1. The universe is delightfully contrary. I write that I hate to date and then suddenly dating gets good. Really good.
2. Trust your instincts” might be complete crap, or it may be that trusting your instincts requires a surgical ability to slice through the fear that presents as truth.
3. Talking about hard things that could hurt is a good thing. Understanding is collaborative.
4. I’m tiring of the ‘blogging and social media for money’ drumbeat. Money is not a purpose, it is just a metric. (So is Google. I’m so inconsistent.)
5. This is not to say that I don’t really, truly get that abundance – including material abundance – is amazing. Do not ever think I am above or beyond the lure of shiny things including coins. I’m just feeling like there is something really crass about the colonization of blogging and social media for profit. I absolutely get that profits are possible. I’m super happy for everybody making them. But the ‘end’ is not the blog or the social media. They are the tools. They are vehicles for distributing your contribution, and the contribution is the key. What are you creating? What are you contributing? And, in a related rant, anyone who writes that they have a turn-key system to make you money from blogging or social media is selling you snake oil. If you have something to share, some knowledge, the willingness to acquire knowledge, a truth to share, a story to tell, a unique perspective, a bracing critique, a rallying cry, the willingness to create community, then those systems will work. But in and of themselves they are nothing. And you can tell, when you read a blog, if the soul and the contribution are there or if the person is just another wannabe Steve Pavlina or Leo Babauta. Authenticity is everything. Plus I hate auto response messages on Twitter. And yes, that was a terrible, abrubt, unrelated pseudo-segue. I’m on a tight list here.
6. Joy is about embracing your reality and your life. Savouring it. Blessing it. I know this because last week I spent time with my two of my my male and female best friends from high school. My male friend’s son was diagnosed with autism at 18 months and instead of gnashing his teeth, my friend talked to us about the benefits of autism, the upsides, the rewards. He glowed. The child glowed. What a glowing, loving, happy family. His wife is making a documentary about just that: the other side of autism. I want to interview her and learn more about her project. We all need to know more.
7. I really missed out on the Ramadan experience. I got the fasting and the near-fainting and some personal insights; but I did not get the family, community, yummy break-fast dinners and celebration. Until the very last day. A friend called and invited me to a party to celebrate Eid. And it was wonderful: my girls cavorted with kids, my daughter put her forehead to the floor and told me she was talking to God, I cuddled babies and admired women who seriously, truly, really know how to dress and don’t shy away from shining, and we ate some grilled chicken that was so divine it may have been a religious experience. My kids ended up sleeping in their clothes and I couldn’t get it together this morning and had to buy lunches and to go to work barefaced but it was oh-so-worth it and then some.
8. I heart Kanye West. YES I DO. I love his passion, his urge to speak the truth, his fraught and sensitive justice-o-meter. It is the source of his genius and his jack-assery. This is true of most of us: that which makes us great also trips us up, and the path to maturity is learning how to channel your talents and your truths so that they are gifts, not weapons. So, note to Kanye: I love you. I just think you’re wasting your time stealing the shine from a teenager when you started out calling out homophobia in hip hop and then the president of the United States. Justifiably. Righteously. Do more of that. Aim high, Kanye. Touch the sky.
9. One of my friends is a master of facebook status update. He writes, Chances: take them.
10. Yes.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 4:34 am and is filed under Love, Meaning, Purpose. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.