Profound or ordinary?

It's been a long while since I've blogged here. Why is that? I have lots of good intentions but they never seem to translate into action.

 I just returned from a wonderful 2 day writers conference held by Northern Colorado Writers. I attended many informative and interesting sessions.

Among them was Laurie Macomber's Writing for the Web. Laurie gave us an amazing, almost overwhelming, amount of information about how to write meaningful and useful copy for our websites and also about blogging.

 One thing she said stuck with me. If you are going to blog, it must be almost every day or at a minimum once a week. Whoa!! Wait a minute.....who has time to do that? Then I paused. Why am I balking at doing what I love to do once a day or even a couple of times a week? I love to write so what's up with that?

 I needed to get honest with myself. What exactly is holding me back? Is it plain old procrastination? Not really, I'm usually a "get it done" kind of person. Is it fear? No, I'm not afraid to put my writing or my thoughts out there for all to see. Is it a lack of inspiration or ideas? No, definitely not. I'm overflowing with them. Then what?

 I examined further what happens to me as I go along through the thought process of what to write and I discovered something.....I want to be profound! I want to say something earth shattering, I want to give my readers and Aha! moment, I want what I write to be meaningful and lingering. What a load of b.......t!

Then I had a revelation....Blogs aren't about being profound. Blogs are your ultimate stream of consciousness stuff just arranged better so others aren't left scratching their heads. BLOGS ARE ORDINARY.

That's the thing that was standing in my way. I just couldn't stomach the idea that my writing, and my ideas, might be ordinary. Who wants to be ordinary? We all want to be special don't we?

So now I'm cringing at myself. I need to get real. I need to get down to earth. I need to eat some humble pie. If you are still reading and wondering where this is all going, then you are not alone. So am I. What next for my blog? What next for my writing? And most importantly, what next for my ego?

Watch this space.......

The Now Factor

The answers to the most perplexing dilemmas usually come, it seems, in unexpected ways - quite out of left field, from outside the box, a bolt from the blue.  Maybe that's why they strike and stay.  Maybe that's what is meant to happen.....

A while ago an event occurred in my life.  It was a repetitive situation, one that I had struggled with before many times.  Each time, instead of the experience shedding more light on what to do and how to respond, I felt an increasing confusion as to how to respond and a heavier burden of sorrow.  What to do?  How to handle this?  Instructions please.  A How To manual for getting on top of this thing is what I needed.

This time I responded ...... exactly the same.  I did the one thing I knew from past experience worked - I removed myself - but the feelings were just the same.  I sat for a moment and waited.  I don't know what I was waiting for but something much greater than me did, and it delivered.

Without ceremony, that unexpected thing happened, that out-of-left-field, outside-of-the-box, bolt-from-the-blue (and all those other weary cliches) event.  A thought appeared in my mind.

Now this wasn't a thought that I put there.  I know that for sure.  It was far too profound for my basic mind.  It was planted.  It was downloaded by the Universe completely formed so that I could not ignore it, nor twist it into something it wasn't, nor tear it apart with analysis.  It just was.

It said, "What just happened is now in the past."

I was stunned.  I examined the thought as if it was emblazoned in lights across a neon billboard.  Immediately the vast implications of this statement began to unfold in front of me.  If what happened was now in the past why did I need to be experiencing it right now?  Could I truly leave it in the past?  How would I do that?  Did that mean that I had a choice with this thing?  Was it really that simple?

The effect of that moment is still with me.  That's what this blog is about.  How do I examine a thought that simple and.....that big?  Probably only through rambling around the issues it raises.

I could do it alone in a journal but I decided not.  I'm willing to share.....if you are willing to listen and maybe respond. 

The rest of my life is NOW and I have a choice to make it so.