Today begins Lent. I have not gone to mass for Ash Wednesday, nor do I think that will happen. However, Lent has always been an opportunity for me to instigate great habits and re-start, moreso than New Years. For some reason, the religious guilt left over really drives home the effort. So, this year, I am re-instigating the 40 Days of Yoga (Lent is 40 Days long), and introducing an Alcohol Fast. That’s right, I am replacing drink with dharma, booze with bungie, liquor with limbs, whiskey with … well.. you get it. Easter is April 4, so do not worry folks because I will be LONG done going the dry route by a)Paris b) the boy’s birthday c) crocquet and d) boy’s cousin’s wedding, all of which are in the last half of the month.
How did I Get so inspired to do this? And be excited about it? Well.. who knows. I have been really unmotivated lately, terribly sedentary. Perhaps I can blame it on the snow? No… I have just been going home, drinking, and watching television. THERE IS SO MUCH ELSE I CAN DO WITH MY TIME!!! I can… take back up the guitar… grow six-pack abs….. write a story…. Paint a picture… cook some great food…. Take a walk… visit a museum…. Visit with friends…. Etc. You get the idea. All of these I plan on doing INSTEAD of drinking.
I have been thinking more on the perpetual question of Passion this past week.. because.. well.. I have become completely addicted to the television show “Make it or Break it” which is about a bunch of high school-aged competitive gymnasts. Seriously I watched the whole first season in four days. That badly addicted. Anyway, I figured out that I am addicted to it because I am trying to soak up their passion, their inspiration, their undeterred drive that I feel I am lacking. When asked if I have a passion.. I have no answer. I have tried to find it in so many places, but I feel somehow that while I have such an ease in committing to people, I have a very hard time committing to myself, needless to say committing to an activity, or a thing. Perhaps searching for a passion is my passion. Perhaps truly beauty is my simple passion.
I long so much to be constantly inspired, to be so thoroughly engrossed in something that I stay up long past ten PM to finish a project, or try to find ways to get out of work so I can work on it more. Something I can spend my life perfecting and working on.
The boy gave me a copy of the book “The Four Hour Work Week”, which is part of the library from the store I worked in last year, meaning that I have read many books just like it. He has listened to it twice during his long car trips for work. I am three chapters in and SO INSPIRED…. To go in the exact direction I have been going in. The idea behind the book is to get you to realize that NOW is the exact time to live your dream. Quit the job you hate and pack up and move to that dream land that you want to live in because someday will never really come. And I believe whole-heartedly in everything that Tim Ferriss is saying. He is the honest-to-god modern founder of Lifestyle Design that I talk so frequently about. So there are many great questions that I have begun to think about:
What am I most scared of in the world?
What do I love doing on my days off?
What activities would I do if I had my dream life?
What would happen if I left work now and started living that life? Would it work? Would it fail? What would happen if it failed… what is the worst-case scenario? What is the best-case scenario?
How long would it take me to recover if those actions failed? What steps would I have to take to recover from it?
How much of an impact on my life would the success of acting have?
What is holding me back?
The concept of these questions is to get yourself to look very seriously at what you are doing now, and see that you are holding yourself back, that if you failed in acting you would have comparatively little impact than if you succeeded, and it would take you comparatively less time to recover than you believe. He is trying to get you to see that you are taking a bigger risk by staying miserable than by moving towards ideal happiness.
However, this theory seems to suppose that you are miserable, which I am not, and that you can break a certain number of commitments. I am not miserable, this is true, but I am also a far cry from being perfectly happy with my life. I would really prefer NOT to stand on the subway morning after morning smelling other people’s farts (my commute was horrible this morning, can you tell?), or sit in this relatively uncomfortable chair day after day with nobody around. I believe that, while I promised many people including myself that I would stay at this job until September, making that deadline IS an active step in that direction. That selling my car, while a crucial action, is imperative because money is not the question, freedom is.
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