Prayer

Does it work?
Can we really "change God's mind"?
Or is it an illusion?

Are there certain words to say?
Should I say nothing?
Is it an advanced form of listening?

Am I the answer to my own prayers?
Do I have courage to be the answer?
Do I pray for that courage?

Can I feel a change?
Do I see it work?
Or do I feel like I'm hitting a wall?

Do I get to see results?
Or grow closer to the mess?
Realize that it is bigger than myself?

Is it done alone?

Or done in community?
Does "where 2 or more are gathered" apply?

Approach with humility?
With anger?
With a rote method devoid of feeling?

Do you answer questions God?
Are you listening?
Are you there?

Mentoring

Thought of the day:

Successful mentoring or tutoring is about relationships and building trust. If you go into it to impart knowledge, you will likely fail. Become a mentor if you want to have a healthy lesson in humility.

Listening

Thought of the day in haiku form:

Listening: a vital skill
I must figure out.
Use my ears more than my mouth.

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EDIT:
I found out that a haiku is actually 5 - 7 - 5, so here's my addendum:

Listening is hard.
Humility is the key.

Ears over the mouth.

Pic-a-day Down! (again)

So with my recent incident involving my bike bag being stolen off of the back of my bike (WHILE riding up a hill), one of the many things taken was my camera.

(BIG sad face)

This means that once again, my pic-a-day has screeched to a grinding halt. I did not even make the one-year mark, so this makes me very sad indeed.

I still like the idea of doing one small creative thing a day so I'm kicking around new ideas that wouldn't include a camera. Sketch-a-day? Random thought of the day? Quick story or poem a day? In the meantime, I'll be on hiatus, so I will try to think of something to replace my daily photo posting.

I'll start with this perspective of the day:
Even though I had a lot of important stuff taken from me, I still have my physical health and I will actually be OK. The kid who took my stuff is actually in worse shape...on the path to jail or worse. So, no matter what you are going through, it's good to remember, there's always another side to a story, and there's always someone worse off than you.

Punch in Procrastination's Face!

I finally rolled up my sleeves and slammed out a clean room within 3 or 4 hours. Take that, Lack of Motivation!

Now I just need to invite people over more often so I KEEP it this way.

Moderation? What's that??

My life has been taken over by bikes and biking events.

I've recently taken a TON of bicycling event pictures.

I noticed that in the past week, I've been neglecting my pic-a-day blog.
I haven't even taken the pictures to post.

Here's the ONE picture I took last week:


Inspiring.

This leads me to realize that my work ethic also matches my motivation in personal projects: When I go gungho over something, or overkill on a project, it is certain that there will be a long period of "slump time" to follow. This slump time often includes thoughts of, "Perhaps I should actually do something?", but often devolves to spending useless hours on the internets...

All before my next wave of motivation comes along. More like, tsunami of motivation, then an extended drought.

It kinda works in a way, but it's ultimately tiring and unsustainable.
(kind of LIKE THIS)

I hope I can somehow get to the point where I can actually do things in moderation... You know, break down projects into smaller parts and tackle them daily. Log those sales items as I go instead of wait for them to amass into a monstrosity that I try to ignore like a pink elephant. Actually take the zero extra seconds to throw the laundry into the basket instead of on the floor.

Maybe I should just embrace my way of doing things? Maybe I need to just accept that I'm like this and just go with the flow and not worry about how it ultimately gets done?

Or maybe I should go put my clean laundry away right now instead of procrastinating on the internet talking about it?

.....

Nah...