2 posts tagged “decisions”
After my weekend on the beach (in my mind...), I've had a few thoughts come to me....
1. I would like to be in more contact with my family.
It takes a lot of work to meet up with extended family. If I just "let it happen," it doesn't tend to happen. I love seeing my brothers and sisters (on both my side and my wife's side) and I just don't do it enough. I want to plan my life around that more. Plan out a year by who we're going to visit.
2. My relaxing activity: cooking
I like to cook. I'm not particularly good at it, and I don't have any aspirations of being an amazing cook. Maybe that's one reason this popped into my head this weekend: it's an activity that I can just enjoy without getting into my (typical habit of) critical thinking. It's so much fun to find some fresh ingredients and cook them up into something tasty. I haven't really cooked much over the last year. I love sampling different olive oils, types of rice, breads, spices, cheeses, chocolate...I want to learn how to cook tapas.
3. Music is my hobby
I've been putting too much pressure on my music, and that's led me to lose direction. I play and compose because I like it. I don't need any other reason. When I get too many ideas about what I'm trying to accomplish, I lose out on the artistic side, and the self-expression side. I have other parts of my life that are governed by goals, deadlines, and accomplishments; and in those areas, that's fine. Music is fun.
4. Time to launch the art festival
Quite a while back I had an idea of holding a Christian art festival at our church. The idea is this: order a hundred pizzas, set up the stage for bands to play, for open mic, and for poetry readings. Have the projector showing paintings, movies, and any other visual arts. Maybe some workshops.... And just invite everybody who loves art to come and eat pizza, mingle, and enjoy the show.
The pastor is all for it; I've talked to people at church that I think would like to be involved and they are very excited about it. I'm going to call a meeting and begin planning.
Late last night I wrote that I need to have a vision for my life. In the next 8 hours, two very interesting things happened.
I had a dream I was in a coffee shop, about to have a job interview. I had a good nervous energy about myself...ready to go but with no idea of what was going to happen. I didn't even know who I was going to interview with, so I was looking around, trying to keep cool and look open.
A very friendly man came up and introduced himself, shaking my hand. With him was a woman who I worked for years ago (in the dream world; now awake, I don't know who she was). We found a table, got some coffees, and sat down to talk.
They explained the position to me. They were building a web application and having no end of trouble. Employees were working 18-hour days and having trouble getting along. Some were very talented and some were very troublesome. Some didn't know what they were doing.
I was very confused, trying to figure out what position they were offering me. I was trying to get them to say: "We're giving you a free hand--come in and fix this!" But it sounded like they were just trying to bring me into the mess. When I told them I was enjoying my current job and that the benefits are awesome (they are), I got very interesting reactions. The friendly guy got nervous and shifty, and the woman was looking very pathetic, staring at me with sad, pleading eyes.
I sat there intensely wanting to take the job, because I wanted them to like me, and I wanted to rescue them.
That was the end of the dream. When I woke up, I went downstairs and saw a book on the bookshelf, picked it up, and opened to a random page.
The book was Over the Top by Zig Ziglar. I opened to the first page of a chapter called A goals program: the key to a balanced success. Zig Ziglar compares life to a buffet. All the food is there, and you may like all of it, but you can't eat all of it. At one time in his life, he made a list of all the things he would like to accomplish: everything from being a good neighbor to having a radio show to learning Spanish. Here's what he says:
"I tried to evaluate how much time would be required each week to do all of these things, and counting 7 hours of sleep per night, it came to a total of over 300 hours a week. Since there are only 168 hours in the week, I realized something very significant: I had to eliminate much of the good so I could choose the best, just as I did in the cafeteria line."
