Month: July 2010

We are creatures of habit. We feel confident in our habits. The trap of a habit is you close your eyes to doing things better.

I hate swimming. So I never do it. I have a habit to hate swimming. What if swimming will take my work to a new level by learning to love swimming. Is it worth the bother.

Yes, Variety is so important to growth that yo should push yourself to do even what you dislike. I had a few bad experiences with swimming and now I look at a pool and think ug. there it is the pool. I should go swimming for a week and see if it gets better. This is just one small thing. There are dozens of things every day that I avoid. It is all worth it to make your mind stronger and increase your ability to SEE.

Everyone enjoys brainstorming. All these ideas being tried on for size. Very fun but is that the best way to come up with a great solution? I have an example of how brainstorming can be a trap.

When you brainstorm with a group of people, three things happen. One is that you will be energized and excited and it is actually intoxicating, that is good and really fun. Two is that you will feel powerful and you will think things through only minimally so we are in pretty shallow water here. Third is you will develop group think and that is the bad thing about brainstorming. Group think takes good ideas, and dilutes them to fit the group. Everybody wants approval from the group. This is the trap.

A great idea may not be the most popular one. In fact I would contend that the most popular idea is rarely the best one. The best thing is to do the brainstorm, and then go home and mull it over. Then come back and rethink and evaluate  anew. Remaining objective and away from the emotion of the group will give a clearer thought.

photo buy this caffeine slinger

I was reading a book about elegant solutions. Solutions that are clean and simple and incredibly powerful. Did you know that the faster a person “Gets what you are going after” the more they will remember it?

I was thinking of this book in light of more than just marketing. It also can apply to living solutions. Sometimes doing one simple thing well is better than 10 things done poorly. I am thinking of the way everyone says they multitask . You are doing several things poorly. So that is not really what you wanted to accomplish.

Long summer days afford us the daylight to get more done but maybe it is better to get less done. Just make sure that one thing is done to the very best of your ability. Throughout time, time has been 24 hours a day. Everybody had that much time to do everything.

Elegant living is taking everything out that is unnecessary to your mission statement . You better have a mission statement so you know what to cut out. Painting is like that.  I might work a ton and get just one good painting so I am questioning whether I am working too hard trying to get a result and need to spend more time listening to what the painting is telling me. Frustration and stress are antithesis to elegant living.

Nothing is beautiful unless you can see it. You have to have beautiful looking eyes looking for beauty. I can see something that makes me go crazy it seems so ultra beautiful and someone else can just walk by and see nothing. They are walking with their eyes closed and it is so sad for them.

All the booths at the lavender festival had people in them with things to sell that they had poured out their whole lives into and are sitting in the sun waiting for someone to see them. I try and say one good thing about every booth, even the information booths. I try and see them and why they are there. When I try and see them they always respond and tell me more than I can just see with my eyes.

We buy things because they make us feel good and we feel good about things we understand. So to sell anything you have to be open hearted so I can see what you are. If I like you , I will probably like your stuff. A little girl was walking around at the festival shouting out that you could by CDS of her Dans music. It was so funny that she was doing that but it made me aware of where they were. When her Dad did play the music we loved it and ran right over to purchase the CD.

That 7 year old girl was so bold it made an impact on me. She was putting herself out there.

photo from here

When I lived in San Francisco I used to go to performance art shows. I have never been to one here but there they were a common occurrence. Most of them were pretty meaningless to me. If you can’t understand what the point is, why bother. But Art for Arts sake is common in the ART world. Nobody questions it because they might look like they don’t get it.

I saw a movie that Miranda July made. She is a performance artist that made a movie called “You, and Me and everyone else”. Her work resonated with me in a big way. She talks about people and all the things nobody says out loud. That is what I do in my blog so we are sisters there. Her tender way of doing things speaks like someone whispering in your ear. She has an innovative way of seeing the world and presenting it back to the viewer. Her work makes you think about things you haven’t thought about but maybe should.

Little moments are the sweetest part of life. Little moments we have when we see someone else in a new light. Her work is honest and that is the highest praise for an artist. And you have to think wow some people sure are sensitive to little things that most people overlook at mundane when they really aren’t mundane but beautiful. She is very popular and I can see why. People are hungry for beauty any place they can get it. We are made that way.

The shoe scene