a way of being
a way of seeing
a way of doing
a way of not doing
a way of experiencing
a way of experimenting
discovery and actualization
awareness and realization
a lifestyle and an attitude
continually renewed
Off the beaten path is so much more than a place. It is a mindset that transforms place.
Your beaten path is there in the patterns of the dialogue you have with your ego. You can find it in your habits and routines, your beliefs and predicable reactions to life.
Get off it.
Assumptions close the door to possibilities, even probabilities, without thinking.
While they reassure you by presenting themselves as friends and enablers, they are unreliable and will turn on you when you least expect it.
Mix things up. Move them around. You may even want to mix them down.
Put yourself in a new point of view. Touch things in a different way. Change your mind about whether they stay.
By the time we are three years old, we know the power of 'why' but often never even think of asking, 'why, not.'
In the same way that 'why' excels at excluding, 'why not' excels at including.
Expectations are blind. They are unwilling to listen. They are inherently limited and limiting. They have no curiosity.
They are the enemies of truth and life and transparency. They are fatal to dreams and relationships.
You know what sucks? Sucking at something you want to be good at. Beginning is what makes you aware of your ignorance. Aware of the suck.
Anything you do is a skill. Skills can always be improved. You don't have to suck, but it's always good to suck at something. Keep on beginning.
Cultivate your imagination, your sense of possibilities. Openness to change is openness to opportunity. Or is it openness to opportunity is openness to change?
Ideas are not possessions, they thrive when they are shared. You thrive when you share them. Old ideas will lead you to new ideas and new perspectives if you hold them loosely.
Every game has rules. Change the rules and you have a new game.
Changing the game changes outcomes. Changing the game changes the way you do things. Changing the game changes why you do what you do. Change the game to a game you want to play.
Time disappears. There is only the doing. You doing what you are doing. No pressure. Just the joy of doing.
Everything that is is all that is. Nothing exists. There is you and the doing. Here. Now.
Everything that is is all that is. Nothing exists. There is you and the doing. Here. Now.
Everything you think you know is wrong, you just don't know enough to know what you don't know. You must let go of what you think you know.
The certainty of knowing is a limitation, a restraint more than a constraint. Make the space and time in which you can know you don't know.
Curiosity must be a verb. Making it a noun makes it so passive, so uninvolved, lacking engagement. Make it a verb. Do it.
You have to do curiosity, not just observe it. It isn't happening outside you. You are not separate from it. Get involved with it. Say, 'I don't know,' and go from there. Do curiosity. Curiosify.
The moment is always now.
It's the only time that exists.
You can only breathe now. Living is now.Breathe in the moment.
It's the only time that exists.
Listening more is just a start. It's a good start, but it's only a start. Most of what is worth listening to isn't being said. We do a lot of talking, we even talk to ourselves, but most of it is completely unnecessary.
There is music. There is nature. There is all the noise we make as humans in our busyness and our hustle-bustle. There are feelings and insights that can't be expressed in words.
Children take their play seriously; they make their fun serious. It's a bit trickier to turn it around. But not much.
Play with everything. Play with nothing. Everything you do can be work or play. Play is a lot more fun.
Play when you work. Get good at it. Enjoy it. Share the joy.
The world would have you do so many things you can't do, but seldom encourages you to do the things you can't not do.
But doing what you can't not do is how we get to know who we are, what we are capable of, and what it takes to do what must be done.
No matter where you are, you are always here. You are always here now. Now is the time to begin. Where you are is the place to begin.
A beginning is always an ending. It's an endless process. It is what is and it is only accessible where you are now.
coming soon to beginnersmind
