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Put on Your Red Shoes and . . . [Apologies, Mr. Bowie]

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A Good Rant Can Be Better than Dancing!

I was sitting here, thinking about January . . . yuk! I decided maybe I should stir something up but, I didn’t feel like it. I looked at all things I should be doing. They didn’t want to get done. I checked my archives to see what might inspire me. Wouldn’t you know I found?

It’s dated January 2006. That’s when I knew it’s not me. There’s a reason it’s called the dead of winter.

I put on some music to soothe my soul. This is what played:

Let’s dance! Put on your red shoes and dance the blues. . . .

That’s what I heard: Let’s rant! [Apologies, Mr. Bowie]

Hey, I say, “blog your experience.”
I put my red shoes and decided to go with the feeling.

A Winter Rant in Red Shoes

Winter is deadly, dastardly, and despicable because

  • it’s too cold.
  • it’s too long.
  • it’s too easy to fall down.
  • snow is always whiter on someone else’s street.
  • the wind actually hurts.
  • it’s too dark too early.
  • it’s too easy to hibernate instead of doing what I’m supposed to.
  • warm coats and hats don’t come in “attractive.”
  • parking places hold cars hostage. Don’t get me started about traffic.
  • staying inside makes folks loony.

Whew! What a relief! Now back to the previously scheduled, David Bowie.

red shoes relaxed

Sometimes you just gotta put it out there.

Feel free to put on your red shoes and . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Too Many Options . . . A Fish Tale of Decisions

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Trying to Keep Your Options Open?

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Ever been at a turning point without direction?

I know I have been.

What to do next becomes harder based the number of options. Having too many options is like having 21 fishing poles along a riverbank. Running up and down checking 21 fishing poles makes it difficult to respond when a pole gets a tug — what do I do with the fish that comes? Should I keep it or invest in what the other poles might bring? Keep it too long and it will start to . . . ahem . . . stink. Tending too many options, it’s easy to end up doing nothing.

Tiffany knows what I mean.

By defining what you are about in your career, your life, your relationships, you are actually giving yourself permission to do more, because you are choosing action over the inaction unlimited choice produces. — Tiffany Monhollon

I’ve been on few bad fishing expeditions. Now I know a good fish when I see one. The key is deciding what I want in a fish to start with. It’s like the sign in my high school said, “Not to decide is a decision.”

Are you faced with too many options? What decision could change that fishing expedition?

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Broken Promises in a Head Filled with Shoulds

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Less Than Me

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I woke up this morning, finding myself wanting to be someone else. I had a head filled with shoulds — all things I should be doing or should be doing differently. It was playing out in my cells as some sort of anxiety, as if I’m less than enough.

Isn’t it interesting that, this word should one that I purposefully avoid when I write, becomes the word that gets my mind tied. Rather than propelling me forward to action. I sit here confused.

Each “should” taken on it’s own is a skill or discipline at which someone else excells. Not one of them is something that I particularly enjoy or need in my life.

So what’s behind these bossy feelings?

I set aside the self-imposed “shoulds.” I sit back to reflect on recent events. What I see first isn’t the good. — So much incredibly cool stuff is happening. I’m a daily celebration. — But the first thing that comes to mind is promises made and not kept. People have reasons for that. I understand. Do I really?

Maybe this is all about promises and what I believe people should be doing or doing differently. Maybe I didn’t want to judge them. So I judged me.

Suddenly, I’m not feeling the need to be someone else anymore. They can be them. I can be me. Whew! What a relief.

That head filled with shoulds is now down to one “will.”

I will enjoy letting the “shoulds” roll right off me.

Sundays are meant for much better things.

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Change the World: One Choice Decides

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Go On and Do That

changetheworld8

Ever watch someone building a dream? Ever wonder about building a dream and catch yourself thinking, I wish I was meant to do that?

Why would some people get to have their dreams and other people have to go without?

It can’t be luck. It can’t be money. It sure can’t be smarts. Look around. Those things don’t decide who gets what.

How would a universe choose which stars get to shine and which don’t?

Is it that some people know their dreams? Deep in our hearts, don’t we all? We did when we small enough to still dream big, giant dreams. It’s in ourselves. It’s in our hearts. We know.

Ourselves. What’s so scary about going after a dream? Is it the self in ourselves? Is that the question, the word, that stops us from being who we are? We can’t be ourselves because of our self?

Self-directed doesn’t mean self-serving. Self-determined isn’t self-absorbed. It isn’t selfish or self-centered to be who we are.

Truth is, we give our self to a dream.

What’s the difference between the person who changes a dream into reality and the person who looks on?

One changes the world.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

2008: No More Hibernation Mondays!

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What Was I Thinking?

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It’s the second full week of the New Year. How does my body know that? About this time every year — without my consent — my body decides that I’m bear not a human. Hibernation begins to look so attractive.

I wake in the morning later than usual, and my first thought is when I’ll be able to visit my pillow again.

This morning, I decided to think about that. . . . What’s this living for the future? What’s this looking forward to sleeping? How many hours, how many days have I spent getting ready in the morning telling my brain to push out chemicals that said, “I don’t really want to be here.”?

I’ve taken over — banished that bear behavior. Now my brain is saying that “Mondays are time to reconnect with the folks I’ve not seen all weekend.” That sure makes getting up easier.

No more hibernation Mondays for this girl.

I’m a person, not a bear. I’m all about living this year.

Have you hibernating or wishing you could? How are you going to wake up this year?

Thank you, .
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When a Person Dies

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I've been thinking . . .

about choosing.

This week, a dear friend’s father died.

People close to her have reactions. Some stellar folks have risen to the occasion in the most human and gentle ways. Some have only seen the inconveneince to their own scheduled lives.

It seems so basic. When a person dies, we’re brought a reminder that we don’t have each other forever. So we gather to spend what time we might in honor of those still living as well as he who died.

I wonder about those who see the whole thing as just an unpleasant event. Where do they find meaning? Do they ignore the human side of everything?

It’s a question of life and death and choosing life . . .

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