Do you make lists?

It's could be because you are greedy - I bet you never thought of it like that before?

For me it's like this: I want to do a lot - that's where my greed comes in. It starts becoming too much, so I think - make a list. Prioritise it all. That's the usual approach, right?

Except the greed stays, my list gets longer, you keep piling it on. No relief.

I love being distracted by silly little things.

Filling out a bank form and sending it off. Cleaning my candle stand of wax. Wiping away those annoying smears near my kitchen trash - all worthy causes in their own right, but totally useless to my mission. I get even more keen when I have a lot on my plate. Hmmm.

Why do I do them? Why do you do yours? (Or have you got all this figured out already?)

Back in Japan and missing my children already.

What is that lonely feeling? I seem to notice it first thing in the morning, as I go through my morning routine. I think of them, I miss them, I feel lonely.

It's a longing for something, and it appears to be outside of me. My kids: that can solve my lowliness right? Can that be real? As a Buddhist I know it is delusional thinking to seek something "out there" to solve the problem of my "right here" emotions.

Katie puts it this way: "When you're over there with them, there's no-one home for you."

Realizations are like jewels - precious things, and too few of them. But a realization is much, much more. It is abundant energy: it is a force to move you from apathy and emptiness to action and joy.

Why so few? Why so rare?

We live too much thinking: “I know.” Speaking for me, I am always right. I always know. I am built that way - it is biological as much as it is psychological. We have our right, and we stick to it. Alexander hit upon that - it was his breakthrough discovery, and the most misunderstood and abused.

A few years ago I decided to drop my obsessive list-making.

I wanted to see what happened...

Nothing. Life carried on much the same. I messed up just about the same. BodyChance kept growing. The complaints against me didn't get disportionately bigger.

It wasn't a breakthrough, but nor was it a breakdown.

Huh?

I marvelled at the ease of it all. I stopped taking notebooks to meetings. I just took me: my mind, my awareness, my instinct, my intuition. I listened, I reacted, I decided and I forgot.

Or did I?

I don't think I forgot.

I blog for entirely selfish reasons.

I blog for me, not you. Of course I am thinking of you as I blog, but the only reference I really have is me. I am all I know. As Katie often points out: "No two people have ever met." You are my projection, and it can never be any other way.

I have been reading Richard Koch's (no relation) 80/20 Principle to decide if I will spend $10,000+ flying to Chicago in September to be part of his 3 day seminar on the Star Principle.

The Star Principle is a biz concept Richard built atop of the 80/20 Principle, and it helped him amass a fortune of $250 million. You don't often find guys like this giving seminars - good to listen. Not cheap.

Two lines jumped out at me, one funny, one serious. First the funny one:

Having spent 10 years at school, I got hard-wired into believing that weekends and evenings are rest times. I still have a deep-seated unconscious urge to relax on the weekend. Only problem is - I am in the a service industry, and weekends and evenings is when everyone else is available!

That's one aspect of my unconscious time habits. The other, subtler influence is how I am unconsciously driven to use the time I have.

An odd throwaway remark on Facebook, perceived as a criticism, can send me off on a silent rant against an unsuspecting soul (who has most likely forgotten I exist.) Yet it happens. Often. A remark in a meeting, a well-intentioned joke - gems, a source of joy if I let them.

I can know when I react that I am criticizing me, not the person I perceive doing it. It's a moment sent to wake me up, to draw my attention to an aspect of my life that hitherto has been hidden from my knowledge.

Who's criticized you recently? What did they say?

My urge to escape has been strong over my northern summer - it's an old feeling, and comes around as regular as the summer heat. Like the heat, strong every time. It leads me, sometimes profitably, to ask:

What can I clear out of my life?

Of course my answer is usually focused on my point of greatest stress: "The demands of others. The needs of my biz. The stack of bills on the table." Just a tad of deep thinking puts that delusion to rest - I created these, I hold these in my mind. I stress me, no-one else.