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Synchronicity

/ LKWeir

Synchronicity—Events that seem significantly related but have no discernable causal connection.

Maybe you have experienced this feeling, a moment where events perfectly lined up in your life, forever shaping the person you become. I’ve personally felt the phenomena several times in my life. But the best moment of synchronicity for me was…

…when I went to India.

I was working at a new company, a company that would send a group of us to a different country each month. It was the most exciting feeling, getting to see different parts of the world all at the company’s expense. In theory, it was adventurous; in reality it was exhausting.

I was supposed to go to Argentina. I was thrilled! I’d always wanted to see that side of the world but at the last moment, the schedule changed and I was reassigned to Kuwait. If you don’t know where that is, I would recommend giving it a quick google. It wasn’t exactly my dream location.

I was upset about it. I’d been waiting to travel across the seas for most of my life and, out of all the exotic locations I wanted to see, Kuwait was unfortunately not one of them.

That was until, my moment of synchronicity. See, our work was to span an entire month. Every month filled to the brim with work, work, work. But this one, this very random experience was going to be a four week engagement in a five week month. This meant that there was exactly one week where I actually didn’t have to work. A very random and HIGHLY unlikely occurrence.

That in itself wouldn’t be significant.

What made it significant was that the week after the engagement, the only week in the entire year where I was not scheduled for relentless work, happened to be the exact same week as a wedding in India that I had graciously been invited to.

My dear friend had warmly invited me to a family wedding in India. Which happened to be the week after my engagement was complete and only a shortish flight from where I was connecting through Dubai.

After all, when had I ever been on that side of the world?

Suddenly Kuwait seemed like a dream come true.

I borrowed saris from a friend/colleague in Dubai, hopped on a plane to New Delhi, and had the greatest experience of my life. An experience that forever changed me and I will ALWAYS be grateful for.

Synchronicity—events that appear completely random and borderline impossible but lead you to a place where you didn’t know you wanted to be.

What are your moments of synchronicity?

Facing Fears

/ LKWeir

Right now it’s hard to feel accomplished. Being isolated is hard. I miss my friends, my family, my adventures, my sense of moving forward. I feel like I’ve taken 10 steps back in life and completely stalled. Each day brings a different kind of challenge, a challenge to remain hopeful.

So today I challenge all of us to remember how far we’ve come, remember something you used to be afraid of but you faced it head on. Here is mine:

I used to be afraid of travelling. Yup.

I was a dreamer as a kid. I wanted to unapologetically see the world. But I was scared of flying and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to navigate unfamiliar countries and cultures.

My first real taste of overseas travel was when my teenage friend showed me her pictures of a trip to Ireland. A place called Blarney castle where it was believed, kissing the Blarney stone would give the gift of gab. I imagined myself on top of that castle in an awkward upside down pose, kissing an old Irish rock.

There was nothing I wanted more.

But time passed, and fears kicked in and that overseas trip just didn’t happen. I started to believe that all my dreams would remain just that….dreams.

It took a long time from my first trip away from home, to finally feeling that moment of accomplishment. But one day, there I was. Standing at the foot of Blarney Castle, in complete awe of its magnificence.

It’s easy to forget how far we’ve come when each step seems so small. Sometimes we need to see what we’ve accomplished by seeing where we’ve come from.

I hope you feel inspired by your accomplishments!

Take a notebook and jot down those moments of accomplishment. Remember where you came from and what you’ve done to get to where you are. Those small moments, those minor decisions have all added up into something that made you, you. Take stock of all the things you’ve done and feel good about it! There is plenty more to come, just remember that the journey is not always a clear path, but once you reach your destination, you deserve to celebrate!

Please share your stories/accomplishment/comments below, I want to hear them.

Why is Starting so Difficult?

/ LKWeir / 1 Comment

Starting anything new is a challenge. Actually, less of a challenge and more like trying to grasp a fleeting thought. A thought that flutters by every so often to remind us there is something else we want to do but we haven’t done. It’s the promise that we are capable of learning new skills, following a passion, and creating something we never imagined we could create. That thought flutters by over and over until we either grab it and use it, or we let it go and convince ourselves that we were never really interested in the first place.

When I started writing, the idea of writing the best story ever told was what I locked on to (I know, I know, I was a realist!). It happened by chance at an offsite audit (yes I said audit) in the middle of nowhere. The place had a bunk, food, an office, and that was it. We had a lot of spare time with very little to do. For some reason my fluttering thought came to me at a moment when I was nearly dying of boredom. I wrote for hours, which at the time seemed like a lot. I got excited as the story started to form in my mind. I wrote images, dialogue, and even managed to create some tension.

It didn’t last long.

I wrote the beginning of something that excited me. A few pages of a story that I sent to my friends for encouragement. I received decent feedback and then promptly dropped the thought.

But why does this happen? Why does something that excites us still become background noise in our life?

Other than the obvious overwhelming-ness of life (which can be overpowering and incredibly distracting), I think it has something to do with our belief that the geniuses in the art community have the magic formula, the secret gift that the rest of us could never touch.

But is this true?

Sure natural talent exists, but for most artists (and for most careers in general) the artist had to learn how to be good at it. The painter didn’t know how to mix perfect colour the first time she painted a portrait. The musician couldn’t play a string of notes the first time he picked up a flute. It took time and patience and a desire to learn.

This is why, for many people, we give up after the first few tries. There is something inside of us that realizes the talent we want to have doesn’t match the talent we currently have. There is a disconnect between where we want to be and where we are. Many of us don’t believe we can learn how to bridge that gap because we’ve never actually tried.

To learn how to be good at anything, we have to put in time. Sounds basic right? Somewhere in adulthood we lose the excitement associated with learning. We fall out of love with it. Our curiosity fades and we choose to instead watch other people do the thing that excites us.

Where’s the fun in that?

Remember what it was like to learn a skill? Tying your shoe, cooking macaroni, spelling your name. As a child these accomplishments were so much fun, it was easy to love learning.

The love of learning is still in us, even if we haven’t accessed it in a while. We need to stop thinking so much about the end product and start falling in love with the process. After all, this is where all the time for any project is spent, right? Why only think about the end when we are still at the beginning?

Curiosity is our fleeting thought. It is the ‘what if?’ of our imagination. What if we tried something outside of our normal routine? What if we became really good at something new? Our curiosity is what drives the desire to try something that excites us, to go out and buy the supplies for our masterpiece. We stall our momentum when we feel the fear of not being good enough. Not wanting to show our friends and family our mediocre version of the thing we created. All of us want to be the best at something, we want to be talented. Disappointment in our own work (or worse, negative criticism from others) can crush curiosity.

At first your talent may not reach your standards and that is OK!

If you can learn to love the process, learn to love learning new skills, and accept the idea that you have to put time in to become great, then curiosity can turn into action. When this happens, you can learn a new skill for the fun of it. Write your book, sing that song, learn that instrument, paint that picture.

Do it because it’s fun. Fall in love with learning and let your curiosity run wild!