New Year - New Habits - Day 2

01/03/2012 - Day 2

As I fell asleep last night mentally preparing myself to follow through with day 2 of my new routine, I realized that some of you may be thinking I’m a hypocrite for my comment about “Law of Attraction freaks…” For the record, I am a Law of Attraction Freak and proud of it! So to anyone who was offended, and wondering why The Eternal You blogger was bashing the Law of Attraction, I apologize…I was making a funny.

It seems that 6:15am is becoming a recurring theme for my blog posts, since here I am again. My ability to wake up swiftly at 5am was hindered slightly by my daughter who woke me up at 4am by climbing into our bed. When you wake up from a deep sleep, realize you only have 1 hour left and then fall back, it feels much harder to pull the sheets off and stand up when the first few notes of music fill the air. And pushing the snooze button is not an option because that just perpetuates the wrong habit; especially on day 2. So I did the next best thing. I turned off the alarm and fell back to sleep!

But thankfully my guilt was powerful and I grabbed my willpower by the balls at 5:30am, and stood up in my dark room dazed and confused about why I was doing this. I muttered something to myself to the effect of, “Big picture Paulie, big picture…” An image from Darren Hardy’s Compound Effect came to mind about him waking up to his father lifting weights every morning around this same time. If you haven’t read the book, I recommend it. It really helps get your head around the importance of small changes in your life, compounded over time that create the powerful force of monumental change. Heck, if I keep this up, think about the ripple effect that this new 5am routine could create. As the 12 steppers say, “One day at a time.” In a few years from now my whole life could be significantly improved by this easy (I say easy because, as Jim Rohn put it, it’s something I can do.) change and new habit.

I think we all should start this year by picking the smallest, easiest little positive habit that we’d like to add into our lives and do it every single day. How hard can it be, really, to grab that floss each night, put 1 less scoop of sugar in our coffee, eat 1 more piece of fruit, take 1 more flight of stairs, say “I love you” 1 more time, smile at a stranger, say “thank you!” to the Universe, pat yourself on the back for your accomplishments, and hundreds more that we could add to this list. These are all easy to do and I guarantee that if you do them daily, you will, over time, see huge changes in your life.

I’m really looking forward to all the ways that my life is improved by taking control over myself, waking up a little earlier, writing a little something, and getting active every day. I can imagine that over time I’ll be waking up a few minutes before my alarm ready for my day. My writing skills will undoubtedly be sharpened and more organized. (God knows I need the organized part! I mean, have you read my posts…there all over the place! Maybe I’ll start a separate blog called, “Paulie’s Scattered Thoughts” or something like that. Oops, I’m still in my parenthesis rambling aren’t I?)

One of the best ways that this new routine will change my life is by proving to myself that I CAN DO IT. That simple fact is enough to launch a hundred new habits, changes, and improvements! Not only can you do it, but it’s easy! It’s easy because you CAN.

Here’s to you and your new habits! Heck, here’s to me too! I’m on Day 2!

New Year - New Habits

01/02/2012 – Day 1
Waking up at 5am wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Waking up to “Come to my window” by Melissa Ethridge, is proving to be a more challenging task since I can’t seem to stop the single line from her song from looping over and over in my head.
Even after 20 minutes of Pilates, (yes, I said Pilates…pipe down!), I am still singing the oh-so-catchy, “Come to my window….come inside, wait by the light of the moon. Come to my window. I’ll be home soon.” The funny thing with a song that’s stuck in your head is that it never finishes. Over and over the same few words keep playing. And just when you realize that you’ve stopped, BAM! It’s back again!

Have you ever had those days where your brain creates a sound track for each seemingly insignificant event by pulling random songs from the vast jukebox in your mind? Stuck in traffic on the way to work and there’s Dave Matthews singing to me…”traffic jam, got more cars than a beach got sand…” You step into the elevator next to the hot new intern and Steven Tyler chimes in with, “Love in an elevator…love in it up, when I’m goin down. “ Then for some strange reason, after saying good morning to your overweight, cigarette smelly, cranky, I’m-not-a-morning-person, boss, Eric Clapton serenades with, “darling, you look wonderful tonight…”
Seriously! Who’s pulling the strings in my head!? I know I wouldn’t chose this
playlist from my ipod ever, and most definitely not for the super-B that is my
boss!

You ever wonder if someone somewhere is following you around messing with you. Maybe the ghost of a kid you picked on in grade school who recently died is finally getting his payback. That explains a lot. I like that explanation actually. All you, “Law of Attraction” freaks out there can bite me. You wanna know why I spilled my coffee, got cut off on the freeway, stepped in gum, called my new co-worker the wrong name, and got a virus on my computer first thing Monday morning? Fucking ghost’s ok! I’ve got the ghost of that fat kid who ate paste in 1st grade following my around making my life a living hell! Think positive my ass…I’m positive that I need an exorcism.

Ok, back to reality….whoa, I just totally had a crazy, ADHD, I-think-I’m-Dane-Cook, moment there. I know right?

So the New Year is here and it’s 6:15am on Monday, January 02, 2012. I’m writing what I hope to be the first of many blog posts, mainly for my own entertainment and to track myself and my new goals and habits. If you like them, great! I’m just hoping I can stay accountable to myself long enough to actually create the new habits.

Habit#1 – Get up at 5am, each day.
There’s no sense thinking I’m a night owl, staying up late to “work” on stuff, only to fall asleep while reading the latest conspiracy theory or apocalypse hype. It’s time to get focused and create a habit that has a purpose.

Habit#2 – Exercise daily.
Now that I’m up at 5am, I should have 30 minutes for some form of morning exercise. Today it was Pilates that included flexibility and sculpting. I need some more flexibility in my life. I mean hell, have you tried touching your toes lately? Yea…I thought so.

Habit#3 – Write every day.
I love to write and people have told me that I have a knack for it. (Whatever that means) So here it is, the first of many posts intended to get the writer inside awake from his/her hibernation and get my creative juices flowing. Uh-oh, I think I just made a Freudian manage a trois reference to myself.

Well, there’s the list. Seems simple enough, and with any luck, I’ll have the new habits engrained into my life in about a month. Then I can add more to the list and see what happens.


"A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes." --- Mahatma Gandhi

Tragic

I realized that most of us see "Tragedy" as something that happens suddenly and rips into our lives in such a way that it is labeled as "tragic", but another form of tragedy can simply be an un-lived life. The person who either spends their life struggling with their inner demons without ever conquering them, or the person who avoids the struggle altogether and loses themselves in some activity or lifestyle and never even scratches the surface of their life's potential.

That, to me, may be the greatest tragedy. I can find many examples, but one came to mind about a man they called, "Burro" Schmidt, who spent almost his entire life digging a tunnel through Copper Mountain. http://burroschmidttunnel.org/burroschmidt.html
I can't imagine that upon his death, he felt satisfied with the path he chose for his life. Although he actually finished the tunnel and saw daylight, this "success" was for nothing. He didn't do anything with it. I feel like this is tragic and that there must be a level of inner tragedy that this man dealt with.

The same can be said for the drug addict that never gets clean, or the lonely housewife who loses herself in her family and has a life overshadowed with guilt, resentment and "what-ifs". This can be true for the ones who stifle their artistic creativity out of fear or feeling obligated to conform to a more "realistic" idea of how to live. Or the workaholic who spends their life chasing money and material possessions to later realize they are dying alone and unhappy, wishing that they did things differently.

I don't remember who said it, but I believe the quote is, "Don't be afraid of dying, be afraid of the unlived life."

Awake

He ran like the wind through the dense fog desperately

trying to escape from himself. Faster and faster until the world became a blur in his mind.

Finding no comfort in a state of disillusionment, he collapsed upon himself in an inward

convulsion of emotion.

Choking on the past and gasping for salvation upon the alter of self destruction, he noticed the lifeless shell within. It cracked and crumbled in a heap of frustrated agony at his feet. Tearing apart the memories of what was, and clouding what could be.

While he lay drinking in the salt of his tears, the visions flipped through his mind like a maddening display of chaotic animation.

This all too familiar feeling of confusion plagued his mind and demanded his attention.

He averted his eyes from the light of self resurrection and continued to bleed tears of pity.

Knowing that his only hope was to renew the vow of redemption and lift himself from the shadows, his spirit awoke to the sound of desperation.

Slowly pouring vitality into the glass of his humanity, and drying the salt from his tears.

Awakened and seeing through eyes of clarity, that from within became his saviour. Saved from himself, by himself was the irony that cracked a smile on his lips as he spoke the word, "...Awake..."

by Paul Graham, 11/4/2001

Write Something #1

"Just write something," I told myself. "Anything at all."

So I did just that. I wrote "something" and you're reading that "something" right now.

I often wonder why the creativity in us is left to rot in some dark corner of our minds until we hardly remember that we ever had the creative spark to begin with. There is so much of ourselves wasted on the daytoday mundane "life" that we all try so hard to "live", but are we really living? Hardly...We're convinced that creativity is an activity to be performed between the hours of ten pm and one am and d sometimes on the weekends,. That our true gifts are only a hobby, to be entertained "when we have time" as a leftover to our "real" lives. Why is this so? Why are we lost in this in this paradox of spiritual evolution? I wish I had the answers . Somehow we've created a world that doesn't promote creativity as a primary purpose. One must work hard at a job to make a living and pay the bills. Then maybe, just maybe he'll have enough time and/or energy to actually make something with his life.

Yet, here I am, clicking away at my keyboard on a Monday evening, trying to type with my eyes completely closed in an effort to "create" something...anything really. How am I doing so far?...I do feel good that I actually am typing something other than a proposal, or marketing fluff or even a simple email.

I am a writer....I keep telling myself as an affirmation so taht the reality becomes truer each day.s it's working, cuz here I am....writing. Not a novel, or even a short story, but words are flowing from my fingertips as my mind allows thought to pour from my nerves into this PC. Amazing when you break it down to it's simplest form. I think, therefore I am...I think, therfore I write.

Who knows, this may be the first of many blog/journal entries that I write over the next few months. Did I mention that my eyes are completely closed this enterir time? You can probably tell by my terrible spelling and awful typos. But who's coutning?

Until next time.....this is Paul, and I just wrote something.

By Paul Graham 5/23/2011

After the Storm

Cast a spell on me please.
Turn my pain into pleasure.
As I fall upon my knees
And at last my heart can beat.

Your pain became my pleasure,
But my own is not far gone.
Have I lost my sense of wonder,
Or can you light this dreary path.
You came to me in silence,
And danced upon my mind.
Together we sing the praises
Of eternity's grand plan.

Can my face see itself truly,
Or am I blinded by the light
I cast a shadow through my soul
And it ripped apart my life.

Do you have the answers, or are the
Questions all to hard to find?
I can only offer solace,
But my heart can only lie.
I tripped over my fear and got lost amidst my pain.
It's you that makes this worth it,
It's you that brings the rain.

Cleansing my faults and filling my dreams,
I chase away the demons, on a cloud of loving streams.
And after your rainbow shines and the sky again is clear,
Only then will I find myself, in your arms and free from fear.

By Paul Graham, 2/10/2003
Copyright 2010 TheEternalYou

Thank You (A song by me!)

Sometimes life gets me down,

I get sad and I wear a frown.

But there's a way to turn in all around...

I look into my heart and there's hope to be found.

When I'm feelin low,

and I just don't know,

what to do...I say Thank You!

When I'm feelin blue,

a little angry too,

I know what to do....I say Thank You!

Thank You for this day, thank You for this life.

Thank You for the chance to make the wrong things right.

Thank You for the person that I strive to be.

Thank You for the gifts that you've given to me.

When I'm feelin low,

and I just don't know,

what to do....I say Thank You!

When I'm feelin blue,

a little angry too,

I know what to do....I say Thank You!

Thank You for the love and Thank You for the light.

Thank you for the chance to see the bright side of life.

Thank you for the Joy I have in my life...

Thank You...oh, Thank You.

Copyright 2010 by Paul Graham