Remember Always - Day 106 - Daily Haiku - Smartphone Photography

Remember always
what goes around comes around
hoarding restricts flow

Cori MacNaughton

So what does a male cardinal have to do with hoarding and flow? Not a blessed thing, except that I thought most people would far rather see him than my messy (read: piled high) desk.

I know a lot of Steemians have recently been sharing their work spaces, but I'm not planning to do so until I do some serious unshoveling first. I seriously need some decent book shelves. Like a hundred of them. ;-)

In any case, this lovely gent greeted me several days ago, when I was returning to the main house from taking the goats from their stall for the day, and proceeded to serenade me and the barnyard as I photographed him, clearly drawing attention away from his nearby ladylove and their nest. I've always loved cardinals. We had them nesting near us in Florida as well.

Last night I was listening to a talk by Neale Donald Walsch, on the topic of business and finance, and was reminded that one of the errors most people make about money is that it arrives as the result of effort.

All we need to do is to look around us to see that this is often not the case: from the idle class, which unfortunately includes most of our elected officials, to athletes, actors and rock stars; who as Walsch correctly surmises, are not so much paid for what they do, but for who they are being.

Which is where the logic - and it is logic - of "Follow Your Bliss" comes from in the first place.

Many people have a belief that if they get (name your monetary or material goal), then, and only then, they will be happy. And then they achieve that goal, whatever it was, only to discover that not only did it not make them happy, but that they are instead in an ongoing cycle of dissatisfaction.

Whereas, if they simply choose to be happy, regardless of outside circumstances, they are far more likely to achieve their goals, and gain whatever material goals they set out for themselves.

And yet, time and again, if these same people are told that the solution is so simple, as in ridiculously simple, they will fight tooth and nail, protest to the high heavens, and maintain for all that they are worth that it simply CANNOT be so simple . . . while giving precisely zero evidence to the contrary.

It can't be that simple because then they would have to take responsibility for their own actions and thinking. Ouch.

Our parents may have taught us that if we work really hard, we'll be successful, but if as in so many cases it didn't work for them, then why should we continue to listen to such obviously flawed logic? And, even in cases where it did work, are there better ways of achieving the same thing, as in working smarter, not harder?

I was lucky, in that I learned early on that being happy was a choice, and was not in any way dictated by my outside circumstances. I remember when I was still in high school, reading an article in the L.A. Times that stated that, by the simple act of smiling, our brains release endorphins that actually make us feel better; and so I made a choice.

First, I would consciously smile more often, which was not difficult, as I prefer smiling to frowning. And second, I would consciously choose to be happy, no matter what was going on around me, because I could. Which was also not difficult for me, as I was seventeen, we were about to move to the beach for me to attend college, and I had a lot to be happy about. Life is wonderful.

And, interestingly, I quickly found that my life became easier to navigate, things became easier in general, I ran into far fewer obstacles, and my life ran far more smoothly than those of my friends and family members who were not making the choices to simply smile and be happy.

And, really, is that so surprising? Doesn't it make good sense that, by choosing to smile and be happy, life automatically becomes easier?

As for flow, that is why tithing is so very powerful, because in paying forward 10% of our income, whether to a church, charity or whatever inspires us, it is a means of initiating the flow of money. And flow equals momentum, and momentum once started tends to continue, drawing more in its wake.

And yeah, I'm talking like a sailor again, but you get my drift. ;-)

When my dad died, and then my sister and my mom, in each case I inherited "stuff" that belonged to them. And in some cases this "stuff" is housed in boxes that I've quite literally never opened since. Which is, in a very real sense, stopping flow.

So fast forward to today, six years after moving to Tennessee, and I still have some boxes that haven't been opened since my divorce, two moves and well over a decade ago. This needs to change. Now.

My former spouse used to describe himself as "a clean freak with messy tendencies," which I love, because it describes me as well. I would love to live in a spare Zen space. But, like the old George Carlin routine, I have way too much "stuff" to allow that to happen. Yet.

So I've made a new choice. Every day for the next week, I am going to fill a box of stuff to give away. In the process, I will also be separating out stuff to keep, sell, and pass along to family members and loved ones. And hopefully, in a relatively short period of time, in the process, I will declutter our space, find my floors again, and raise a little needed cash.

My goal is to go through every single box I own by the end of summer, to have a place for everything and everything in its place by that time. I imagine that I will also greatly decrease my own stress in the process, in large part because I will no longer be surrounded by boxes, but instead by the beautiful and valuable things I have chosen to keep, while letting go - literally, figuratively and physically - of those things that no longer serve me; if, in fact, they ever did.

Wish me luck. ;-)

If you enjoyed this post, please Upvote and Resteem it to share with others!
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Some of my recent posts:

Spring Flowers Are Here - Day 105 - Daily Haiku - Landscape Photography on our farm
Only in the South - Day 104 - Daily Haiku - Original Photography, funny
Moon is Nearly Full - Day 103 - Daily Haiku - Night Landscape Photography
Radical Love - Original Poetry - Night Landscape Photography
Hi Little Kitty - Day 102 - Daily Haiku
Battle - Lunatic Soul - My personal favorite song from the recent album, "Fractured"
Barn Cat Candidate - Day 101 - Daily Haiku
One Hundred Days On - Day 100 - Daily HaikuCoupling - British TV Series - Intelligent, Irreverent and Hilarious
Feeling My Power - Day 99 - Daily Haiku - My Entry for the TeamGirlPowa Feminist Fire Poetry Competition
One of Our Small Businesses at Crescendo of Peace – www.AquaTrust.org - Part 2
One of Our Small Businesses at Crescendo of Peace – www.AquaTrust.org - Part 1

art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics

art and flair courtesy of @PegasusPhysics

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All words and images are my own.

The photo of the cardinal by our barnyard I took with my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 smart phone.

The photo of our dog, Lolo, and our late cat, Miod, I took as they were cooperatively begging at the dinner table, despite our longstanding rule of not feeding them from the table.

You can see how much that deterred them both.

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