Posts from — September 2009

“Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois so that you may be
violent and original in your work.” –Gustave Flaubert

OK, here I go again. Am back from retreat in Vermont where, for one week, I practiced meditation, wrote, read, slept soundly–all the things I so want to do in my non-retreat life. I realize there are major differences!! Like on retreat someone else does the cooking and washing up. That’s a biggie. But still, I long, long, long for a life of order that grounds me and keeps me focused on my personal loves: spiritual practice, study, self-expression.

Once again, I’m tired of coming to the end of each day feeling like I lived half of my life while the other half somehow got sucked up by TV, poor planning, and, most of all, self-doubt that causes me to put off things that challenge me. (Which is basically everything at this point–I’m standing right on top of some big professional and spiritual moments.) So once again, I want to marshal myself.

The theme of this GDE Redux is the same as the last one: Take all the things you say you should do everyday (or most days) and do them. Now, these things aren’t earth shattering. They’re simple and should be within my ability to accomplish. Write. Meditate. Study. Exercise. Drink water. Take vitamins. It’s so embarrassing how simple those things sound.

I learned several very valuable things from the last GDE. I want to take them into account on this go round. They are:

1. The GDE didn’t give a crap about my energy level. Somedays, I simply didn’t have much energy, while on others I did. I became very confused about how to react to all this: give in to it or plow ahead with the schedule anyway? Last time, I gave into it. This time, I’m going to plow ahead.

2.T he main failing of the GDE was that it created enormous levels of aggression towards other people. Especially the ones I really like. My husband, for example. Instead of being people I care for (or not), every single being (including my cats) became instead potential friends or enemies of the GDE. I couldn’t tell my friends and family to have their mid-life crises or muse about vacation spots only during times that were convenient for me. The people in my world needed me on their own timetable and I had no idea how to reconcile this with my needs. This time, I’m going to expect this and not get freaked out when people need me, but just try to support them the best I can and then get my butt back to the experiment.

3. The GDE lives and dies on advance planning. If I left any part of the day to chance, it all fell apart. So for instance, tomorrow, I know I want to meditate, write, and go for a run. I also know I have to run an errand at Crate & Barrel and pick up some colleagues at the airport at 630p. So tomorrow AM the first thing I need to do is examine every hour of the day and plan when I’m going to do what. I need to do this for the entire week, actually.

So here is the schedule I’ve come up with. Please hold me to it:

Monday, Thursday, & Friday
6-730 writing & meditation
730-10 personal writing
11-4 other kinds of work
4-5 run
5-530 meditation

Because I have all day meetings on Tues and Weds, they will look like this:

530-630 meditation, journaling
7-5 meeting

I am completely open to suggestions! And in the meantime, please wish me luck. I will keep you posted and if I can do it, I know you can too. xoxox Susan

Hello, everyone. I am a Twitteraholic.

I never dreamt that Twitter would become such a big part of my life. I joined about a year and a half ago and at first, it was just something fun. It’s still fun but it’s also more. It’s a way to let people know what I’m up to. It’s a way for me to find out what people think about the important topics of the day. It’s a way to get truly up to the minute info and insights about our world. And it’s still really, really fun.

Most of my friends can’t understand what I love about Twitter. They say stuff like, doesn’t it take up too much time, isn’t it a waste of time, why would anyone want to know that I just ate a cupcake or stubbed my toe? When I described Twitter to him, one friend said, “I’d rather stick a pencil in my eye.”

One of my Twitter pals (@Pistachio) told me that a friend of hers called it “ambient intimacy.” And that is the best descriptor yet. Throughout my day of sitting by myself at my desk, I am able to tune into this giant flow of humanity anytime I like. I just find it so touching and quirky and funny and surprising and also quite sweet. That’s what I love about it.

Last week, I had the surprising good fortune to land on Mashable’s “25 of the Most Inspiring People on Twitter” list and that was awesome. It made me feel so good. Then I had the pleasure of being followed by a whole bunch of people in a very short time. I can’t lump them together. I want to know who each one is. So I look at the profile of every single person who follows me because I’m so touched that they might want to hear about my life. And I want to hear about theirs!

Well, actually there are some people I don’t want to hear about so much. The big hit of new followers made me think about a twitter strategy, which I never in a million years thought I would need. It’s actually been an interesting exercise to think through.

And btw, if you’re not on twitter, get on it!! Follow me!! Twitter.com/spiver. I promise to follow you back, as long as you’re not trying to sell me something on the physical, emotional, or spiritual plane.

So here is my fascinating follow-back strategy. (But sometimes I accidentally delete someone’s profile or otherwise lose track of my emails. If you think I should be following you back, un-follow and re-follow or just tweet me.)

I like to follow people who

• Are genuine.
• Tweet about daily life, as opposed to their philosophy of daily life. I’d rather hear how it’s working out than any recommended beliefs or strategies.
• Question authority.
• Are going through something extremely sad or extremely happy.
• Have a point of view on something that interests me (social media, Buddhism, Enneagram, cooking & food, love, sorrow, music, outfits & hairdos, writing, Macs, inner and outer life adventures, reality TV, creating world peace).
• Seem kind.
• Tweet encouraging things to others. (Personally, not through random quotes.)
• Are funny and sassy and smart, but not mean.
• Are passionate and human.
• Post pictures of their pets.
• Just seem like decent human beings.
• Tell me they like me (hey, I’m only human).

I’m not so into following people who

• Are in it to advertise their business or service, especially if they pretend they’re not.
• Only tweet about their professional services.
• Only issue tweets and never enter into dialog.
• Only (or mostly) post quotations.
• Only care about success.
• Have never tweeted anything.
• Want me to join in their cause.
• Express any sort of fundamentalist view.
• Exhort me to do anything.
• Protect their tweets.
• Display no uncertainty about self, others, or life.
• Show me their nakedness absent a personal request.
• Are humorless.
• Might be dismayed if I followed them back.
• Have a following: follower ratio of 3249:1
• Act as Thought Police: obsessed with positivity and counsel mind control to avoid anything negative.

Teaching meditation and writing retreat for a week!

I got on this list of 25 of the most inspirational people on Twitter at position #12. I have no idea how this list was created or why I’m #12, but I really love that it happened!

If you twitter, follow me! I promise to follow you back. If you don’t twitter, you might want to check it out. I love it. Someone (can never remember the name) called it “ambient intimacy” and that’s the best description I ever heard. It’s lovely.

A good way to start on twitter is to find someone you know (like me), see who they follow, and start following those people. If you hate it, you don’t have to keep it up. It’s a very relaxed thing.

Been away for 2 weeks and looking forward to getting back to blogging (more). Book tour is actually starting to come together. Have an interview today with Body & Soul for possible Jan/Feb piece about the new book. Going to give 3 talks pre-publication in Austin (Oct 16), San Francisco (Oct 20), and Boulder (Oct 22).  I’m getting excited and nervous.

But first, some humor. The Kanye West apology generator is pretty awesome.

And some pics from vacation in Maine! Which was heavenly.

Harbor near the house

Acadia State Park

Young Duncan on porch

Hike up to top of Blue Hill

Evening light

Dinner table

The Duncans