I have found “giving up” to be really hard work and terribly difficult to achieve.
I am not making light of the desire, just the opposite. The desire is often very intense, but giving up seems to simply be much harder than finding joy or purpose. When joy seems elusive, I look for purpose. Purpose usually leads me to joy.
What do we seek on this journey or from this experience? Taking time to ask this question of ourselves affords us the opportunity to understand the answer despite any excitement or anxiety we might feel.
Do we hope to learn something? Connect with someone? Are we planning to challenge ourselves, or are we simply hoping to embrace the joy of the experience? Maybe there is a bit of all of this in our plans. However, it is not just the meandering, spur-of-the-moment journey that includes unforeseen excitement or anxiety. We can become frustrated or even lose our way if we have not taken the time to understand what we are seeking.
When this thought first began swirling around my head, I was contemplating the way personal relationships can devolve. A brief conversation with a stranger had left me troubled. The stranger had conveyed how difficult they were struggling now that they were the guardian of their young grandchild. Their struggle was one of lost hope, as much as one of real challenge. Their expectations of this new, full-time relationship was fraught with the dread of knowing life was going to be forever changed, and was going to be quite difficult due to the child’s very specific struggles.
I was troubled by the lack of hope the stranger shared. Many hours later, this thought came to mind.
What do we seek in our personal relationships? What do we hope to learn or experience?
While we may not be able to change the specific elements of human existence that make life hard, sometimes so hard we struggle to see a way forward, we are able to reimagine our expectations. Sometimes this can be achieved by simply identifying what it is we truly seek from the situation or the relationship. Often we are counseled to changed our perspective, but first we might be wise in understanding what it is we seek. From that understanding, our perspective, or in other words, our vantage point might become clear. We might even discover that our frustration is not from the challenges we face in this new journey, but simply from having become lost in the fog before reaching the summit.
As I near the anniversary of making my first video, I find myself amazed at how much I have learned. Certainly video making has had its learning curve. Yet, it is what I have learned about myself that amazes me the most. When I began this new adventure, I would have been anxious and even horrified by the silly video-short that wraps up my latest vlog.
Covid-quarantine hair notwithstanding, a year ago I would have struggled with accepting the person I see on the screen. Now I can find joy and whimsy in the person – the whole person – who allows herself to be filmed.
Last year marked the 20th anniversary of a major turning point in my life. I went from being/feeling healthy to something else entirely.
As with most who find themselves challenged with trauma, tragedy, and underlying health issues, I travelled through many phases of adjustment, including anger, denial, and the belief that I could control the outcome. Finally in this past year, I gained a greater understanding and perspective of just how much I have faced in these last decades, let alone, what I faced in the earlier years of my life. With a more clear understanding of the past, I was able to feel at peace because was able to stop longing for what I could not have, and instead, I began to truly celebrate who I have become.
None of us want to believe we are vain. Although vanity is not always a bad thing, it is a crippling thing when it prevents us from embracing life and from sharing our life with others.
Aging is a part of life, and for some, the events of our life speed up the aging process. It certainly has in my case, but then again, my body and mind have never really been in sync.
As I compiled this latest video, I recognized that vanity and fear of aging could prevent me from sharing a silly video-short with the wider world. This gave me pause and had me reflecting all that this past year of vlogging has taught me.
After reflection, I decided that I would continue embracing the joys of life and the pressing onward with my healing. Yes, my healing. Being able to see myself as I am and not as I have wished I could be is indeed a sign that I am healing.
In this video, I share updates on what I have been doing, provide a quick fiber dyeing tutorial, and share a ridiculously silly demonstration of basting a king-sized quilt with my husband on a breezy day.
Heroic efforts and stunning success are not the results of optimism alone. Desperation, insecurity, and fear can often be part of the equation.
There is a well-known adage about successful endeavors. It is about eating an elephant one bite at a time.
Even when we are wise enough to know that success comes from taking one bite at a time, we might find ourselves with aches from having bitten off more than we can chew. We might find ourselves needing time to adjust and regroup.
Optimism, hope, and determination are essential attributes in successfully eating that proverbial elephant. They are the attributes most often celebrated by the adoring fan club who cheer on the hero; a fan club who seldom wants to see the gritty, sweat-stained brow, the tear-filled eyes, or the weighted-down shoulders.
A hero rarely earns that title because they seek it. It is a title assigned because they seek to do the right thing when faced with tough choices, and they seek to serve even at the cost of their own comfort.
A hero transforms into a superhero because they do not rest on past heroic actions. They do not retreat when exhaustion and failure seem more likely than success. The hero is elevated to greater status not because they refuse to cry, but because they push forward while openly crying – crying due fear, fatigue, and pain, but also from determination and hope.
Superheroes are not created by seeking inhuman traits. They are created when they embrace the very traits that make them human: when they recognize that joy and sorrow go hand in hand; when they allow tears to wash away the grit and grime so they can see the light more clearly.
Superheroes will cry, and then they will press forward with their quest.
As we liberate ourselves from the expectations of man, and from our own internalized fears, we can truly embrace our potential to serve mankind in a way that brings peace.
Brings peace to our own souls, and hopefully aids others in finding their own peace.
I believe that pointing in the direction of a path, and providing a map, is often better than holding a person’s hand as they journey on the path.
Regardless of what change we wish to make, or what adventure we wish to embark upon, the question of how to begin can often create the largest stumbling block for us. We look for advice, directional signs, or step-by-step instructions. Sometimes we need a clear outline to follow, and other times we want only a point in the right direction.
In this modern day of information overload, often when we ask the question, we find ourselves overwhelmed by the flood of answers we are given. Maybe we aren’t asking the right question, or maybe people aren’t listening to the question we are trying to ask?
In the enthusiasm to share answers, many will rush to supply great suggestions that have little to do with the needs of the person seeking help.
This information overload – or suggestion dump – became quite evident to me recently when a new quilt enthusiast asked the question, “How do I start?” The answers came pouring in with little regard to the personal situation of the newbie. Where do they live? What is their budget? Do they have any background in the skill set?
Without taking the time to learn a bit about the person asking the question, the answers not only can overwhelm but they can misdirect. Additionally, the flood of answers may begin to seem like attention seeking rather than assistance giving. The person who posed the question may find themselves wishing they had not.
There is an old English proverb that states, “Hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works.” Over time, it has been altered to, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Taking the time to understand the question – to understand the individual asking the question – is vital. The focus should be on that individual and not on ourselves, or worse, on our desire to promote others. When a person, for whatever reason asks, “How do I begin?”, we should do our best to remove obstacles rather than place more in their path.
Hoping that I am doing good works and not the other option, I have embarked upon Pithy Patchwork Projects. I explain a bit of my intent in this video.
The joys of life are not found in the uniqueness or exotic nature of the task we do, but rather, it is found with in the way we perceive the task. When we change our focus from that of “must do” to “choose to do”, joy-filled replaces mundane.
Joy can be found even in the common activities which are often viewed as mundane. While blending fiber may not seem be a mundane task for those unfamiliar to the world of spinning yarn, it is labor. Depending on the size of the project, it can be quite laborsome. It is work done in preparation for the final objective, and a task that we chose either to see as mundane or joy-filled.
It is very likely that I have now gone beyond the midpoint of my life. As I look forward to the of life ahead of me, I reflect on the past and blend those memories into the daily activities of the present. The experiences of my youth have taught me to seek joy in the tasks that I do – even the daily tasks that are not necessarily unique or exciting. Seeking joy and blending the lessons of the past with the present is how I hope to move steadily into whatever future I am blessed to have.
One of the greatest challenges a crafter/maker/artisan faces is the challenge of accepting imperfection. Knowing when the results of one’s effort is enough to feel satisfaction rather than dismay is not always the easiest of tasks. Sometimes it requires more practice and skill than the crafting/making/arting (is that even a word?)
Embracing the joy of imperfection can help a person accept the imperfect nature of their creation. Learning to laugh when well-laid plans go awry is not always simple, but it does change one’s outlook. Creativity can flourish when laughter is present.
I laugh a lot in this week’s video. I share many imperfect quilts. With one particular quilt, I show my effort to “fix” an imperfection. I will leave it to the viewer to decide if it is an improvement. At the end of the day, I like the fix enough to hang the quilt on my wall. It may never be my favorite, but it is certainly cheery.
A spirit of gratitude can lift us out of the mire. It may not always remove the mire, but it lifts us so that the mire is less likely to suck us under.
Pithy Ponderings 