Pace and I spent the entire day, from 11:30a til 9:30p, in hard wooden chairs at Austin Java. We’ve edited half of the book!! We were really in the zone.

We learned that having a single task in large chunks of uninterrupted time really hones your focus. We got through half of the book in one go, and even though it was a very long go, it was really awesome work and we were amazingly productive.

Late in the day, I choked up. I realized that this book will change the world, no doubt about it. It’s well-written, clear, and told in several voices so as to reach more listeners. It’s funny, whimsical, serious, smart, witty, clever, and caring. It’s fucking amazing.

We agreed that it is our ethical imperative to do everything we can to get this book to as many readers as we can; the more people we reach, the better our world will become. It is our ethical imperative to succeed wildly; anything else is shorting the world a change so many of us crave with all our being – the change of connection.

We’re bringing it on.

I have learned an AWESOME two-part system for easily accomplishing long-term goals.

Part one: I ask myself: “Is this more important than accomplishing my goal?”, or a more clear and personal example: “Is eating this ice cream more important to me than losing weight?”

I find the answer to almost always be, “No.”

When the answer is no, I don’t do it! I’ve given myself the power to remember my long-term goals when my short-term wants are flashing in the moment.

Part two: making my long-term goals concrete. It’s nearly impossible to strive for a goal that’s vague and distant, especially in the face of a real and present short-term want, but making my long-term goals specific makes them not only more attainable, but more real in the moment. It’s in the moment that I have trouble choosing long-term over short-term, and this has made it not only possible, but easy!

So what do I do if I ever answer “yes”? It happens – I’ve found that occasionally the answer to “is eating this ice cream right now more important than losing weight” is yes; ice cream is my #1 comfort food, and like everyone, I need comfort sometimes.

I solved this by finding very low-fat frozen yogurt: I can eat an entire pint and take in less calories than a candy bar, and actually I can no longer physically consume an entire pint. I usually eat about 1/4th of one at a time, which I find to be totally acceptable, and it fills that comfort need that invokes the feelings in the first place.

Another example is that sometimes I really want a break from exercising. Again, I’ll consider if a break is more important than my goals, and if the answer is yes (this is extremely rare, but it does happen), I’ll go for a walk or a swim or something that day instead of the more hardcore exercising I usually do.

So, my method of dealing with these rare yeses is to find things that don’t do as much harm but still feed whatever need is presenting itself.

These combinations are incredibly powerful. This has helped me make real and measurable progress on goals I never believed I could accomplish. I’m really excited and happy!!

I baked a cake! (The Boy helped!)

It was super-yummy!

This is the first thing I’ve ever made from scratch that didn’t turn out icky in some way. I’m extraordinarily proud of myself!!

I’ve been overcoming externally inflicted limitations a lot recently, and this was a BIG one. I’m really proud and pleased and excited to be constantly proving to myself that the only thing that limits me is me.

*dances* I can cook, I can bake, I can spell, I can do math, I can sing, I can chill, I can be happy, I can do whatever I want. I rock!

I did it, I did it! *dancing*

After three somewhat grueling hours of tinkering, futzing, Gooooooogling, reading, downloading, installing, re-installing, and uninstalling, interspersed with occasional short bouts of crying, hair-pulling, pacing, and breathing, I did it!!

I got my new MP3 player to work with Ezmerelda!

The drivers don’t work. Vista refused to acknowledge the player at all. Everything I downloaded failed to help, every troubleshooting path I followed led me nowhere. I was even tinkering with the scary permanent depths of my computer!

Finally, I found a link to an article that linked to a page that described what to do (with no links), Goooogled that and found another article that linked to a troubleshooting article that linked to a different page with a firmware update, requiring me to use a computer with XP (Pace’s laptop was, fortunately, at my disposal) to reformat the player, which then successfully got Vista to recognize the player as a viable device.

I’m transferring nearly 6Gs of music as I type! I did it, I did it, I did it!

I am insufferably pleased with myself. A few months ago, I would have given up in tears and returned Blueberry, but today – today she’s mine, loaded up with music.

To celebrate, we’re going to lunch and then to buy blue earbuds to match my brand-new blue MP3 player!

Woot!

I am alone, laying in bed, re-reading ‘American Gods’. I brace myself as the part that scares me most approaches, and the dead woman comes to talk to her husband. I get through the scene, frightened, and this time I pause my reading to examine the fear fresh in my still-racing heart.

Why am I so afraid of this scene? Laura is dead, but animated… but not particularly zombie-esque. More vampiric, actually, and vampires don’t scare me. The imagery clearly suggests she clawed her way out of the grave, and that certainly scares me… but this feels different. Bigger. What is this fear?

This is the fear of death, quietly stalking my every move. The deep-seeded fear of death, silent and backgrounded, creepily crawling across my subconscious.

A long pause in my exploration as I let this sink in, test the waters to see if this resonates true. It does, resounding in me and sending shivers up my spine. I give it much thought – why am I so very afraid of death? No answers, but the realization that this fear has become second nature to me, has been in my heart of hearts for many turns of the clock. No beginning; it stretches back into my past.

Eventually, the shivers pass and I groggily give up the process for sleep.

The next morning, I break open my current life-changing non-fiction book for to read a few pages while my beloved tinkers on her computer. The book tells a story to illustrate a point, and this is what I read:

“On Monday, Hans returned to his law office in Century City, LA’s posh corporate haven, and promptly handed in his three-week notice. For nearly five years, he had faced his alarm clock with the same dread: I have to do this for another 40-45 years?

Immediately, a strange shift began – Hans felt, for the first time in a long time, at peace with himself and what he was doing. He had always been terrified of plane turbulence, as if he might die with the best inside of him, but now he could fly through a violent storm sleeping like a baby.”

Tears pouring from my eyes, and I grok in fullness. Death stalks me and fuels my fears because I am failing to live my life as my heart needs to live! Life is precious and fragile, and I have wasted so much of it, spent so much of my life doing the wrong thing, on the wrong path, in the wrong marriage, ignoring my intuition and my dreams, doing instead what others wanted or expected even when it went loudly against my own needs or desires. I’ve been reasonable and rational instead of magickal and intuitive. I’ve disrespected and dishonored myself, lost my self-esteem and self-respect.

I spend excited moments flailing about and reading aloud to Pace, somehow managing to get the words out through the knots in my throat. She cries, too, and in our tears we vow to make our life what we want, to listen to our dreams and be irrational and loud and go against the grain, and most of all, be true to ourselves and each other.

I feel the fear unraveling in me even now, as I begin to open and listen to myself, my intuition, and my dreams.

I am in an *awesome* mood.

I’m going to dinner tonight with some of my best friends in all the world, and I scored a fabulous dress to wear!

I am on the couch with my gorgeous happy wife. We are both happier today than we’ve been in a year and a half, and what changed? Our perspective. We stopped stressing and started moving!

I am so happy and in such a good mood that I’m infecting others. A man at HEB and I talked about daffodils for five minutes. We both decided to get ourselves some – and we both bought our wives bouquets of roses. Totally awesome. The dressing room attendant at Ross said I turned her day around after I complimented her smile, and the clerk at Ross said it was nice to have an actual conversation with a customer that was pleasant after all the grumps she’s dealt with all day.

When I’m happy, I glow, and it makes others remember to shine. I love it.

Historically, I smallenate myself, especially when confronted or questioned. I don’t offer ideas or thoughts or opinions, even when I have them in spades. I short-sell myself and short-circuit myself. I don’t stand up for myself, even if it makes me miserable. The opinions of others are more valuable than mine, especially if I feel like that other is better than me, either in general or in specific.

I’ve been trained to be small, because being small makes it easy to manipulate me, keep me down, and fill me with fear.

Today, I was writing an email to Marty, with whom I am collaborating on an art project. He asked if I had any ideas, and I responded with “I don’t have any ideas…” but then proceeded to write a paragraph of ideas. My initial response, deeply ingrained in me, was no – I’m not smart, I’m not creative, I have nothing to contribute – even when my contributions are requested and valued.

Another artist friend recently contradicted me when I said I wasn’t creative, because she saw in me creativity I express without awareness. My awareness was trained to hone in on the negative, on the lack, instead of on the fullness of myself.

But more and more these days, I find myself feeling and being creative, offering ideas, voicing those strong opinions I previously locked in, standing up for myself and not agreeing to things that go against my grain, being less and less afraid (and persisting more in the face of the fears that remain) – honoring my bigger self within.

In the lovely lyrical words of John Mayer:
Someday I’ll fly
Someday I’ll soar
Someday I’ll be so damn much more
Cause I’m bigger than my body gives me credit for…

I think my ’someday’ is now.

There are a lot of things I used to think I couldn’t do, and now I know I can.

In just the past week, I’ve really learned to futz (a valuable skill), I’ve switched numbers from phone memory to sim memory and back again, I’ve read my new phone manual and learned how to use my phone (mostly), I’ve cooked on several occasions and not fucked it up, I’ve functioned well even when pretty darn sick to get important work done, I’ve been alone and found it pleasant, I’ve been social, I’ve stayed home by choice, I downloaded software and learned how to use it, I’ve researched and found it non-horrible, and I’ve taken care of myself in a whole new way.

I find myself stretching and pushing against limitations, and often finding that they aren’t my limitations. How interesting! How exciting!

I just bought myself a new laptop. Her name is Ezmerelda and she’s a gorgeous red.

Originally, the company was to pay for her. But as I load and unload, customize and adjust and settle in, I realize that she really needs to be mine. She’s my first big purchase after taking my life from an unhealthy situation and making it my life.

She’s power and independence and love and strength and magick and technomagick and mine.

So, how bout that? I just bought myself a new laptop. *squee*

…we’ll get to that in a moment.

I have this big mental paintbrush that tends to roll over my recent past with a thick coat of misery paint. I remember the bad things that happen, but not so much the good things. As a result, I tend to feel like I’ve had a really awful week when really, only a few difficult things have happened in a slew of good stuff.

Sound familiar?

I found a way to combat this.

One of the things we talk about in the Usual Error presentations is the power of endings. For example: think of a book you particularly enjoyed, right up to the ending, where something awful happened in the last five pages with no explanation or denouement. Think of a movie where the main character dies right at the end for no good reason. Even if the movie was fantastic, it’s likely we won’t remember it well. It’s all about endings.

Our brains remember the most recent events most clearly, except for bad or challenging or difficult things – those we remember with eerie clarity. They’re big black spots on our mind-maps. In an effort to help myself remember the good stuff without such a heavy focus on the bad, I’m using the power of endings to my advantage.

Every night before sleep, but after I get in bed, I review my day. My family and I, all cozied up in bed together, talk about the good things that we remember happening throughout the day and discuss how happy those things made us. We don’t even discuss anything negative; the point is to just relax and focus on the positive of our day. Now, as I look back on my week, the good things are there, standing out among the bad – they now have equal importance and equal marks on the mental map of my life.

This is outstanding! How this one simple thing has really changed my life!

Today was a good day because I wrote this blog entry. I had one of my favourite lunches. I spent several hours curled up on the couch with my lovely wife. I cleaned up my office space so I could work in it again. I finally installed my camera software so I can upload my new pictures to my Flickr account. I found some money squirreled away in my desk! I watched some of my favourite shows and had a really yummy dinner, played fun games with my family, and snuggled a lot.

What an awesome day!