Monthly Archives: February 2012

Don’t Look So Stunned!

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Nowan Zen

Don't Look So Stunned!

I made a new friend the other day.  This friend is articulate, very funny, quick witted, bright and filled with stubborn determination.  In short, this friend is someone I enjoy talking with.

 

Then came the comment I’ve heard many times before: “But if you really knew about me, you might not like me.”  

 

Oh really?

 

Permit me to pose a few questions to think about: 

  • We’ve been enjoying our conversations thus far?
  • And you think, for some reason, there’s something that will change that?
  • Are you planning, plotting or conniving to make me disappear without a trace?
  • If there are things about you that you don’t want me to know, why bring it up?
  • Are you Jimmy Hoffa or Amelia Earhart in hiding?
  • Are you in the Witness Protection Program? (Nope, don’t wanna know!)
  • Did you drink half of my coffee when my head was turned?
  • Are you going to ask me to turn my head and cough?
  • Are you a Proctologist with cold hands, large fingers and huge class ring?

There are some things that are relevant and might cause a kink in our friendship.  If you chose to kill me, for example, that would definitely put a damper on things.  But we share more in common than one may think.  Ask yourself:

  • Are you breathing too?
  • Do you have a pulse?
  • Do you like cookies?
  • Do you ingest fluids?
  • Tired of these questions?

 

See? We have MUCH in common and that’s part of what makes a friendship.  Friendship is like planting an acorn. Starts small and grows stronger if it is healthy.  Occasionally you must battle nefarious squirrels and such, but for the most part friendships grow.

 

Enjoy the time together.  And don’t look so stunned.

Categories: Wanderer's Wonderings | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 37 Comments

Zen Cat

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Nowan Zen

How do you see your world?

Our view of our world leads to our treatment of others.

Categories: Hmmmmm........ | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Go Not Gently!!!

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Nowan Zen

Go Not Quietly!

Dylan Thomas was truly onto something when he wrote:

“Do not go gently into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

 

Did you know that the most regretted things a person has at the end of their life is the regret for things not done when they had the opportunity?  Why is that?  Are we so afraid to “rock the boat” that we refuse to step off the dock?

 

Are we so terrified of making waves that we refuse to swim?  Do we devalue our own lives so much that we simply go through the motions of day to day?  

 

Guess what? There are more colors in the rainbow than just yellow!  There are more reasons to get up in the morning that just to go to work, do the job, come home, go to bed, get up and do it all over tomorrow.  When did we give up on ourselves?  When did we sellout and stop living?

 

Day after day we have the opportunity to do something different, something new, something weird, something fun….SOMETHING other than routine!  I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m pretty tired of being just another shade of yellow in the rainbow! Go not gently into that good night!

 

But then again, I’m a little weird.  

Categories: Perspectives | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 27 Comments

What’s Stopping You From Truly Living?

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Nowan Zen

What Stops You From Living?

Time passes and one day we look back to see that we have changed.  The things we once considered fun, don’t see to be as much fun anymore.  The happiness we once felt, doesn’t seem as strong.

 

What happened to us?  Could be that our tastes have changed…could be we’ve grown up….could be we’ve actually matured (somewhat)…could be any number of reasons or could be no discernible reason at all.  

 

Consider this: You want to feel happy, you want to experience fun, you want to know closeness, you want to have friends and relationships?  So what’s stopping you?

 

Are you letting past experience stop you from living?  Are you letting others dictate your life to you?  Are you allowing fear to plan your life?  How about anger?

 

What’s stopping you from truly living?  YOU are!  It’s that simple.

Categories: Perspectives | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

6 Things you probably never wanted to know about me.

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Nowan Zen

Found this gem on the blog of Cribbings (go ahead and take a peek).  We come here and we write about the things that cross our minds, but we seldom reveal much about us. Who are we? 

Here are 6 (six) single word descriptions of me.  I chose to use the words that describe how I see myself because the words used by others tend to be more than a bit descriptively rude and some are, while perhaps not untrue, not nice!

The rules* (YES, there are rules) are:

1. use six single word descriptions

2. select a photo to go along with the description (giving credit where credit is due).

3. Enjoy

*I changed the rules to suit my mood of the moment.

First: Heroic

HEROIC

 

Second: Inquisitive

INQUISITIVE

Third: Unique

UNIQUE

 

Fourth: Brilliant

Brilliant

Fifth: Caring

LOVING

Sixth: Harmless

HARMLESS......Mostly

Disclaimer: All images, photos, drawings, etc. were borrowed, found, stolen from various Google searches!

Categories: Hmmmmm........ | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Bits Of Brilliance

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Nowan Zen

Paths Are Unique

Sometimes you experience a flash of “brilliance” when you see a picture, hear a song, or see something sparkly.  This is just such a moment (you decide which it is).

 

 Bit #1: Life’s paths are not necessarily going to be smooth, straight and paved.  Sometimes they’re more like a goat path, and sometimes we must blaze a new trail.

 

Bit #2: If you expend all your energy and attention focused on the path, you miss a lot of the scenery, which can be refreshing and interesting.

 

Bit #3: Each of us has a path and a destination.  While finding the destination might be a challenge and we might have to change paths along the way, we should enjoy the journey.

 

Every path, just like every wanderer, may be similar but they are also unique.

 

Remember: “Not all who wander are lost.”

Categories: Wanderer's Wonderings | Tags: , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Train Wreck Monday

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Nowan Zen

Train Wrecks Are Optional

Some days feel like you’re a train wreck waiting to happen (or a train already wrecked), and you wonder why on earth you bothered getting out of bed this morning. It’s as if Monday was hovering over you like a cloud of pestilence, just waiting for the right moment to fog you in and make you run face first into the wall of reality.

 

There are three things I’d ask you to think about and consider adding to your daily life:

 

First, breathe deeply! That’s right, breathe in deeply the intoxicant of life.  There is an alternative, but that doesn’t involve being alive.  Face it, you are here for a short time and for a reason. You may or may not realize why you’re here, but you wouldn’t be here if you had not purpose.

 

Second, love madly! Don’t be afraid to love! We seem to be so timid and afraid when it comes to love. We’re afraid of getting our feelings hurt or we’re afraid that they’ll be just like a bad experience we’ve had before.  Consider this, each person is unique…each person loves differently….therefore, each love is completely new!  If you load your baggage on a new cart, you’re still trying to haul old baggage.  Leave the baggage beside the road and start new!  Let go of the baggage!  Let go of the past! Stop being afraid!

 

Third, live fully! Again, we seem to be so afraid to live.  We are routine oriented and that leads us into ruts where we feel “comfortably numb.” Simply going through the motions of the day is not living.  Try something different!  It doesn’t have to be a radical as jumping off a mountain with a parachute, but it can be a simple as eating lunch someplace completely new for you.  Do SOMETHING out of your ordinary today.  “Of all the words of tongue and pen, the saddest are ‘It might have been.‘” Are you simply marking time until you die?  Are you already dead, but don’t have the good graces to lie down? OR are you ready to add a little adventure to your life?  Don’t just exist….LIVE!!!!

 

Go forth and be not a train wreck!  If you do wreck, learn from it and move on!

Categories: Wandering Mind | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

STOP THE WORLD, I WANT OFF!!

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Nowan Zen

You Can't Hide From Me!

There are days we just want to pull the blanket over our head and hide from the world.  That’s a normal part of living in this world.  We need to step back every once in a while, take a deep breath, and re-focus before heading back into the battle.

 

Some days we just want to shout: “STOP THE WORLD, I WANT OFF!!”

 

I’ve had several of those type days (weeks, months, years) in my sojourn on this marble.  I will even go so far as to admit attempting to get off this rock.  But through the course of time, I’ve learned something: we have a choice, hide from the pain or face it.

You see, we can hide from a lot of pain.  We can insulate ourselves from getting hurt.  We do this by avoiding people altogether or by becoming the type of person no one wants to know or by becoming apathetic.  This will help keep everyone far enough away so they can’t hurt us, but this also opens us up to even more pain.  The pain of loneliness cuts so deeply that it makes our every fiber ache.  The acute pain can be dulled in time.  The dull ache doesn’t end.

 

People are going to disappoint us, frustrate us, annoy us, and hurt us.  Why? Because they are unique, just like you and just like me.  Think about it, if we were all alike…..talk about boring!  Because we are all individuals, with our own quirks, eccentricities, and annoying habits, we can expect to rub some of the others of us the wrong way.

So we have a choice, either we can hide from the pain by hiding from everyone who might cause of pain, and thereby never know friendship or love; OR we can accept that relationships can cause pain, and we will get hurt in our lives.  

 

Growth is not always painless and not always fun. Let’s face it, if you hide, you could miss out on some really incredible people!

Categories: Wandering Mind | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Moving Past Your Past

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Nowan Zen

Will You Sail Past Your Past?

One of the things we seem to struggle with is the idea of getting past our past.  We all have one. Granted, some are more colorful than others, but it’s still part of us. So we have a choice to make, do we control our past or does our past control us?

 

Let’s be honest: 

  • who we were, 
  • where we came from, 
  • what we’ve done, 

all play a part of who we are now. 

 

BUT they don’t dictate who we are nor can they predict who we can become!  Think of yourself as a diamond.  In the beginning, you’re just a lump of coal.  But as time passes you endure lots of pressures and eventually become hardened carbon we call diamond.  But you’re journey isn’t finished yet!  As you endure the chipping away of the rough exterior, the shining and radiant interior is revealed.  


The past helped shape you, but doesn’t define you NOW!


“Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.” ~ Oscar Wilde.


Will you try to become coal again or let become the diamond you were intended to be? Your past may be colorful, but you choose whether to sail past your past or let it sink you.

Categories: Wandering Mind | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Are You LOST?

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Nowan Zen

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

“Do you KNOW where you’re going?”

“We’re lost, aren’t we?”

Yes, I’ve heard these questions a few times.  It’s hard admitting that we haven’t got a clue where we are or how to get to where we intended.  It’s humiliating and, dare I say it, humbling.

 

Yet, how many years of our lives do we spend trying to “figure things out” or trying to “find myself”?  We set goals for ourselves, strive for those goals, and somehow take a wrong turn somewhere or get distracted.  

 

There’s an old proverb that says, “The unaimed arrow never misses.” This is similar to the George Harrison lyric that says, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”  Have we lost our way?  Has our life’s mission changed?  Have we gotten stuck in a rut?

 

The easy part of “life” is to do what is comfortable and routine.  Face it, we are routine oriented people.  If you don’t believe it, why do we post the time and date in so many places?  The art of living is to enjoy the adventure of doing something out of our ordinary, finding our way to a destination that may not be ‘normal.’  

One of my favorite quotes about truly living is from J.R.R. Tolkein: “Not all who wander are lost.”  We may look like we’re lost and wandering aimlessly to some, but in reality we’re heading for our destination by following a different route.  We may not strive to reach a point as fast as we can.  To truly live is to learn as you go, enjoy the scenery, don’t be afraid to stop and look around for a bit.  


We only get few trips around the Sun, make them worth taking.

Categories: Wandering Mind | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

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