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Incredibly Human

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I've been thinking . . .

about our personal humanity.

Every day I get up and turn on the coffee. Turn I on the computer. Shortly thereafter, an IM pops up with someone who wants to turn on a conversation. Some days have begun before I have a chance to sit back and find out who it was is that left my bedroom.

Yesterday, Terry wrote his thoughts about how we interact with our digital world. He asked that we

Do a little math in [our] head every now and then. Do it all for the sake of humanity.

I was writing my comment on Terry’s post when a call interrupted my thoughts. Ironically it was Terry on the phone. He only had a few minutes so our talk wasn’t long. I didn’t tell him that I’d read what he wrote. After that my day overcame any thinking I might have spent on what he said.

This morning Jon made a beautiful observation about how

everything but the kitchen sink is running through [our heads.]

He explained that being overwhelmed might be something we can all find our way through because . . .

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we’re human.

In a world of time and space and technology, hold tight to your humanity. It may feel fragile and weak, but it’s there where we refuel. It’s there where we get our strength.

Technology and illusions may lead us to images of super human accomplishments, but every human can only do what is humanly possible.

Stand in a huge quiet space that no humans have touched and think about that again. Say it aloud.

Every human can only do what is humanly possible.

What’s humanly possible is already incredible.

Go be incredible. Incredibly human is enough.

Liz's Signature

The You-Sized Place in the Universe

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Empty_Harbor_by_Liz_Strauss

I look out on an empty harbor under a sky of forgotten blue. The day is barely started. The sun is making a slow climb up. My eyes are is taking a narrow, half-open view.

I hear the cars on the road below me, but they’re only so much noise — they remind me of a vacuum running in a hotel hallway some years ago. I try to recall yesterday’s walk in the sunshine, but I find an empty space inside that thought. Someone, lots of someones, are missing. I notice everyone who is not among them.

No runners are running. No walkers are walking. No people are standing waiting for their dogs. I don’t see people listening to ipods riding bicycles or skating by. Nowhere are talkers incessantly talking to listeners intently listening as they forget to be watching and unconsciously force others to move out of their way.

No one is sitting on benches thinking or sleeping. I can’t find the dreamers dreaming or the critics criticizing. No railers are railing or flailers flailing.

When you’re not here, your face, your mind, and your heart leave a hole in the picture.

Only you can fill the you-sized place in the universe.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Find a Moment of Gold

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Put Gold in What You’re Doing Now

Yellow_Lily_by_Liz_Strauss

We’ve all had one — a moment of gold, a moment when the sun shines on us, and we’re something made of success. How we got there was part head, part heart, and a whole lot of determination that knocked down walls as we went.

In a moment of gold, some folks don’t understand what makes that moment so worth celebrating. Ah, to them, what we’ve some seems a small thing, but we know that the distance from point A to point B was not a straight or simple line. Math might always be. Life hardly ever is.

With all of the choices that move us forward, with all of the wishes and plans that our hearts hold, we need to be sure that we savor our accomplishments and celebrate our successes. Those golden moments are what propel us forward to make more spectacular things happen.

Stop a minute. Recall the sunlight. Find a moment of gold from your past.

What can you take from that moment to fuel what you’re doing now?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Managing Painful Situations: Writer’s Block, Migraine, and Trolls

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Get to Know What’s a Pain

Painful situations come in sorts of packages and combinations. Lately I’ve been hearing talk about three in particular — writer’s block, migraine, and trolls. When I think about about that set of pains, I realize that in some ways, they’re the same problem dressed up in different ways.

I know a couple of things about all three. I’ve been a writer since the last century. Been studying migraines since I got the first one when I was 12. And trolls . . . A cyber trolls once invited me to be CEO of his business.

Managing Painful Situations: Writer’s Block, Migraine, and Trolls

Writer’s block, migraine and trolls are a pain. Dealing with them is a management problem. I offer these suggestions that work for me.

  • Study the problem. Get to know the pain.
    Understand when it happens and how it works. Take away all of the personal issues. It’s not “your” writer’s block, “your” migraine, “your” personal attack. Those things outside you are just doing what they do. If you study them, you’ll notice they do the same thing every time.
  • Stop resources that support the situation.
    Your emotional buy in exacerbates the pain. Getting nervous about things, getting mad, insecure, or anxious only adds to the stress and undercuts your ability to move beyond what’s happening. Turn off the negative voices. Don’t feed the trolls.
  • Leave the war zone.

    • Get space to gather resources, rest, and perspective. Take a walk. See the sky. Feel the ground beneath your feet again.

Anyone who’s gone past writer’s block knows that moving away from the computer often allows the answers to come more quickly. Anyone who’s had a debilitating migraine knows a dark cool room works far better than a blinding sunrise to quiet the awful physical pain. Anyone who’s argued with trolls — are they really a pain or just irritants? — knows their words are deflated when left without rebuttal.

August_Sunrise_by_Liz_Strauss

On some days, we all give importance to things that get in our way. Keep an eye out for them. When you find one, just decide that you aren’t going there.

Have you got a strategy for managing painful and irritating situations?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Make Something Good Happen, Make Tuesday an Important Day

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Tuesdays Aren’t for Staying in One Place

Tuesday’s_Flower_by_Liz_Strauss

When I worked in an office, Tuesday got to be “a nothing day.” Everyone wanted to hit the ground running on Monday. We’d get our details and thoughts together before we reported back in. So Tuesdays became meeting days when we talked about what we were doing and as a result not much got done.

Now I work online. I visit social sites and I see that the “Tuesday feeling” happening every day of the week. Conversations about what we’re doing are so inviting that we can get swept into talking our day away without doing a thing.

It’s an easy way to get stuck in one place — in that Tuesday feeling — always talking and dreaming, but not doing. We become like talking plants, rather than people.

Plants, and flowers, and trees have roots that keep them stationary. People have feet that can walk, minds that can think, hands that can make new things. It doesn’t take much to move things forward. All it takes is the effort to make one positive move.

Make a comment, start a new conversation, make something happen in a new way.

How will you make Tuesday a positively important day?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Risking My Life

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Take a Risk Your Way

I have a friend who says she’s never seen me walk in a straight line. What she means is that I have to find my path for getting things to work out right. And because of that, I’ll never know what’s right for you. I’ll only be able to say, what’s worked for me and I’ve heard has worked for folks who’ve done some pretty spectacular things.

We all take risks of our own kind. We jump. We veer. We zag. We speak in silent times. Sometimes we win. Sometimes we conspire against ourselves . . .

We land on our butts in the dust wondering why we didn’t just follow the logical path every other person does. That’s when we have to go back and start all over again — but we picked the path and we’re darn sure that we’re alive.

This is replacement picture one . . .

Risktaker1_by_Liz_Strauss50

Will I put my pictures somewhere else? Already have (and now I know why.)

I don’t risk my life, but without any risks I wouldn’t feel alive.

What sort of risks make a better life?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!