The Power of Now

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The blogging has taken second seat to NaNoWriMo this past month, but that flurry of fictional formulating is now at and end for me. Today is actually the last day of NaNoWriMo, but I finished my story the day before yesterday, with a total word count of 66,333 (a supremely bizarre number, but I'll take it as a good omen). I've submitted my lengthy file to the NaNo website and am a confirmed winner.

Unsuprisingly, this feels incredibly good. First of all, to have written over 66,000 words in twenty-eight days is a major accomplishment. But for me, that wasn't even the best part. The capper for me was actually finishing a novel. I've started novels before; I've even written many, many words and many, many pages of novels before. Three novels, to be exact. But until this very month, I have never before in my life brought a novel-sized story to a full and satisfying ending.

And it all happened rather magically, I must say… Read the rest of this entry »

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I've read a lot of self-help books over the years. I'm always trying to find new ways to get past the obstacles that I place in my own way. Self-sabotage is a nasty critter, and I always have to strategize my way around it. Thankfully, there are a lot of wise and creative people out there who have figured out some interesting strategies.

Probably one of the best "mind" books I've read in the last few years is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Its premise is deceptively simple: We spend way too much of our time living in the either the past or the future, and if we simply stayed in the present moment more, we'd be happier and have less stress.

Let me clarify. When I say we "live in the past" or "live in the future" I mean we dwell on it too much. I don't mean we pop in and out like Henry (see my last post). We just spend a lot of mental energy thinking about things that have happened or worrying about things that might. Read the rest of this entry »

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