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Happiness first – then success…

Sometimes the best we can do is to borrow inspiration from another place. What’s wrong with that if it gets your hands to the dirt, your fingers to the keyboard or the brush back to the canvas? After all, it’s the space between the brush and the paint where we create happiness. It is found in the cadence of a written piece – not in the grammar. When our heads are down and our hands are busy – this is the space where we find real happiness.

A Borrowed View

Example of 'A Borrowed View' a Landscape Design Theme. Pic from https://picasaweb.google.com/abigailpick/VillasAndVenice#

The title, ‘A Borrowed View,’ is a landscape design theme. The first paragraph came to me in a half dream, but the long walk from the bed to the keyboard; I get to own that. I get to own the self discipline of writing, of doing the work, of listening to the nudges that wake me at 1:00 AM. There is nothing borrowed in the very, very long walk to the place of just showing up.

There is a strange contentment in dreaming about life – a strange comfort in the excuses we make to not attend our days and to not participate in the things that bring us the most joy. Call it a bridge placed precariously over the waters of our fears; a lulling bridge over the singing waters of ‘I can’t’ or ‘I don’t have time’ or ‘I don’t have the money’. On the other side lies your vision of success and happiness.

Happiness is best understood in recollection and is merely an urging that follows like a butterfly in the corner of your eye. We don’t create happiness by dreaming, but by engaging with life, with people and with activities we know have brought us joy in the past. What are the activities that put you in your bliss? We create happiness when we are focused on the task at hand and not on ourselves.

If you want to be a writer, read, and finally write. If you want to be a musician, listen, and finally play. A painter will come to know color and finally paint. A gardener will borrow a view, and kneel down to sow. The inspiration may be borrowed but the walk is yours.

Find your satori space, find the place where your potential can roam free, find the things you get lost in and make the long journey. When your fingers finally pluck the strings of tenacity – it is sweet. It is the music of ‘from here to there’ that will eventually fill the room. A borrowed view may be all we have, but is sometimes all we need to get there.

Become the Person You Need to Become,