I’ve been experimenting with two complementary techniques for influencing the quality and direction of my life. In this post I’ll write about one of those methods: imagining and describing best case scenarios.
While it’s easy and natural for most people to imagine and try to mentally prepare for worst case “what if” scenarios, it’s less intuitive to imagine what life would be like if everything went amazingly well.
My original blog banner (photo by Stephanie Morgan)
This year marks the ten-year anniversary of this blog (my first post was written in December of 2009). Zooming out, that decade comprises about a fifth of my life so far, a third of my adulthood, about half of my marriage, nearly the entirety of my time as a father, and more than three times the length of my writing career (which didn’t officially start until 2016 with my first published story).
Rock solid.
It’s futile to plan your whole life. Nobody’s life goes according to plan.
Q: How to make God laugh?
A: Make a plan.
But it’s also futile not to.
I deleted a blog post yesterday. It was all about how I’ve been sleeping better (which is generally true), and what’s been working for me (getting more bright light in the morning, some EFT techniques, herbs to reduce cortisol, calcium+magnesium, and so on). I’d written the post after sleeping a perfect seven hours without waking up at all (without any sleeping pills or megadoses of vitamins). I thought I was over the worst of my sleeping issues.
But then the night before last I didn’t sleep at all. Not a wink. Aside from a late dinner and staying up a bit too late watching Netflix (with f.lux and my amber glasses), I’m not sure what I did differently.
My father-in-law is dying. He most likely has only weeks to live. As dying goes, he’s doing it really well, surrounded by loved ones, with good professional home-hospice care. He’s a renowned poet and translator, well respected, loved by hundreds if not thousands of students, ex-students, colleagues, friends, and family. He’s lived a full, uncompromising life, and was lucky enough to fall deeply in love, once again, in the last few months. The house where he’s staying, in the Berkeley hills, has a stupendous view of the bay. He’s cogent, self-aware, and taking on this final challenge with grace, courage, and an open heart.
The situation has made me think about what’s important in life. That’s something I think about a lot, but now more so than ever.
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