on attaining my highest aspirations

[yearofdevotion]

for me the only way to go somewhere new is to do the thing i most fear.

i guess i have only ever solved my personal problems in uncomfortable ways.

the character margaux in sheila heti’s how should a person be?

[yearofdevotion]

Zen practice is ostensibly organized around periods of sitting in meditation and chanting. Yet every Zen master will tell you that building a stone wall or washing dishes is essentially no different from formal meditation. The quality of a Zen student’s practice is defined just as much by how he or she sweeps the courtyard as by how he or she sits in meditation. Could we apply this way of thinking to less esoteric situations? Could all of us reclaim the lost hours of our lives by making everything—the commonplace along with the extraordinary—a part of our practice?

george leonard, mastery

[yearofdevotion]

[T]here are those of us who are simply self-critical. Even without comparing ourselves to the world’s greatest, we set such high standards for ourselves that neither we nor anyone else could ever meet them—and nothing is more destructive to creativity than this. We fail to realize that mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.

george leonard, mastery

[yearofdevotion]

[L]earning almost any significant skill involves certain indignities. Your first few dives are likely to be belly flops—and they’ll draw the attention of almost everyone at the pool. Are you willing to accept that? If not, forget diving. The face you draw in your first art class looks more like Mr. Potato Head than the Mona Lisa. Is that a good reason for giving up art?

george leonard, mastery

[yearofdevotion]

Find ways to bring more and more of yourself into loving awareness. Every detail of your being. The ones you like, and the ones you don’t. Especially the ones you don’t, especially the parts that most repulse you. You know, loving awareness—even if you haven’t heard the phrase before, you know what it is. Those moments of spacious, calm, thorough, tranquil connection with whatever portion of existence you’re currently exposed to, where nothing is being challenged or conceptualized, but rather is just allowed to appear, in radiant suchness, without resistance or fear. That variety of existential condition.

See if you can look at yourself that way. See how other people do that. Try that stuff out. Not forcefully. Gently, but intently. Start to include everything in this perception, the total enfolding of you and not you. Understand that this can be complex. (If it’s destabilizing, back off, find a teacher, or a better teacher, or find others who are dedicated to this and see if they can help.) Let yourself be surprised, and love, as completely as possible, the surprising thing. See where that gets you.

sasha chapin, "how i attained persistent self-love, or, i demand deep okayness for everyone"

[yearofdevotion]

A few rare individuals refuse to live limited lives. They drive through tremendous amounts of pain—from rejections and failures to shorter moments of embarrassment and anxiety. They also handle the small, tedious pain required for personal discipline, forcing themselves to do things we all know we should do but don’t—like exercising, eating right, and staying organized. Because they avoid nothing, they can pursue their highest aspirations. They seem more alive than the rest of us.

phil stutz, barry michels, the tools: 5 tools to help you find courage, creativity, and willpower—and inspire you to live life in forward motion

[yearofdevotion]

Pick something you hate doing. It could be traveling, meeting new people, family gatherings, etc. How do you organize your life so you can avoid doing it? Imagine that pattern is a place you hide in. That’s your Comfort Zone. What does it feel like?… This alternate world feels like a soothing, pleasurable warm bath, as if, for a moment, you’ve found your way back to the womb. These “warm-bath” activities just cripple us further. The more you hide in the warm bath, the less willing you become to deal with the cold shower of reality. Ask yourself what your own warm-bath activities are. The more frequently you indulge in them, the more likely it is that you’re using them to create a Comfort Zone… The Comfort Zone is supposed to keep your life safe, but what it really does is keep your life small…The Comfort Zone makes us feel good in the moment. Who cares what the future penalty will be? But the penalty does come, bringing with it the worst pain of all—the knowledge that you’ve wasted your life.

phil stutz, barry michels, the tools: 5 tools to help you find courage, creativity, and willpower—and inspire you to live life in forward motion

[yearofdevotion]

Avoiding pain wouldn’t be a problem if we did it once or twice a year. But for most of us, it’s a deeply ingrained habit…[and] merely escaping pain isn’t enough for us. We insist that the pain be replaced with pleasure… Feel yourself indulging in one or more of these behaviors. Imagine the pleasure you feel lifts you into a womb-like world. How does this world affect your sense of purpose?

phil stutz, barry michels, the tools: 5 tools to help you find courage, creativity, and willpower—and inspire you to live life in forward motion

[yearofdevotion]

i wanted to make a separate tumblr where i could confide in myself, converse with myself, convince myself to do the things i want to do to live more openly, exuberantly, and unselfconsciously. to take my dreams of being a writer and a designer and an artist and a researcher and a critic seriously. to not flinch away from those lofty words as i write them—writer, designer, artist, researcher, critic—as if i am undeserving of even wanting them privately, wanting them anonymously.

i want to take my dreams seriously this year, to treat them as crisp and clear and attainable desires and not things to shy away from, out of fear i'll never make them happen. the fear is what means they'll never happen. approaching them is what i need to do, what i want to do.

i don't want to be afraid of my ambitions anymore! so! here i am, writing into the darkness of cyberspace, pulling myself forward in the direction of my dreams