An Experiment in Intentional Living

I'm copying this post from my public blog. It was a mistake putting it there. It just doesn't fit with the mission of my blog at all, and it ended up being far too personal journal-y for my taste. I'd all but forgotten I even HAD a personal blog, but it's a nice way to have it out here somewhere for myself (and whoever) still - without messing up the professional blog. Pulling it down from there.

I should really write in this thing again sometime... one day... when I have free time to spend on things other than GMAT studying and trip planning and essay writing and reference cultivating.


What would it be like to live with every moment of your day planned out in advance? Or what if you threw out the schedule altogether, and nothing was ever planned at all? How would it feel to have no reason to think ahead because it's already mapped out for you? Or to never think ahead because you decide in the moment what feels right? Would both of these extremes lead to a greater sense of immediacy and presence in what you're doing moment to moment? Or would they be so extreme and limiting that you would feel desperate and out of control?

These are some of the questions I will explore on a new adventure for the next three weeks - an adventure I'd like you to join me on, as I record some of my observations and reflect on topics of personal motivation, structure, and focus in our lives. I will update this blog entry as I go, and invite you to comment on anything I say and your own reflections on these topics of how we experience our everyday lives.

WEEK ONE - TOTAL STRUCTURE: Plan out every hour of my entire week in advance and follow it to the letter of the law. Furthermore, plan it out the way I THINK I should live it, including more exercise than I might normally get and more focused attention to get priority things checked off my to do list. I'd better schedule a little relaxation time too so I don't lose my mind. This first week is the reason why I initially wanted to do this project - just to make sure I get things done, see if I can live this way (though I've been informed that others think I already live this way).

WEEK TWO - TOTAL FREEDOM: Plan nothing in advance. Focus on what I'm doing until I'm ready to be done doing it, and then decide what is next. Make no advanced commitments, and avoid falling into old patterns about what I think I want to do or should accomplish. Question what could be next and explore spontaneity. This week is the reason I probably SHOULD actually do this project, and the place where I truly have the most to explore. I might actually manage to do something completely unexpected.

WEEK THREE - TOTAL BALANCE: Contemplate how to find a balance between these extremes. Given my observations from the previous two weeks, try to develop a new norm without necessarily just falling into how I always used to do it. Already I have in mind some of the lessons I will learn along the way, but they're not really lessons if I can plan it out, are they? Hopefully by the time I reach this point, the project's nature will have changed for me.

Motivation. Structure. Focus. These topics are central to who I am. I think they're central to who we all are and how we live our daily lives, but I do have a feeling that I think about them more than most. If I'm going to spend my days focusing so much on how I can find continued energy to keep motivated and keep working, while cultivating a healthy body and mind and allowing relaxation time to stay sane ... I might as well really dive in and try something a little whacky. This may be an opportunity to deepen the insights I already have, discover new ones, or maybe just confirm that the messy approximation of balance we live in is pretty appealing compared to the alternatives.



THE JOURNAL

8/29/10 (Sunday): The experiment begins tomorrow. Already I'm feeling a bit tired and constrained by the amount of effort I've had to put into planning out my week. I find myself developing an appreciation for how effective it is to play the smaller things in life by ear. Planning my exact menu for the week to include the days I don't have time to cook is much harder than I expected. Yet somehow if I wasn't planning this out, I'd get fed. Then again, it might be in a less healthy or affordable way. Such is the trade off. I'll be curious to see how much I appreciate or dislike the fact that I've already made my decisions about what to eat this week.

9/3/10 (Friday, Week 1): I like this experiment less every day. I was energized at first, ready to settle down into some of its routine and the satisfaction of getting things accomplished. But it has seemed to feel an awful lot like my normal life half the time, and a pain in the rear the other half.

The Structure of Health I have to admit: this has got to be the most consistently well fed, slept, exercised and meditated I've ever been in my life. Somehow I expected that taking care of myself so well would lead to feeling great, being cheerful and motivated. As a general rule, that is in fact how it works for me. But I don't feel that much better than usual. (Maybe because I'm actually pretty good at staying healthy normally anyhow?) In fact, I seem to have trouble getting over feeling crabby for having to get up and exercise even when I feel exhausted. I can't help but wonder though if this would wear off and I'd gain the most benefit if I could continue on this way for longer. I think a high degree of structure IS important for these kinds of healthy choices so that they become ingrained as true habits and eventually stop being something you agonize over. I've thought that for a long time. Somehow I just seem to lack the motivation to be disciplined enough a lot of the time.

Social Flexibility Predictably, the biggest challenges to keeping my schedule have been outside influences like people suddenly remembering they had other plans for the night. Normally I'd say "let's get together on Wednesday instead," but in this case that isn't an option. So I did my best to continue with the plan, alone. I think it's pretty obvious that one of the important reasons why we don't live completely structured lives is to make space for the people we care about and important unexpected happenings. It hasn't been TOO much of a problem so far though. Just annoying. Causing me to say "I hate this experiment" a number of times. Probably not the best attitude.

Short of Immersion Due to the nature of my job, I'm not imposing the rules of the experiment during my work day, so the main parts of my day that feel very structured are mornings and evenings. I think I find it more difficult to take the structured periods seriously and maintain the motivation to stay on schedule due to this back and forth nature. Not much to be done about it - but I do wonder if that suggests that in some ways a more extreme/complete approach really is ideal to truly stay on task. It seems that as I stick to my schedule, a certain sort of energy is slowly built up, but it's dissipated when I switch to a different mode of operating. There's no time to just fully settle into the structure, the predictability, the simplicity of being where I am doing what I am. This weekend may present more of an opportunity to do that though. I will add another report soon.

P.S. I was just about to add a little section about cheating, how I keep trying to bend my own rules. Then I realized I'm 7 minutes over time for writing this, and I should stop trying to bend the rules. Time to move onto the next scheduled task. Yes, I know, writing this also took like another 1 minute or something over my time. Irony.



9/21 (Tuesday, Week 4): Wait, what? Week 4? You thought this was a three week experiment, didn’t you?

I think I’m overdue to provide an update on my experience.

Resisting Control Due to the level of planning in the first week, I got some good things accomplished, and I was in good health. But I never reached a point of settling into the routine and feeling a sense of calmness as I somewhat expected to happen. To the contrary, I never got past feeling tired and strained by the constraints on me, and I actually lost the motivation to stick to the letter of the law as the week wore on. By the last day, I was following the spirit of my plans rather than the actual schedule, making sure I did the same things for about the same length of time but moving them around to make it more bearable.

Rules of the Game One of the most defining features of both that week and the following week was lots of debates with myself and others about what was and was not allowed within the structure of my experiment. Could I make advanced plans during week two if I felt in the moment like making them? How much should I emphasize pleasure and doing what seemed easy and appealing, versus emphasizing substance and doing what struck me as a good idea? My conception of week two was unclear compared to week one, leaving me uncertain of what I was doing and why. When I stopped to ask myself what I really felt like doing, all too often I found myself short on ideas for things that seemed appealing, and short on energy to execute.

Failure My most clear conclusion from the experiment so far is that lack of structure does not become me. Truly letting myself decide in the moment what I felt like doing, I didn’t get out of bed until the last minute, I didn’t wash the dishes, and I didn’t eat as well (or as often) as usual. Furthermore, within a few days of this, I felt terrible. Maybe it was worth the experience to run to the grocery store at 10pm for pizza and ice cream, or to discover that I’d still end up washing the dishes because they’d stink so badly after a few days that I’d genuinely want to wash them just to make the smell go away. I reached a point where I was tired and achey and hungry enough that I craved exercise, craved fresh vegetables and early bed times. And yet, all of those things somehow became unattainable, too much work. As a result of feeling so terribly run down by the end of the week, I switched the rules of the game to make week 3 just a recovery from week 2, a transition back towards better health and getting some things off my checklist.

Fearlessness Probing the possibilities of what it could mean to be more spontaneous during week 2, just one has stayed with me as significant and important: fearlessness. If I have a spontaneous idea to eat ice cream for dinner instead of a balanced meal, that’s probably just avoidance, a temptation to do the easy thing, and something that I won’t be so thrilled about later. Ignoring that idea and going with the original plan is not boring and predictable – it’s just plain smart. However, if I have a spontaneous idea to email someone whose work I admire and ask them to lunch to discuss some questions I have, not following through is more a reflection of fear than responsibility. We’re all afraid of making idiots of ourselves, of taking the wrong risks. And sometimes not doing something is the right choice in a risk trade off. But a lot of the time it’s not, and it’s worth moving forward even when we’re not sure in order to practice this kind of gutsiness. Amidst eating too many empty carbs and spending more money on unnecessary things than usual, week 2 also led me to send a number of messages to people I haven’t met but who I’d like to. That was worth something, even if I haven’t heard back, and it gave me some momentum from which I’m still benefiting.

Structures breeds spontaneity During my week of structure, I couldn’t wait for the next week to begin. In the middle of working on projects, I’d constantly have great ideas about other things I wanted to do and felt all this spontaneous energy building up. Day one of week two began, and I had nothing. All of my options seemed grim, and I spent 3 hours just debating how to start my day. It rapidly occurred to me that to be more spontaneous, I needed that structure at the same time. I needed to be engaged in things already as a matter of course in order for something unexpected to present itself. Perhaps this is a contradiction for some people, but it makes perfect sense to me. It’s like giving a poet the structure of a sonnet or an artist the limits of a medium. Constraints breed creativity.

The New Rules The three weeks of my experiment were more exhausting and less rewarding than I’d counted on. That being the case, I’m not going to waste the lessons learned. I’m expanding the week of balance to three weeks of balance. By the time that period is “over,” I hope many of its characteristics will be permanent habits for me. Here are the guidelines I've put together for these next three weeks:

Structure Not everyone thrives within structure the way I do (or crashes so phenomenally just from getting only 7 hours of sleep a night and eating fewer vegetables). But I’m a firm believer in the merits of structure in our lives, particularly as it relates to self care. Making food, sleep, and exercise into habits frees up mental energy for other endeavors in more ways than one. They decrease the amount of willpower needed to get through the day effectively, and even reduce the number of openings for us to debate with ourselves about whether we have the willpower.

• Sleep: Wake up and go to bed at strict times, with specific routines for various daily tasks to match.


• Food and exercise: Plan 1-2 days in advance at a time and stick with the plan unless the reason not to is exceptionally good. This takes off the pressure of planning too much at once while taking off the pressure of making the right decision in the moment.


• Tasks/projects: Similar to food and exercise plans, reflect every day or two about what current priorities should be and have specific plans for what to accomplish each day.

Freedom While the outward structure for these weeks will seem more like my structured week, they will be infused with the spirit of spontaneity and freedom.

• Exceptions: Changes of plan and new ideas in the moment are taken as a matter of course as far as how I’m spending my allotted waking hours. Flimsy excuses for not following through on my tasks for the day are not tolerated, but redirections of priorities are welcomed.


• Fearlessness: Remember to be gutsy, do the things that really follow through on my goals, and set aside invalid excuses.


• Enjoyment: Allow space to rest, and use the container of structure to notice how enjoyable all the experiences within it can be.

Did I really learn anything new from my experiment so far? Probably not. What I’ve outlined here as my plan for the next few weeks isn’t even much different from how I’ve always sought to live my daily life previously. But sometimes it helps to bring a new degree of intentionality into the picture, add a new dimension or angle, wake ourselves up a little bit to the life in front of us. Perhaps this was more of a giant reminder for me than a new exploration – an experience of saying to myself “See, remember, this is what happens when you try to control yourself too much. This is what happens when you don’t take care of yourself. And this is what happens when you tweak the balance just right – unleashing the most energy possible into your life.” We’ll see about that last part.

Updated structure:
Week one: Structure
Week two: Freedom
Week three: Recovery
Weeks four-six: Balance

The definition of relaxation

I find myself questioning what I really consider relaxation, whether I've somehow managed to condition myself to consider relaxation in rather odd, entertainment-based terms.

I've been more mindful these days about doing what I consider best when I just want to wimp out and veg on the sofa watching television or wallow around feeling upset or something. I've continued to improve at just getting up and doing what I know I truly want/need to do and accomplish. I'm developing my discipline.

But at times when I have a half hour before bed and I truly just want to relax and unwind, my impulse is to watch a half hour of television. Is that really relaxing? I think I might be trying to turn my brain off, get it away from the constant questions and challenges and excitements of the day, but that doesn't exactly seem ideal. I would like to develop something more like gradually winding down, relaxing, calming... and it seems to me that being present to my world may in fact be rather important for that. And really, the kind of mindfulness that we talk about in Buddhism is all about being awake and yet relaxed. In theory, to live in this state more often, it should be easier to just let go of the awake part a bit when it comes time...

So here I am, deciding to read a newspaper article I have out and muse on the nature of relaxation on my blog, rather than watch television. But look at this: I've been up for a full hour now, my mind is racing with thoughts about small houses due to the article I was reading, and I feel as though I basically just succeeded in staying up and doing stuff for another hour rather than really relaxing for a while.

I might like to think I just need to find the right combination of things... classical music and warm milk and a good book of fiction. And yes, I do find that to be more calming and easier to fall asleep after than anything non-fiction or engaging with new ideas. But honestly, I think it's really more about something deeper. I think it's about finding that sense of calm and relaxation, that comfort with being present moment to moment, in general. And there are many things I know I can do to work on that.

I usually seem to be battling off sleep pretty rapidly when I do sitting meditation. Probably time to start taking advantage of this fact and meditating right before bed. Time to give it a try!

At the moment

I can hear the ceiling fan creaking and clicking overhead, and that sort of full bodied quietness of night time with the windows open.

There are so many thoughts that could threaten to overtake me, for the awareness of possibilities tends to excite me and get me all in a dither. But for now, it seems that my larger mind just sees them and lets them pass by, or lets them sit there lurking under the table without feeling the need to feed them table scraps and train them to keep coming back.

There is agitation and unrest even in the midst of this peacefulness, but in some ways it almost makes the peace more full, more real.

It has been a long time since I so enjoyed the fact of going to bed for the real experience of it and the satisfaction of knowing its benefit in my life, even while wanting so much in so many ways to remain conscious - to rest here a bit longer, to think with a little more clarity than usual, to act on things I often dither my way out of clearly acting on.

Part of building real abiding confidence is having the trust that doing the right thing, caring for those basic physical needs rather than allowing myself to give special dispensation to unusually enjoyable or clear states of mind, strengthens the likelihood of their return... trusting that one way or another, I am on my way somewhere, and letting go, not needing to own this moment or this mind, is the path.

Gentleness, nowness, and inquisitiveness

I've gotten pretty darn good at this whole gentleness with yourself thing. Suddenly I'm realizing that there's just a whole layer of self doubt and self harassment and self deprecation that just isn't happening for me. I've gotten really good at accepting things as they are, including my own thoughts and emotions (comparatively, of course - we all always have a long ways to go). And there's just been this vague feeling of, "okay, now what?"

At last night's Contentment in Everyday Life class, three qualities of contentment were discussed: gentleness, nowness and inquisitiveness. And I realized that sure, I've got the gentleness thing covered far better than any other point in my life. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm settled into the present moment and fully engaged, inquisitive, alert. So that's my emphasis now... within that feeling of acceptance and gentleness, how do I continually perk myself up, see what's around me, and find that sense of inquisitiveness.

This morning I not only did my physical therapy exercises, but managed to do the sitting meditation and contemplation as assigned in class as well. As part of my gentleness program I've accepted that daily meditation practice just isn't a priority for me right now because I need to put my disciplined energies into other things, but the benefits I experienced from practicing this single day remind me why it's still a goal... and make me think maybe it's time to start re-prioritizing it even if I do have more than ever to put my attention on. It's not just one more thing to fit into the day... it's the foundation for everything else. But I think I'm finding that I don't need to decide, okay, now I'm going to start doing this every day. I can just notice the benefits and the fact that I was glad to do it, and look to see opportunities each day where I can integrate it more.

I think perhaps the contemplation exercises seem more immediately helpful to me than shamatha meditation, which makes sense given the way I have generally internalized these teachings more by understanding and practicing the techniques in my daily life than by meditating and then bringing that out into the world. But they also make the meditation feel more meaningful as well, turn it into a sort of support for the contemplation.

Tweets

It's lovely outside. I drove home with the windows down. Now I'm watching the sun set through my kitchen window, which is cracked to enjoy the fresh air and the birdsong. There is something so fresh and real about this simple experience.

My RSS feeds are already eating me alive, and I haven't even had them set up for a week. Having chosen to engage more actively, stay on top of various blogs and other emerging sources of information/exchange regarding design thinking and related concepts (and I seem to be relating everything these days), I am indeed already overwhelmed by the quantity of information and discussion out here on the internet. I had previously avoided maladies like an addiction to facebook, but having a more compelling reason to engage with with the digital, socially networked world seems to have pulled me into the vortex.

It's interested to come up for breath for a moment, look around and realize how compelling this physical world in front of me is. I'm lost online and in my head because I'm excited about engaging with the world, but I must remember that's why I'm there in the first place. I do have a lot of catching up to do, much to read and write and think about. But there's no point in any of it if it's not grounded in the direct experience of life. I look forward to finding a healthy balance in these things.

So, to my nonexistent readers, feel free to follow me on my new twitter page @dianaluepke - I do my best to tweet worthwhile things (links I find truly worth sharing, etc.), only about once a day. But I can't pretend to even begin to be as compelling as the tweeting coming from outside my window. (Oh, I know, it's a horrible and horribly obvious pun/trope, but I had to do it. I like bad puns, and I'm usually not quick enough to even notice the obvious ones, so I'm usually stuck laughing at those delivered by other people.)

This is pretty great.

Being sick is no fun. The worst part of it the past few days has been difficulty getting good sleep. It's almost as though I'm not truly sick until I happen to be in a horizontal position. And then my body remembers, oh yeah, I'm sick, none of this sleeping business.

But even now, faced with the prospect of an early morning tomorrow, tired, and yet unable to sleep... I'm very clear on the fact that in certain fundamental ways, I am the happiest I've ever been.

Some things have settled. I feel ever more confident in my ability to navigate the natural ups and down of my life and my own thoughts and emotions. Some things are just... quieter.

And some things have woken up. I have entered a period of voracious curiosity, where there simply is not enough time in the day to read all of the news articles, blog posts, and nonfiction books on my ever-expanding list, not enough time to capture all the thoughts and questions and comments flowering out in response to what I come in contact with. I'm more connected to the world. For the first time in my life, I'm consistently on top of current events, I have some sense of awareness of my place in the larger world and within history. And part of that awareness is a new intensity of focus on how I want to contribute, what particular areas I'm curious about truly understanding.

I used to avoid dealing with politics and other worldly topics in part because I got frustrated with the ways in which everyone seemed to oversimplify these topics. There didn't even seem to be a basic mode of discussing politics that got at the heart of things, that sought real solutions that embraced all the complex pieces instead of just oversimplifying and pointing fingers. I felt like it would take more energy than I had to even be truly educated on one topic, so in some sense, why bother. But I also knew this would change, I also felt that I was trying to get my own house in order and that one day I would be more responsible in connecting with the world around me.

So perhaps that day has come? And it makes sense. In many ways, my own house IS in order in ways it hasn't been in the past. There are certain sorts of stability, confidence, and clarity that were not always there.

But I also think it is a matter of external circumstance. My discovery of design thinking really blew me away in terms of realizing there are others out there wanting to engage in the sort of way I have always longed for. There are other people actively advocating that we deal with complexity and real human needs in the business world. And in finding what amounts to a sort of community, I suddenly realize how lonely I must have felt all this time.

This just now occurred to me as I'm writing. And it seems right. In a way, I have always been rather lonely on an intellectual level. It can't have been so bad if I did not identify it as such at the time. But looking back now, it seems rather as though I was able to get excited about pieces of things along the way, but felt on some level like they didn't truly belong to a larger puzzle. All of the things I have cared about on a professional or outward goals sort of level are things that still matter to me, but now I see them as smaller aspects of this larger picture, and I see that there are others who are working to engage with that entire picture. In fact, I see that sort of thinking infiltrating the business world at large. And with that reassurance I suddenly seem to have the confidence to forge ahead and make my own connections too.

Convergence

I just got back from a dinner with Acharya Richard John at the Shambhala Center. More than anything, it was like a little peak into the much larger world that is the shambhala community, all of the levels of training and seminary and retreat and ways to be involved, the "secular" shambhala path and the buddhist stuff, the international structure of the organization, etc. etc. And I just think, wow, there are people out there patiently and diligently laying the foundation for an enlightened society.

The Acharya referred to a process of "prototyping" an enlightened society, and it reminded me so much of the discussion of prototyping in design thinking.

I feel at peace. I have discovered communities of people who are working to create something of great meaning and effectiveness in the world, in a way that fits for me. The movement of design thinking, and the shambhala community - they seem to complement each other so extremely well, one constantly reminding me of the other. It's like one started from the religious/spiritual practice and brought it outward with a strong focus on action in the world... and the other started with principles we already have about organizations and acting in the world, and newly infused it with those sorts of deeper meaning. Coming from seemingly very different places, they are converging on the same wisdom.

The inspiration of good company

How is it that the smallest things can be such important pivot points for us?

I went to Acharya Adam Lobel’s talk Wednesday night because I knew it couldn’t fail to help get me back on track from my increasingly negative and murky state of mind. Worked wonders.

I always love to re-discover the energy of a weekend with a good amount of unplanned time. I used to spend every Friday night cleaning and dancing around the apartment, but last night was the first time I did that in a while. When I'm in the right spot mentally, open weekends have this amazing energy, simplicity, and potential - a chance to appreciate each passing moment as I make progress with things I care about.

So I've argued that maybe meditation isn't so vital for me to understand and integrate the fundamental principles of Shambhala in my life. I've let this thought roll around in my head along with other related ones about the importance of meditation, etc. And I seem to come back to the same conclusion: perhaps I do come at this from a different angle than most, but I suspect a more regular meditation practice would do wonders for me. I have an unusual ability to notice the details of my life and the workings of my own mind, and I can make progress in my understanding by applying that ability. But the challenge for me is keep my mood, my emphasis, my attention on an even keel. The touchstones of meditation, readings, and interaction with others at the center matter as the elements that keep me steady in this progress, keep me inspired. I can see my own mind clearly, and know that I believe in basic goodness and joy - and still feel myself in an anxious muck of a mental mess. There is something about interacting with others who consciously embody these principles, and making a conscious space for its cultivation in my life, that keeps it FEELING real.

I'm still working to get many, many things integrated into my daily routine. Physical therapy stretches, various sorts of exercise, eating more consistently, etc. etc. It's not worth it to me right now to focus too much on meditating daily, because it becomes one more thing on that list and drags away the feeling that it's something I WANT to do. But I can accept that it is something I WILL find a way to incorporate eventually, I can be glad that all of the other things I'm working on do in fact contribute to that larger picture of physical and mental health (and insight, and effectiveness). And I can augment the emphasis on routine with more efforts to inspire myself with positive company. The more time I can spend AT the center, the more I can cultivate relationships with others, and the more I can bring these principles into my interactions with existing relationships in my life, the better.

Lovesick

This is worse than being in love, or having a terrible crush on someone who doesn't know you exist. Here I am, pining away after a company. Oh, IDEO, if only you'd call me. *Sigh*

And on top of it, now I'm longing for ways to get more blues dancing in my life. Went to a great workshop weekend, and feeling blues to call out to me more now even than swing dancing. And yet, very little opportunity for practice and such.

I've done what I can with both these things, so there's no use in thinking about them more. I've submitted my cover letter, my resume, and my website to IDEO. I will call them again tomorrow, and this time when their voicemail kicks in I'll just leave a message. And they probably won't call back, or if they do they'll just say "yes we got your application" on my voicemail. And I've contacted someone about practicing blues dancing with me. It's just that it might be a month or so before we can even try practicing once. I can't afford to go to Austin, Texas for BluesShout, so there's no use in thinking about that anymore.

Last night I couldn't sleep because my whole body was on high alert, thinking about blues dancing and IDEO. I'm not sure how I manage that. Too many waking dreams? How do I manage to daydream so much about a job interview? Seriously... do normal people do that? Walk around living their lives while they imagine what they'd say to this or that question, making up scenarios and opportunities in their head? I seem to manage it rather well myself.

It's wonderful that I've found things that excite me. Why not appreciate that and let go of all the longing? Reminds me of something I read not so long ago... looked it up. From Ruling Your World: "Desire is a creature with an endless appetite. Like a spark put to dry grass, it just consumes. By its very nature, it can never be satisfied, because it is rooted in the aggression of looking outside ourselves for relief. That expectation always results in disappointment, self-generated pain. It's the mind giving itself a hard time." Right. Makes sense. So... I was feeling fairly content, and then finding something I get really into somehow made me more unhappy because I got caught up in desire and expectations and disappointment? Well, we can't be having any of that. I found these things in the first place because I was just settling in and enjoying what was in front of me. It's fundamentally good for me to explore and appreciate them. Just need to have my mind stop giving itself a hard time now.

It's easy to see the power of desire... My daydreams about IDEO (which I've clearly managed to idolize the way one unrealistically idolizes an object of romantic infatuation) can actually be quite enjoyable themselves. It can be hard to let go of grasping desires when the very experience of desiring can be thrilling. But I find myself losing my focus on the life in front of me. There is so much to appreciate and interact with, and I'm letting it slip away the more I long for things like IDEO and blues dancing. Enough so that even realizing this, I can't just snap back to being present, I just find myself still grasping and desiring, wanting to get back to where I was in the moment and somehow still not there. Yes, that's right, I'm grasping at the desire to let go of grasping and desire. In the past I'd just get further twisted up in that - because ultimately, that's always been my largest desire and I've let my head give me a hard time about it so many times over by now. But this times around, there's a certain lovely irony in it. It's amusing. It's human. I will simply do what I can.

Professional reconsiderations

I'd say that I seem to be entering a new phase in my life, but the fact is that all kinds of things are shifting all the time and "phases" are fairly subjective distinctions about where we identify turning points. At any rate, my interests, professional aspirations, and educational plans are undergoing some interesting shifts.

Professionally, I was thinking for a while about staying at M&I for some time in order to take advantage of tuition reimbursement and get my MBA. I figured it couldn't hurt in general if I got another corporate job, but it would also be an opportunity to put together my business plan and work towards opening my own small business. And yet I came to some realizations a few weeks back:

1. While I still think I would thrive in a small business setting, the actual businesses I've been interested in opening matter less and less to me. The particular businesses I used to care about feel less important, and I want to do something that... matters more? Maybe it's just that my definition of what matters has changed.

2. I'm somewhat disgusted with what I feel I'm contributing to in our department at M&I Bank. I believe the people I work with are basically good people, that our excesses are not really worse than our competitors, etc. but I think we're just another example of an industry gone wrong with no one willing to stand up and make a real change, working in a system that does not allow anyone but those at the top to do so in the first place. I have become better at managing within this system and being patient, and even so my real motivation to contribute is at an all time low. I am no longer willing to stay much longer than is necessary to find something else that will actually feel meaningful to me.

3. I find my interests shifting over time, away from the purely abstract, theoretical mucking around in thoughts for the enjoyment of it, and more towards the concrete, the scientific, the practicalities of living in the world and helping to make it better. And since consciously realizing that, I have found the beginning of some direction for where to put my curiosity and focus. More about that in another post, I'm sure. In a general sense, though, I'm doing more and more reading, listening, exploring - entering more of an active self-education phase.

This was all more fresh and exciting to me a few weeks ago, when I actually started writing portions of this post. Now it's more mundane to me, but I'm glad to see some new opportunities opening up for me. Funny how some days being glad or joyful is more of a mental awareness, and other days I FEEL it. I'm on a strange edge somewhere between right now, trying to totter myself back to something more visceral.

Muddy knees aren't so bad

I just walked in the door, dumped all my stuff on the hall floor, and plopped down on the sofa to check who's DJing at the Brew Haus tonight. I was thinking about trying to go dancing for a while, since it's been so long. But the DJ doesn't interest me, and I realized that I'm exhausted and have no real desire to go dancing. So I checked TV Guide online, and determined there's nothing good to watch. I thought about playing a computer game. I thought about folding this pile of laundry. I thought about finishing tidying my apartment. I thought about reading stuff on IDEO's website. I thought about doing some yoga, as I know I badly need exercise right now. I thought about calling someone, because it seems a bit lonely.

Choosing to write this blog entry is probably the most graceful choice I could/would have realistically made, all things considered. It will hopefully help me gather myself, and then I will get up and do something productive with newfound energy. Or if nothing else, at least I'll have written a new blog entry.

It's so obvious to me, that this is the same old, age old problem. I fall into the trap of laziness and comfort... failing to take care of my surroundings when I dump my stuff on the floor... failing to engage directly with my life by seeking outside entertainment... failing to exert myself and do what should be done and will make me feel better long term. I'm not fond of my repeated use of the world failure there - it's more like avoidance. But the point is that it's all recognizable, it's all connected, it's all got really very simple solutions.

But I've always been aware of how connected these challenges are, and how much of our lives revolve around habit. I often wonder whether I've always had deeper awareness of this than most people, or if it's just more true for me. My experience with the Shambhala path seems to suggest that there's some deeper wisdom there, something fairly universal, and perhaps I am just gifted with that amount of awareness without being very disciplined in practices that cultivate it. But I've also long ago learned not to overgeneralize my experiences as being true for other people. And ultimately, does it matter? Does it matter whether I'm just more aware or it's more of an issue for me? All that matters is that I AM aware, it DOES matter for me, and so I should use that awareness to make a difference in my own life.

To reiterate what "it" is - the interconnectedness and importance of habit and physical functioning in my life. I spent one crazy week spending every waking hour outside of work creating a cover letter, resume, and website for an executive assistant position at IDEO, and now I'm totally screwed up. I'm tired, I'm achey, I'm out of practice for doing the 10 different things I'm supposed to do each day for my various doctors, I'm not focused, I'm not motivated, I'm not present. And to get back to something decent, I have to exert myself consistently, carefully, and semi painfully - to heat up my warm milk and get to bed right on time, trying to settle into it in order to fall asleep... to exercise even though my body has NO desire for it... to leave the television off and just wash some dishes in the silence to listen more closely.

It's amazing how fast I can turn from calm, centered, focused, and healthy to tired, negative, semi anxious, scattered. Somehow the transformation doesn't shift the other direction quite so fast. But I'm trying to give this some sincere thought... and I think perhaps it shifts the other way more often and faster than I'm inclined to give it credit for. I've trained myself. The more often I make that choice and switch back, the more I become skilled at doing so and even fall back into it without enormous effort sometimes.

This blog can only be a good thing. While I don't delude myself that anyone's really reading it, I know someone could be. It's technically public. That being the case, I stick to my original rules - I won't just complain to complain. Even if lamenting some difficulty in my life, I will try to use this as a place to reconsider, remotivate myself, and continue to work on living my life as skillfully as possible. And even this time, I seem to have accomplished my goal. Discouraged at how fast I fall into this puddle of interconnected muck, I've reminded myself how good I've gotten at getting out of it. One of the best skills in the world.

I wonder if it's better than the skill of not falling in to start with? I don't have enough experience with the latter to compare. Let's say for the sake of me feeling good about myself that getting up after falling down is a more useful skill than avoiding falling down. You can't avoid it forever, so you might as well get started now on not letting some mud on your knees bother you too much.

Have you noticed my newly discovered joy in bolding sections of text that I consider the main points? I used it on my new website in hopes of getting people to at least scan the relevant points if they won't read the over-long walls of text on my website. And I find that I like it. I think it's the wave of the future for some kinds of writings.

Speaking of which, if anyone is in fact reading this and hasn't seen it already, feel free to take a look at my new website: www.dianaluepke.com. I created it essentially as a supplement to my IDEO application, but hopefully I'll find other uses for it as time goes on.

I'm going to do some yoga, pick my stuff up off the floor, wash a couple dishes, and go to bed with a cup of warm milk now.

The basics

I have come to the conclusion that there are likely not enough hours in the day to do these basic things:
- Be at work for the number of hours I'm required
- Get enough sleep
- Eat properly
- Get enough exercise
- Follow through on specific exercises, homework, and maintenance from various physicians (and much of this isn't just a matter of finding the time, but remembering to follow through on a million different tasks and timelines).

These are the absolute basics... and I'd really like to add meditation, but then it's even more unattainable. But I guess this is what we all face - feeling there aren't enough hours in the day, stressed to find a way to fit it all in. In many ways, I'd very much like to just settle down and enjoy these simple things, use this as a chance to further learn how to appreciate and experience my life as it is. And yet I just reached this point where I'm figuring out what's next and trying to move forward. I want to do career research, organize things, make progress.

But perhaps this is the most important progress to make. I already have a far healthier lifestyle than most, and I continue to make tweaks to improve further. The physical therapy I'm going through now has the potential to address 6 different physical ailments, all of the physical/medical issues I really have. It's discouraging as all hell how many things I have to remember, how weirdly screwed up my body is and what slow progress I will have to make. But I'm laying a pretty strong foundation for a long, healthy life, addressing issues while I'm still young and comparatively pliable. It is something to be grateful for.

I'm amazed at how much of my thought and energy goes into the basics of self care, planning out my days to remember a little better to follow my doctors' orders, to take care of myself as well as possible. A friend recently told me that he thinks I live my life well and it will show more and more over time. Rather a nice compliment... Perhaps this is part of what that means?

The elegance of disappointed hopes

Disappointment has felt like a palpable substance in my life lately. I began this post two weeks ago, a couple of days after I resigned from Cream City Swing. I’m finishing it on my birthday, the day after I broke up with Doug (for real, I might add as a qualifier, for those confused and thinking I already did). I could perhaps classify these two things as the two biggest disappointments in my life so far, but that just sounds melodramatic, and doesn’t seem to contain much truth of the really meaningful sort.

Most of my contributions to Cream City Swing, spanning from the concrete to the theoretical, were in the form of things I'd just gotten started on - just barely starting to learn HTML to manage the website, learning Photoshop and starting to get into flyer and other design, putting together guidelines for swing instructors that never got put in anyone's hands, asking questions and learning about sound equipment, learning to listen to a DJ's set closely, countless hours of planning work, thinking about and integrating principles of leadership and conflict management, etc. etc. All of these things were a sort of budding potential. And isn't that what disappointment is all about? Realizing that potential does not always come to fruition, that our dreams are just a shadow of what might actually happen, that we are not in control?

The sense of disappointment I faced for some time seemed to be largely in realizing that I was giving up on something I believed myself eminently capable of accomplishing in a meaningful way. I saw this endeavor as the culmination of all of my unique talents and potential. There was much to learn, but I could see so clearly the path to learning it, and there's nothing I like more than an opportunity to realize lofty dreams/goals through a series of very concrete actions and challenges. Even the time and the circumstances overall seemed to hold so much potential. And so to see such great potential fall flat as the result of just a couple of particular circumstances and people seemed like some kind of cosmic shame.

In some ways, it is a sort of cosmic shame – or rather, an expression of the generalized cosmic shame. I can’t seem to just get mad and say someone screwed this up for me, because I see the larger picture. I see that events unfolded in a certain way due to all kinds of circumstances, individual personalities, etc. and it became a rather unadvantageouos time to try to accomplish what I was aiming for. I generally do find it very hard to feel a real sense of blame towards anyone in life, as there are always so many factors to consider and we are all struggling with the same human experiences of hope and fear. And yet, the fact that there are so many complex moving parts, and so much underlying fear, seems to lead to all kinds of rather unpleasant things in life. And that’s a shame. It’s THE shame, the simple fact of living in this world.

And yet there can be a kind of poignancy in the pain we feel because things in the world don't seem to manifest in an ideal fashion. We feel it because we want the best for ourselves and others, because we have that sort of nobility at our core. And we feel it because we get twisted up thinking we can get there by controlling things that are so much larger than ourselves, because we get lost in those utterly human experiences of hope and fear. That's a pretty simple equation, and I've come to have a great deal of respect for it. Ironically, accepting just how complicated the world is, and how much is beyond my control, it becomes easier to feel at peace and to feel confident in my ability to navigate that complexity gracefully.

In considering the unraveling of my hopes for Cream City Swing, my description of "a cosmic shame" might be seen as true in the sense that it's one small expression of that larger fact that it's a shame things can't be perfect (or closer to it). But secondly, it's also a ridiculous statement to make! Seriously? Is the universe weeping because a Thursday night swing dance venue won't have quite as high quality of swing instruction, or larger events and levels of quality will never be realized? I'm pretty sure it's got bigger problems to worry about. And being part of the universe, perhaps so should I! I find myself laughing at myself for being bent out of shape about this at all.

In addition to the basic value of seeing this humorously, that general turn of thought has also led me to some meaningful contemplation on what I really want to put my life energy into. There are many things on my mind about what paths to take, educationally, professionally, personally. Running a swing dance organization suddenly feels rather unimportant, and I am grateful for the time and energy I suddenly have to invest in other things – perhaps things that will truly mean more to me at the end of the day. This may be the beginning of a significant shift in my life ambitions.

So I prepare to shift directions. I begin to think in new directions, and I clean up what’s left of the old. Most people who know me well know that I don't much like "unfinished business," at least on a superficial level (I like to have my papers filed and the oldest items checked off my to do list.) Yet somehow, laying disappointed hopes to rest is more like tying things up in a neat package than getting elbow deep in the muck ever was. I've been cleaning out my inbox, assembling all of my files for Tory and Andrea to have (whether they use them or not), filing everything away together in case I might ever need it again. There is a sense of finality, complicated things narrowing down to something very simple.

And so, I am grateful. I am grateful for the fact that I did experience this loss mostly as a generalized “oh, what a shame”, rather than grasping for someone or something to blame and wallowing in my own personal desires. (Not to say I didn’t do that a bit. I’m human, after all.) I am grateful for the quick realization that it’s not such a big deal in the scheme of things. I am grateful for the first realizations of what new opportunities might be pursued in my life. I am grateful for the many lessons I did learn during the few months I invested in Cream City Swing. And I am grateful for this particular lesson: looking my disappointment straight in the face, I find that it's simple, lovely, and workable. It is a very real, tangible experience of what it means to be human in the only world we’ve got.

I’m sure these lessons also apply in the loss of a person and a relationship most dear to me. I feel myself working through them even now, and I am glad for that. But this is also a more difficult loss, and I am focused at present with getting through each day in a reasonable way that emphasizes basic self care. And after all, those nice fluffy things I said about disappointment don’t change the other thing that’s true: seeing its beauty doesn’t stop it hurting. In the midst of difficult emotions, I may be able to hold a more realistic view than I used to be, I may say and know that I will feel better later. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less right now. It might make it hurt more.