Good Enough is Great: One Word for 2016

For last year's words belong to last year's language

And next year's words await another voice.

~ T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

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link.  Blink. Blink. 

The cursor pulsates.  Steady.  Measuring.  Judging. It waits for my Muse to say something.  Anything.

I want this year to be different.  I want to end every day with at least five hundred words on the page. I want to be pain free and overflowing with energy.  I want this year to be perfect.

I want the impossible.

Oh, five hundred words a day is doable.  Pain-free is attainable if I avoid inflammatory foods.  But perfect? Not so much.

My clay dragon was doing so well...

Usually by now I have a word picked out for the year.  Last year it was Adventure.  Although I kicked my writerly Muse to the curb around mid-May and stopped journaling, I did at least try to find adventure throughout 2015.  In August, I took up kayaking – dragged into it moaning and complaining, and then promptly falling madly in love with the river. 

In October, I went to a writers’ conference in Wisconsin, where I managed to kayak the swells of Lake Michigan.  It wasn’t a conference in a remote part of Alaska, of course.  But I still managed to have an adventure of the heart there.  And I rediscovered my passion for writing.

So did I live out Adventure to the fullest?

Only I can determine that and I am my own worst critic.  Some inner demon – installed on my hard drive in childhood – keeps pulling me back three steps for each one I take forward.  It’s exhausting and discouraging.  And such weekly or daily battles drain me.  Make it difficult to even hear the Muse, much less live out what she says. 

L.M. Montgomery once said, “Despair is a free man, but hope is a slave.”  Sounds cynical but it’s true.  Hope may keep you going, yes, but it also keeps you tied – and when that something isn’t healthy or sane or doesn’t give you joy or add to your life in some way, then you have become a slave to anticipation.

It is, however, a new year and there’s something to be said for setting realistic expectations.  For too long, I’ve set them high -- too high for anyone to reach – yet I expected to reach them.  And fell into despair and stagnation when I failed.

Good Enough…is Great!

....and then he just fell apart. :(

Whether or not 2016 is “epic” (as I hoped 2015 would be), is no longer the measure of whether December will find me a better person or a more prolific writer.  This year, I’ve set goals with my ADD, depression, work schedule, and health in mind.  And that means setting my expectations to Good Enough. 

Not in the sense that I don’t put forth my best effort.  Rather, I will work to silence that inner demon that demands perfection from every single thing I undertake by doing the task and allowing the result to be good enough.  Even becoming comfortable with failure. 

Write every day

Kayak as often as I can

Visit old friends

Follow the Paleo lifestyle to heal my body

Continue making pottery

Send one card or letter a month

If I can do these things and learn to allow myself to be good enough, then 2016 just might end up an epic adventure after all.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Posts on La Belle are written with the following fonts: Georgia, Times New Roman, Vivaldi, Edwardian, and occasionally Baroque Script.

Happy New Year!

And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

   

Happy New Year! 

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

The Measure of Years: Reflections on Turning 40

It’s this freedom that’s the key to becoming visible again. Not caring what others think is freeing. Expressing yourself any way you want is freeing. Having opinions, emotional wisdom, spiritual understanding…these things free you. And in freedom, we find power.

~ Jane Tara, The Happy Endings Book Club

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 his December I turned 40.

Forty.  A supposedly significant number, but what exactly is it supposed to signify?

In a society that values money, production, , utility, doing and acting, it is easy to look at the past forty years and wonder, What have I done with my life so far?

If I use society’s rule book and compare myself to others, I come up with a depressing list of did nots and do nots:

I don’t earn a six digit income.

I didn’t get a promotion.

I don’t own a company.

I’ve never lived out of my home state.

I don’t have a Masters, much less a PhD.

I don’t own a fancy car.

I don’t own any designer clothes.

I didn’t publish a book.

I didn’t consistently write 500 words a day.

I didn’t publish as many blog posts as I planned.

But as an Idealist (INFP) and an Inspirer (ENFP), these particular "failures" didn’t bother me for long (except the writing, but we’ll get to that later).  That means I value being over doing, reflecting over acting, creating over producing, and relationships over money.

It doesn’t mean I sat and dreamt my dreams and then did nothing to realize them.  Just that my dreams differ greatly from the majority of society.

You matter....embrace and express yourself!
Image: © Sergey Nivens

Some dreams you don’t know you have until you have a chance to live them.  My week long trip to Kodiak, Alaska in September 2014 was a dream; one I walked away from inexplicably changed.  On the surface, you wouldn’t know it.  

But inside….the interior landscape of my soul and my psyche were drastically altered. And that trip allowed me to give the proverbial finger to society’s (and familial) expectations and judgments of where I should be at forty.  

So now my list looks like this:

I have a decent paying job.

My position is low-stress.

I have money and time to support other small business owners.

I read voraciously and care more about learning than earning letters after my name.

I have a car that runs and gets me from point A to point B.

I have more clothes than I actually wear. (And I do own designer, vintage hats!)

I may live in my childhood home, but I have visited Alaska twice and stood six and half feet from a Kodiak grizzly.

Most importantly, I learned to let go of a couple of my most damaging fears.

But I’m human.  And I suffer from depression.  So I’m not going to clean this post up and tell you that everything was peachy keen and I triumphed glamorously through adversity and lived a positive, healthy life the rest of the year.

I made a lot of mistakes and I failed a lot ~ sometimes spectacularly.  The temptation to give up, to despair, to wallow was overwhelming at times and I gave in more than I care to admit.  And I’m still struggling.  To listen to the supportive, loving voices and to ignore and block out the judgmental, critical ones.  To embrace both my light and my dark side.  To regain lost ground.

Especially when it comes to following my passion for the written word. 

There’s no way around that one.  I failed consistently at being consistent with my writing.  And as writers know, the most important aspect of being a writer is to show up, sit down, and put words on a page.  My failure to do this is directly tied to both my depression and a deep-rooted fear of rejection and indifference.  And both of those fears are directly tied to family of origin issues.  Not an excuse, just something I need to stay aware of.

Which means there is no easy solution, no magic potion, no “just do it” way to overcome it.  I do have excellent help and loving support, and a firm belief that healing is possible and attainable.  Still, it's going to take more hard work, openness, and suffering.  Something that I need to allow to bleed onto the page.

That's raw.  That's real.  That's honest.  That’s life.

That’s a significant forty years.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

How do you measure the worth of your years? 

GoodReads Challenge: Reading Less But Learning More in 2014

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

~ Oscar Wilde

Beginning in January, I am participating in the One Page a Day Challenge.  Hopefully by the end of the year, I'll have 365 pages worth editing.

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ast year, I completed my GoodReads Reading Challenge ahead of my goal: 213 was the challenge, I read 221. 

Would be more impressive if at least a third of those books were all like War and Peace, instead of short novels averaging fifteen chapters each.

So this year, when I was wondering how many books I should challenge myself to read, I decided to scale the number down.

This frees me up to read more non-fiction ~ which I tend to ponder and journal about.  I contemplated reading less paranormal novels, but that wasn’t realistic.

So, 200 books in 365 days it is.  I can just add this challenge to my overall plan for 2014.  

Image credit: Tabby Soltis

Speaking of which. . . .

The Plan – Day Seven Update

In related news, here’s an update on my 2014 Plan

Spend more time with friends

Since January 1, I have spent time with friends 4 times and plan to see four more friends between today and the 14th

Write More

Began journaling on January 1 and haven’t missed a day yet.  I even went so far as to pick a word specifically for January (Letting Go) that fits with my word for the year (Flexibility).

Eat Healthier

Yesterday ~ my first day back at work in almost a week ~ I juiced and ate nothing solid all day. . . and promptly developed a migraine.  This was doubly terrible because I was meeting one of my fellow Sherlockian friends to see Danny Boyle’s production of “Frankenstein” at the Shakespeare Theatre. 

I managed to make it through 2.5 hours of brilliant writing and acting, but that migraine really kicked me in the head and I had to resort to the worst possible non-food meat in the entire universe to stop the agony. 

Still, no beating myself up.  Today, I moved on and ate breakfast.  New strategy – meal planning, with events in mind.

Exercise

Does jogging with your dog in frigid temps count?

New Digs

Haven’t done anything yet.

Find Peace

Well, spending time with friends contributes to my sense of peace and well-being.  But I need to make sure I go to bed earlier.  Because what that really means is that I will put on my jammies at eight-thirty, read for an hour, and lay in the dark for another twenty minutes waiting for sleep to take over.

Since I read on the train, perhaps I should use that hour to meditate and see if that helps me to fall asleep easier.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

So far, so good.  How are you doing with your New Year Plan?  Did you pick a word for the year yet?  And are you participating in the 2014 reading challenge?

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The Power of a Word: Defining 2014

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

~ Rudyard Kipling

Beginning in January and continuing throughout the year, I’m participating in the One Page a Day writing challenge.

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ach year, for as long as I can remember, I’ve chosen a word that would help shape and define the new year.  Sometimes, it’s been two words.  Last year, I didn’t choose one.

Perhaps that is why so much of 2013 I felt lost and uncentered.

But I have 365 (well, 364 now) brand new days to unwrap and enjoy to the fullest.  And so, yesterday, I chose a new word.   

Flexibility.

Our expectations tend to be impossibly high ~ for others, but most especially for ourselves.  And when we or our loved ones fail to live up to those expectations (some which are never even spoken aloud!), many of us become angry, frustrated, disappointed, even depressed. Some of us give up, thinking that it isn’t worth it to try, since we are bound to fail anyway.

It’s a twisted kind of pride, actually.

Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off

Because the truth is, no one is perfect.  Everyone fails.  But the great thing is, it’s temporary.  There are always triumphs and successes as well as failures.  Instead of beating ourselves up about our failures, we should learn from them, tweak what we were doing, and try again.

And in the process, we need to remember to be kind.  To others and to ourselves.

I was queen of emotional and verbal self-flagellation.  No matter what happened, no matter who may have been involved, I always blamed myself.  Negative self-talk and phrases such as “you always do that,” “you are so selfish and stupid,” and countless others, would swirl around my brain like a noxious, amorphous cloud.

Image credit: Teach the Younger Women

It was like being swept up in a tornado of worthless thoughts ~ a monster of my own making ~ with a little help from other dysfunctional people.

I say “was” because this year, I am determined to make a fresh start.  To banish those hateful words and phrases from my mind and my heart and my conversation.  To become instead, the queen of flexibility.

To be flexible is to be laid back.

To be flexible is to be kind.

To be flexible is to be understanding.

To be flexible is to let go.

Start All Over Again

I had a chance to put this mantra into practice yesterday.  My plan was to juice and start my detox.  My first mistake was turning down breakfast and when I told the person why, she said, “How long are you going to do that?  You know you’ll just fail and go back to eating junk again.  What’s the point?”

Le sigh.

I rolled my eyes, ignored her, and then later, proceeded to prove her right by eating the most wretched food known to man.

I could almost hear Monsanto rubbing their collective hands in evil glee.

But I had already chosen my word for the year.  And when I journaled later, I reflected that it was okay to start my detox on January 2nd.  That I had no one to please or answer to but myself.  And that I could choose to allow this one false start to ruin and impact the entire race.

I chose flexibility.

I chose understanding.

I chose kindness.

I chose to let go.

I chose to be laid back, and say oh well, and get myself into position to win this morning.

It’s going to be a great, flexible, year.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Do you choose a word to help you define the year?  What is your word for 2014?