Mission statements and vision goals

I have generally viewed personal mission statements as cheezy, but they are really useful in remembering what my goals are. These are important in a world that has so much stimuli coming at you at every direction. Especially when you are not always in a solid community that continues to remind you of your values.
Some Values:
Learning, freedom, unlearning, authenticity, being true to oneself, finding who one really is, love,

My mission is to promote the physical, emotional, and spiritual well being of myself and the world(this includes the Earth, living beings, other people) through my day to day interactions, to the best of my abilities. An Interconnectedness model.
This can be brought about through different models. For example, if I can't directly do this type of work through my job, then I may have to just do it through my existence in the world. This is through my interactions with others and myself. Sometimes I just have to exist in this world in a way that I can be myself and take care.

As far as making a living is concerned, I am interested in a lot of different ideas. Like I want to have the flexibility to be going places and taking time off from work to be living in a way that really nurtures my soul. Like I really want to be able to go to the bay area, go to the southwest and either work from there.

The trajectory of time and energy.
We live in a world of endless possibilities. The sooner we get out there and do the things that bring us the most joy, the sooner we tap into the world of possibilities. I guess that in reality, there are always options. But as time rolls on,  we continue to be making the best choices that lead to our eventual getting what we want.  Think of it in terms of what are the best possible outcomes for certain circumstances. There are always ways of addressing things that work out better for us. Usually when we are happy and feeling good, things work out better for us. It is an energy thing. But at the same time, when we are feeling good, we are more closely tuned into the higher power which can give us guidance in our daily situations. Also, when we are feeling good, the same circumstances can be joyful as opposed to burdensome.
Sometimes I get into the trap of thinking to myself, "Well, I was in a good mood yesterday and I didn't have all of my dreams fulfilled!" So, then I get all down on the whole mindset that says that we can get what we want when we are happy. But I realize that this is a life process. The thing is, when we are feeling good, and we do the things that bring us the most joy, when we take the time to align, we get out there and we shake it up with the world. And when we shake it up, we meet people and do what we want.
I think of it in terms of like how we act and the energy that we attract when we are feeling good versus how we act and vibrate when we are feeling bummed. We are shaking it up in the world and our good energy draws others to us.
My true bliss in the world is to be doing something creative and productive. This is when I am most satisfied in life. Sort of circulating, or regurgitating info, while at one time had its place in my life, is not bringing me joy anymore. My true bliss AT THIS MOMENT is to be fulfilling my very basic calling to get out in the world and connect and be a participant in life with out any complaint, with joy and enthusiasm.
Things that are bringing me joy is getting out and making things happen in my life. Joy is in creating things and then putting them out there. Joy is in meeting people and connecting in different events. Joy is in making money to live off of. Joy is in meeting people and going on dates.  My life is calling me to be a lot bolder in how  I interact with others and my surroundings. This an idea in which the time has come.  I can feel it in my body, because when I take those steps to make things happen my body feels lighter, my mind feels more elated. And in my life, when I take these steps, the world responds in a way that tells me that it is a universal thumbs up. I get what I want, people respond kindly, openly, or at worst, indifferently. Life is too short to stand on the edge and wonder what if... or, if only...
I have been trying to feel life out by randomly riding my bike, and then getting a feel for which way I should go. This method has produced nothing in terms of finding favorable situations. But I do realize that I am following a different system. I am feeling for what places, people, activities, and situations feel good. This makes more sense. I have had a bit of trouble with trusting that method because, although I have encountered pleasurable situations, I have not had success with finding the things I truly wanted in life. I realize that what the issue was, was that I had really sloppy energy surrounding certain issues and that kept me from getting what I wanted. So, I had to clean up my energy in order to clear those blocks. It comes down to not taking things so personally in life. Also, it involves a little bit of a strategy to get out there. But gotta remember to take the time to align. For me, this involves some mental processes, but the one best way is through yoga.
If not now, then later. When we keep our eyes on the prize and persevere, we can get what we want. This really involves our energy. It seems to be this big myth that people are stuck in a certain way in their world. It is such a simple idea that individuals can change in their lives and move up into the life that they want to be living. It seems that people I have known seem so attached to the idea that we are stuck in this crappy life and cannot escape it. I don't get it at all.
Although there are a lot of negative people in the world, even they get what they want sometimes. Although it might not always be the greatest in the world.
Taking time to align helps you to get what you truly need and want, as opposed to false starts and things that end up in disaster. I can want a great boyfriend, and meet someone who is cute, but it could end in some bad way, and I realize that I needed to give more to myself in terms of positive thinking.


An aside:
Does one find who they truly are, or do they create who they truly are?  I am in the camp of believing that we are our authentic selves from the beginning, and over time, through living in society and the process of socialization we are crowding out our authentic selves with this whole mess of ego and identity that becomes our outward self.
Through the process of unlearning, we slowly chip away the ego self, or as Eckhart Tolle calls it, The pain-body until what remains is the authentic self. We may have created a life for ourselves, but we are really manifesting who we truly are into the world.

operating in the universe

How do people relate to the world around them? This is a question that I have had for awhile. I mean, for success. I think of success as how we live our lives well. It does not necessarily mean how much money one makes. But how does one live their life in a way that best suits them. I have spent a lot of time wondering how I relate to this world. Like what I should do.
This is what I am realizing. I have been really distracted in my life. And I have been really afraid to take risks. I've been generally unhappy and clueless as to who I am and what I really want out of life. This has led to me just scraping by, surviving, feeling like I don't really belong in this world at all.
I spend time hoping that things can change somehow. But I am realizing that that old adage-the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. My life cycles in ways that  have felt like they were spiraling out of my control. External locus of control.
I might not be able to manifest money out of thin air, but I do have an idea of how to live my life in a way that works and creates a really solid existence.
These are the classic principles of a good life. I think of creating and having a really solid community is a pretty good start. Being a person about town.  I never did get that whole "hide away from the rest of the world" thing that some people have. Like they are wary of other people and don't trust anyone. Weird.
Your community is your support network, its where you meet new people, make connections, find collaborators. Its a lot of fun to meet people and do things together. Thats what people do.
Taking risks is one thing that the universe has been telling me to do for a long time too. That fear of taking risks has led me to be very unhappy. Of course, I have taken risks, like being homeless for several months, or moving to a new city without knowing anyone, but I am discovering that it is more about the little risks. Things like just asking for what I want in life, saying hi to that stranger, putting myself out there in some way through music, art, or film.
I have to follow a plan of action, otherwise I will just spiral off into the world and not get much accomplished.
The Universe has let me know that this is how I thrive in the world. My job is to trust this information and act in accordance with it. Many people don't reach this level of self knowledge, so I am very fortunate in this regard. Of course I asked for it. I wanted this knowledge, because I realized that if I didn't follow who I really am, I don't think that my life would be much worth living.

Some ideas for a career

So, I keep on hearing about this shrinking middle class thing. Okay, so like, are we all going to become a nation of serfs or what?
I have always been kind of annoyed with the middle class because of their sort of conspicuous consumption. My friend from Serbia said that the shrinking middle class will make people normal, in the sense that people are going to stop buying all of this dumb shit that is leading to our resources being totally depleted. But, here I am, just graduated, and I am ready to make more than ten thousand dollars a year. You know, so that I can not be living like a miser the rest of my life, know what I fucking mean? But now I find that I should have done my homework. So, as I have been going to school, I have found out the way that I want to make a living, and I discover that it is the same way that I always wanted to live my life, to be an adventurer, to actually Live-with a capital L.
Many ideas flow through me. One thing is to be a life coach, a yoga teacher, a film maker, hypnotherapist, media creator, and any and all such similar things. Then I think to myself, well, if there is no middle class to pay for my services, then what good is it to have these skills? But I have to figure that it is not going to be quite as bad as the pessimists say. Also, I figure that what is important is that I figure that these are tradable skills across the board. So, I can trade my services for other services. Lets just take money out of the equation.
I really want to help my family out though, although it seems that they have a tendency to take care of themselves in many ways. I am the one who seems to be having the trouble with making the finances come together. But it would be nice to pay for a plane ticket for them to come out and visit me. Even when I worked at 5.50 and hour or 7 an hour, I was often able to take  care of my needs in a pretty good way. The only trouble was my sort of lack of direction that I had. But now I have the advantage of having a better understanding of what direction I am going in.
I figure that with time and the right choices, I can make all of things happen that I want to have happen. I think of the jobs that I might have to get. Well, none of them are permanent by any means. So, it may be a path, transitioning from one experience to the other. I have been through this all before. I pretty much know how it all works. No point being bummed out about it all because I know that I can make just about anything happen with time and the right attitude. Who knows how long it will take. It could start looking up tomorrow.

keep on in the now

The Past. That is all it is. Everything that happened, the photos, the writing. It's all in the past.
I have all of these photos and videos of things that happened 10 years ago, and I am all thinking about ways of getting them out. Like these were my apex of creativity. But that is not true at all. I realize that I have to keep on making new media. I have to stay current with my surroundings. Otherwise, I will always be holding onto a shred of media that is nothing more than particles of ink on paper, magnetic particles on a tape that are a representation of something that happened so long ago. And then what? And now what?
As I continue to let go of old stuff, old beliefs, ways of living, I am becoming aware of what is left. It really is just right now. This is what I have. I can continue to make new things, and be in this moment, making new media. That too is a part of a past. Eventually.
This is the human condition. What have you done lately? It is about keeping on in this moment and enjoying that process. It all is a process. New and exciting things lie ahead in the world. In my life. Of course  I love what I have created and captured so far, but it is time to move on to new and bigger and better things. I already realize that old tv shows and movies hold little allure for me. I don't care to watch re-runs of old TV shows that I used to like. That was then. I always try to mine ideas out of old things, but, really I want to create new things.
It seems like these old things were so much more significant in my life, but I realize that this was simply because these things were novel. And I had a better camera-for the time. It is like now, with everything being so accessible, it all becomes cheapened. Just another digital binary code posted up on the internet. But I realize that even when I look at things that happened after this digital revolution, I am still enamored with it, simply based on the amount of time that has passed. It is merely a perception on my part. The only remedy is to live totally presently, so that those feelings I had about the past are moved into the present moment.
It is like how we forget all of the crummy things that we were feeling in a moment, and remember the essence of the moment, what was good. I want to be living in my day to day moment with that feeling of essence. Of authenticity.
I know how to be a part of that feeling good place. It is about living life as closely to my ideal as I can. This is not difficult, but I get these ideas that it is.
It comes down to connecting with the source of who I am on a regular basis. As I am going on in my life, baggage attaches to me and I am carrying it with me, clouding my perceptions. But I am letting it go. Because, really none of it does me any good. In fact, it does harm.
I just got rid of a bunch of stuff that I was holding onto. It was liberating to get rid of it all. Stuff gets in the way of living life. It gets in the way of moving forward.
I think of that part in that dumb movie Encino Man, where the caveman says in Spanish, "the cheese is old and moldy" then the Latino guy says something like, you're right I need to move on. Dumb Hollywood jokes aside, it's about getting over it all, and living for today.

You can get it if you really Want it

Time...is on my side...
Life passes by and for some people it sort of stays the same. Nothing exciting happens and there are no improvements. Other people have experiences where things get better and better. They are catching up with who they really are in life. And, as life continues, we want new and different things. We can go on living stuck in some sort of old way of existing, something that maybe never worked for us, or used to work but now doesn't any more. Or, we can take those small actions every day to eventually get to the place we want to be.
One of my goals is to be more positive about the future and to forget the past. This is basically about living in the present. I find that the number one thing that leads to this sort of mindset is a daily practice of yoga, running helps too, but yoga followed by a solid meditation takes me to a state of bliss pretty fast.
Another thing I want to do is to develop my skills in making videos, and promoting ideas. Often I have gotten ahead of myself, and I want things to happen today, yesterday, a year ago. This is counterproductive because that distracts me from just going out and getting it done in this moment. But taking those steps lead to getting what you want.
This involves:
Having a regular schedule of developing creative projects.
Identifying and meeting people who would be good to work with.
Planning out my days.
Volunteering my time to things that I would like to be involved with.
Developing my skills by practicing what I love.
Hanging out with friends who share similar visions and can support me in that vision.

Think about it in this way, if anyone can apply certain principles and accomplish their goals, than any one can. Often times, the problem is that people have a difficult time figuring out how to make it best work for them. This is why it is good to have another person like a coach to help them transition to this new way of doing things. A coach can offer feedback and advice from a different perspective, so that you can know the best way for you to achieve your goals.
The daily practice of life helps out too. I got a degree in communication because I thought that it would be more about applying principles of better communication. It did address this to an extent, but it was mainly from a theoretical perspective rather than from a practical perspective. So, although I can identify the name of my particular brand of awkwardness, I still have not gotten over it. I guess that this is something I have to work on myself.
Through a steady practice of living life, it all can be accomplished.

The Practice of living life every day

Job hunting. That can be a pretty stressful thing, but through persistence, it can land you with one. I am trying this method of hitting the streets and talking with people. Door knocking as they call it.  Just out of college it seems to make sense to get a job in a professional field, or something related to my major. The universe it seems, has other plans for me. Its telling me to be more persistent and direct. My guess is that it might be telling a lot of people that. Oh, and to remain upbeat.  I think that this is my lesson. The world says, "hey! DO SOMETHING!" It also says to keep on doing it every day. 

So I develop a plan of action in life. Like, I want a job, I want a date. In the past, trying so hard didn't give  the returns compared to the amount of energy that went into it. But that was a different time and a different place. So, I have to work on it again, but this time I have to know that it is all okay, and that I will get what i want if I am persistent and follow a steady plan of action. No giving up. Staying positive during this time is crucial, otherwise it won't work out. 

I figured that I have to set goals, for example, going into ten places a day and asking about jobs. I am hitting up retail, I figure that this may make for some interesting learning experiences and situations. In this process, I am getting over that initial awkwardness in asking some random stranger about job leads. Who is the best person to ask but someone who actually works in the place where I am trying to get a job. I also am making up a list of places to apply. My friend is my task master, and as I am getting discouraged, she has to make me walk into that next business and ask about that job. And she is right, otherwise I might not go into a place. 

It is like a practice in daily life. For example, if you want to write, you should practice by writing every day, even if its crap. A writing teacher gave some advice on how to become a good writer, it is about the ass meeting the chair. That is what this blog is all about. Similarly, if you want to be more outgoing, you should engage in talking with people all the time, especially in situations where there is little risk, so that you can get comfortable with talking with strangers. There are always opportunities to practice these good habits until you get what you want. 

 

My First Show with my new Band

Wow, this last week I had my first show with my new band. This is the first time that I have ever accomplished this sort of thing, actually getting a band together and actually playing a show. Talk about an accomplishment. We still don't have a name, we're still deciding what to call it. But it was pretty fun to do it anyway. I pretty much appreciate how easy it flowed from a mere idea to an experience. Almost effortlessly, as if this was the time for this to come in my life. Interesting thing was that I had given up on the whole music thing. Not so much given up, but just decided to put wanting it on hold. I guess I let go of having attachment to having this.
Amazing thing is that I have noticed when things in my life come to me, like having new experiences, it usually follows easily afterward. For example, when I was younger, I didn't hang out with a lot of people, but one day some kids from school invited me to hang out with them and after that, I was always mobbing with other people. But with music, it seems like it might happen in a similar way. These things are possible and I know it, then it becomes a reality. Makes me think of just making something happen, so that something else can happen that I like even better.
The show that we played was quite an experience. In the late afternoon of what I like to call the halcyon days of Portland summers. The warm glow of the sun enveloping everything and just warming my bones and filling my eyes with images of blue skies and golden glows. We played at the anniversary of Wolf and Bears food cart on a makeshift stage made of pallets and plywood which was set up in the gravel beside the food trailer.
The crowd was beautiful. Nerdy kids in their bright colors combined with their earthy colors. I love that scrappy sort of look, the lean and wiry look of the vegetarian, of the bike rider, of the beer drinker. Not so much punk, but definitely weird, arty, nerdy, like all of the skinny people I know.
In this town I easily forget the really fun and amazing people whom I share this city with. But I remember that with people it is about showing up and being present.