The theme for today is lists.  Sent links for 43 Things and 101 things in 1001 Days to Limerick, and found the below posted on 101 things.  The original article mentions “before you die” lists.  I never think of them as that, more as “how to LIVE” lists.  My 43 things are mostly ongoing, so it’s hard to cross them off ;o)  But as the writer of Zen Habits says, the goal is NOT to check off things just to say they were done.  The goal is to not sit idle and watch life pass by!

Anyway – here’s the summary of the article:

6 Questions to Ask Yourself to Get the Most Out of Life

A recent article over at Zen Habits made me think a lot about the motivation for creating a 101 Things list. The 6 Questions to Ask Yourself to Get the Most Out of Life can be seen as a great starting point to coming up with ideas for self improvement on your list:

1. Who do I love, and what am I doing about it?
2. Am I pursuing my dream, or is fear stopping me?
3. Am I doing something that matters?
4. What am I doing to help others?
5. Am I as good a person as I want to be?
6. What am I doing to live life with passion, health and energy?

 

1.  Random. What am I not doing about it? 😀 

My family.  I’m horrible about calling them.  I’ve grown to dislike the phone.  I also need to visit them more often.

My friends.  They are my family too.  It’s hard when I feel drawn in many directions, and want to spend time with all of them but also need time to replenish myself.  hmm.

Me.  Yeah.  Sometimes, it’s OK to put me first.  The whole oxygen mask on the airplane analogy.

 

2.  I’m trying to figure out what my dream is still.  Workwise, no clue.  Aside from work, it’s just to have adventures with friends and those I love, to be challenged and challenge others, to grow, to never stop learning and more importantly, never stop playing.  It may look like goofing off, but I consider this pursuing my dream.

Fear may stop me in the career part – fear of failure, fear of hating something else, I don’t know.  It’s something I’m definitely struggling with, but to me the job is just to pay for shelter and for adventures and lots of cool toys 😛

 

3.  Again, splitting between work and social.  Work? I suppose so, roads need to be improved so I do provide a service.  If I weren’t here, someone else would do it.  I dunno…

Outside of work?  I want to do more.  Not sure how to go about that.  But I do feel that being part of a Burner community is doing something that matters – to other burners, to myself, and when I bring a bit of burner spirit to the rest of the world, I hope that matters too…  I suppose rather than a big thing I try to do lots of little things.

 

4.  Not enough.  Really.  How can anyone other than those who devote their lives to others really say anything else?  Again, if helping others in small ways matters, I do (try) that.  I need to devote more time and money to serious causes though.  Still haven’t donated to the food bank because of money shortage over the holidays, and I want to donate to Doctors without Borders again.

 

5.  Am I a good person?  I like to think that most days I am.  If I were as good a person as I want to be, I wouldn’t have anything to strive for, so that’s enough for me, for now.

 

6.  Oh a stickler, this one.

Passion.  Easy.  (Get your mind out of the gutter! :P)  I explore what I’m passionate about, I jump in and learn everything I can.  And then I discover something else.  OK, mind back in the gutter, or at least in terms of relationships – I do my best to love fully and accept love in return.  I read once that we only accept the love we think we deserve.  That makes a lot of sense, and I’m trying to remember that.  Because many days I don’t know what I did to deserve such an awesome guy ❤   (and awesome friends too!)

Health/Energy.  They go together.  Always striving to find joyful ways to move (not the E word!), to eat more wholesome foods than unwholesome ones, to improve our home environment so that it’s a place of rest and relaxation.  I definitely need to work harder on this, but I try.  Most of the time.  (Right now the vending machine is calling my name, miso soup was yummy but still hungry.) 

 

 

Yeah, so most of the things on my lists fall into these categories, but it’s a good checkpoint of sorts to answer them.  (Not tagging anyone, but feel free to contemplate on these even if you don’t blog/write publicly about them.)

A few positive thoughts for the New Year resolutions ponderings, and reminders of what’s important.

 

(I really want to read/process more about this story, but my heart can’t bear it today… Things like this, and prop 8 passing, make me want to take Big Action (whatever that is), but it’s so hard for me to stay in that mindset because I just get so angry and sad that I’m not capable of being very productive.  Sigh.  Add figuring out how I can help to #4.)

 

OK let’s end on a more positive note. This seems applicable, one of my favorites…

This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs:
to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, argue, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek. To seek: to embrace the questions, be wary of answers.

~Terry Tempest Williams, naturalist and author (1955- )