wall, and says, “On this particular issue, you will get NOTHING… and like it”? I mean, after crying, pouting, kicking and screaming… then what?

Thanks!!!

(Photo Credit)

Remaining Calm in Stressful Situations is a post from: Quest for Balance

What Are We “Teaching” Our Children?

Lisis — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 08:30:10 +0000

There is no such thing as “teaching”. Some people present information and ideas, but those are only of use to the student if the student is interested enough to learn and apply them. Otherwise, at best, students will memorize, regurgitate, and forget whatever they are “taught”.

Our school system is obsolete, because it focuses almost exclusively on what should be taught, and how to measure whether that was accomplished. But, as Oscar Wilde said, “Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” Instead, schools should focus on helping students LEARN, based on their interests, aptitudes, and internal motivations.

It is quite admirable for the government to make a free education available to any child that wants one. But, to make school attendance compulsory, and then fail to provide adequate resources to those schools, such that our only options are mediocre public schools, expensive private schools, doing the schooling ourselves, or going to jail for non-compliance, strikes me as a bit unfair… perhaps even unconstitutional, under the 13th Amendment (involuntary servitude).

In fact, this reminds me of the draft, which allowed our government to make it required for individuals to serve in the military. The government decided that the way to show patriotism and love of country was to be willing to kill and die for it. Some people, obviously, disagreed. They became conscientious objectors (aka: draft-dodgers), and were persecuted for staying true to their pacifist values.

The government has decided to require our kids to attend school, and has determined that a proper education is whatever their government-appointed gurus decide. In essence they are saying, “You must educate your kids in the manner we say is appropriate (namely memorization, graded stratification, standardized testing, competition, punishment, compliance, etc.)., or you will go to jail.” The laws of compulsory attendance are as narrow-minded and despicable as the draft.

A few states, like Texas, recognize a parent’s right to decide what is best for their children. There, you can choose public schooling, if you are comfortable with it. You can choose private school, if you can afford it. Or, you can choose to educate your child in any manner you believe is best. Once you get on the homeschool path, you are not required to prove anything about your child’s education relative to that of the same-aged kids who are in school.

Most states PRETEND you are allowed to homeschool, but still require that you teach most of the same stuff that kids learn in school, and that, at the end of each year, you can demonstrate your child knows what other kids of the same age know. This makes NO SENSE at all. “Teach him what you want, as long as he ends up learning what we think is important.” All this does is replicate the school method, at home. It is merely a change of venue, not an entirely different approach to education.

My issue, though, isn’t about homeschool vs. regular school. My concern is that the system our predecessors came up with to educate kids was created a LONG time ago. The education system has not been significantly revised, improved, or re-designed since then. Updating the content of the textbooks, and replacing notebooks with laptops, doesn’t really change anything. The system is still the same: “teachers” getting kids to memorize information, often without any useful or relevant context.

“Information is not knowledge.” (Albert Einstein)

These are different times, which require a whole new skill set. Memorization (the pillar of our current system) is pointless in a world with Google and Wikipedia at everyone’s fingertips. Creativity, problem-solving, conflict resolution, and global awareness are just a few of the skills kids should be discovering in schools today… but aren’t.

Remember Sting’s song, Russians? “What might save us, me, and you, is if the Russians love their children too.” This means, if they love their kids as we love ours, then surely we won’t nuke each other.

Well, if WE loved our children, we wouldn’t leave them so ill-prepared for the future they will face.

If we loved our children, we would stop treating them like masses of sheep, needing to be herded mindlessly from grade to grade, and we would start honoring them as individuals. We would recognize that kids have different interests, different aptitudes, different ways of learning, and that every kid shouldn’t have to be an expert at every subject.

I was the perfect, well-rounded student. I had straight A’s in every subject, academic and extra-curricular. All this means is I am a “Jane of all trades, but master of NONE.” I dabbled in everything, but never specialized in anything. I have no skills in any one area that I love enough, or am good enough at, to dedicate myself to.

“Better know nothing than half-know many things.” (Friedrich Nietzsche)

In school, I was never encouraged to think for myself, or to discover what I love more than anything else. School did not prepare me to find meaningful work in the real world. Schools taught me a bunch of random stuff, and they taught me how to follow directions. I learned how to win at any game in which the rules are clearly stated, and every player is bound by them. Life is not this kind of game.

Why are we still doing things this way? When we prepare our children for adulthood, whether in homeschools or regular schools, they should be learning:

How to find work that is meaningful to them, and makes a positive impact.

Compassion and respect for others, no matter how different they seem.

How to be healthy and whole, so they can love themselves and others, including their spouses and children.

A basic understanding of what came before (context), so they can appreciate what they have now, and build on it to create a better future.

How to think for themselves, be creative, and resourceful.

How to manage disappointments, failures, and stress in healthy, productive ways.

Pie in the sky, you think? This is too difficult or impractical, perhaps? Yeah… you’re probably right. We should just give up.

I guess we should stick to teaching our children how to memorize the same, useless, boring facts for 12, 16, 18, or 20 years, because that’s much easier for us than creating something new. After all, we are but products of that same system. We don’t question things. We don’t think for ourselves. And we sure as heck don’t come up with better ways to do things. We just stick to what we know… we do things the way they’ve always been done. Best not to make waves, or get in trouble.

When our kids get through with school, they can each, individually, struggle to unlearn a bunch of stuff and teach themselves what really matters. Why would we deprive them of the experience of re-inventing the wheel? Eventually, they will learn all of the truly important things they had access to all along, but were too busy memorizing facts, and jumping through hoops, to have the time to explore. Eventually, they will find themselves again, as we are all doing now.

Is this really the best we can do for our kids?

Really?!

If we know the system is broken, but we do nothing about it, what are we “teaching” our children?

UPDATE: A friend just informed me of a (free) Charter school in Austin, where kids can attend for 4 hours each day, then spend the afternoons pursuing their passions, whether artistic, athletic, whatever. I believe they are now full (no new enrollments), and I can see why, but the neat thing is that some communities are STARTING to try new and improved ways to help kids learn. We need more of these schools.

(Photo Credit)

What Are We “Teaching” Our Children? is a post from: Quest for Balance