Recently I have been doing a lot of self reflection (what else is new?), and I am learning a lot from it. Here are some of the lessons I am getting: It’s okay to make mistakes. This is something I spent the first two decades of my life trying to avoid. Nowadays, I am much more tolerant of my own mistakes, and, in fact, at times have deliberately put myself into situations where I might make mistakes… because I want to learn. I am much more acclimated to the idea…
Month: November 2018
Day 118: Have Fake Book, Will Travel
In case you didn’t know, I’m a classically-trained professional musician. I was trained to play classical piano starting the summer after 6th grade (prior to that I played a little on my own and had taken lessons for a few months). I studied classical music almost exclusively for ten years. For that entire time, the music I played was almost always in the form of printed piano sheet music. Piano sheet music takes the form of two clefs, bass and treble, with a format that ordinarily looks something like…
Day 117: Cereal of the Gods!
I have always been a big cereal fan. Ever since I was a child, I have associated cereal with comfort food… and with home. Up until recently, my wife liked to joke that I had 4 bowls a day of the stuff. I think not! But I almost always had one bowl, often had two bowls, and very occasionally 3 bowls… per day. Oh how things have changed. Since I started intermittent fasting and getting off sugar, my old m.o. is now gone… Or at least, my eyes have been…
Day 116: Does Your Money Situation Have Integrity?
I know, I know. Talking about one’s personal finances can be about as fun as trying to open a can of snow peas with a disposable Bic raiser. All that looking into your own numbers can range from tedious to mind-melding. I certainly get how that can be for some people. Yet, if you have read any of my other money-related posts, you know that I believe strongly in paying attention to one’s finances. As a professional musician and as a married man, knowing where I’m at financially comes in…
Day 115: End the Delusion of Time
My wife and I are currently reading “The Power of Now,” by Eckhart Tolle. My wife had read it, but I never had, although being a longtime New Age self-help book junky, I had definitely heard about it for years. We have taken to reading it a little at a time, usually in the mornings. It had been awhile since we read a book together, so this has been especially nice. Tolle’s premise seems to be that humans generally live in a world dominated by the mind: the stories of…
Day 114: You have the guidance you need inside of you
Today I feel like just “turning my brain off” and letting forth these thoughts, hopefully inspiring, no doubt helpful in some way. I have no idea what will come forth, let’s find out! Thank You, Chris, for allowing these thoughts through. Thank you for trusting this “voice.” It is not always easy to let go, to surrender to something you don’t completely understand. Yet it is what artists, philosophers, visionaries, leaders, and happy people of all walks of life have been doing for ages. To surrender to a “higher power”…
Day 113: It was music all the way, baby
It’s funny how significant memories stay with us, those moments where we saw with great clarity who we are, and what we are about in this lifetime. We can look back on our life and see these moments like unmistakable breadcrumbs pointing the way to our fate. I have many such memories pointing the way to music. My Aunt recently gave me some family pictures that my grandmother had when she was alive. I’m in many of the pictures. One in particular that is jumping out at me tonight is…
Day 112: It’s All About Attitude (Part 2)
So I just took a drive over the neighborhood grocery store to get a few items. As I was parking, some guy with a bicycle next to a car on the other side of the parking lot divider tried to hail me. Initially, I just shook my head and waived him off, an unfortunate reflex, I suppose, from dealing with street people asking for money. But I immediately caught myself and thought, “Wait, don’t be a jerk. Maybe someone needs help.” Then I saw another guy at the car, holding…
Day 111: Magic One-One-One
My wife tells me that a sequence of the number one has magical properties, having to do with angels. So whenever I see lots of ones together, I think of her. And here we are at Day 111… which happens to be Thanksgiving. Double whammy of magical powers there! My wife and I spent a very pleasant Thanksgiving together at home. She wasn’t feeling well, so we organized a “Virtual Thanksgiving” where we could stay home and yet still be with family. My dad and step-mom in San Francisco; my…
Day 110: What Are Your Standards Where Your Life Works?
This morning I was taking a jog, which I often do, while listening to an empowering recording, which I often do as well. The recording was a video of Tony Robbins talking about personal standards. In this video (which you can listen to here), Robbins talks about how people achieve based on who they define themselves to be. As he says, “Think about your own life. I know that there have been areas of your life where some point you just shifted, you raised the standard and your life changed. …