“Purpose Junkies” …

Thoughts around my continuing exploration of the dual themes of our life purpose and positive aging …

I was struck by this quotation from The Power of Purpose: Find Meaning, Live Longer, Better by Richard Leider.  Okay, honestly speaking, I am struck by something on almost every page of this excellent little book.

I suppose one can say that some of us are “Purpose Junkies“, people who are on a continual quest for our meaning in life and trying to discern what we should do.  

Some say that this is navel-gazing taken to the extreme, while others dismiss our attempts to discover self by pointing out that we need to “get out into the real world, where things are dirty and brutal.  Just get a job and do it until you have enough money to not have to do it any more … Quit your whining” or similar.

IF ONLY I WON …

About The Environment … Earth Day 2015

If you think your daily weather is a valid measure of climate change, you can probably skip this one …

INCONSISTENCY:  I think we may have just identified part of the problem when considering how to save our planet.  For the numbers, read this:  Americans Support Principle of Environmental Protection, Divided over Policy.

A BILLION ACTS OF GREEN:  For a very big suggestion on how to honor Earth Day 2015, watch this short but powerful video:  A BILLION ACTS OF GREEN

PLANT A TREE:  For something specific to do or just to learn more about the CANOPY PROJECT, click the image below: 

LEARN MORE:  For general information about Earth Day 2015, check out THE EARTH DAY NETWORK.

You can take action for the sake of everyone alive now or who hopes to live on this planet in the future ..or you could just keep repeating “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” under your breath and not get serious about preservation, conservation, and renewal of our natural resources.

YOUR CALL …

Trying to be on the right side of science, history, and Mother Earth in the Heartland  ….

John

Images:  Morguefile.com, Plantatree.org, and Wikipedia.

Good Morning …

Interesting morning sky over Eastern Missouri …

On a beautifully moderate Autumn Saturday morning, I sit quietly with my coffee and reflect on a very hectic week just past, before shifting to consideration of the days to come.

I am in one of those weightless moments “betwixt and between”.   Things past still affect me and things to come will probably change my world.

Do you savor the moments in between the moments which demand your attention, time, and energy?

Not to sound too much like an over-priced poster from a motivational company, but we cannot always control our world.   While how we react to our crises and our urgencies is important, I believe that we need to put equal “energy” into our in-between moments.  Savor them, use them to reflect in calmness, refresh our minds and our hearts, and just be for a while.

Not always easy to do and our world does not always support doing so, but you’re worth it.  I’m worth it.  We are all worth a little time, a little beauty, a little sip of very good coffee.

Next week will be busy and the week afterward a nightmare … But right now, the air is cool, the sky is pretty, the coffee is hot, and I am at peace …

Weighty thoughts later … currently enjoying being in the moment in the Heartland.

 

John

Making Plans …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood…Make big plans, aim high in hope and work.

Daniel H. Burnham

Why accomplish small things when you can accomplish big things by adjusting your aim and vision?

When we start talking about stirring someone’s blood, you had best be stirring your own first.  Then you can see to motivating others to join your quest or even begin their own.

I personally believe that the largest blocks to this way of thinking consists of our own fears about what might happen.

So if you must fear something, fear this:

I won’t try and thus insure my own failure …

Trying to follow my own advice in the Heartland …

John

Vision …

 

Sometimes our vision is cloudy, the details vague and indistinct …

Sometimes we cannot see because much is hidden and we glimpse only a part …

Our tendency is to become frustrated or despair that we will never know what we need to know.  We might even deny that what we seek really exists.   These responses are not useful to us.

What we seek to know is there … we just cannot see it yet.

When an airplane takes off, even in very stormy weather, it eventually climbs beyond the clouds and we are dazzlingly reminded that the sun shines every day, whether we see it or not.

Even if we are just gazing at the clouds, they eventually drift and change.  Nothing remains the same.

Just thought I should remind you … something to consider over the weekend, as you grapple with whatever life is handing you to grapple with.  Maybe you need help seeing through the mist or enlarging the scope of your vision.

Trying to look beyond the haze in the Heartland ….

John