- Mining your authentic self
- Seasonality
- Right-livelihood
- Living your passions, making time for them
- Your soul-mate
- Raising your kids to be their own authentic selves, and the traits they absorb from us
- Being good earth stewards, and the legacy we pass along
- A room of one's own, and time for noodling
- Forms of meditation
- What we eat, and where it comes from
- Health and exercise, why it's necessary
- Getting ones hands in the dirt
- Discovering and nurturing the creativity that is in us all
Saturday, January 3, 2009
GOOD-LIFEITUDE
I've been thinking about my blog a lot lately, reminding myself why I started it, asking myself where I want it to go. More specifically, I've been asking myself exactly what it was that I learned from each of those books about people who were "living the good life," and it occurred to me that although I use that term constantly, I may never have explained to you what it means. How does one know if one is on the path to good-lifeitude? So I sat down and made a list (of course - Becky and her lists!) of commonalities I found in the good-lifers I have read about, and realized that I had ended up with a list of topics that I will want to delve into further on this blog. Here are my top 13:
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6 comments:
When I lived in Connecticut, I worked with a man who had a mantra, if you could call it that. When asked how he was doing, his response was "it doesn't get any better than this." At the time I took it as a sarcastic acknowledgment of the working man's condition with a big, heaping side order of bitterness.
I also worked with a man in Tennessee with a similar life outlook. When asked the same question, his response was always "today is the best day of my life." It wasn't until I met the second man, though, that I came to realize that perhaps the response of the first wasn't quite as insincere as I had originally thought. The filter through which I put his words regrettably skewed his message to me, and caused me to miss the point. It DOESN'T get any better than this, because the choices you have made landed you right here, right now. Make the most of it, and know those choices were good. At the same time, make every day the best day of your life if for no other reason than you live to face the new day, which is a pretty darn good reason in and of itself!
I have fully adopted the latter saying, with a keen eye to the first. Combined and simply put: life is good, no regrets.
Actually, my family likes to tease me about how often I say "It just doesn't get any better than this!" I seem to have a knack for sliding into euphoria - which could explain why I never felt the need to drink. I remember one of our vacations in Penang (your family was probably there), sitting in the mall food court with a perfect glass of unsweetened tea with plenty of ice (hard to come by!), a good rock & roll song playing on the P.A. system, and declaring to the world that it just didn't get any better than this! Like I said, bliss comes easy to me.
I don't know if this is too personal, but I don't really know if I have figured out the meaning of the "good life" for me. Don't get me wrong, I have a FABULOUS husband and marriage and I feel that I'm in the right profession. However, I don't know how to balance work and personal life, yet. I don't know what I want to do with my profession or how to develop a potential family with my high-demand job... I know you asked us to give you our opinions on the "good-lifetitude" with you, but really, I look to you as a role model for me on that topic. For me, your blog represents wisdom and a perspective to life that I am hungering for at this point in my life. Thank you.
For me the good life is about having quality over quantity. I don't need material things to make me happy as long as I am surrounded by love and laughter. I want a simple, wholesome life.
This looks like quite a list. Very interesting idea.
Good thing I just went back and checked before doing my drawing. I almost missed these last three comments (Jess, you made me cry, but in a very good way!) Your in the pot, and John is picking a name as we speak!
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