Left Brain / Right Brain Knife Fight

The surest sign you are ready to change is when you don’t wake up from your dream.

As I’ve gone through life, I’ve had anxiety around the fact that I don’t really know what I am doing here. Being alive, consuming things, pursuing intermediary goals…it seemed kind of pointless.

I made a conscious decision a few years ago to try to make my life about service. It’s been a slow process, but I am starting to see signs that this is happening. Part of it is that I stopped getting hung up on finding *the one* thing that I would dedicate all of my energy to. I am more and more comfortable with a general sense of what I want my life to be, and to just aim my intentions at that.

I’ve mentioned before that I volunteer for Operation Nightwatch, which is a non-profit in Portland whose goal is to make homeless people feel validated. For reasons I won’t go into here I have more money now than what I probably will in the future, so I told the program director that I would fund an outing for the homeless community in SE Portland. I didn’t hear anything for a month or so, and I kind of forgot about it. But then this last Friday the director told me that they are going to take the group to see a movie, and that people were super excited to do it! It gave me that same great feeling you get when a puzzle piece fits perfectly in place.

Also, I wrote a while ago about hospice volunteering. I hadn’t heard back from them in a while, so I called the volunteer coordinator. I now have an interview with her next week, and will start trainings to be a hospice volunteer in June. 

In general, I feel my relationship to others around me changing. I find myself listening deeper, just wanting to validate what others are going through. Some of this is about being present, and some is about wanting to be of service to people. It is subtle but feels like a fundamental shift.

This is all just to say that I’m excited that I am feeling these pieces falling into place. It shows me that you don’t need something specific—just follow the deepest part of you in the direction that feels right.

I’ve been doing IT work for about 6-7 years and have enjoyed it. I’ve learned a lot, and like to flex my left brain, solving system problems and developing system solutions. I’m pretty good at it. 

It never seriously occurred to me to ask myself the more important questions though: “Does it move me? Do I love it?” The answer to those, I was kind surprised to admit, was: 

“no”

And then it crystalized; something that lay dormant in my mind, but once envisioned, came to life. The idea has been silently percolating for a long time, and today I took action on it. It’s too early to tell what will come of it, but I have that feeling that I just took one small step in what could be a pretty big change in my life.

I have been thinking lately about how we never really arrive at destinations as far internal growth. I practice mindfulness, but I know that I will never just simply “be mindful.” I can take steps to be happier, but I will never simply “be happy.” 

It reminds me of the basic calculus problems, where they ask: “What is the limit of y as x approaches 0.” x never is actually 0, it just approaches it. 

So what? Well, I think it’s not very helpful to talk about “being happy” or “finally figuring things out.” It sets us up for failure. Don’t encourage someone or yourself to “be successful,” or “be healthy.”

The best we can do is orient ourselves toward our highest ideals. Walk the path toward happiness, mindfulness, and spiritual fulfillment. Embrace the fact that you will never get there, and that the path will be winding, but as long as you continually reorient toward the light, you should be just fine.

I just did the righteous act of taking 3 days off over the next few weeks. I have nothing planned for these days, and will likely spend them writing letters, songs, and reading. Work can take so much, but my life is mine, and sometimes ya gotta take back what’s yours.

Not everyone gets paid time off, and like having shitty health care, that stuff ain’t cool. I am sorry if that’s the case. Just remember and have the courage to take whatever quality time you can for yourself — the time in our life is an endangered species and likewise has to be consciously protected.

I recently applied to start volunteering at a hospice program. I’m really looking forward to the experience. This, from Fred Ostaseski, on being with the dying:

Being with someone who’s dying is going to challenge you in every possible way.  It will bring up all of your helplessness. You’ll do something that’s absolutely right in one moment and absolutely wrong the next moment. You will have to confront your own mortality, the fragility of your own life — face your own grief. It takes tremendous courage to do this work. It requires of us to forgive constantly. Take lots of risks and forgive constantly.

Whether we’re the person in the bed or the person that’s making the bed we come into contact with the precariousness of this life. And precisely because we do that, because we touch it so viscerally, we really come to understand and appreciate just how precious it is. Then we don’t want to waste a moment. Then we really want to jump in with both feet, fully live, tell the people we love that we love them, and not waste time.

Or something like that. There is the question as a “blogger” of what to share. Do I show you my new haircut, or the hair on my upper back that makes me cringe a little bit when I see it in the mirror? Do I celebrate my wins, or hold a microscope to my losses, or both?

I tend to follow my nose on this one, going more by gut. I like to pretend nobody reads this blog, but yet I am comforted that you do. Pretending I’m alone helps me share more honestly. It’s like the blog version of the quantum mechanical principle that microscopic particles behave differently when we observe them vs when they are left to do their thing in the dark (that didn’t come out right :P).

A random thought occurred to me today, as I tried to feel the nature of the sadness that comes up. My whole experience of reality feels the way a freshly picked scab feels when a cold wind blows against it. What is normally unfeeling is now expressed, with a pixelated and raw sharpness.

So anyway, Sundays have always been difficult for me, and I’m not sure there was a specific source to this phenomenon. Today was kind of a rollercoaster, emotionally. My brain was telling me, “run, hide, be alone. You don’t want to be around others.” But I know my brain well enough to do the opposite when it starts talking like this. I’m so glad I did! I find myself bolstered in ways that I couldn’t have imagined when I connect with others. We impact each other beyond our expectations.