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New Thoughts with Old Ones

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viny_trees_and_a_curvy_path from sxc.hu

My life is like a conversation. It works when I don’t try to control it. It winds through time, making moments and memories best without me in charge. If trust my thoughts and dreams, I don’t find myself wandering aimlessly or roaming without a cause.

With a focus on what I believe, my days filter paths setting me always toward my goal.

Around the next corner, with the next sunrise, inside the next breath is my next choice. In the next breeze is my next vision. I can be whomever I am willing to invest my life in.

Up the path, down the road, across the field is an opportunity, not a place I must go. I’ll miss one to take one. If I know, then I know. When I find out, I’ll decide which is mine.

I am my life.

It’s not a hard thought to take on.

I am my life. I let go, because I can.

How do you think about what’s around the next curve ahead?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Time to Change Your View?

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I've been thinking . . .

about seeing and looking.

Some plants only grow in sunlight. They’re often the ones we see first. They offer vibrant yellows and reds that are meant to catch attention. Butterflies, bees, hummingbirds are drawn to their flowers. It’s not hard to see them.

Some plants only grow in the shade. They’re not less beautiful. They’re in a different light. We have to get closer, change our view, to see them. It not hard to miss them.

This morning I uploaded some photos I took on Monday. A nondescript picture under a tree caught my attention. I pulled it up for a closer look — I found something unexpected. It changed how I thought about that plant and how I valued the photo.

heart-on-a-leaf-by-liz-strauss

Don’t look at the flower. Look at the leaf.

When we change our view, it changes what we see.

It works with more than flowers and leaves.

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Image: liz strauss

Social Media and Greener Grass

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Look Down and Think

relationships button

They say that the grass is always greener . . . over there where the other guy is.
In a world of social media networking, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with insignificance.
Turn away for a minute and real or imagined distance seems to happen.

It’s can seem that the world has left us bereft and virtually homeless.
It’s not an unknown feeling. Thoughts of being a social outcast have been with us since we’ve been with each other.


Shakespeare even bemoaned such feelings in my favorite sonnet.

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least . . .

It was love that saved him.

Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

And someone probably looked at Shakespeare “desiring his art.”

Last Monday, I was thinking about all of this, when I looked down to see that
the grass at my feet was as green as I could ever wish.

Grass-is-greener-Liz-Strauss-photo

Sometimes I take other folks’ grass too seriously.
Have you thought about what you already have that other folks only hope to experience?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
image:LizStrauss

Lost Creativity and Inspiration

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Can we talk about . . .

inspiration.

Over-organization has taken me.

A week of little things, tiny things, and chasing about has put my organizational mind in control — creativity has temporarily gone missing.

I spend a silent conversation with a cup of coffee, wondering why I’m stuck with some sort of boring, straight-in-a-line, ordinary run-of-the-mill, deadly, cliche thinking. I try for the switch to turn on the electricity, but the current is more static than energy.

I pick up a pencil and start listing — literally and figuratively. Things to do are what I start writing. I put the pencil down and check around for something more rewarding.

Then I look out the window to catch that first second of sunlight spilling into the harbor.

Light-spilling-into-the-harbor-by-Liz-Strauss

It’s a light going on. It’s a sparkle of ideas set out before me.

Inspiration shows up just when I need it.

What a relief that is.

Who, what, where has inspired you lately?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Nothing Lasts Forever, Except What We Remember

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Not Gonna See the Sunrise this Morning

Gray harbor - by-liz-strauss

No question that I was up before the sun’s arrival. But a hitch in the giddyup sent shades of gray and a wealth wet where the rays shine on other mornings. It’s so overcast that the harbor lights are still glowing as if it’s night out.

Not a problem.

On a Saturday, with a project that’s as much fun as I hoped, I’ll listen to the rain and let it wash away the previous days. It’ll be the start of spanking clean weekend.

Can wait to see how things look when sun shines again!

In the meantime I have a memory to hold me over . . .

Blue harbor by liz-strauss

Nothing lasts forever . . . except what we remember.

How do you hold onto the moments you value?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
images: Liz Strauss

741 Somersaults — Not a Fence in Sight

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I've been thinking . . .

about fences.

Where I grew up, we had this fabulous back yard. Three houses backed up to it. They stood high on an embankment. It was 18 cement stairs down to the basement level and another 16 stairs, if you took that way down to the yard. Most of the time we just ran down the hill next to the stairs. Sometimes we laid on our sides and rolled.

About 150 yards from the hill with the stairs was the river bank. From here to there was all green, green grass, not a fence in sight. I once did 741 somersaults across that expanse. It’s a record that I obviously still cherish.

A fence across that grassy field would’ve undreamed an endless stream of childhood somersaults. We wouldn’t have thought of doing many things that we did.

Fences would have changed our thinking. They have a way of dividing our view into greener and not so green grass. The worst are the fences disconnect us from our potential. Build a fence around your goals, and you’ll surely not reach them.

Draw a fence around your heart, and people will stay out.

I don’t like fences. They make it hard to set records we never forget.

741 somersaults — not a fence in sight.

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