Karen's Personal Adventures

2011 and 2012 Best of Times or Worst of Times

What Charles Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities in 1859 more than 150 years ago seems to apply to our world today:

"It's the best of times and the worst of times, it's the age of wisdom, it's the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..."  

Each of us has a choice.  We can look at the last century and this past year as the worst of times and continue to create the worst of times or we can begin anew.  We can learn from the choices that no longer work for us, no longer work in personal relationships, no longer work in business models, no longer work as a human species and lovingly let them go instead of trying to fix what no longer works. We can become creative.  We can get quiet and listen to our personal inner voice.  

When I was 20, life seemed to stretch out forever.  Time seemed to move slowly. Now, somewhere in the middle of life, time has speeded up and although my life still has aways to go, it doesn't stretch out forever. The rituals of closing out one year and beginning a new one bring together the past, the present and the future seemingly faster and faster. It seems like yesterday that we celebrated the beginning of the new 21st century.  How did 11 years pass so quickly?  It reminds me that there is no time like the present to act.

As I create a new vision board and update my vision, I choose to embrace change and the excellence that comes with it. I consciously choose to release the thoughts that 2011 was made up of the worst of times, foolishness, incredulity, Darkness, despair, and nothingness and replace them with thoughts that the challenges of 2011 are challenges to stand on rather than sit in.  I consciously choose to build upward and embrace the best of times, the wisdom of experience, the belief in inner reality, Light, hope for the best year ever and know that all is ready for 2012 to be filled with love, joy and that I am creatively raising my energy and vibration to help more people be all they can be. 

And you? What are you choosing for 2012?

 

Think Of All The Thoughts In You Just Waiting To Be Thought! Dick Seeger

"Think of all the thoughts in you just waiting to be thought!" Isn't that a great saying? I was going though some boxes I've had stored and came across that very saying as a framed wall hanging.

Years ago (the early 1980's), I was walking the streets of Old Scottsdale, an area of town known for it's art shops, and found a design and photography studio.  It was a unique shop.  Dick Seeger was the creative artistic designer and photographer. He snapped your photo and fused it into plastic figures, SeegerPeople, in the exact shape of you...now you had a 3 dimensional photo of yourself.  He even blew the photos up and you could have life size versions of you and your passion.  He encouraged you to bring in the clothes or things that symbolized what was important to you, perhaps a sport or passionate career.  I brought in clothes that symbolized things I loved...dress up and dress casual. (I used to love hats!) I also added one of Dick's sayings: "The most important part of life is not birth or death but now." It reminds me that long before I read Echart Tolle's book, The Power of Now , I was conscious of the importance of living in the now. 

The other thing in Dick's studio were framed pictures of his own personal thoughts


on life. His artistic rendition of "Think of all the thoughts in you just waiting to be thought!" called out to me.  For years, I used to keep it hanging near my desk but somehow amidst many moves, it's been in storage. Within the print are many of Dick's personal thoughts...like:

Search within.

A smile confuses an approaching frown.

Love is a warm flow of softness. Love is a soft flow of warmness.

You listen to what you want to hear. You look at what you want to see. You are what you want to be.

Music is the universal language of communication. 

Love celebrates the joy of living.

Your you warms my me.

Life is a frantic rush to fruition.

Talk less. Feel more.

Man and woman united in love ascend to oneness.

To be average scares the hell out of me.

The Phoenix New Times just did a great review about Dick Seeger's life.  Dick was an artistic visionary and new thought thinker when I met him, and now at 81, he continues to be a creative visionary turning his home into an art museum of outstanding collections. (Check out the slide show in the New Times article of pictures of his home.) The Dick Seeger I've Been Thinking book can be found on Amazon. 

We all have great thoughts! What are you doing with yours? Sharing them or holding on to them?  Online social media is such a great forum for each of us to share our wonderful creative thoughts...thoughts that can impact our world in a positive way.  What thoughts are you thinking today that will make a positive difference in the NOW?

What 1 thing will you do today to inspire yourself to live your greatest life today?

"Somebody ought to tell us, right at the start of our lives that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now."  Michael Landon (actor)

Michael Landon, for those who may not know, was a movie actor who became famous in his roles on the TV shows Bonanza and Little House On The Prairie.  He died, at the age of 55, from cancer...not young but not old.  I believe this is a quote he made after he was diagnosed with cancer and it resonates with me. What 1 thing will I do today to inspire myself to live my greatest life today?

I've always been an avid reader and a keeper of books. A book on my bookshelf that I haven't picked up in quite awhile called out to me,...The Corporate Mystic by Gay Hendricks & Kate Ludeman....my 1996 edition is well worn and highlighted...it is one of the first books I read on Conscious Business...about the qualities you would need as a 21st Century Visionary Leader.

Sometimes, I just open a book and start reading in the middle..trusting that the page it opens to is something I need to know, right now. When I opened Corporate Mystic, I opened it to the last page of Chapter 4, Inspiring Commitment, with the quote above from Michael Landon. This chapter is about knowing your purpose, about making the commitment and doing rather than thinking.  It's about feeling the uncomfortableness of fears and yet doing.  It's about making agreements with yourself and not breaking them.  It's about the small purposes and the "big" purpose. It's about listening to your own inner voice (and not someone else's inner voice) and doing.

I think of times when I have not hesitated...when I've reached out and tried things outside of my comfort zone...when I overcame my fear of being underwater and learned to scuba dive...when I left my secure job as an elementary school teacher and knocked on lots of doors in business until someone would hire me in sales when I had no sales experience but the knowing that my skills were transferable...when I moved from Hartford, CT to San Diego, CA and I drove cross country, over 3000 miles, by myself...I am so glad that I didn't hesitate because each and every experience makes me the person I am today.

There are some things I've been thinking of doing but haven't. For me, Michael's quote and Gay & Kate's chapter on Inspiring Commitment have inspired me to stop thinking about doing and have inspired me to act.  Quite simply, I've added a daily task in my calendar that says: "What 1 thing will I do today to inspire myself to live my greatest life today?"

What 1 thing will you do today to inspire yourself to live your greatest life today? Let me know!

 

You Inspire Now! Who will you inspire?

You Inspire Now! Yes, you and right now...At all ages and stages of of our life, we have the power to Inspire...Inspire ourselves or others...it's a choice and a choice we may forget to make.

When I think of people that are still living that Inspire, I not only think of famous names like Oprah, Michelle Obama, Eckhart Tolle or Bono, I also think of the Starbucks barista who greets me with passion and enthusiasm at 5 AM in the morning and the volunteers at Project CURE who give freely of their time to insure that medical supplies are distributed throughout the world and of my neighbor who never forgets to call me every week to make sure I'm all right. 

When I'm inspired, I live my life better. Joy, happiness and passion shows up in all parts of my life.

Inspiration comes in all sizes, big and small, great and greater. Sometimes, we may not know how greatly we inspired someone and that's OK. When we show up in life and our actions are from the heart, we touch not only the people in our lives that are close to us but we touch people in chance encounters. 

As we age, we may find that people come back into our lives and tell us that something we did or said inspired them.  It may be something we had forgotten we had said or done. That's happened to me several times and each time, I am amazed.  For them, they can repeat our conversation as though it happened yesterday (the conversation was 20 years ago) when, honestly, I barely remember it...and, yes, the reverse is true...I can remember conversations and was inspired by them but they don't remember! 

Have you ever had a chance encounter that inspired you and changed your life? A conversation at the airport, waiting in line to see a movie, in a hotel lobby, at a baseball game, in an aisle at the grocery store, walking in the park, on a ski slope...wherever you are, you can be inspired!

You Inspire Now! What are you doing today to inspire yourself?  What are you doing today to inspire someone else?  

HOW OLD IS OLD?

 

 

How old are you?  This sounds like a simple question but it’s not.  These 4 words, “How old are you?” produce not only a wide variety of answers but raise all kinds of emotions.  The reality is, you have a chronological age and a mental/emotional age.  We can’t change our crhronological age but we can change how we perceive it. 

 

Children love this question and answer without hesitation and most children can’t wait to get old “er”!  As a child it seems that so many of the things you want to do but you can’t do until you are older….but when you get there, older, that is, there seems to be a time when “you” don’t want to get any older.  Why?  Because somewhere in adulthood Older turns into Old and none of us really wants to be Old. 

 

Sooooooo, when does older become old?

 

This is such a great question.  What age will you be when you are old?  If you are 18, is old when you are 30?  If you are 50, is old when you are 80?  If you are 90, is old when you are 100?  Or 110?

 

I know that I think of myself as OLDER but I don’t think of myself as OLD.  I’ve been trying to decide when I will get old.  I haven’t turned 60 yet but about 9 years ago when I turned 50, AARP asked me to join their organization and everyone who joins AARP is a senior.  If I’m a “senior”, then shouldn’t I be old?

 

Hmmmm, in my mind “senior citizen” seems like someone who is old and when I think of myself, I don’t think of old!

 

What I like about being a senior, though, is that I get discounts for products and services, however, some places list senior discounts at age 55, others age 60, others age 62 and still others at age 65. 

 

So what makes an adult a senior?  Age? Or something else?  Is it knowledge or wisdom?  Or something else? 

 

I know some people who are younger than I, but appear older…..in their thinking, in their actions and in their appearance.  I know people older than myself who appear younger than me…..in their thinking, in their actions and in their appearance. 

 

So is old chronological age or is old a combination of chronological age and how we think and act? 

 

I’m a downhill snowskier and I love it!  I can see myself skiing well into my 70’s and I’d love to know that with healthy living I can ski into my 80’s.  Do I ski as fast or on mogul runs like when I was younger?  No, but I still get enjoyment from the skiing I can do.  I have several friends who stopped skiing in their 50’s because they said it was too dangerous and they were afraid they would injure themselves.  I would call this kind of decision “old” before they are really “old”. 

 

I was at a networking mixer last week and had a conversation with a man about my age.  We were discussing “aging”.  He said please don’t be offended but he feels more comfortable talking with women in their 30’s than me because he doesn’t see himself as the age he is.  So in his mind, he sees me as old.