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.