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Aspen leaves sparkle in the summer sun

We came to the cabin with a little trepidation, my 85-year-old stepdad, his 70-something sister, (both of them widowed a few years ago) and I, and not without good reason.

Last year the ancient streambed in which the cabin had inadvertently been built by the previous owners (Oops!) came to life again, with water running merrily through the basement a few inches deep.  Fortunately, there had never been much stuff down there except the concrete floor.

We had spent two days working industriously to sweep water out, including me discovering the joy of hip-waders in my efforts to dig out and divert the stream now dallying behind the house, only to discover it was still coming in as fast as we shoveled it out.

So we gave up and let the power of water do its thing.  Two or three weeks later my stepdad had come back and found that all the water had drained out of the house.

This year we heard the snow pack up above in the Snowy Range of Wyoming was absolutely astounding in its hugely above-average level, hence our wariness to return.

Clear the Space goes cabin camping and finds some mud!

Sure enough, I almost got stuck in mud driving up to the house, and the water was there in full force again, several weeks after it normally dries up.  Then my stepdad accidentally ran into my car while trying to make some drainage paths for the water to exit the garage.  We also discovered a break in the water pipe he’d have to fix before we could have running water, a cracked main toilet,  and the mosquito census numbering in the millions.

Pretty much fun, eh? Well, I’m all about looking at things with a different perspective these days, so I reined in the whining before it was even much out of the gate.   I appreciated the warm, dry bed I got to sleep in, the brilliant, brilliant stars in the sky far from the city lights, the aspen leaves twinkling their iridescent green light, and my stepdad still being willing and able to undertake the water line repair.

Did I mention he’s a civil engineer?  Well, oddly enough, I am, too.  We both went to the University of Wyoming and got the same degree, thirty years apart.  We even had one of the same instructors, our survey teacher, Crazy John Hill, who was just beginning his career when my stepdad took his class, and nearly done with it when I did.

I’m also a civil engineer who remembers what happened last year, so I was easily able to resist the temptation to get out there and wear myself out creating little channels and rivulets to help the water along.  Not so my step-aunt.  She’s a kind, helpful sort, and despite some very minor complaining she was out there excavating the wetlands like nobody’s business.   So we’re three for three now, civil engineers all.

We could have been sitting here, but we'd rather play in the mud.

This proves my point, that every one of us, given some minor flooding, or a glorious sunny day with a lot of fast-melting snow ponding up in our streets, is secretly a civil engineer.  We all love to play in the mud and make water run downhill.  It is SO satisfying to see the little dams burst, the trapped water start to sparkle and swirl away, and the danger averted!

Who said camping in a three-bedroom, two-bath cabin wasn’t exciting?  Like, declutter your preconceptions, already!

By the way, if you’re into it, check out my newest book, 100 Ways to Clear the Space for the Best of Your Life:  Part 1-DeClutter and Organize Your Possessions. It’s on Amazon as an e-book, but you don’t need a Kindle to read it.  Plus it’s very inexpensive!

Last week I flew to the Oregon coast to take part in my stepson’s intimate, yet spectacular beach wedding. Just thirty or so friends and family members gathered in the sand by the tiki torches and watched this happy pair of two best friends get married, then troop back up the hill to my dad and stepmom’s vacation home for the reception.

I ended up staying in a neighbor’s perfect little beach cottage which had been rented for the occasion.  Over the door was a simple sign which read “BEACH.”  What a great reminder of all that lay without; the splendor of the ever-changing ocean, the opportunity  to pick up a stray sand-dollar shell, giant kelp, or log brought in by the tide, days full of sun, sand, splashing, and fresh air, a great celebration, and most important the chance to relax, refresh, and leave the stresses of “normal” life behind for a while.

I thought, “Hang on!  That ‘BEACH’ sign brings up so much more than just a smile at the thought of a little sand in your flipflops!”  What if you took the relaxed beach mentality wherever you went?  No more yelling at stupid fellow drivers.  No more griping about your job.  No more kicking yourself for a few mistakes.  It’s all good, man.  Don’t worry.  Be happy.  It’s all beach from here…

You could even hang the sign over your door in the Rockies, and—ditto!  Talk about clearing some emotional space…

I was in a famous throwback hamburger joint a while back, and saw a similar sign over the door leaving the women’s restroom.  It said, simply, “MEN.”  Now there’s a perspective, I thought, to help you keep your perspective, especially when the one man you thought was the only one who would do, just is not doin’ at all.  You go, girlfriend!  Freshen up your lipstick and get on back out there!

“BEACH,” “MEN,” –I’ll say it again, “What’s your sign?”

30 Minutes to Wedding Rehearsal--The wedding party in "Beach" Mode

Long ago a very sage man I new told me that people, both men and women, tend to mellow out after they reach fifty. This was very good news for me. At the time a close associate of mine was so tense and hard-to-get-along-with that I used to regularly grumble to myself that if he didn’t mellow out by 50 I was going to, er……send him rather precipitously to heaven, for his own good.

Luckily for him and my ability to stay out of prison, he did mellow out most egregiously. Phew!

Now, research backs up my sage’s prediction. According to a vast Gallup poll published last year in the New York Times, no matter how you slice it, people tend to become happier and happier after fifty. They start out somewhat worried and unhappy in their twenties, become more and more so in their thirties, reaching a peak in their forties.

Then comes the big five-oh, and it’s PARTY TIME.  Whatever the reasons, whether hormones, or the kids finally getting out on their own, or just general philosophical-ness, me and everyone I know has gotten more and more exhilarated the farther 50 recedes in the rear-view mirror.

Speculation is that people just finally stop doing the things they hate to do, pare down the headlong pursuit of the best of material goods, and giving a rat’s patootie about a whole host of things that used to bother them enormously.

They’ve also come to realize that relationships really do give a lot more long-term satisfaction than most anything else, so they focus on that more and more, which de-clutters a lot of detritus from ourr lives.

So take heart all you poor beleaguered under-fifties!  You’re getting closer and closer to The Happiness years!

My mom saying "After 50 Rocks!"

Everyone has heard some version of the old “you can’t succeed if you don’t make any mistakes, because it means you haven’t taken any action” quote. Yesterday I heard a new twist on the same thought, which blew me away. This person said, ‘If you think mistakes and failures are bad, you’ll never succeed. [Furthermore,] multi-millionaires never look at failures as bad, simply as information.

‘Even if they go bankrupt, which many of them do, they still see it as information, not failure.’ (!!)

Hmm…

I am so ticked off! Why didn’t someone tell me this before? I could have saved the trouble of beating myself up about a hundred seventy thousand times! What a lot of wasted hours.

Plus I could have been much further along the road to multi-millionaire-hood!

(Please don’t talk to me for  a little.  I’m still too P.O.’ed.)  
Photo credit: Tolea from morguefile.com

Even though the holidays have dwindled to a dull roar now, I have to pass along the perfect summary I came across after the New Year. Someone called it “The Holiday  Freakout.”  Exactly! I thought.  What better way to describe the delirium that comes over December, and convinces millions that they can’t move a muscle in any professional capacity ’til “after the holidays.”

Does your mind go a little psycho when you think of the holidays?

It’s not as though they come as a surprise every year…always the same time. Wouldn’t be totally out of the question to plan ahead a little, buy a few gifts throughout the year, decide to maximally down-grade the festivities to a cherished few activities, eh? However, I’m not here to lecture about that, seeing as how I could say I was similarly putting things off till Jan. this year–just point out the obvious:

One of my friends was wandering around in a daze at the Colorado Athletic Club, saying “I just can’t seem to focus” [due to the holidays.] I said, “That’s because you think you can’t.” She’s normally a little on the dreamy side anyway, but  at that, she snapped to attention, gazed at me intently, grabbed my hand in a firm, one-pump handshake and said “Thank you!!“

Odds are she was thinking of Christmases past and future, instead of the current moment, which consisted of just having finished Bob Gaas’ neuro-kinetics class (spine-restorative exercises about as brutal as yoga on Quaaludes), and a trip to the whirlpool in the women’s locker room in the near future–not too stressful.  She could just as well have been enjoying herself.

How many gazillion times a day do we psych ourselves out with these preconceived notions that just fence us in? Probably a lot. My only New Year’s resolution for 2010 was to discontinue jumping to conclusions. I was challenged from one end of the year to the other on that, but I kept gamely on, and think I can report, with some satisfaction, that I made some progress!

Jumping to conclusions is part of the continuum that starts with preconceptions, except it’s more short-fuse, creative, and thrillingly scary. But, brother, is it time-consuming! It needs to end if I’m going to keep life fresh and fun, which is my preference.

Perhaps I’ll graduate to “keep an open mind” for 2011.

I just got a challenge on that one. A client called and commented that it’s nice once a year to let yourself take a break and not feel you have to be productive 365 days per. “I’ll buy that,” I thought, “as long as you agree to relax and enjoy the break, and not worry about the presents!”

Seeing as how I’m one of those people who spend regular time pondering the meaning of life and the nature of God, you can bet I was stumped about how to approach the practice of affirmations/prayer.  Is it best to pray for everything you want, relying on God for all things (with taking the appropriate God-directed action, of course.  I’m of the ‘God helps those who help themselves’ brand)?

This has the problem of viewing God as sort of a divine vending machine, thus I’m not sure quite accurate.

God as a Divine Vending Machine? Maybe better to clear that notion from your mind.

Then there’s the advice from approximately every self-help system known to humankind to: State your affirmations (what you want to happen) in the present tense as though you already have it, such as “I earn $122,000 a year.”, then let the Universe bring it to you. And, of course, you’ll take the actions your intuition senses the Universe is strongly suggesting to you.

What kicks this one in the rear is the tiny voice in your head saying “Ha! No, you don’t!  Fool!”

How happy I was recently to find this excellent middle ground. The seeker believed God advised the best way to handle the situation: Say “Thank you, God, for the success in my life.”

Bingo! I thought. It covers all the bases. It gets you into gratitude mode, which EVERYBODY says is the way to go. And, we’ve all had at least some success in life, so we don’t have to feel like liars.

Wanting to leave no stone unturned, I, of course, extrapolated some, and added a couple more: “Thank you, God, for the love in my life,” and “Thank you, God, for the financial abundance in my life.”

Simple template, and, not only have all those things started going better for me, but I get a little endorphin rush (buzz) every time I say one of them, so I’ve got instant access to free bliss-on-demand.

Glad I could clear that up for myself and all y’all.  Feel free to declutter and donate all your self-help books….:-)

As I lay awake in my tent waiting for the bear to come (see last post), I also had time to ponder how tragedy changes your perspective on the annoyingness of your fellow humans. I hadn’t been camping for many years, and it had probably been decades since I camped in a state park, complete with hot and cold running water in the heated, lighted restrooms, and lots of company.

Especially I noted the campground bristling with RV’s, which had been the exception rather than the rule last time I chanced to sojourn in the organized outdoor experience. Whereas before I would have scorned these ponderous gas guzzlers, with their built-in light and sound systems, this time I was comforted by the porchlight left on all night at a nearby trailer, which cast lightly-dancing leaf shadows on my tent to entertain my vigil.

I was even a little jealous of their hard-sided homes away from home, keeping them safe from the wild, which had recently shown how unsafe it could be.

Instead of resenting my fellow campers carousing around the campfire till lights-out at 10 pm (Whee!), laughing, talking, roasting marshmallows, and possibly even drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, I was silently rooting them on-”Go ahead, keep partying, get us closer to morning!”-like a kidlet falling asleep to the sounds of her parents’ happy shindig.

But it was the little kids and their parents padding over to the restrooms in their jammies to brush their teeth that totally disarmed me from my former people-snobbery. I realized that here, at least, in the campground, people still felt safe from each other, that fellow campers are trustworthy.

No doubt they would band together to help each other in case danger from the outside threatened. I knew any of the RV’ers I would have once felt completely alienated from (We are talking decades here, folks, from my idealist youth, so don’t judge too harshly.) would have pulled me in to safety had I been heading back to my campsite at the wrong moment.

I realized how much we really are in it together. Despite our diverse camping and living styles, we’re more like one big organism with a lot of different heads, than we are separate entities, and that can be pretty reassuring when you’re lying there awake in your tent, or your house at night, waiting for morning….

Relish the gift of time

Making a little sign for my office wall with this reminder in song “Seasons of Love” – from the play/movie Rent, about how many little treasures of time we get each year. When I glance at it I get a gentle nudge to get on with the task at hand, rather than squander too much time in hamster-wheel-type endless loop thoughts and actions that go nowhere.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for taking a break and kicking back to recharge regularly. I just want to make sure that’s really what I’m doing when I wander into a daze, rather than avoiding something I’m procrastinating on.

Learning the new, unfamiliar skill, taking care of sometimes-unpleasant business with dispatch, and working my way through a tricky assignment or business strategy session can drag on if I let it, getting in the way of all the creative and satisfying undertakings I could accomplish with those 525,600.

It goes right next to the “You go, girl!” sign–and is my way of fighting the much-ingrained tendency to drag my feet like well-contained 7-year-old, instead of the exuberant “I-can-do-anything!” 4-year-old I once was.

The gift of those minutes was brought home to me a few days ago, along a stretch of highway in Brighton, Colorado where the speed limit abruptly changes from 65 mph to stoplight.  I slowed and stopped for the yellow-to-red light, dubiously noting the tanker truck traveling a little too close for comfort behind me, and having time only to mentally cross my fingers.

In a second the trucker had swerved around me into the left turn lane, run through the intersection and red light and continued down the road. I didn’t even have time to be scared, and my life could have been over. Later I was glad the trucker was a good enough driver to make the dodge, since he clearly wasn’t going to stop for the light…

What with one thing and another, I’ve been hanging around people addicted to a variety of things, including work, for the last thirty years.  They’ve all been some of smartest people I’ve ever met.

And, guess what?  They all had dismal childhoods, from which they learned early on to be totally self-sufficient, and not accept or ask for help from anyone!

“Cigarettes are my friends!” they may say, laughing, but deep down, they mean it.  ”Cigarettes” are what they can count on, not people.

On the flip side are the superstars of life, who’ve learned to focus all their work on the one thing they do best, delegating everything else.  Which means they have to ask for help, and they get very rich doing it.

Rats!  I hate that rock-and-hard-place thing!

If your friend is an addict of some kind, encourage him/her to allow you to be of assistance from time to time; if you yourself are the one stuck on Stubborn Independence, this is one load of baggage it’s good to lose.  Find small, non-scary ways to reach out and trust your future staff.  We need your brilliance, and you may appreciate the bucks!