Prose

connection…

~ Maya C ~ 1 Comment

Truth – I’ve had two Guinnesses (and lot of lobster!)… we’ll see where this goes.

Truth – I only walked 6,500 steps today due to impractical (but awesome!) shoes. First day of “failure”. 

Truth – Everyone’s life is perfect on facebook, twitter, pinterest. No one’s life is perfect in reality.

My lovely friend, Janey B, sent me this article today (she knows me well): stop instagramming your perfect life. 

I tried to give up facebook in favour of real connection – it didn’t work. Why? Because, for the most part, we can’t escape technology. The trick is to carve out real connection on top of (or in spite of) it. We just have to learn how to live with technology. 

It requires some caveats. The most important of which is that technology doesn’t replace true connection. Even with thousands of fb friends, you can still feel mighty lonely on a Friday night.

It’s a tool, and one that can be used strategically. 

“Using technology to build community instead of building carefully-curated images of ourselves is an option, and a worthwhile one.”

Ok – how? Like this, I suppose: if you leave a note on my wall, be real. Better yet, rather than posting on my wall, text me. And rather than texting me, meet me for a coffee… but whatever you do, don’t call! I don’t know how to use the phone part of my phone…

Reach out. Be vulnerable. Be real. Connect.

Yup, that was a nonsensical Guinness-inspired rant. 🙂

mxo

easter moments…

~ Maya C ~ Leave a comment

Today I went to buy flowers and ended up at the zoo. 

I hung out with my friend, Mr. Bison, and listened to kiddies squeal with “Feed the Llamas Day” excitement.

I paused to snap a few pics and overheard snippets of Easter conversations.

9968 steps later, I realized there are no ordinary moments. No two moments are the same, not if you open your eyes and open your heart.

Happy Easter. Much love.

mxo

off the hook…

~ Maya C ~ Leave a comment

It’s early on a Saturday morning. 

I’m up, alert, and enjoying the quiet before the day gets going.

Right before I disappeared to bed last night, I wrote this in my journal…

I’ve been thinking a lot about how finite life is, how this is really it and how each day passes without a do-over. I guess for some people that would serve as a stern kick in the butt – a motivator to get going, start doing, and be someone more. For me, after almost 30 years of pedal-to-the-metal overachieving, I just want to slow down and live. I already feel like life is passing me by and I might totally miss it if I don’t slow down soon.

Being alive is a privilege. I want a long life filled with love (friends and family), great food (coffee!) and the occasional adventure. I want dinner dates and pretty things. I want trips to far away places and cozy weekends at home. I want to savour life and not feel like I’m on a speeding training racing towards the proverbial next step (do we ever get there? where is there?) I want to read books and loiter, and occasionally do yoga. I want to write in my journal about all of the things I want. I want the life I already have… 

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So, with that, I’m letting myself off the hook. Again.

Happy Saturday! 

Much love.

mxo

busy, busy, busy…

~ Maya C ~ Leave a comment

It’s Sunday afternoon and the pre-workweek overwhelm has started to creep in. 

For the past few weeks, I’ve been bouncing around like a ping pong ball. Meeting. Ping. Other meeting. Pong. Meeting somewhere else. PING! Awkward in-between half an hour at my desk. PONG! The worst part is, I feel like despite the busyness and the overwhelm, I’ve accomplished a whole heck of not much. 

A colleague recently lent me Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek. I’m about 50 pages in and am floored by this book. It’s exactly what I needed.

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The passage I just can’t shake has to do with the 80/20 principle – that “80% of results come from 20% of effort and time”.

If that’s true, why are we so busy? Because it seems a task will swell in perceived importance and complexity in relation to the amount of time it’s allotted. With the dinosaur 9-5 workday, we’ve got ourselves a lot of time to fill…

Translation: it’s unnecessary. At least 80% or so is.

“Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. […] It’s easy to get caught in a flood of minutiae, and the key to not feeling rushed is remembering that lack of time is actually lack of priorities.” Sigh. Yup.

All of this busyness has robbed me of my effectiveness, but more importantly, it’s also robbed me of my time to dream. More on that soon.

Happy St. P Day!

mxo