Lesson # 21:

Lesson #21: Nurture Your Passion

I have jugglers in my brain. Juggling multiple batons and adding more constantly, and then more jugglers keep coming to see if they can juggle amongst the hundreds already there and for some reason the Circus Master (that would be me) keeps allowing this to happen.

"Sure! We could ALWAYS use more!!" says I, whilst nervously trying to maintain the jugglers already in progress. Batons keep falling and rolling on the ground and I narrowly escape tripping over several, as I run around scrambling up juggling apparati, meanwhile keeping an air of grace and dignity. And a smile. And jugglers keep chasing after rolling batons as new jugglers come to join the party all excited and fresh and ambitious, showing off their new craze...fire juggling! And at a certain point I think: This can't go on forever.

This is an analogy of how my brain feels. Pretty darn crazy.

I wish I had a picture to inset here of a view of my brain and all its craziness.

Wait...I do...

My Brain. On Jugglers. Note the multiple bottles of wine in the background...a necessity.

Here's a breakdown of that analogy:

The jugglers are the many thoughts that enter my head and decide to set up camp there for a while. For example, I've recently been entertaining the idea of a summer job, one that would also nurture a passion of mine, and that is photography. So, I would like to try my hand at this hobby professionally...now enters the juggler. He has a baton for each class I should be taking, another for each equipment I need to purchase to be "professional", another for books I need to read, another for contacts I need to make, another for time I need to set aside, another for money I need to save to get this going, another for artistic inspiration...and so on and so on. You probably get my drift. That's just one juggler. Some people have a couple of these going on simultaneously. Or maybe more. I don't know. All I know is that I have too many of these. Too. Many.

I literally have spent hours working towards goals such as:
1.Becoming a better photographer (ok, that one is not a silly one),
2.becoming a professional public speaker of some sorts (I was inspired last summer by my ability to give a speech at a wedding and not feel nervous. I think know it was the shots beforehand. But still, I thought of myself for the next few weeks as the next great motivational orator of America),
3.becoming a writer,
4.becoming a songwriter,
5.becoming a mosaic artist,
6.becoming a YouTube sensation: "Girl Playing Ukelele AWESOME!",
7.becoming a professional Ukelele player,
8.becoming a DJ (I'm dead serious about this...I think I can make great mixes. I always get down to my mixes. Plus, I've done some hard core Dj sessions in Best Buy sampling their equipment. I think I've got this one.)
9. opening up my own private school that is Spanish Immersion Montessori based.
10. Traveling the world and writing a blog about it. And directing a vlog about it. And sending vlog to a network and then having them pick it up to start a tv show.
11. Traveling the world to teach English.
12. Traveling the world on photo expeditions.
13. Running a marathon.
14. Joining a dance troupe (for 30-somethings...)
15. Opening up a dance studio
16. Teaching yoga
17. Getting my Phd and becoming a professor of early childhood education

This is not a list of pipe dreams folks. I truly have spent time on each of these goals (jugglers) and I keep adding more for some reason. Oh yeah, and I already have a profession. That of being a Teacher. And that takes up the most time of all.

So...what's a girl to do with all these thoughts running around?

I guess one remedy would be to write them all out. I mean, amongst all these lofty life goals I have, I also have deep, emotive thoughts trudging through it all simultaneously (these are the Circus Elephants). And each ti

Lesson #7

Lesson #7: No Worries on the Mountain, Man. 

So my family goes to Colorado almost every year for an annual ski trip. This year was the first time that we have gone with both mine and my sister's husbands. My sister's husband has been skiing/snowboarding a lot. For my husband, however, it was pretty much the first time (excluding a time that I took him to learn how to ski back in PA). Needless to say, it seemed like he was going to be a fish out of water. 

The first morning was a bit of a doozy, and not because my husband wasn't catching on to the skiing thing. He picked it up pretty well! However, his skis were all wrong, his boots didn't fit right, he was too hot in some places, too cold in others. So, after only a couple of runs he decided it was time to go back to the dreaded, overcrowded, super heated ski rental place. His morning wound up consisting of about 4 different trips back to the rental place, 4 different long lines to have to wait through, several hoards of people to have to push through...basically a nightmare for a guy who hates crowds and small spaces, as well as being overheated while waiting in full ski gear whilst inside a heated indoor space. 

His final trip there was a nightmare and the look on his face said it all. He had some kind of snafu with the locker (ended up not being able to change the money in order to pay it, or something to that effect). He approached the ski dude taking care of rentals to try to settle this final inconvenience. His eyes must have looked about to cry and he started explaining what was going on with the locker. Clearly he was frustrated and this whole experience was giving him a nervous breakdown. The ski dude looked as if the anxiety emanating off of my husband's entire being was totally crushing his mountain high. He cutoff my husband in mid sentence and put his hand up in a stop gesture.

"Dude, dude...no worries on the mountain, man," he said. And immediately gave him all the change he needed, probably more than he needed, in a move that spoke volumes as to the importance of keeping that worried state out of the happy mountain zone.

We have kind of a inside joke now when either of us begins to freak out about something. No worries on the mountain has become sort of a mantra to relaxing, keeping things in perspective, just realizing that this, too, shall pass. Our life has become that happy mountain and why shouldn't we protect it from all those petty, annoying, nagging worries that threaten to bring us down. No way, man! I'm staying on my happy mountain and aint nobody gonna bring me down!

With that in mind, I encourage you to take a look at your life and think about the worries that come in each day, knocking on your door, threatening to take your happiness away. They will come, inevitably, whether invited or not. So when they do (and they will) just tell them, "No thank you! You're not welcome! Didn't you see the sign? It says: No Worries on MY Mountain. Man. Peace out."

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”  

- Dalai Lama