A Livable Place

Snowman outside my yard.
Yesterday morning I woke up to a few inches of snow on the ground. This was the first snow of winter and everything was brighter like it always is with fresh snow. The crisp air was great and I was in a good mood as I walked out to my car to leave for work.

On the short walk across the street I saw a father and daughter out playing in the snow. They had built a snowman, making the best of rare snowman making snow in Colorado. This vision made my day even better. It was a simple reminder that I live in a place of not only cars, but people. There is life in every house around us and sometimes we get to see little glimpses of the people there.

I thought of how I have lived here for a couple of years and barely know my neighbors. Most of my interactions with the people who live near me have been either around yard sales or when one or more of us spends time in our driveways repairing our cars. It gives me a pleasant feeling when, on a warm summer day, a few of us are out in front of our garages doing maintenance.

As I was about to pull out, my neighbor, who I have never conversated with, walked by on his daily morning stroll. Encouraged by the snowman, I stopped him and we chatted for a little while about the neighborhood and neighborly relations. It was a wonderful connection to make at the beginning of my day.

What do you do to make more and better connections with the people around you?
Is knowing the people around you important to your life?

The Year of Intensity – Pain

For the year of 2015 I did something for the first time in my life. It is interesting that I have never done this before as this seems to be a common thing for others to do. I have inwardly scoffed at people who do this and not seen the value, but this year I decided to go ahead.

What I did was set a purpose for the year. This year is The Year of Intensity. The year when I move out of my auto pilot and start living life as a fuller experience. My plan at the start of the year was to open myself up to experiences that I normally avoid; knowing well that this might be painful.

Painful in a way that I am usually uncomfortable with. Painful in a way that I avoid at all cost. Painful in a way that drives me to make bad decisions and crawl into my shell on most days.

The pain is a mental pain. The pain that comes from taking a hard look at myself and exploring my failures, the pain that comes from conflict, from thinking that the person across from me may not love me anymore because I disagree with them, the pain that comes from believing that other people think I am stupid. The pain – the agony that I have avoided at all costs.

I don’t welcome this pain yet, but I don’t fear it as badly. It now enters my life with a purpose, as an important element in my search for who and what I can be. I see that the pain has a purpose and it is to be explored, not avoided. Why is this painful? How painful is it? What can I learn from this feeling and the causes of it?

After over a half a year on this journey, I finally write about it. I will share more of this journey for the remainder of the year and for now I am happy that I have started sharing.

It All Starts Here

Welcome to my musings. I have created a few personal sites for me before, none of which are still live and I look forward to bringing what I have learned since then to this new platform.

I will post both personal and professional content here and use categories and tags to help you, dear reader, find what you are interested in.

Thank you for stopping by!

Cheers,

Orri