My Ego

As you all know, I am reading A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. This book was a little hard to get in to at first. There was all this talk of Ego and letting go of it, and the type of control it has over me. I was really confused by the way the author was describing the ego, and the way I was supposed to think about it. And the suddenly, things started to click. I just started reading these sentences and having (as we call it in the office) my AH-HA moment.

The first time I had this moment was in the section called, The Background of Unhappiness. Now generally, I don’t consider myself to be that unhappy of a person. But I definitely have my moments of unrest. I am simultaneously reading the book. The How of Happiness (I’m not depressed I swear, this one is for a speaker at work) and in taking a quiz, I found out that I am less happy than the average person. Why? Well, I think Eckhart Tolle’s book help to realize the answer to that question for me. On page 113 Tolle posed the question, “Do you often experience a feeling of discontent that could best be described as a kind of background resentment?” Background resentment looks something like this:

"There is something that needs to happen in my life before I can be at peace (happy fulfilled, etc.). And I resent that it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe my resentment will finally make it happen."

“Something you (or I) did, said, or failed to do in the past is preventing me from being at peace now.”

“What you are doing or failing to do now is preventing me from being at peace.”

This is me. I harbor these feelings about a lot of things. Uncontrollably. I want to get married. I want to buy a house. I want a promotion. I want to do all of these things, and I subconsciously resent that they haven’t happened. I also tend to place blame on other people's actions for my own unhappiness, which is clearly not right. The message I got from reading this section was not to give up on these dreams, it’s important to have dreams and goals and all of those things, but I shouldn’t let it prevent me from being happy in the now. In the How of Happiness, I read that 40% of our happiness in life is based solely on how we chose to react to certain situations. 40% of our happiness is totally controllable. (50% is genetic and 10% is circumstantial). 40% is a significant amount that I can control. So I have taken back the control over this 40%. Only I can do this. We as individuals can not depend on other people to make us happy. It’s not their job. They have to worry about their own 40% of controllable happiness.

I like that I know this now. I think that it will not only make me a happier person, but the people around me happier as well. Happy people are just more fun to be around! It’s true.

Flying at 33,000 Feet

As I write this now I am on my way down to Los Angelos. I wish I could say I was going down there to do something glamorous … but I am just going for work. My 3rd trip down there this month in fact. While the work part is not so fun, I’m excited to see Allison! We’re going to hang out in my schwanky hotel, order room service and watch Lost. We’re livin large folks!

While I have a fun evening ahead of me, I have had a day from hell. I spent the morning in a very serious internal battle. It’s very distracting to work when your heart and your head are fighting. Do you know what I am talking about? The internal battle is over me … my head was asking my heart, How did we end up here? (I know it's cheesy, but work with me here) I don’t really get myself. I like to consider myself to be a pretty competent and confident woman. I’m smart. I have a decent job. I’m not unfortunate looking. Yet, sometimes I find my self wrestling with the insecurities of an adolescent child. I have a real issue with trust. The issue... I don’t know how to do it. I’m not sure why. It’s not like the people in my life are un-trustworthy. There are people in my past who have been untrustworthy … so is that what makes me second guess the people in my present? It must, right? And if that’s the case, then how do I shake it? I try so hard, and yet I constantly have this little devil of a voice in side my head telling me not to. When do you get to the point when you’re just comfortable in your own skin? I guess it’s different for everyone. Most of the time I think I am, but then I have these moments of sheer doubt and total break down.

Maybe I need a therapist.

Nah, that’s what I have this blog for. Lucky for you all, I can’t afford a therapist and therefore you get to read about my mental breakdowns.

Oh, and to top my mental breakdown off, when I got to the airport this afternoon, my flight was canceled. Awesome! However, while I was standing in line I stood behind this adorable young family of 4. They were trying to keep their kids entertained as we stood in line trying to find out what all the delays were about (and I was trying to go stand by on another flight). Anyhow, the Mother was trying to get her kids to say things that rhyme, like cat and hat, dog and fog. So one of the words the Mother said was, eye. The little boy (about 3) repeated the word EYE, and then looked at his Mom and shouted CANDY. EYE - CANDY. I laughed out loud ... I couldn't help it!

Awakening to My Life's Purpose

I'm a sucker.

I'm a sucker for Oprah.

I'm a sucker for Oprah and her darn book clubs. For those of you who don't follow like I do, Oprah's new book this month is Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth, Awakening to your Life's Purpose. Normally I'm not really in to these self help, self discovery books. But since I myself am on a self discovery journey of a sort, I decided to buy it. And not only did I buy the book, but I joined the "class" that Oprah is hosting every Monday night for 10 weeks with the author, Eckhart Tolle. Class starts March 3. I don't really know why I want to do this, or if I'll even stick with it.

It's my little sociological experiment.

What is a class taught by Oprah like? Well I am going to find out, and I'll write about it here. I'll share what I learn ... and I'll leave the door open for you to comment. Tell me I'm a nerd, tell me I have no life ... tell me you want to read too! Say whatever you want, I think we might all learn something.

Page 1 starts tomorrow!

Disneyland

My company sent us on a trip to Disneyland this week. At first I must admit, I was a little skeptical. I mean, Disneyland... when I'm almost 30 ... how fun can that really be? And then I started thinking, why wouldn't this trip be fun? Who doesn't want the chance in this fast paced and hectic world to act like a child for a couple of days? With that mentality I set off for Disneyland ... and loved every second of it. We got to the park early and rode all of the rides. Do you remember how great Space Mountain is? And how awesome Pirates of the Carribean is (now updates to include Johhny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow)? Can I tell you my disappointment when I heard that it's a Small World was under construction? Devastation. After 8pm, Disneyland was open just for us. We rode the Matterhorn TWO times in a row ... just because we started chanting "One More Time" like 8 year olds. And in California land we had a cover band playing top 40 bands with an open bar. Disneyland and Chardonnay ... sooo much better!

Sometimes it's just nice to take a moment to enjoy the simple things in life. For one whole day, I didn't think about work or rent or savings accounts and life plans ... I rode the rides at Disneyland and enjoyed every single second of it.

In life we don't remember days, we remember moments. That day was filled with so many wonderful moments!