discovery

Your Personality . . . & the Glory of the Choice

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

Vision Board 058Your personality . . . what is it exactly?  Aside from the usual adjectives of fun or moody or sunny or temperamental or intense or Type A or laid back or . . . what exactly? What does it really mean to be assigned a personality type?

We’ve all pondered the big debate of Nature vs. Nurture . . . how the spark of life is blessed/cursed/or combination-therein by congenital behavior . . . or wait!  Is it actually shaped by environmental and emotional factors?  And then these is all of the vice-versa stuff that leads one to accept and embrace both and then not think much about it.

Fascinating research points to many interesting findings that help us to understand Who We Really Are, our emotional and social intelligence, and our perception of positive and negative influences.  Nature or Nurture?  It is an enormous question that no one can really answer with total authority.  Take the story of the two children — identical twins, actually — standing on the ocean shore.  They are enjoying themselves while the salt water is gently lapping at their toes.  Suddenly, a rogue wave washes over the top of them.  The same wave, the same temperature of water, the same element of surprise.  One of the twins starts to cry and scream and run from the water. The other twin splashes back at the wave while laughing.   While this story would neither withstand nor support the rigors of a research study focused on Nature vs. Nurture, I like it nonetheless.  It gives me pause: Why not laugh?  It’s a heck of a lot more fun than crying and screaming.

And in the midst of all of this wondering and debating and agreeing, I do believe that there is much to be said for the concept of timshel — the Hebrew word for thou mayest.

When I think on topics of this sort, my mind wanders back to a Time of Great Impressionability in my life, and I was reading John Steinbeck’s East of Eden.  What a book!  Well, “the story bit deeply into me,” and Lee’s treatise on timshel has stayed with me all of these curious years later — a testimony to the notion that life is one great impressionable moment after another.

It is my hope that sharing this gem of Steinbeck’s brilliance and wisdom will not act as any sort of spoiler.  The book is brilliant and one worth reading.  Like life, Steinbeck’s writing is intense and provocative and profound.  He writes the sort of story that stays with you throughout the years.  I thank Mr. Steinbeck for opening my eyes, my mind, my heart, my soul, and my sense of wonder to the notion of thou mayest: “the glory of the choice.”

Last week, I came across this quite lovely Personality Test online.  I normally don’t click on these tests, expecting some sort of hook to be set before you receive your “results,” but something prompted me to go ahead and try this one.  Before reading any further, go ahead and click on the link and visualize your responses to the prompts.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/juliapugachevsky/this-cube-personality-test-will-absolutely-blow-your-mind?utm_term=.onK9zJNbz&sub=4259074_8744597

All done?

What do you think?  How much of the explanation of your visuals did you feel was accurate?  At the very least, I felt that I was given a sideways glimpse into me — parts of me that are actually true that I generally don’t consciously associate with my “personality.”  I think about Steinbeck’s artistic weaving of timshel into East of Eden . . . and I am reminded that thou mayest carries with it a personal(-ity) responsibility of creative and paradigm-shifting mindfulness that requires daily cultivation, acknowledgement, and celebration on my part.

Personality assessment aside . . . overall, we need not be so hard on ourselves.  I think we sometimes embrace the opinions of  people — people who truly don’t know us — with far too much zeal, and we assign too much authority to the editorializing that is done by others.  We have a proclivity toward jumping into the sinkhole: a morass of self-blame, regret, and guilt that we assign to nature- and nurture-defining personality quirks . . . epic actions that play with our hearts and attempt to define how we choose to forge present moments into future goals and dreams.  Or . . . is this just my personality?

I used to have a quote taped up in every room of my house: Always believe that something wonderful is about to happen.  In the midst of one particularly Challenging Time, I was re-reading the quote, and I realized that I needed to make an edit.  I crossed out about to happen and scribbled in happening right now:

Always believe that something wonderful is happening right now.  

The current paradigm of Overwhelm in that moment screeched to a halt, and life felt like it took a gentler curve toward heart-healing and happiness.  When I realized that I had a choice to become someone new on the inside, my whole life shifted.  This epiphany didn’t segue into some neat and tidy story-book ending, but it did nudge me into a new place, such that I could get back into a timshel state of mind: “the glory of the choice.”

toaster ovenI leave you today with the prayer, the wish, the hope, and the thought that today is a good day for you.  A truly good day.  One of gratitude and filled with micro moments that tell you that Now is Now and life is evolving, constantly evolving, as something that is wonderful.  If this moment isn’t all that great, just wait for the next one.  It will be here before you know it — full of promise and full of timshel.  With some refining, life really can be borne from “the glory of the choice:  . . . keeping “the way open.”

Click on the highlighted link below to download today’s free journaling exercise.  Have fun journaling and putting a new spin on perceptions and keeping your way open!

The Glory of the Choice. A Different Spin. journaling prompt

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A reminder that gifts of beauty await when we keep our hearts open.  So lovely.

 

[P.S. Here is the real Spoiler Alert: To read a longer excerpt that discusses timshel in greater detail from East of Eden, click here.  If you are planning to read the book . . . do not click here.]

Fearless or Irresponsible? Living In the Overlap.

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

For whatever reason, I was thinking today about a time in my life when I was acting quite irresponsibly.  At least that is how it must have appeared from an outsider’s perspective.  To me, and with a goodly measure of hindsight, what felt to be intrepid was probably pretty rash.  And maybe even a little naive and dumb.

I was also thinking today about times in my life when I was acting quite fearlessly and how life was just one long ride of incredible excitement.  Every day was new and different and challenges abounded as a result of this fearlessness.  I was riding a big wave and somehow managing to stay on the board.  I look back and think, Huh.  How did that even work?  

Fearless?  Irresponsible?  Is there even a line between the two?  Maybe life is one big Venn diagram . . . a symbol of where we place our confidence in life, in love, in ourselves.  I don’t know.  In that we are never completely aware of the full consequences of our actions, it is unclear as to how willy-nilly my behavior truly was.  And continues to be.  Still, it seems to be true that all kinds of crazy and dumb can lead to positive outcomes.  It sometimes comes down to the question of What we are willing to do for the pursuit of love and happiness?  What kind of risk are we willing to take?

Click on the link below and print out this journaling exercise.  Do some free associating with the diagram.  I’m not suggesting any empirical outcome.  I am simply asking you to consider that what you might carry as a regret might not have been as dumb and irresponsible as you think it was or is.

Life happens.  Consider the alternative.  I’d rather be living in the Overlap or even the Outer Fringes . . . knowing that I am willing to take the risk to try.  Just try.

Fearless or Irresponsible. Living in the Overlap.

[Three-hole punch this exercise and put it in your special journaling binder.  It is so rewarding to look back over writing that is honest and that encourages you to grow.  My journaling friends all say that they are glad they have saved their writing in one binder or notebook.  They also say that they are happy that they dated their writing and recorded their location.  You might be in the park, at your desk, or on a ferry.  You might be on an exotic vacattoaster ovenion or you might be waiting for your laundry to finish drying at the laundromat.  No matter where you are when you are recording your thoughts and feelings, when re-reading your entries at a later date . . . your spatial memory will trigger the Feelings of Epiphany you felt when you were discovering your Voice and your Truth.  Happy writing!]

 

Follow Your Own Heart

/ Kennedy Farr / 3 Comments

Almanac Directions . . .

“From my own experience, I want to say that you should follow your heart, and the mind will follow you. Believe in yourself, and you will create miracles. Kailash Satyarthi

Journal prompt for today: It’s time to create some miracles.

Click on the link below:

You can’t get lost if you follow your own heart. Journal prompt

Print this prompt out, 3-hole punch it, and start your True Directions binder . . . or simply write your three things down in your journal.   Take the journey and listen . . . you can’t get lost when you are following your own heart.  After all, you are the only one who can hear what it has to say.  The only one.

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The Way Things Stack Up

/ Kennedy Farr / 3 Comments

Stones pyramid on sand symbolizing zen, harmony, balance. OceanThe way that things stack up don’t always make sense.  You look at a rock cairn and you see dissimilar shapes and textures and sizes.  What doesn’t naturally fit together neatly and perfectly into one whole structure has the potential to allow for balance to offset the dissimilarities in size and shape.

Cairns represent a balance that requires delicacy and a measure of hope. They offer natural beauty presented in a random-deliberate-natural sort of way.  A lot like life.  They do not ask for some added adhesive that will make the balancing act a little easier.  The rocks defy gravity by leaning on each other. Cairns have the potential to  stand for a very long time.  They represent the possibilities that I might have overlooked otherwise.

I am thinking that cairns in the right setting appeal to me.  I do like to see them on the beach below high tide such that the tide will roll in and eradicate the evidence of man — restoring a different natural order.  The ocean is persistent that way.

I have an old scale that I bought at an estate sale.  This scale has seen better-balanced days.  In order for the pointer to balance the beam, I had to add several tiny antique French coins in one of the weights pan.  The coins bring everything up to true.  Balance.  What is it exactly?  We seek it.  We desire it.  We believe that we would appreciate how it feels . . . if we could only be certain that we are actually experiencing it.  There are books and poems and songs written about balance.  Still, I do not know exactly what it means or how it feels in my life.

Vision Board 058We weigh decisions.  And justice.  And mercy.  And priorities.  And options.  We weigh fairness and love and life.  We somehow intuit when something isn’t feeling quite right, so we start to mess with the scale.  We add more coins.  Or we pick up a different rock to add to the cairn.  We deliberate.  Or we sometimes say the-hell-with-it and just give it a go.

Life’s events tumble together, and my carefully-constructed towers of well-thought-out plans are strewn all willy-nilly.  Sometimes I am left with the oddest of pieces to balance back together again.  I see the beauty in the pile of rocks that are before me, and I seek guidance and allow my intuition to lead me.

I recently read a great Irish proverb: “A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything.”   I so agree.  A good laugh is like medicine and a long sleep restores the body and the soul.  Along the vein of cairns, I was thinking about which life blessings provide me with balance: laughter, sleep, forgiveness, appreciation, humility, kindness, patience, travel, adventure, discovery, learning, courage . . .

The way that things stack up at times doesn’t always make sense, but I continue to attempt to counterbalance with those things that point me to true.

 

 

 

 

Look Up

/ Kennedy Farr / 5 Comments

This is an awesome video.  It reminds all of us to Look Up.  To see that which is all around us.  In plain sight.  I have watched this video several times, and I continue to marvel at the bare simplicity of the message.  Look up.  Look around.  Look at the people around me.  Be mindful.  Cultivate mindfulness.  Pay attention.  Look for the signs that guide and bless.

These amazing electronic devices are spectacularly connective.  They allow for instant communication that creates bonds that help me to hold near to those who are dear in my life.  They grow my relationships through the instant exchange of shared laughter and goofy voice mails and funny emails and inspiring posts.  They allow me to be available and to express myself in immediate ways that would not have been possible otherwise.  They allow me to be impulsive, and they allow me to edit and to draft and to pause before sending.  They are a blessing.

And these devices “of delusion” can be an isolating master that dominates without any awareness or permission on my part. “I have 422 friends.  Yes, I am lonely. . .”  As this video illustrates, they provide a culture of being alone together.  I look at my plugged-in life now and marvel that I did not have a telephone for almost 18 years.  I look back on that time and wonder how.

How?  In a world of high-speed communication, how did I function by sending letters and receiving replies only once a week.  I had to learn how to be very careful with how I worded questions in a letter so that the recipient would not have to fill in any blanks and guess at my meaning — thus possibly adding another two weeks to the communication — one week for my added clarification and another for the end reply.  I lived in a different world and moved to a different rhythm. There were moments at the beginning of this phone-less time in my life when it was incredibly frustrating, but I learned to adapt.  The planet kept spinning.  The moon rose each night.  The horses wanted to be fed.  I had to learn patience.  And how to mentally set aside anticipated outcomes.  It took a lot of discipline to wait.

As a result of this waiting, I sometimes had to mentally transfer my wonder or my worry or my curiosity to the wonders around me.  I had to learn how to see what was in the moment there before me and not what might be somewhere out in the ether.  I would like to say that I became a Master at Waiting — that I grew a strong sense of discipline — but there were times when this wasn’t true.

Then . . . this past weekend . . . I lost my cell phone.  This was a first, and I wasn’t happy about it.  Ultimately, the ripple effect of this event is too convoluted, fantastic, and detailed to convey in word — as there were many events that linked one to the other in magical ways.  But the overall experience commanded me to Look Up.  To look back to that time when I did not have instant communication.  To pay attention to the signs guiding and leading me. To be willing to extend my self into new territories of belief and appreciation.  To have the opportunity to Just Believe and celebrate. toaster oven

But when my phone disappeared, it became quite the wide journey between the discovery of lost and and the magic of found.  And when it was found, I discovered many things about my self and about other and about my universe that I now value in significant ways that transcend ordinary awareness.  I am definitely looking up.  Whoa.  Am I ever.

All of this to say . . . I do very much like being connected.  I value the ease and the opportunity to be available. But I want to be present when being present counts.  To cultivate mindfulness and be ready for those unanticipated moments of being blessed.

Look up.  It is sometimes very difficult to be mindful of being mindful.  Meta-mindfulness.  Yowza.  It can be quite the trick.  When I am mindful, life has a different feel to it.  Being mindful allows for flow.  Not paying attention breaks up the flow; still, there are lessons to be learned when not in flow . . . lessons that re-direct me to a renewed state of mindfulness . . . of Look Up.

 

 

It’s Monday. Do you want to be happy?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

Happy-Monday-Are-you-happyIt’s Monday.  Yippee!  Are you happy?  No?  Do you want to be happy?  No?  Keep doing whatever you’re doing.  Pretty simple, right?  But if you aren’t happy and you want to be happy, change something.  Try something new.  Anything.

That change can be tiny and infinitesimal.  It can be a baby step in relation to the Universe.  But Change Something.  You will not regret it.

Why?  Because the influence of Change, like the weather, is akin to the microscopic disturbance of a butterfly wing. A simple flutter has the potential to determine if it is going to rain on your outdoor wedding day six weeks hence.  You never know.  Weather and life and Change all have a beautifully fickle nature about them.  Surprises abound.

While climate may depend on the broad and long and predictable haul, the weather is changeable.  Its fluctuations are hard to predict.  The weather can produce a different result in the immediate.

Your plans might change as a result of the weather.  You may decide that a picnic is not in your best interest if there is a 90% chance of rain.  But you never know.  There goes a rabble of butterflies winging by, and you are out the door with your picnic basket, trying to decide which beach to lunch at.

Thank goodness for the seemingly impetuous nature of butterflies.  While some may consider their flight to be a contribution to chaos, others may embrace the short term atmospheric changes as beautiful.  Predictable climate patterns may merge and alter the atmosphere’s balance, but the short term, day-to-day atmospheric changes are what we live in.   Climate is shaped by unseen global forces that create patterns — all of which are great to analyze, but chaotic disturbances affected by a butterfly migration are what add interest to another Monday.  Nature is a miracle, and I am going to roll with the butterfly-generated chaos every time. I’ll choose a miracle any time.

Are you happy?  I am.  I love Mondays.  Is there a pattern to the calendar and our work week?  Yes.  Do I want to abandon my post and join a kaleidoscope of gypsy butterflies that are winging by?  Most definitely.  Still, I am a bit of a homing pigeon, and I know where I want to light at journey’s end.  With my sweetheart and my loved ones while listening to the stories of their Mondays that are always so magnificent and interesting, even when they do not believe that they are.

I love Mondays.  Mondays: they re-define another shot at another week of happiness and bliss and appreciation.  How could we not love them?

Life.  Metamorphosis.  Change.  Growth.  Struggle.  Movement.  Hope.  Rebirth.  Flight.  Freedom.  Happy Monday.

 

 

Skipping in Place

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

I was thinking last night about how stuck we feel when we realize we are in a negative place.  Stuck like a needle in a skip on vinyl.  

We feel that there is no hope for forward movement, and we can hear the inevitability that it is we who are going to have to make the skip stop. Sometimes we hope that the scratch is sufficiently insignificant such that we can wait out the monotony . . . when all we need do is pick up the needle and move it to the next track.  I sometimes “kick myself” after realizing that I have invested time into something that is, in all actuality, cancelling out forward movement and quality of  life.  But maybe this is part of life’s learning, and I should be easier on myself.  

Regret is an emotion wasted.  It is the groove that is holding the skip in place.  By being present and freeing ourselves from being stuck, we are renewed with the energy that fuels our happiness in the present and our dreams for the future.  By taking action and removing that needle, we allow self-forgiveness for those What was I thinking? moments.  Time to move on.  Time to put on a new album and move to a new rhythm.unstuck-2

Life is brimming with gifts and treasures and happiness.  The discovery of this abundance is the best part of life for me, like opening a box that is filled with exactly my heart’s desire.  Perhaps bumping up against those not-so-positve places is not the villain after all . . . knowing that I have the strength and the courage to get up from my spot of stagnant acceptance, pick up the needle, place it on its holder, remove the album, pick a new album, reset the needle.  And enjoy.  Sigh.  It wasn’t that hard, truly.  Time to move on to a better-feeling place and dance to some new music.

Who knew that being brave could be so liberating?  Certainly not a unique concept for those who regularly beard the lion in the den before breakfast . . . but definitely something to consider when feeling stuck in a groove that shows no promise of movement.  Move the needle or change the vinyl.  Take a chance.  You never know what wonderful thing might happen.

Try Something New: Enforced Restfulness

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

My Try Something New today: contentment in enforced restfulness.

If you light a lamp quote

The story of my past few days has allowed for some enforced restfulness.  What I have learned is that as much as I say I want a peaceful and quiet and tranquil life in the midst of my self-made chaos . . . there is another part of me that craves the hub-bub, the drama, the go-go-go, the challenges at work, the randomness of just wandering with no projected outcomes, the movement that gives me inspiration to create and to laugh and to love.

This enforced restfulness has given me time to just be with me.  And it has been nice.  And it has also been not so nice.  The nice parts have given me an opportunity to observe and take note of what runs through my mind when I am not thinking of what I am going to do next.  I am just being in the Now.  Just chilling and petting the cat and figuring out inversions on the  piano and stir-frying onions and garlic with asparagus and having long conversations on the phone with my sisters . . . this sort of thing.  I have been focusing on the simple and important things that get nudged aside or that get squeezed into the day.

The thing that has been rather bittersweet has been realizing truly how little time I create for being with me.  I find that I often am so busy projecting my light outward, I don’t replenish the source of this light within.  Again, not necessarily a bad thing . . . but  the words of my mum come to mind: Moderation in everything.  I think I have been putting too much time into outward and not into inward.

In high school art class, I was given a calligraphy assignment.  I was to find a proverb or quote and write it using the calligraphy style of my choice.  Wanting it to be perfect and vintage-y, I procrastinated and I remember spending more time ultimately looking for a short quote that would satisfy the assignment than I did practicing my lettering.   The quote was short, but compelling.  I knew it had a lot to say, even though I wasn’t quite certain what it exactly meant at the time.  It reads: “Contentment is the absence of selfish ambition.”  Quite the dose of profundity in only seven words.  No wonder it befuddled my teen-aged mind.  It still sort of does.

What this enforced restfulness has done is it has slowed me to a place of seeking contentment.  By replenishing, I have refilled the lamp, trimmed the wick, and polished up the chimney.  How is my little light going to shine if I don’t take the time to fill the lamp?

I also know that this time to myself has created deep appreciation for all of those people who shine their light my way — for their “absence of selfish ambition” — for sharing who they are with me so selflessly.

Am I committed to take more time to just think and to be and to not be doing all of the time?  Yes. Am I ready to resume my days at the speed of light?  Yes.   But this has been good.  Good for realizing that I am paying attention and wanting a life with a balance of contentment that generates and receives light and that puts a smile back into my soul and that not just enforces restfulness but embraces it as well.

 

Walking Tall (with a little dog)

/ Kennedy Farr / 1 Comment

My Try-Something-New today . . . walking tall.

Yesterday, I was held up in traffic.  It was a beautiful day, and I was rushing home from work to catch some evening sunshine.  Traffic started to back up, so I looked ahead and saw a very tall woman walking a very small dog at a crosswalk.  What caught my attention wasn’t that she was so tall and that the dog was so little.  It was that she was walking with great confidence and really good posture.  She was looking up.  She wasn’t rushing across the 5 lanes of traffic.  She was sauntering like she meant it, like she was paying attention.  And enjoying her stroll with her little pooch.

As traffic resumed, I thought about how poised she looked.  I have crossed in heavy traffic at crosswalks before, but I know I have done so almost apologetically — like the proverbial chicken crossing the road.  Like I am so sorry, People.  I know I am holding up traffic. I sometimes feel self-conscious.  My posture probably sucks.  Scurry scurry.  Probably my head is down, and I know that I am moving more quickly than I would if I were walking across a sunny cow field or strolling in the shade along a riverside trail.  The thought occurred: Why do I feel like such a nerd for holding up traffic? 

So, today . . . I was out walking my little dog.  I came to a crosswalk that connects the interurban trail.  I stood on the side of the busy street and  . . . the first car went blowing by.  Okay, I won’t take that personally.  The other drivers saw us, and we, my tiny and strange-looking dog and I, walked with vigor and buoyancy across the street.  Now, I am not a fraction of an inch over 5’4″ — but I felt taller.  On the inside, that is.  One driver even waved hello.  Maybe because my dog is such a weird mixture of genetics but then again maybe not.  Maybe she noticed that I was paying attention to her and not being all hurry-scurry.  We smiled at each other.  I finished crossing the street.  She drove off.

This action truly did not require any measure of courage.  To be clear, I am not paranoid about crossing the street!   But making a conscious shift in attitude is what caught my soul’s attention.  It caused me to wonder about all of those times I have felt apologetic for simply being human.  Like making a mistake at work or blurting something without thinking.  Like burning the birthday cake or backing into my neighbor’s parked car.  All of these ouch moments that only mean that I am human.

Paying attention means walking tall.  And walking tall means giving up on my apologetic default.  And giving up on my apologetic default means making small connections here and there.  It allows me to embrace that small part of myself that sometimes feels like a pain in the ass.  Maybe I am the only one who feels this way on occasion.  But there you have it.  I write this and take the risk so that it might speak to someone else who also hurries across the street.  Walk tall.

Wear who you are on the inside on the outside, too.  You are an ultra-cool person with so many experiences.  There is boldness in claiming who you are.  And rewards in looking up.   And gifts in walking tall.

The Try-Something-New Challenge . . . want to join in?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

old vintage clockIs there something that you have been wanting to learn?  To do?  To try just once to see what it would feel like?

Is the Fear of Failure holding you back?  Is a lack of resources holding you back?  Is there someone in your life who is telling you that you don’t focus and you never finish anything?  Is there a voice in your head that always gives you bad advice?  Don’t start.  You have so much to do around the house.  You have to get up early in the morning. You haven’t done laundry for a week.  The garage is a disaster.

Do you feel like you simply do not have enough time, precious time, to even think about starting something new?

The bad news:  You don’t have enough time.  The good news: You do have enough time.  You CHOOSE which news you want your inner soul to hear.

I kept delivering the bad news to my heart, my mind, my hands, my spirit.  Financial struggles, too many jobs, juggling household chores, burned out from work, distracted by pets.  All of this mindspeak was proving to be so exhausting to my Inner Spirit that I simply stopped trying to express any creativity.

Until lately.  I have undertaken a personal challenge: Try something new every single day.

In the beginning, this challenge verified the bad news –> it was something that felt overwhelmingly huge and impossible.  When am I going to have the time to try something new every single day?!  My days already feel like pasta in a pot of water — on constant boil and threatening to spill over onto the clean stove top at any given second.

But.  I read once that if you lay a wooden spoon across a pot of boiling  pasta that it won’t overboil.  No more messy stove to clean up.  So, I tried this trick and it works!  Pretty amazing and soooo simple, right?

This Try Something New Challenge to myself has proven to be that magical wooden spoon.  I not only have enough time to Try Something New, I have plenty of time.  I don’t understand the way that time has expanded, but it has.  The hard part was starting.  The easy part is enjoying the rewards.  It has been so. much. fun.

I originally intended on focusing on one single something new to try for the 30 days.  Develop some consistency and build some sense of habit by adding only one thing.  All sorts of ideas came to mind.  Play piano every single day.  Ride my scooter to work every single day.  Eat a healthy breakfast every single day.  Work out every single day.  Do one or all of these things every single day for 30 days.

But I found that this wasn’t working.  I couldn’t decide on one-single-something-new.  As I was casting about for that perfect one-single-something-new, I discovered that was working was trying something uniquely different every single day.  Examples?  I started piano lessons — and have been pretty disciplined regarding playing everyday.  I went dancing at a casino — great stories as a result of this adventure.  I broke out the new orange-and-white kitchen towels that had been preserved in their pristine state in my kitchen drawer — now brightening my kitchen and thoroughly broken in with the hues of red wine, carrot juice, and tomato sauce.  I introduced myself to a stranger — and we have since become acquaintances.

You get the idea.  I called an ex-boyfriend just to say hi.  I bought Swiss chard at the vegetable stand.  I wrote a long overdue letter.  I told someone about my current writing project.  I had dinner at a restaurant that I have been wanting to go to.  I took photographs of garbage.  I painted a Jackson-Pollack-inspired painting and then added all sorts of 3-D items.  I started reading my horoscope.  I started blogging.

So. Many. Fun. Things.  Now?  I make sure that I squeeze that Something New into my waking hours.  I have effected change.  The ripples have been spreading.  There have been some really fun and surprising and happy results by expressing some willingness to shake things up.

Would you like to share in this challenge with me?  Is there something new that you have been really wanting to do?

Please, leave a reply and post your One New Thing and share how it is changing your world.  We all would love to hear about it!