#365Gratitude: Stay powerful

I've been learning a lot of new things at work lately.  Some of it's been really challenging.  It's been easy (and tempting) to get swept up in a lot of "What the #)@#*!! is that" and "I'll never learn this!" and "I just want to go home, watch the Flash and maybe eat some orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream with a spoonful of peanut butter on top of it."

(Hey, if you think that's gross, then you go eat something else and write about it in your blog, okay?  Geez!) 

Anyhow, I've been talking to friends of mine a lot lately about something I learned from Pema Chodron, in her audio lecture Getting Unstuck.  It's the profound power of just staying.

By staying she means not running away frorm our feelings, or pain, or fears, but just calmly being present for them, and moving through them.  

Here, she talks about it way better than I can.

So the other day I was in the middle of one of those I-want-to-just-run moments when I consciously chose to stay.  Eventually, I worked through my unease, and got my work done, and felt really good about it.  It didn't mean that that panicky-wtf-feeling was now somehow enjoyable.  It wasn't.  But when I turned to stare it in the face, I saw I was spinning myself up, and making it far worse than it was.

Good stuff.

#365Gratitude: Twopusas

Man, I seem to be writing a lot about food lately.

So, not too far away from our house there's this convenience store that sells hot dogs, and other not-so-good-for-you instant gratification type "food".

Now that I'm a fishitarian, the vast majority of that stuff is in my no-fly-zone.

But, I did find they had this one thing, which I have had before, that I LOVE.

It's a latin dish, Salvadoran specifically, I think, called a pupusa.

Now I'm not under any illusions here.  Convenience store pupusa are still junk food crap.  Any food you pop in a high speed microwave and then eat sitting in your car isn't really a great idea.

I don't care.  I love them.

I was really stoked when I found out there's a Salvadoran restaurant near my office that makes pupusas from scratch.

Feast your eyes on these corn-tortilla-cheese-and-frijoles-refritos-filled-beauties.

With a side of fried yuca and strawberry soda?  Yes please.

They were, in a word, AMAZING.  So damn good.  They were to convenience-store-pupusas like a fine wine is to a glass of canned grapefruit juice.  They just melted in my mouth.  Fantastico!

I sometimes have lunch with my friend Tasha, and I am PSYCHED to go here with her.

#365Gratitude: Sink some time into doing chores

I was standing at my bathroom sink, contemplating my Q-Tips.  I love cleaning my ears with q-tips.  I know, I know, you're not supposed to do that.  I don't care, I love it.

Anyhow, I digress.  I'm standing there, contemplating all that cotton-swabbity-goodness, when I realize that I'm on my last new pair of disposable contact lenses.  Once I put these suckers in, that's it, game over, all done.

Now I have health insurance, including a vision plan, and I've already used it on the 6 months of lenses I just used.  But I remember when I got the boxes, finding out how much they were, and not finding that particularly expensive.

So, I reasoned, when the time came, I'd just buy some more on my own.

As I stood there not cotton-swabbing my ears, I realized this was going to be a hassle.  I had to find time to go over to the mall, go to the vision place where I'd got my eye exam, my glasses, and my lenses.  Bleh.

Then I remembered that I knew of a place you could order lenses online.  What's more, I was pretty sure they even had an app.  BONUS!  Plus, I could even set it up to use Apple Pay from my phone.

So as I stood there, without cotton-swabs in my ears, without underpants on, I totally did that chore, in like 2 minutes.  Download app, scan contact lens boxes, apply thumbprint - DONE.

I know that people often bemoan the demise of the brick-and-mortar store, the little artisanal boutique, all that jazz.  And don't mistake me, I do too.  I like browsing in tiny unique shops.  But I do love the huge machine that enables me to get what I want, with ease, regardless of how much clothing I'm wearing or ear cleaning I'm about to do at the time.

#365Gratitude: Fish dinner

The other night I got home late, after a long workday.  I was dreading making myself something, which I thought I might have to do, because I was really tired.  My recent conversion to being a pescetarian isn't something my family shares.  So sometimes we have stuff that I can eat too, and sometimes I'm on my own.

And sometimes they surprise me.

Not the actual dinner, just a nice picture

This was one of those times.  Missy made me an awesome dinner of some breaded, baked fish, with lovely veggies on the side.  I was totally surprised, totally hungry, and totally grateful.

#365Gratitude: Kaizo Trap Attitude

So I was trying to explain this concept to my friend William the other day, the idea of practice.  We were specifically talking about being present, being mindful.  I was saying how once you awaken to mindful practice, that it becomes work, a constant discipline.  You don't have to do it forever though, I joked to him, just until you're dead.

Haha, so funny, right?

Then I saw this amazing animation, by the animator Guy Collins.  It's about a girl and her boyfriend, who are sucked into a video game that's a "Hope Spot", or Kaizo trap.  We've all played these sorts of games before - you fight hard and get to a safe spot, and then WHAM! die and have to start all over again.

Here, watch it.

It's an amazing video.  You watch the girlfriend, and right from the beginning, she struggles.  She's pulled on in, and dies, horribly.  The look on her face when she's "reset" shows that it clearly fucking hurt.  

She gets back up.  She goes again.  And dies.  Then does it again.  And again.  And again.

Each time she dies, she grows more skilled, has more knowledge, progresses.  Eventually, she moves in a manner that's almost eerily, inhumanly fluid.  She gets far, very, very far.

Until she reaches that kaizo trap.  She thinks she's safe, thinks she can rest, thinks that the game is giving her a break.

Nope.

There's no break.  She dies.  Painfully.  Horribly.  But this time, she doesn't just reset.  She's given a choice:

- Exit the game, back to the comfort of her living room (leaving her boyfriend stuck in this hellish nightmare)

- Go all the way back to the beginning.

She's tired.  The prospect of doing it all again is daunting.  But she narrows her eyes, and with a grim, fierce, almost joyful determination, she chooses to continue.

That is practice.