April 1st, 2017

April 1st, 2017


Affirmation: Today, I will do one small task that contributes toward the achievement of my life goals.


Word of the Day: vaticination (n):

1. something foretold: prediction.

2. the act of prophesying.

The Diver's Clothes

You are sitting here with us,
but you are also out walking in a field at dawn.

You are yourself the animal we hunt
when you come with us on the hunt.

You are in your body
like a plant is solid in the ground,
yet you are wind.

You are the diver's clothes
lying empty on the beach.
You are the fish.

In the ocean are many bright strands
and many dark strands like veins that are seen
when a wing is lifted up.

Your hidden self is blood in those,
those veins that are lute strings
that make ocean music,
not the sad edge of surf,
but the sound of no shore.

_____

Logotherapy

The idea of time travel has always enthralled me. I've often toyed with the idea of going back to past times and altering certain events in order to change the future for the better. And I am sure that we have all at some point wished that we could travel back in time, knowing then what we now know.

I know that I am certainly not alone in my fascination with time travel. Indeed, there are a myriad of books, TV shows, and movies that captivate us with tales of time travel. Yet, what many of us do not realize is that the concept can be more than just a fantasy.

The key lies in logotherapy, which was founded by Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl (author of the truly life-changing book, Man's Search for Meaning). Logotherapy aims to teach clients and students how to "live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now."

Drawing from Dr. Frankl's work in this field (coupled with Rod Sterling's "Twilight Zone"!), I have found that it is incredibly effective and helpful to regularly ask myself the following question when I am faced with a decision or when I find myself at a crossroads:

How can I live this day in a way that even if I were given the opportunity to change it, I wouldn't want to?

This question is simple and playful, and it is also extremely powerful. It helps keep me firmly rooted in the present and keeps my conscious mind wide awake.

One important point to note here is that we are faced with hundreds, if not thousands, of decisions a day. It is unreasonable to expect ourselves to mindfully and intentionally question each one. The key lies in identifying those decisions that truly matter, the decisions that have the ability to make a difference in your life, and the decisions that you have struggled with in the past. Unfortunately, we make so many of our unhelpful and even harmful decisions happen in split seconds or almost unconsciously, especially if we've made them habitually over a long time. In these instances, we must seek to consciously create a "gap" between thought/feeling/urge and response. We must also remind ourselves that even thought ingrained patterns die hard, we always have a choice over how we choose to act and show up and we can choose differently at any time.

Remember: just as there is only space for one conscious thought at a time, so too is there only one now in which to act on that one conscious thought.

We can certainly learn a lot from our past, but we must never allow ourselves to become so distracted by that exploration and excavation lest we forget that who we are and - in the future - who we were - will be determined by what we do with our one conscious thought and our one now again and again.


"A house is made of its actual physical parts, not the concepts or potentials of those parts. In the same way, your life is made of your interactions with your environment. When the plans call for a responsible life to be built, responsible thoughts will only be useful when they lead to responsible action. My good intentions and my sincere desire for a new house will not build the house."
- Thom Rutledge