30 Days challenge 30, Future self

Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Imagine your future self, ie, you 10 years from now. If he/she were to send you a tweet or text message, 1) what would it say and 2) how would that transform your life or change something you’re doing, thinking, believing or saying today?

First of all; I'm not good at those 140 character limit on Twitter and my future self wouldn't be either I suppose. She would write me a long app probably and scare the hell out of me or would she?
Would it change my life or what I'm doing now? Probably not. I think things in life go as they are supposed to go and my future self would too. She knows better then to interfere in things in the past as well. What good would that do? If she could do that she wouldn't text the me 10 years from her past to my now but she would sent a message or letter to the me long before that! But I know she wouldn't, she knows better than to interfere in things that are supposed to happen in a natural order. Our life motto is after all;

Everything happens for a reason.

--

I really enjoyed writing these challenges again. I think I'm going to look for other challenges to continue working on my self. It helps to keep me grounded, if only for a little while.

© KH

30 Days Challenge 29, Alive

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. If we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

When did you feel most alive recently? Where were you? What did you smell? What sights and sounds did you experience? Capture that moment on paper and recall that feeling. Then, when it’s time to create something, read your own words to reclaim a sense of being to motivate you to complete a task at hand.


That's easy; I'm most alive when I'm in Scotland and recently I was in Edinburgh with my sister and I really felt alive there. It's my home (away from home) it's where I feel most alive.
Because I was in the city I didn't smell the nature and clean air you normally smell but it's Scottish air, and hard to explain, but different. :) I feel more me when I'm there, more alive and present more ... I just can't explain it. It's just something I always feel over there. I have wrote many a blog about it and many feelings on 'paper' about it. But this is something that explains it best;



Scotland

In a landscape of
Rolling green hills
With majestic pine trees
Where the fog
Comes rolling slowly
On gentle slopes
And sparkling lochs
Where crows
Are scrathing their cries
Thin and desperate
As lost souls
I stand silently, enjoying
And thanking in silence
Mother Earth

© KH

30 Days challenge 28, Personal recipe

I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think about the type of person you’d NEVER want to be 5 years from now. Write out your own personal recipe to prevent this from happening and commit to following it. “Thought is the seed of action.”

Hub and I were just discussing this on a party we went to the other week. There were some people we knew well and they started a discussion about our lives, about hub's mother being in a home and where her assets were going to go to and her things in her house. Why we didn't try to go live in the house and how we defenitely should not sell the house but rent it until his mother should die. Then they turned to me and started to have the same old discussion about my ex and our divorce arrangement. That I should never have exepted those terms because he never pays for his kids or me etc etc. I should again acording to them, make a legal case of it.

When hub and I finally got home we were exhausted! Right then and there we promised each other to never ever let ourselves become like those people; only looking with money in those eyes, seeing the world through means and greed other than personal growth or bettering it through doing good just for no reason at all.
When I put my couch outside a few weeks back and not sell it, just because I thought someone else could have a perfectly good couch and be happy with it I got the same respons from the very same people. I was out of my mind! I should sell it and get a couple of hundred euros (if I could get it at all). The woman who rang my doorbell later to thank me for the couch made me feel a whole lot better than those euros would I can tell you that!

So my personal recipe is to never become a greedy person who only thinks of means or money instead of other people's happiness and your own. To not become a negative person or an energy sucking one! Those are the worst!
Or as John Assarf says it:
“I just do not hang around anybody that I don’t want to be with. Period. For me, that’s been a blessing, and I can stay positive. I hang around people who are happy, who are growing, who want to learn, who don’t mind saying sorry or thank you… and [are] having a fun time.”

© KH 

30 Days Challenge 27, Call to arms

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What if today, right now, no jokes at all, you were actually in charge, the boss, the Head Honcho. Write the “call to arms” note you’re sending to everyone (staff, customers, suppliers, Board) charting the path ahead for the next 12 months and the next 5 years. Now take this manifesto, print it out somewhere you can see, preferably in big letters you can read from your chair.
You’re just written your own job description. You know what you have to do. Go!
(bonus: send it to the CEO with the title “The things we absolutely have to get right – nothing else matters.”)

Note: What we need to do right soley depends on our government and it's cutbacks on the healtcare system here but just imagine that this weren't the case (if only).

From this day on we're only going to focus on the elderly clients and they're needs. If the government says they should stay home longer than we should make certain they can stay home longer. We must focus on making them happy, healthy elderly people. Try to help them where ever we can but if they are still able to help around their home let them do so. Go for long walks with them, sit down and talk to them! There are some who don't see any other person than you for a whole week, so if they want to talk, talk!
There are more elderly each year, people are getting older. Does that mean we just should cut back on healthcare for the elderly? The same elderly people who helped build up the country and the healthcare system? So not to benifit from it now? That doesn't seem fair at all. Those are the people who nurtured us so let's nurture them now. Give them what they need and take care of them. Show them our appreciation and our love.

© KH

30 Days Challenge 26, Ordinary

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are our most potent at our most ordinary. And yet most of us discount our “ordinary” because it is, well, ordinary. Or so we believe. But my ordinary is not yours. Three things block us from putting down our clever and picking up our ordinary: false comparisons with others (I’m not as good a writer as _____), false expectations of ourselves (I should be on the NYTimes best seller list or not write at all), and false investments in a story (it’s all been written before, I shouldn’t bother). What are your false comparisons? What are your false expectations? What are your false investments in a story? List them. Each keep you from that internal knowing about which Emerson writes. Each keeps you from making your strong offer to the world. Put down your clever, and pick up your ordinary.

I don't know but I probably have put down every false expectation already. I love to write, that's the reason why I keep at it. Writing fanfiction does that for you, your expectations aren't that high anymore, you write just as much for yourself as for others who will read it. I don't have the expectation I will be a famous writer one day or a published one. I know that there are better writers but I also know that I am not that bad, there are worse writers as well! If I read my own short stories sometimes and the twists and turns a story makes I am sometimes surprised at my own writing and wonder why I can't make it through a novel. Why I can't make it even through a longer fanfic with multiple chapters? I think it's because I don't have the patience (yet) and give a lot of the story away too early, or am too hasty to start another one.
The way I work isn't the way others work. I know that. I don't sit on a story for weeks or months on end. I sit down, start writing and the story comes and writes itself. I often don't know myself how it's going to end when I begin writing it. But when it's finished I am often pleasantly surprised at how it has ended.
You should never compare yourself to others I think. You are you and so is your writing. As Daan once said to me; You are writing for yourself first and foremost.
That's true of course; If anyone wants to read it, fine, but you want to write it and that's more important.

© KH

30 Days Challenge 25, Intuition

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you could picture your intuition as a person, what would he or she look like? If you sat down together for dinner, what is the first thing he or she would tell you?

Even though my former blog doesn't excist anymore I can remember this prompt. I can even remember which person I chose as the face of my intuition. Brigid is a Celtic triple goddess ruling healing, poetry, and smithcraft. She is one of the great mothers of the Celts.

What would she say to me when we could talk?
To listen to myself more, to her cause she's my intuition. To listen and act more on what I feel inside and not think I can't do that. If I feel something strongly it must matter, it certainly matters more than what other people are feeling or thinking. She would say that I am considering other peoples feelings more than my own. I too am important. She would say that if I keep sweeping my own feelings under the carpet like that, I will get sick inside, it will keep on hurting and one day I will have to pay the price for that.
I know she's right of course but it's so much more difficult than she's saying. She understands that but she's tougher than I am.
She leans over to me, looks me in the eyes and again reminds me that I do matter! That I need to listen to myself (her) more.
And once again I find myself promising I will and we both know it's an empty promise. She shakes her head in sadness, puts her hand on mine and says she will try to remind me over and over again until I get it. I nod, she's right of course I know she is. I feel it in my gut. I hurt inside for a reason. It's starting all over again and I don't know how to stop it. 'You don't' she says, 'you just let it and see where it brings you'.
'But what if'? I say. 'There are no 'what if's'' she says 'you just do what your gut tells you to' I feel the tears well up in my eyes and when I look up to face her, I see that she has left...
She knows I got the message. 

© KH

30 Days Challenge 24, Connect

Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Who is one person that you’ve been dying to connect with, but just haven’t had the courage to reach out to? First, reflect on why you want to get in touch with them. Then, reach out and set up a meeting.


There is no one really. I find that the older I get the more of a loner/hermit I am becoming and that I really don't mind at all. I connect with a lot of online friends every single day so I am certainly not lonely. That's probably the beauty of Social Media as well. You never have to feel lonely; there's always someone available for a chat.
I have learned that often Social Media friends are more real and true than 'real' friends are. There were real friends have let me down in the past, the social media ones have stuck by me. It's under different circumstances you meet but still it's ever so real. If I want to connect and meet someone it's all those friends I've made through Social media! Those are my true friends who are really so dear to me!

© KH

30 Days Challenge 23, Enthusiasm

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. 
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

 
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” is a great line from Emerson. If there’s no enthusiasm in what you do, it won’t be remarkable and certainly won’t connect with people on an emotional basis. But, if you put that magic energy into all of your work, you can create something that touches people on a deeper level. How can you bring MORE enthusiasm into your work? What do you have to think or believe about your work to be totally excited about it? Answer it now.

Unfortunately Daan has given up on challenging herself but I won't. Maybe the challenges are repetive but we knew that before we started. I think they made them so with a purpose.
So I'll go on with enthusiasm the same one I have when I work/write.
I believe that you have to have love what you are doing every day or you be miserable every single day in your life. Whether that's in your work or in your personal life you have to love what you do. (making a bridge here) Daan doesn't love doing the challenges, so she shouldn't. I love to challenge myself and see what I can do more to better myself or to learn from myself or others. If you do things simply to please others you should not do them! Only do what you love to, with enthusiasm. Writing is that for me. Writing is like breathing to me. If I don't write I don't live.
I can only hope that what I create is touching people...

But also in my work with the elderly I can put my enthusiasm at work. Just this morning I comforted a lady who recently lost her husband. It's sad but I'm happy to be able to be there at that time for her. To make her smile again even if it's for a little while.

© KH

30 Days Challenge 22, Life

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

We live in a society of advice columns, experts and make-over shows. Without even knowing it, you can begin to believe someone knows better than you how to live your life. Someone might know a particular something better – like how to bake a three-layer molten coconut chocolate cake or how to build a website – but nobody else on the planet knows how to live your life better than you. (Although one or two people may think they do.) For today, trying asking yourself often, especially before you make a choice, “What do I know about this?”


Oh there have been so many people who wanted to tell me how to live my life. Maybe there are still one or two. People just who think what I should do. They just do not know how it is to live with a partner with autism and it's soooo easy for them to say!
Do I know how to live my life? I may know how to but I may not always act on it and I know that. I divert from my path often only to look back and see that I'm not on the path I was going for. I will stop and think and search for my path again to go further on it. Why did I let myself go on the wrong path in the first place? Often it is because I let myself get distracted from things that happen here in my home most times with my autistic partner. I can yell to myself that I shouldn't let it bother me, or let it distract me or put me off my path but it happens. Every time I feel good about where I'm going, something will happen with him that puts me a few steps back. I can say to myself 'today I will choose for myself' but I just can't. I'm not a selfish person. He was never raised to do things by himself, well of course the basics but harder decisions which he needs to discuss first he just can't. It will always end up in me diverting from my path and becoming an anxious person again.

A few years ago one of the phychologists who was supposed to help him said I was supposed to be guiding him for the rest of his life. When I said I wasn't planning on it, that he was very capable of doing that on his own if taught right, the man looked at me as if I was a down right hag. Of course we women know that every man has to be guided somewhat ;-) but autistic men have to be guided to an extant that it can cost you your relationship! I never thought it might, but it does. I already had one divorce I don't intend to have another. But to say it is hard is an understatement. You have to fight hard to stay sane first and foremost.

So plan a life? Make a choice? I know there is one but that's not one I am willing to make again. Even though I am feeling I am losing myself again sometimes and I am straying form my path and can see the vultures sitting on the trees waiting for me to fall down and give up. I won't give up, not again! I will fight for myself. If I fall I will get up and crawl if I have to!

© KH

30 Days Challenge, 21 ; Speak less

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know I. 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today's Challenge;

I once received a fortune cookie that read: “Speak less of your plans, you’ll get more done.” What’s one project that you’ve been sitting on and thinking about but haven’t made progress on? What’s stopping you? What would happen if you actually went for it and did it?

For a while now I am sort of working on writing a novel. I have always been writing for as long as I can remember, but only short stories and poems never anything long. Lately I've been kind of derived from that by writing fanfiction. Yes, really. Not that it is bad or anything. I rather enjoy doing that and that is what really matters I think in writing. Enjoying what you're doing. But the novel is still waiting. I think I have maybe one chapter, maybe more, of it.

What would happen if I actually went for it and did it? Well I don't know, I'm not one that thinks it would actually be published or anything. I do think however I'm better in short stories. But maybe, just maybe I should let others who actually know that, be the judge of that and just finish one already.

© KH

You can also read what Daan has to say about it

30 Days Challenge 20, Facing

Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trusting intuition and making decisions based on it is the most important activity of the creative artist and entrepreneur. If you are facing (and fearing) a difficult life decision, ask yourself these three questions:

1) “What are the costs of inaction?” I find it can be helpful to fight fear with fear. Fears of acting are easily and immediately articulated by our “lizard brains” (thanks Seth) e.g. what if I fail? what if I look stupid? If you systematically and clearly list the main costs of inaction, they will generally overshadow your immediate fears.

2) “What kind of person do I want to be?” I’ve found this question to be extremely useful. I admire people who act bravely and decisively. I know the only way to join their ranks is to face decisions that scare me. By seeing my actions as a path to becoming something I admire, I am more likely to act and make the tough calls.

3) “In the event of failure, could I generate an alterative positive outcome?” Imagine yourself failing to an extreme. What could you learn or do in that situation to make it a positive experience? We are generally so committed to the results we seek at the outset of a task or project that we forget about all the incredible value and experience that comes from engaging the world proactively, learning, and improving our circumstances as we go along.

I am an extremely lazy person. The thing is I don't even mind being lazy, I'm to lazy to mind my own laziness. But yes it can hold me back in some ways I'm sure. I could be so much more than I am now. I could study, do a job where I don't have to clean people's houses all day. There's nothing wrong with that, certainly not, but because of my laziness I could be more than I am today.

Even my youngest son has this problem. He's finishing his cooking education this year and doesn't want to continue in it, so he needs a new one. But he really doesn't know which one. He is too lazy to look online at websites for information but he is also too lazy to visit schools info-days. He is so uncertain about what he wants. Choosing something you want on a whim isn't good either so I suggested he'll work for a year and meanhwile figure out what he wants, it worked out fine for my oldest son. But no lazying around!
I think the fear of the unknown is something of an issue as well.

© KH

30 Days Challenge, 19 Dreams

Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down your top three dreams. 
Now write down what’s holding you back from them.


Even though I find these challenges very repetitive I think they made them so on purpose, for us to learn, or to find out more about ourselves so instead of skipping them like Daan does I will suck it up and do them.. (reluctantly I might add) 

1. Becoming a writer.
2. Living in Scotland.
3. Living more healthy and less stressful.

With all of these dreams the same things apply; nothing is holding me back. First of all I do consider myself already a writer only not a published one, second to be able to go live in Scotland I do have to have considerable means which I do not have right now, or have to work more jobs than I can handle-is it worth that? To get ones dream at ALL cost? I don't think so, I am very happy where I'm living right now too thank you very much. If I will get the chance one day I will grab it with both hands, if not, it's  not meant to be.
Third, I can do that only I am lazy, too lazy sometimes to make a decent meal. An easy pasta is easier (I HATE cooking) than to really look into healthy cooking plus I have a difficult eating son to consider as well. But what I do know is that if I watch what I'm eating I do feel better! So who am I kidding? Same with stressing;
I have a strange spot in my belly that hurts or hurts... more a sore spot.. The doc said it's stress. I do hope he's right cause it's something to worry about since dad died of colon cancer. He said it and he's the doc right? It's true that if I'm stressing it's more sore... So he's probably right. See? The prompts are making you think about things. So look up how to get more healthy, cook healhty and stop complaining. *sings* Let it go, let it go...

© KH

30 Days Challenge 18, Invent the Future

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today's challenge; 

My favorite quote of all time is Alan Kay: ‘In order to predict the future, you have to invent it.’ I am all about inventing the future. Decide what you want the future to be and make it happen. Because you can. Write about your future now.

Even though I'm a ferm believer of 'Trust the Universe' and 'live in the here and now' I'll go along with this challenge...

Let's send a message to the same Universe shall we.

I'm sitting in my conservatory writing on my next book. My fourth book actually. The first three made it possible for me to buy this wonderful property at a loch in Scotland of which I have dreamt of my whole life. It has everything I've ever wanted; Periodic features, an Inglenook fireplace, a lovely kitchen with a range cooker, and enough acres to keep some piglets and chickens and even some goats. I have even learned how to make goat cheese which I'm selling at farmers markets now and again. I live in a lovely communal village where the people are nice and friendly.
I have plenty of time to write here, to watch the changing of the seasons from my conservatory windows and sometimes even see the deer walk into my veggie garden. The feeling of not having to actually work for a living, well I do of course, my publisher is breathing down my neck for the next chapters but still, this is fun, this is living the life I've always wanted.
The crazy thing is that I never sent my first book to become somewhat famous. I never even thought for one second it could turn out to this but it did and I'm so happy it did! Living my dream sitting in the very conservatory of my dreams overlooking the loch and the mountains which I've seen so many times before but only in my mind has all come true!
Everytime one of the pigs is shoving it's nose into my hand I could cry of sheer bliss and happiness.
Is this the real life? Is it a fantasy? For me it's is a dream come true!

*Sends to Universe* 

© KH

Look here for Daan

30 Days Challenge 17, Strange & New

Apparently Daan has done two challenges today; so I'm following her; 

When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name;—— the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Can you remember a moment in your life when you had life in yourself and it was wholly strange and new? Can you remember the moment when you stopped walking a path of someone else, and started cutting your own?
Write about that moment. And if you haven’t experienced it yet, let the miracle play out in your mind’s eye and write about that moment in your future.

I can remember several moments in my life when I realised this. It was later on in my life when I got the courage to tell my then husband I wanted a divorce. I had become so depended on him. When he moved out I had to do everything myself. First my parents did everything for me until I had met him and went to live with him at age 19. Then he did it all and I never knew how things worked, I never had to make phonecalls to offices or something like that when someting was wrong. First my parents did that, then he did. Suddenly I had to make so many calls. 
Now that I'm having my second hub he does a lot again but still it's different. I don't give up my control like I used to. I still have a say in my own life. No one is making descions without me knowing. 
I do feel that I've started to walk my own path after my divorce and damn it feels good! 

© KH

30 Days Challenge 16, One Thing

Do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself.  

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take a moment, step back from your concerns, and focus on one thing: You have one life to achieve everything you’ve ever wanted. Sounds simple, but when you really focus on it, let it seep into your consciousness, you realize you only have about 100 years to get every single thing you’ve ever wanted to do. No second chances. This is your only shot. Suddenly, this means you should have started yesterday. No more waiting for permission or resources to start. Today is the day you make the rest of your life happen. Write down one thing you’ve always wanted to do and how you will achieve that goal. Don’t be afraid to be very specific in how you’ll achieve it: once you start achieving, your goals will get bigger and your capability to meet them will grow.

I don't have just one goal, do have have goals at all? I'm a rather lazy person. Any goals I've had are gone with the wind I guess. I think it's fine.. everything is fine the way it is. I don't like changes, never have really. But life is all about changes and the one thing that has to change is me. Not only my inner me, but my outer me as well. The one thing I really should focus on is my huge overweight body. I want need to excercise more, loose the weight and eat more healthy, not only to loose weight, but also to stay on this beautiful earth for my boys. My dad died age 60. He was healthy, thin too, but he got colon cancer and died 5 months later. I know I am lazy and I hate myself for it. I know I had to start yesterday and still... 

The second thing I really do want to do more is meditate. I keep 'forgetting' to. I'm so busy on social media, writing, editing and so on that meditating is forgotten or put aside. That's not good. 

I know it all too well and still I'm too weak to start changing myself. I wish I had a magic wand I could wave, not to make me instant thin but to give me the courage to start to do what I have to... 

© KH

Daan's blog here

30 Days Challenge 14, Alternate Paths

When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name; the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world buzzes about goals and visions. Focus. Create a vivid picture of exactly where you want to go. Dream big, then don’t let anything or anyone stop you. The problem, as Daniel Gilbert wrote in Stumbling Upon Happiness, is that we’re horrible at forecasting how we’ll really feel 10 or 20 years from now – once we’ve gotten what we dreamed of. Often, we get there only to say, “That’s not what I thought it would be,” and ask, “What now?” Ambition is good. Blind ambition is not. It blocks out not only distraction, but the many opportunities that might take you off course but that may also lead you in a new direction. Consistent daily action is only a virtue when bundled with a willingness to remain open to the unknown. In this exercise, look at your current quest and ask, “What alternative opportunities, interpretations and paths am I not seeing?” They’re always there, but you’ve got to choose to see them.

My old blog doesn't exist anymore so I can't read back what I have said about this one, but I do know that over the years I have changed my way of thinking about certain things. I have mellowed a bit more, if that's the proper way of saying it how I feel about life in general. I have learned to go more with the flow. Or I am still learning really because not all situations require the same approach. But to say I have ambition? No not really. I think that 'going with the flow' and 'everything happening for a reason' works for me. Of course if you want something really bad you should work for it but I also think you get what you need at the right time in the right order and place. Things come to those who wait. I am a strong believer of sending your wish to the Universe and just trusting the Universe. You are here for a reason and you don't always know what that reason is but you will find out along the path of life. In the meanwhile go on living, be happy and breathe!

© KH

30 Days Challenge 14, Surprise yourself

I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think of a time when you didn’t think you were capable of doing something, but then surprised yourself.
How will you surprise yourself this week?

I don't know if I surprise myself or if it's more that I'm just doing it, or continue to go on because, hey, who else is? In my opinion women are stronger than they themselves give them credit for or are being credited for. Not only by men or other women but by society as well. We are being payed less for the same jobs, being scrutinised every moment of every day. We are being criticised sometimes even by other women which is worse I think, women should stick together don't they? But that's another subject entirely. ;)

In my life I've been very insecure and I think I did things that surprised other people. In my mind I never surprised myself, I just did things, sometimes without thinking. But if there is one thing that did surprise me it is that I had the courage to divorce the father of my children. Nothing is more devastating than a horrible marriage or being ignored for years. To be able to choose for yourself in those circomstances was a huge step for myself. One that I will never ever regret! 

I don't look forward. I take one day at a time, or try to anyway, so I can't say I will surprise myself in the next week, month or year. I just don't live like that, and I don't want to. 

© KH

30 Days Challenge 12, Never Imitate

Imitation is Suicide. Insist on yourself; never imitate. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down in which areas of your life you have to overcome these suicidal tendencies of imitation, and how you can transform them into a newborn you – one that doesn’t hide its uniqueness, but thrives on it. There is a “divine idea which each of us represents” – which is yours?

I don't think I imitate others. Maybe I have in the past I don't know. I do think however that I am myself at all times. What you see is what you get and always be yourself is my philosophy. 
I don't listen to the same music as others do, I don't write in the 
same manner as others do, I even don't like to go visit the same 
countries as others do.
 
I was thinking it the other day; in my family I am pretty unique as well.
Growing up, I was brought up in a Catholic family, we went to church
every Sunday, my parents were pretty conservative and strict and 
I am so not! 
I turned out so very different than they were/are. I don't go to church
anymore, I feel like I'm more Buddhist than Catholic, I think so different
than my mum about a lot of things in life in general, well like a lot
of people actually. 

I think I go my own way through life and there's nothing wrong with it. 
I've learned a lot through some mistakes I have made but never ever
can I say I haven't been myself. Maybe sometimes I tried to be someone
who my mother wanted me to be, but failed big time the very minute I
tried it! I really can't be anyone other than myself. 

Every person is unique, to be some other version of your own self is to
deny who you truly are! 

© KH 


You can read Daan here

30 Days Challenge 11, message

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius. 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today's Challenge;

What is burning deep inside of you? 

If you could spread your personal message RIGHT NOW to 1 million people, what would you say?

- Always be yourself not your idea of what you think somebody else's idea of yourself should be.

- When one door closes, another opens, don't stare to long at the closed door. 

- Everything happens for a reason. You meet the people you are supposed to meet. Whether they make you happy or sad, you meet them to learn, or maybe they meet you to learn. Either way, you will be wiser meeting them. 

- Trust yourself and your inner-self more. Listen to your inner voice, it tells you things for a reason. 

- Laugh more. 

- Enoy the little things in life. 

- Let Go! It will be okay. 

- Trust the Universe!

© KH

30 Days challenge 10, Afraid to do

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word, because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. 

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today's Challenge;

Emerson says: “Always do what you are afraid to do.” What is ‘too scary’ to write about? Try doing it now.

I'm afraid to lose control I guess. I'm afraid to let go to trust the Universe, to trust that what must happen will happen. I want to make it happen for others I mean. I want to control things. I can't I know that, but I get stressed out about things I want to control but can't. There I said it.

My Youngest son wanted to be a cook. He is in his last year and had to study further of course he's just 18. A few months back he said he didn't want to anymore. He wanted something else. What he did not know yet so he got all kinds of tests at school. Last week we got the results and they really weren't conclusive. He still didn't know what he wanted. So now I'm all over him telling him to choose. Or to get a job in the meanwhile and wait a year to figure things out. But DO something besides sit there and do nothing! Does that help matters? No they don't... Do I help things acting like that? No I don't. I know that I have to let it go. Things have a way of working it out for themselves if I let go. I do know that but I don't always act on it. It is still so hard. I'm afraid to let go of the control I think I have. But to be honest; I don't have the control do I?

© KH