Decide 2 Matter

Take a Vacation!

That's what I'll be doing!

I'll be on vacation from August 27th until September 8th. Of course I won't be returning to work until September 12th.

Woohoo!

Treat yourself! You deserve a vacation.

And more importantly, don't have a boring draining job that is only in your life because you have a lot of vacation days to use up. If all you do is live for your vacations, then your life needs some spicing up.

Take a vacation. Do it right now. Take a vacation from:

• stress
• obsessive thinking
• worrying
• complaining
• judging
• watching the news
• comparing yourself to others
• being hard on yourself
• negative self-talk
• old patterns

I'll be back refreshed and relaxed in two weeks. Hope to hear from you then.

Find Your People

Whatever your interests are, there are other groups of people who like the same thing as you. It's important for you to find your people. Sharing your dreams, concerns, and passions with folks who don't really understand or care as deeply about them can easily derail you. Better yet, find someone who is living your passion and use them as a role model. Barbara Sher said that isolation is the dream killer. So, get out there and join a club, go online, or take a class.

The more you are surrounded by "your people", the faster you will grow in friends, talent, and dedication. Plus when you have those rough days, you'll have someone to turn to who knows what you are talking about.

Finding your people is very easy these days with the internet. Here are some online communities or classes I know about.

For artists: www.deviantart.com Join, post your work, get feedback, get a following, make some friends.

For musicians: www.berkleemusic.com Take a class, send your MP3s to be released on the college broadband radio, join the community.

For writers: www.writersvillage.com Take a class, get support, make friends.

For personal growth: www.zaadz.com Make some friends & talk about life, love, attitude, spirituality, community, and philosophy.

Overall support: www.barbarasher.com Go to her forum (board). Help support others. Make friends. Get support yourself.

Or, if you'd prefer something in person, go to your local library. If there isn't a book club there, start one. Or start a creativity support group. Most libraries will let you use one of their rooms for weekly meetings if the meeting is free.

Whatever you do, don't hesitate and find your people!

Make a Plan

Are there a million and one things you'd like to do? I have so many interests and often wish to pursue them all right this moment. Of course that isn't possible to do everything at once. Often times we think that if it isn't done now, it will never happen. That's not the case.

Barbara Sher says (in one of her books) to make a plan. For those of us who like to do a million things, she's defined us as being scanners. Check out her website at www.barbarasher.com or www.geniuspress.com to learn more.

The reason I'm bringing her up is because I'd like to discuss a technique of hers. She says that when you feel you cannot do everything you want to do, you should make a life plan. Realistically most of have at least 20+ years even after retirement. Given that I'm 27, I likely have 50 more years.

That said, make out a life plan. Say you wanted to write a book, become a composer, and become an illustrator. Would it be so hard to spend the next 2 years writing a book, then next 4 years studying music, and then the next 4 years working on art? That leaves me with 40 years to do whatever I want! Or you could do it differently. The first quarter of the year you work on art, the second quarter music, the third a book, and the fourth you relax. It's all up to you.

It's more than likely you have plenty of time to live the life you love. If you have trouble choosing just one thing, don't worry, just plan it out!

Exercise

Write out all the things you'd like to do.
Next, make a 1 year plan.
Then, make a 5 year plan.
Then, make a 10 year plan.

This is supposed to be a fun thing to do. This isn't like when you are being interviewed and you are asked in front of a panel of people "where do you see yourself in five years". Your life should be fun and your plan should include fun, too!

Make a plan, relax, and start living it!

FEAST!!!!

Since this is my pre-birthday weekend fiesta, I've been feasting on the following things:

• cheese sticks (yes, I know how bad cheese is for you)
• eggplant parm from The Olive Garden
• salad
• bread sticks
• fried cheese sticks and zucchini (kind of gross from the "take-out" window)
• and lots of cupcakes

Did I pay for eating all that junk? Hell yeah! Did I spend time reading in the bathroom while my digestion system screamed at me? Hell yeah! Would I have done it again? Probably not.

I've noticed that these feasts are not all that much fun to be frank. But it was good going down.... kind of.

Be Your Message

What is your life about? What are you trying to do? Did you know that once you decide, that's just the beginning? You must practice what you preach and be your message.

Today, find one thing that you wish to do more of and practice practice practice.

By being your message, you will no fall into hypocrisy. By being your message, you will be humbled by your actions because you will see that deciding to matter takes work.

Over the next few days I'm going to truly define what it means to matter. Yes, I've been trying to do that all along, but this time I will put more structure to it. Define the path a bit more and perhaps write a book.

I'll end with a quote I got from Brian at ThinkArete:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

                   

  ~ Mark Twain, 19th century US author and humorist  

Tomatoes

When you are eating cherry tomatoes and you pull off the little green stem thingy, do NOT throw them in the bathroom garbage.

Why you ask?

Because later that day, as you walk in to the bathroom and find this WEIRD bug looking spiky legged shriveled thing sitting on the top of the garbage, you will basically scare the crap out of yourself.

And once you remember to blink again, you'll remember that you were walking around your apartment eating cherry tomatoes.

Oh, and other note: leaving the stems sloppily in the sink doesn't work either. They also look like dead bug things when seen from your peripheral vision.

(if you haven't noticed, dead bugs freak me out)

Breakfast

Burnt stuff is yummy.

Well, it kind of is. No really.... The first time I made the breakfast potato ....uh... hash browns! (good writer me), I had set the timer and dutifully flipped the hash browns over. They were only slightly burnt and tasty. I'm a big girl, I heated frozen potatoes in a pan.

The second dose I had at around 8am (got up early this morning around 6am only because my 6pm nap turned into big sleep) consisted of me throwing frozen hash browns into a pan and forgetting about them. This is no "set-it and forget-it" scheme to sell you some electric kitchen gadget that will collect dust in the basement until you give it to some other poor sucker to store in his basement for the whopping sum of $2. No, no! This is a "what's that burning smell? OH CRAP!" kind of forgetting.

So, I will have my tasty black hash browns. They are only black on one side. Oh, but I'm weird. I actually like mostly burnt popcorn.

Yummmmmmmm.

Oh, and what's worse than eating half burnt hash browns? Forgetting that they are getting cold while you are blogging about it. (Chomp chomp, swallow...GULP.....bleh)

What is McDougalling?

McDougalling (I keep typing McDougally instead) is eating the way Dr. McDougall recommends. Check out his website, www.drmcdougall.com.

See, I've been a vegetarian for about 4 hours, maybe 3. I forget. However, when I started trying to be a veggie (easier than typing vegetarian), I had no clue what to eat. Yes, eat veggies. That was rather obvious. However, I was still eating dairy products and baked goodies.

At the same time, I decided to go part-time at work and full-time at school. Doing a corporate job that normally takes 40 hours compacted into 24 hours a week was hard enough. How naive was I to think that "wow, my company is so awesome they are letting me work part-time!" Yes, and still do the basic same amount work. They just didn't give me any "extra" projects. But I digress.

Throw on full-time college (graphic design major) and attempt to have a life and boyfriend. HA! I actually enjoyed graphic design. Some of my designs are on www.deviantart.com. Check me out at: http://kayll.deviantart.com/.

Anyway, back to food. Since I got probably four hours a sleep per day (I'm a sleep hog, so this isn't good for me), I had no time to prepare healthy meals. Also, I was living with my parents and little brother of probably 13 years of age. They weren't veggies, so they didn't have much for me to eat around the house. Plus, me being a veggie was a new thing they didn't understand.

So, the first year of being a veggie I actually GAINED weight!!! I lived out of the vending machine at college and off pizza and fries. Horrible diet that.

Then I found Dr. McDougall. I purchased his books for cheap off www.half.com (if you don't know about half.com shame on you, no cookie, bad dog - just kidding). Then I purchased his DVD series.

Boy were those eye opening!!!

Also, I picked up another highly recommended book, The China Study, by Dr. T. Colin Campbell. If you ever thought of giving up dairy and wanted some motivation, read this book. Studies have found (yes, yes, we've all heard the *studies*) that you can turn tumor growth on and off depending upon how much milk protein rats are given. GROSS!!! Got milk? Got tumors! Bleh!!!!!

So, instead of recommending that people McDougall and not following the advice  myself (I love cookies and sweets, forgive me!), why not blog it?

So, I'm attempting to McDougall. Okay, skip that. I AM going to McDougall (the verb, not the person). And what I like about McDougalling is that Dr. McDougall says that it's okay to feast on your birthday, or during the holidays. So, since my birthday is August 28th, I am going to have some non-vegan birthday cake and some other goodies. But after that, it's healthy all the way.

Go Outside

You heard me. Stop reading this, get off your computer, and go outside. Do you remember what it was like to play outside as a child? Did you marvel at the caterpillar climbing the tree or run screaming from the spider that landed on you when you walked through that web?

Ah, I remember the daddy longlegs "incident" from when I was about 9. This huge daddy longlegs spider crawled up my leg. I screamed until it reached my stomach. Then I froze wide eyed as it made it's way up my torso. I think mom came to the rescue. Now, as an adult, I do my best to save spiders from the sink if they fall in. And I usually move bugs outside instead of squishing them. Dead bugs gross me out more than live ones. But I digress.

Did you lay in the grass and point out animal shapes in the clouds? Did you climb trees? Did you make forts? What did you do outside for fun? Can you do any of it now?

Most of us work indoors and spend all of our time in doors. The only outside experience I get it walking from my building to my car to my apartment to my car to my building to my .... You get the idea.

When was the last time you were outside?

Letting Go of the Outcome

Not only do we have to let go of our expectations, we have to let go of the expected outcome. Whenever we strive for something, we must have a loose grip on where we aim to go. If we are so intent on finishing our goal as quickly as possible with the best results as soon as possible, we will neither move forward, nor have a good time. We will become stiff, burned out, and likely cranky.

Life is like a boat. Set your course. Then enjoy the calm of the water, the salty breeze, the call of the gulls, and dancing dolphins. Let the water and wind guide you along. Things may get choppy along the way, but remember to float along through it.

Set sail freely. Let yourself be guided once you chart your course. Enjoy the ride. Let go of the outcome.