Tag: Urge

Getting Rid Of Stuff…

February 19, 2013

Four and a half years ago, I embarked on my grand mid-life crisis adventure that took me from West Toluca Lake CA (aka North Hollywood or NoHo) to Eastport, ME to Amesbury, MA all with in the time frame of 7 months. It wasn’t the plan, the plan was to stay in Eastport, ME, but for a variety of reasons, the plan took it’s own turn back south again and brought me back to the river, the Merrimack River where I grew up. There’s been two more moves since I landed back here on the wrong side of the Merrimack River in Amesbury, MA and I’m now preparing to move again, to a new place, a place where for the first time in almost 24 years, my daughter will have never lived. It’ll going to be my place, I’m feeling the urge to lighten the load.

I dragged across country every thing that would fit in a 6′ x 12″ trailer only to fill a UHaul truck when I left Eastport, ME for Massachusetts. The load has gotten heavier, yet and it’s time to give it up and admit, I am a stuff person.

But, I don’t want to be so much of a stuff person anymore. I need to give some stuff up, let it go, pass it along, leave it behind. It’s a new life for me, living alone for the first time in 24 years and it’s time to introduce a fresh frame of mind with a some fresh feels in my home.

I’m looking at my bulletin board filled with years of fun while living in Los Angeles, as my daughter was growing up. It’s a precious part of the pest that needs to get packed away safely in an envelope with the dates on it. There’s a new bulletin board to begin now. Sometimes you know when stuff needs to get packed away to a special place to keep it safe.

Sometimes it’s so good to just say, I don’t need or want that stuff anymore. It’s just stuff. And, hey… There’s always more stuff out there to acquire… Around here, you can drive down the road and find some good free stuff on the side of the road. There’s plenty of stuff to go around. I’m letting go of some of my stuff, since I’m moving again. And it feels good to let it go!

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Food For Thought: Problems

February 2, 2012

When we have problems, issues in our lives, we must choose to solve those problems by facing them head on and making the effort to understand the problem…

“The mere desire to resolve a problem is an escape from the problem, is it not? I haven’t gone into the problem, I haven’t studied it, explored it, understood it. I don’t know the beauty or the ugliness or the depth of the problem; my only concern is to resolve it, put it away. This urge to resolve a problem without having understood it is an escape from the problem – and therefore it becomes another problem. Every escape breeds further problems.” ~~ Talks by Krishnamurti in Saanen, 1964

We can not escape our problems, as J. Krishnamurti points out above, because in attempting to escape our problems we simply create more problems. And then our problems compound on top of each other and we create a proverbial mountain from a mole hill.

When there is conflict in our lives, J. Krishnamurti asserts that “conflict becomes more and more complex and insoluble because we do not face what is.” As Krishnamurti goes on to say, “There is no complexity in what is, but only in the many escapes that we seek.”

It’s one thing to take time to reflect on our problems and go deep inside our hearts and minds to question and find solution, but we cannot and we must not use escapism as route to “solve” our problems.

Communication with one’s self and others involved in problems that arise in our lives, is the key to solving our problems. We must shut out the ego that gives us false fear driven solutions and listen deeply to the open heart.