If Water Was Time

As a kid, you never thought about how much water was in the glass. You just drank from it. Never worried if you spilled or wasted any of it. There was always more. The supply was abundant and seemingly infinite.

I’ve never been concerned whether my glass was half full or half empty. I just wanted to know how much was in the glass. If water was time, at my age I know most of the water in the glass of my life has already been consumed. And with that awareness, I’ve become much more intentional when taking sips of time from the glass of my life.

The circle has gotten smaller, the superficial has been discarded, the drama gets left behind, creating space for depth, substance, purpose, and expression.

I’ve become extremely protective of that space.

We really never know how much is left in the glass, do we?

I don’t intend on wasting a single drop.

Photo by Paul Lichtblau on Unsplash

Good Enough Seldom Is

With clarity and conviction in her voice I could tell she was a woman who knew what she wanted.

“Margherita pizza, cooked well done, extra basil.”

Yet when the pizza arrived, it wasn’t done exactly the way she wanted it done. After some initial griping to the other guests at the table about what was served to her, she quietly consumed her undercooked, slightly basil’d pizza, accepting less than what she wanted with every bite.

Why is it that we are so willing to accept less than what we know we want for ourselves?

Sometimes we settle because habitually we’ve always settled. We’ve been conditioned to settle because it’s always been easier and safer to accept less instead of fighting for what we know we want and deserve. Sometimes we don’t ask for what we want for fear of losing what we Continue reading “Good Enough Seldom Is” →

Embracing The Darkness

It’s here and it doesn’t care if I don’t like it.

The end of Daylight Savings Time gives me one extra hour of light in exchange for a season of increased darkness. That’s not a deal I would have made, but that’s the deal we get here in the Northern Hemisphere each November.

The older I get the more I think I’m solar powered. Daylight is a fuel source, and for the next few months that source will be in shorter supply.

The world always gives us the choice to embrace or resist what we see in front of us. Resisting What Is inevitably proves to be futile, embracing What Is doesn’t mean you actually like it.

The darkness is here and I get to decide what I am willing to do with it.

Most of my significant growth has come when I’ve embraced the darkness, of accepting the unlikable situations I’ve found myself in. In that darkness I’ve learned how I respond to the darkness around me. Frustration, patience, resilience, trust, anger…a full buffet of possible emotional reactions as I process and deal with the things I really don’t want to deal with.

My reactions don’t change the reality. My reactions show me how I’m dealing with it.

I don’t purposefully seek out darkness. It does have a way of finding me, though. And when it does find me I know as a human there is no one perfect response.

But my best response starts with accepting What Is, embracing even the darkness, and allowing myself to move forward toward the light.

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Smackin’ The Piñata Of Life

There’s a pony hanging from a hook above my desk. It’s small, colorful, and made out of whatever a piñata is made out of. It’s there to remind me of one of life’s most important lessons.

I remember the many birthday parties, rope thrown over a low-hanging branch holding the piñata in position for the kids lined up to take a few swings at in hopes of cracking the thing wide open and spewing candy all over the ground at the base of the tree.

The life lesson?

The candy doesn’t just fall out by itself.

As grown ups, our candy comes in a different form. It takes the shape of our hopes and dreams and aspirations. The things we want to experience and become. The life we want to live. Those hopes and dreams and aspirations are dangling in front of us. But unless we are willing to line up and take consistent swings at the piñata of life all that we want for ourselves will remain within our sights yet out of our reach.

The piñata above my desk reminds me that the life I want to live needs me to show up, to step up, Continue reading “Smackin’ The Piñata Of Life” →

Making Space For The Noise

At times it sounds like a talk radio show. Hostile. Loud. Contentious. Not what you want to hear while quietly sitting still on your meditation bench.

Welcome to the thoughts in my head.

Years ago I was told that meditation was a peaceful process. Just sit, close my eyes, and the light of positivity and peace would embrace me. How disappointed was I when that never happened. The mind will speak when it wants to speak and sometimes it has a lot of unpleasant things to say, even if you’re on your meditation bench.

My job is to notice, not to judge or criticize what my thoughts may want to contribute.

My job is to make space for the Noise.

The Noise. In the form of thoughts of frustration, uncertainty, regret, and doubt, all aspects of life we tend to experience but would rather not hear about. Especially when we’re trying to calm the mind through meditation.

Maybe the Noise just wants to be heard?

The Buddhist nun Pema Chodron speaks of the mind being like a blue sky, equating thoughts as clouds passing though. The clouds can be puffy white or dark and stormy, but the clouds demonstrate their impermanence, simply passing through and fading away for us to notice as Continue reading “Making Space For The Noise” →

A Faceful Of Wisdom

“We have a winner!”

Spending a few days in Maine we decided to include a stop at the 9th Annual Wild Blueberry Festival in Gray. And what’s a Wild Blueberry Festival without a blueberry pie eating contest.

In a scene reminiscent of a Hallmark movie I found myself in a small idyllic New England town standing at a table with nine others, hands behind our backs and blueberry pies inches from our faces awaiting the word to begin. When all was said and done, I turned my pie-stained face upwards to see the judge pointing at me declaring me the winner of the competition.

I won a blueberry pie eating contest. In Maine.

The grand prize included a four-pack of locally bottled blueberry soda and, more importantly, bragging rights.

As I wiped my face clean from the blueberries and crust embedded in my scruffy facial hair, I was asked if the pie actually tasted good.

I hadn’t really noticed.

Granted, the goal of a pie eating contest is to consume what’s in front of you faster than the others at the table. Devouring an 8 inch pie in 61 seconds didn’t leave room the evaluate the quality of the pie. It was all about speed.

On the hours-long drive home, still basking in the glory of my unexpected victory, I started thinking about speed. As in the pace of life. As in how much of life I may have missed being too Continue reading “A Faceful Of Wisdom” →

Is Your One & Only Life Worth It?

I was a bit confused as I watched him walk carefully over the jagged granite rocks exposed by the low tide. When he finally stopped, he took out his camera and he began to capture images of the weathered lighthouse precariously situated above him on the shore.

When he made his way back to where I was standing we stuck up a light conversation about how beautiful the scenery was. At some point I asked about his journey out over the rocks to take some photos and he just smiled. When he showed me a few of the images he shot from that vantage point I started to smile, too. They were stunning, taken from an unconventional angle which added an element of unexpected magnificence.

“Sometimes all you really need to do is to put yourself in position to succeed.”

There are easier ways to take a photo of a lighthouse. But he wasn’t looking for easy, he was looking to create something far more spectacular.

That’s exactly what he did.

I’ve been thinking about the significance of his words. Not in terms of photography but in life. Of Continue reading “Is Your One & Only Life Worth It?” →

Reapplying The Vision Of Your Life

It was time to do something special.

For my car.

Gassing up, I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye. A car wash. The car was on the filthy side and for some reason on this random day I decided to spend a couple of bucks and clean it up a bit.

I stopped at the kiosk as I approached the entrance. There I was presented with six different car wash options ranging from the basic wash to “The Works”. I don’t recall the exact name of the option I selected, but once my credit card payment was accepted the light turned green and into the wash bay I went.

All through the washing process a large LED indicator would light up and tell me exactly where we were in the cycle. Pre-Rinse, Foam Soak, Undercarriage Wash. Even Rain-X.

I wish they made Rain-X for humans.

The repellent nature of Rain-X causes water to bead up and easily run off coated surfaces, especially windshields. And sure enough with the final rinse of the washing process the water had nothing to cling to now that the car had just been coated.

As a human, sometimes things cling to me. Things get stuck, often becoming emotional things, Continue reading “Reapplying The Vision Of Your Life” →

Know Yourself To Grow Yourself

All I heard was nothing.

Recently I discovered a rather interesting piece of music which contained absolutely zero music.

None.

It was composed by an American avant-garde composer John Cage, it’s initial performance in 1952. The title of this work is “4:33” as in 4 minutes and 33 seconds. Of silence. Of musicians seated and poised on stage simply silent and still for the next four and a half minutes.

The true music of this piece, according to Cage, is in the ambient noises found in the silence. Primarily noises from an uneasy audience not knowing what to do in the unconventional absence of sound.

An imaginative use of silence.

Silence can be uncomfortable, often labeled as awkward. And while silence has at times been both uncomfortable and awkward for me, silence has also been a transformative portal for my own inner growth and understanding.

Sitting in my own silence, I get to hear the not-so-ambient noises within me. I get to hear the Continue reading “Know Yourself To Grow Yourself” →

The Unexpected Wisdom Of Blueberry Pop-Tarts

My perfectly scheduled afternoon wasn’t running so perfectly.

An upcoming minor surgical procedure required me get a couple of vials of blood drawn ahead of the surgery. The plan allowed me time to get a quick bite to eat after my blood work which would still give me enough time to get back to my desk for a rather important conference call. When the blood work ran much longer than anticipated, eating lunch morphed into grabbing whatever I happened to have in my glove box in the car as I raced back to the office to make my 1:30 call.

In this instance, the only thing to eat in the glove box were Blueberry Pop-Tarts.

I can’t remember the last time I had eaten a Pop-Tart. I’d enjoyed my share of them over my younger years but they just don’t have a place in a more health-conscious food plan I have for myself. As a dad who often transports over-scheduled kids between their over-scheduled appointments, snacks can usually be found in the car to make sure the kids have something in their stomachs before jumping into their next activity.

Not having had Pop-Tarts in quite some time, it was like I was eating them for the first time. I re-discovered the crumbling texture of the crust, the sweetness of the artificial blueberries, the smoothness of the chemically-enhanced frosting on top.

I liked them a lot more before I grew up and knew exactly what I was eating.

When we try things for the first time we do so with a heightened sense of awareness. We notice all the Continue reading “The Unexpected Wisdom Of Blueberry Pop-Tarts” →

Peter Mis LivingHalfFull.com

Lessons From A Life Unfolding

Tag: awareness