Improving My Life

I've been looking at many 101 Goals lists, and noticed three items that keep reappearing.

Seems like everyone wants to bungee jump, which is pretty obvious. I think that nothing makes you feel more alive then the feeling that you're cheating death.

Everyone wants to swim naked. Now, I'm not the voice of authority when it comes to moral standards, but when it comes to the swimming naked goal, I'm not too upset this goal remains mostly unfulfilled.

And one more goal repeats itself: Buying an item on Etsy. I understand that one too. We see earnest artists and artist-wannabees, and we feel for them and we want to support them and their vision.

So I wanted to do that one, but couldn't find anything I wanted. Or--as we are in tough times--I couldn't find anything I needed. And I was about to give up on this goal, or at least postpone it indefinitely, when a friend who makes crazy art had finally been convinced to put some of it on a t-shirt. When he started selling the t-shirts on Etsy, I knew I had a winner.

Another goal fulfilled. Another artist happy. A win-win.

(Click on the image to see bigger versions. Maybe even buy a shirt?)

One of the goals I set for myself on my slowly growing list of 101 goals in 1001 days was to join a group of fathers.

I first heard about this group by accident, when waiting for the table to clear in the local restaurant, I saw a flyer for a documentary called Happy SAHD. Here's the trailer:

Well, being the insecure person that I am/was, I didn't go to see the movie, and I definitely didn't get in touch with any of the fathers from the movie.

A couple of months later I met a woman who knew one of the fathers featured in the movie. When I told her I was a stay-at-home father, she said I should join the group. They were all easy going fathers who met for play dates once a week. She gave me her friend's email. I waited another two months.

But in the end, it's not about me, even if secretly it is.

It's mostly about making sure my baby, who doesn't go to day care, spends time socializing with other kids.

And secretly, which is also the reason this was one of my goals, getting in touch with this group of stay-at-home fathers was about acknowledging that I needed the help and the companionship of others like me. Getting in touch with this group and attending the meetings and play dates was about overcoming the voices in my head telling me that although it felt like something I needed, I should have stayed away.

We meet every Wednesday. We chat. We chase our kids around. What's the big deal? Why did it take me so long to do something so simple?

Well, one step at a time, I guess, is the only answer I can give. Another goal fulfilled. Another invisible obstacle overcome. Another cause for a small celebration.

We tend to look at obstacles in a negative way. This is something we might be able work on, slowly learning to treat obstacles as learning experiences and as positive things in general. I mentioned that before, here.

But this post is about the other side--how we look at the good things we have. There are so many things we have and simply take for granted. This is true, for example, for an employer who mistreats an employee because he thinks it doesn't matter (after all, the mistreated employee is getting paid, right?). It's also true for family and friends we take for granted, often not pausing to appreciate the fact that a person has chosen us to spend a lifetime with (or in the case of friends, even just a rare afternoon at the football stadium).

Once we figure this one out, it's possible to look further and learn to appreciate everything around us.

The ideas above, by the way, are much better explained in this post from Dream Manifesto, where author Jack Canfield writes

When you are in a state of appreciation and gratitude, you are in a state of abundance. You are appreciating what you do have instead of focusing on, and complaining about, what you don’t have. Your focus is on what you have received… and you always get more of what you focus on.

I've commented on some blogs (as well as mentioning it here) that I approach meditation as a physical/mental exercise rather than a spiritual one, and it led me to think about spirituality and about what I'm missing.

I do believe that a spiritual background could make it easier to meditate, but is it really necessary?

None other than Howard Stern is actually a big fan of meditation. It's something he's been doing before each show for many years, since his first radio job. But like me, he feels no connection to the spiritual side of meditation.

So, am I missing something here?

Or is spiritual meditation just another path to the same place we all reach through meditation?

Or is there a third option: Am I, by meditating and getting the peace I need to distance myself from myself actually practicing the spiritual meditation? In other words, if I get to where I need to go, does it mean I'm having a spiritual experience (even as I distance myself from that word)?

Goal number six in my slowly growing list of 101 goals is to meditate daily for a week. I had achieved this goal soon after starting this project. It was an easy goal, requiring a few minutes a day for a week.

But then, following the good feeling I felt when I updated the goal list to write this goal was complete, I pretty much neglected the meditation.

But why is that? To be fair, I can only do that at night, when my baby is asleep. And between fearing him waking up and the dogs barking, I can't bring myself to relax even for a few minutes, even though I regret it every night, knowing a day without meditation is a day with more stress and less understanding.

Writing it down here actually allows me to make sense of things. It's a cycle that can be broken only by me. I too stressed to meditate, which means that if I allow myself these five minutes I will not be stressed anymore.

Come on... I can do this. In fact, I'll create another goal: #51: Now that I've succeeded in meditating daily for a week, I will meditate daily for a month.

We'll go from there.