Transitioning from a goal to a habit

In keeping with the advice of Luna June I am posting here everyday for 3 weeks to create the habit to carry me to the next stage of my writing goals. Consistency is a crucial bridge toward getting things done. Lack of consistency and getting sidetracked is a pattern so easy to fall into, but I can’t be content with a couch potato lifestyle so I must make this leap. My goals as a writer are not entirely defined at this juncture, but my desire is enough to propel me on my journey. The immediate action is what is important and the road opens up from there. It is in the process that all the magic happens. Planning situations is only a starting point, and the movement is what brings it together. I long gave up constantly drumming my head with a steady diet of self-help materials, after they became messengers of self-helplessness. The messages became less and less relevant as I saw the wealth and power games of success touted by the money gurus as lacking what I truly needed. I saw how these same people churn out more and more books, vaguely different from the last one they published, or hardly unique to the other’s in their field. Even the preachers are in the game, with the prosperity doctrine of Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar. They claim God wants us to prosper, as if God was a capitalist. I am bewildered to think that it is so simple. My heart sees this as hollow.

I can’t tell you what God wants in terms of capitalism, because I don’t see the world in that way. I am a realist, trapped in a real world, with real problems. This is how I think.

I ended up in the realm of Buddhism when I fell in with the Shambhala teachings of Trungpa. I snuck in through the back door. Trungpa’s secular vision rang true to me, after reeling from the top down approach I got growing up Catholic. I needed answers and my Sunday school teacher wasn’t ready to supply them. I fell in love with American Indian thought through Black Elk, and Ishi, but didn’t see many places to turn to learn firsthand these teachings. It seemed the early settlers all but wiped out these noble people, marginalizing their descendants to reservations to be drunks and live off the dole. I know this is an oversimplification but you get the idea. The bottom line is that this Irish kid from the Bronx felt stuck by what the world was offering my hungry soul.

To Be Continued…