TBIF (Thank Buddha It's Friday) Archives - Page 2 of 5

TBIF – Thank Buddha It’s Friday

TBIF – It’s summer and a Friday…who wants to be working?

I offer you this to ponder today and over the weekend:

Darren Rowse, blogger, thinker, speaker (creator of Problogger.net) said he asks himself this question at the end of every day – “What gave me energy today?”

Great question….really great question.

I love the way he phrased it – that instead of asking what he’s passionate about or what his passions are, that he looks for what gives him energy – what he refers to often as “the spark.” Think about it for a second. What gives YOU energy? What excites you with that energy to move forward, to investigate, to learn….to keep reading, to figure out…that thing that gets you up early each morning or keeps you up all night?

It’s different for all of us. What excites one person may bore another. But we all have that energy producing interest that lights our brains on fire. Darren suggests we fan the flame and watch it grow.

Make a list – without thinking – just put down things that get you goin’….and see if there is a connection or a path they take you. And then follow it.

Cool, right? Gives me energy just thinking about it! – BB

Getting to it

Isn’t irony funny?

I was telling someone that I really needed to get down to the task of writing more often (a lot more often) because I had SO much I wanted to write. And the fact that I had so much that I wanted to write about was the thing that was keeping me from doing the writing. The overwhelmed factor – that feeling that you have so much to do that you don’t know where to begin. It’s a self-inflicted paralysis of sorts.

So much to write about but I can’t get started because I feel overwhelmed by all that I have to write about….irony at its most absurd.

Steven Pressfield, the author, writes in his wonderful book, “The War of Art”, that we all encounter this block – he calls it Resistance. This invisible force that keeps us from our work, our task at hand. It’s internal, yet we externalize it through excuses and justifications. We allow this Resistance to take from us what we want the most – to get down to it…to take a step forward and get moving along our desired path.

I suspect it’s because we want everything to fall into place….to be struck by inspiration which magically allows everything to flow smoothly and easily. We don’t like being “forced” to do this or that…to get down to the hard work of focusing and plowing through. I like to have a clear, complete picture in my head when I’m writing a piece, but yet I forget that the beauty of writing is that it takes on its own shape despite where I try to lead it. Writing is not about producing the perfect piece; writing is about being open enough to allow the “muse” to come through…to let it be what it will. Just the act of sitting down to put words on paper swings open the gates of energy and forward momentum. It can’t be any other way.

I guess what I’m saying to you, and to myself, is to get on with it. Whatever you have to do – be it write the next great American novel or clean the bathtub, go at it. You will feel so much better once the task has begun. – BB

TBIF

It’s a very Thank Buddha It’s Friday for one bus rider today.

I jump on the bus this morning to commute to work and I sit next to a young guy. I’m guessing he was late 20’s or early 30’s. I did not take notice of him (as we New Yorker’s sometimes have tunnel vision) until he leaned over to ask me a question.

“Do I smell like alcohol?”

An odd question to ask a stranger at 8:30am but I get it.

Me: Um…yes. (I detected the faint smell as soon as I sat.)

He replied back with a bit of a sigh, worried. He was going to work and didn’t want to smell like booze.

Him: My managers won’t be in so…

Me: Well that’s good. Just lay low.

Silence.

“Do I smell like Bloody Mary’s?”

Clearly this was the drink of the night. (Or he was hoping to use the ‘I had a Bloody Mary at a business meeting this morning’ excuse.)

Me: Uh – I don’t know.

Him: I got 5 hours of sleep…

Me: Well, just go home tonight.

Him: Yeah, I’m going to…I have my birthday party tomorrow night.

He asked me if I had perfume or something in my bag…I said no….and he laughed saying something like, who asks that? It was clear he was still a little inebriated from the night before and was trying to sober up, or appear sober, any way he could. Even by wearing women’s perfume.

He yawned excessively – and the stale alcohol scent clung to him like an unripe grape on the vine. He wore a cap and loafers without socks – clearly a last-minute wardrobe choice on the way to a long day at the office.

As he exited the bus, I wished him good luck. He laughed – knowing he would need it. And off he went – into the streets of NYC – in the hopes of making it through the day, unnoticed.

I felt his “pain” – I think I even commented that it happens – people stay out too late and go to work still feeling the effects of the prior evening. He’ll get through it.

Funny what you will encounter in your day. It’s a big whopping TBIF for that guy.

I should’ve recommended Gatorade. – BB

Trying Times

Thank Buddha It’s Friday….big time!

For those of us who live in the Northeast (of which I am one), it’s been a bit trying lately. Between Hurricane Sandy and the recent Nor’easter, we are “saturated” (pun intended) with our share of hardship.

It is heartbreaking to see those who have lost “everything” – ie: homes, material goods, mementos – and more importantly, those who have lost their lives. It is a sobering reminder that life is fragile, that nature has her own agenda.

It will take a very long time to rebuild…and there will be a sea of tears shed along the way. But, as many a victim and elected official has said, we will be ok, we will persevere.

Should we learn something from this horrible event? Absolutely. If we don’t, then we are blind and unwilling to grow. We need to face the reality that in many ways, things are out of our control. Yet on the flip side, we need to understand that what is in our control, is something we need to pay attention to and prepare for.

Years ago, and this is by no means a comparison, I lost a number of photo albums and family items in a basement flood. It made me very sad. I lost memories that could not be replaced. I had no choice but to let it go. To chalk it up to that element of life which is beyond my influence.

The loss of a home and our possessions is gut-wrenching….there is no escaping that. We are only human – and part of that experience is to feel sorrow and pain. Another piece of the puzzle is to also feel hope and faith and renewal…that we will pass through the darkness and back into the light. It won’t be easy – but it WILL happen.

My lesson in this is a restoration of my faith in people…that we can truly help each other when we are down…in even the smallest of ways. And that’s not some rhetorical mumbo jumbo (as we’ve heard too much of lately in our presidential race – don’t get me started), but a truth that lies deep within each of us as members of the human race.

We are in this together – this journey, this world, this life. – BB