Tag: goals

The big question…

Live & Learn39 Comments

What would constitute a satisfying day today? I think just asking the question sets one up for success. We spend a lot of time ruing the things we didn’t get done after the fact, but maybe more intention is what’s in order. How do you want to feel come bedtime? What things do you need to do, what plans do you need to make or break, in order to get there?

— Melissa Kirsch, from “Game Plans” in The Morning (NY Times, Nov 16 2024)

DK Photo. Atlantic Brants arrive at the Cove for a pit stop on their way south. 6:45 a.m. 36° F. November 16, 2024. Cove Island Park. Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning’s sunrise and the time lapse of twilight to sunrise in 18 seconds.

With you Rachel

Live & Learn34 Comments

The water in the creek is often surprisingly warm. After the first shock, it is easy to stay in. It is perhaps thirty metres long and I swim fast and methodically up and down. I don’t like to talk or mess around when I’m swimming; or it might be more accurate to say that I can’t imagine being able to mess around, can’t imagine being free from my own rules and ambitions, and more accurate still to say that I’m frightened of what might happen if I were. Instead I set myself a target and count the lengths. My husband dives in and swims for a little while, slowly, without particular direction. Then he turns over and lies on his back and floats, looking at the sky.

~ Rachel Cusk, in Coventry (Farrar, Straus and Giroux. September 16, 2019)

Note: Photo Gif via poppins-me

Saturday Morning (Basking ‘On the other’)

Live & Learn24 Comments

On one end – excellence, ambition, discipline, defining what you want to be and working towards it, goals, decisions, structure, control, action, obsession (hold on)

On the other – acceptance, peace, polymorphous selfhood, beingness, letting it flow, spontaneity, appreciation of what is not what you want it to be, release (let go)

In this tension – a life.

~ abhumanaex

Notes:

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

Live & Learn9 Comments

goals-inspirational-confidence
The great waiting played a part. Inside the vastness, plotting. All that, yes. Prolonged, weary, the exasperation. But at dawn the next day, like a slow ostrich straightening itself out, she was waking up. She awoke to the same intact mystery, opening her eyes she was the princess of the intact mystery. As if the factory whistle had already blown, she dressed in a hurry, downed her coffee in one gulp. Opened the front door.

~ Clarice Lispector, “Preciousness.” The Complete Stories

Credits: Image – Thank you Doug at eclecticitylight

 

Pure poison.

Live & Learn24 Comments

apple-watch

Mark Morford, Optimize your way to a miserable life!

…Do not misunderstand. Goals are great. Achievements can feel wonderful. Fitness trackers can motivate you to stay healthy and workout more. Lists, efficiency, hard work – all lovely and powerful and, done correctly and with an open heart, laughter and good bourbon, fine playthings indeed.

But when they rule your world? When you can’t feel anything, connect to fellow humans, love or cry or enjoy your goddamn drink for a second because you got too much to do, places to go, scores to settle, appointments to keep, apps to download? When they replace intention, touch, a deep and connected pause?

Pure poison. The Void simply cannot be filled from the outside. Which is not to say that new, all-steel Apple Watch isn’t sort of gorgeous. Why not play with it? Enjoy it? And then laugh at its adorable attempts to tell you about something about the meaning of walking?

Be sure to read Morford’s entire post here: Optimize your way to a miserable life!

Image: Apple Watch at Apple.com