thinking – Page 2 – hannah ananas

So, what are you?

Today, I share something I received yet again in the e-mail for yesterday. I love the quote in it, and something similar lives always within me in my everyday life. I say and have said for years, “We are what we eat, and we are what we think about all day long.” And I ask myself, “So, what am I? What are my thoughts? What am I thinking about all day?”

I now ask you the same. Who and what are you? What do you eat, and what do you think about all day long? What words do you think (even if you do not say them)? And what would you like to think?

I do a regular cleansing, so to speak, of my own thought patterns and language. I evaluate what words and thoughts I have been using and entertaining, but which do not suit the self that I want to be. And I make a conscious, daily, minute-to-minute effort to think the thoughts and use the words that I want myself to think and to use.

And I always feel so – for lack of any other way of describing it – clean afterward. It almost feels like bathing, slowly but surely.

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JANUARY 9

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.

– SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

The ancestor of every destructive action, every destructive decision, is a negative thought. We do not have to be afraid of negative thoughts as long as we do not welcome them. They are in the air, and they may knock at anyone’s door; but if we do not embrace them, ask them in, and make them our own, they can have no power over us.

We can think of thoughts as hitchhikers. At the entrance to the freeway, we used to see a lot of hitchhikers carrying signs: “Vancouver,” “Mexico,” “L.A.” One said in simple desperation, “Anywhere!” Thoughts are a lot like those hitchhikers. We can pick them up or pass them by. Negative thoughts carry signs, but usually we see only one side, the side with all the promises. The back of the sign tells us their true destination: sickness and sorrow.

Nobody is obliged to pick up these passengers. If we do not stop and let them in, they cannot go anywhere, because they are not real until we support them. There is sympathy in the world: pick it up. There is antipathy in the world: don’t pick it up. Hatred destroys. Love heals.

The Thought for the Day is today’s entry from Eknath Easwaran’s Words to Live By.
You can view the Thought for the Day on our website

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Post-a-day 2018

a day to consider my life

I stayed home from school today, sick. Just like when I was younger, my mom made me feel guilty for even considering staying home. That is one thing that I do not miss about living in a different country from my mom. I fully thought through the situation, before deciding anything – if I had had anyone else feeling as I felt this morning, I would have wanted the person to stay home (and also stay away from me). This was not about disliking my work, as it has been in the past at times. I was genuinely sick (and still am).

My mom doesn’t get sick very often, and only has a sort of slight cold, whenever she does get sick. But she gets to sleep. I used to be like that, rarely getting sick, and having it be mild, just requiring water and a single night’s sleep to rid myself of it. But working life stole my long nights of sleep and weekends of rest, and traded stress and distaste for them. I clearly am not a fan of the trade – I now get sick regularly, though mostly just when it’s cold out.

So, today, I stayed home, sick. I handled what I needed for work, gargled some warm salt water, and then went back to sleep. I woke up once, in desperate need of a potty break, and then downed some more water, and went back to sleep. I didn’t really get up until my second potty break awakening, and, even then, I only got up, because it was 1:30pm, not because I felt ready to get up.

Now, late at night, I am hardly able to stay awake to accomplish my bedtime goals, despite my sleep from last night. I am only awake this late anyway, because my mom and I agreed to watch a film together, and it was pushed back, and then paused and rewound so many times, that our initial ending time of 9:30pm was much later.

Anyway, the whole point of this is that 1) I need more sleep in my daily life (or nightly, I suppose), 2) I really enjoyed spending the day working on some writing (that’s what I did, once I was awake and having tea), and 3) I found today ironic. While I was in Japan, all alone so often, including when I was sick, and just longing to have someone be with me, like it had been back in the USA, I had longed to have someone spend time with me and take care of me when I was feeling poorly, and expected to find that once back in the US. But I was all alone today, on my first sick day in the USA. And I really got to be alone with my thoughts, which was useful and somewhat frightening. I have much more to consider in my life right now, and today helped me to see some unique parts of it all.

A fun final piece of my illness today, is that I discovered it surprisingly satisfying to eat the heads of Darth Vader and the Clones in my Star Wars SpaghettiOs. I haven’t had SpaghettiOs in years, but this was a fun one to have, especially for being sick.

Post-a-day 2017

a place in our world

Sometimes I wonder about whether there really will be a place for me in our modern, developing world. There so many things that are becoming commonplace that go against so much of who I am. From the simplest tiny things to morals to lifestyle to core beliefs and thinking patterns, I notice a difference between so much of how the society functions around me and what is in me, myself. I realize that, somehow, I will have a place in the world, but I wonder if it is in the part of the world I already know, or if I will find myself in an entirely different society, somewhere else in the world… not in what I consider my home.

I just wonder…

Post-a-day 2017

career planning like child’s play

As I pondered about today at work, with no actual work to do, but tons of pastimes to pursue at my desk, I somehow came to the idea of thinking like a child. I think I was inspired from the fact that a girl in this one movie was about to become a full-fledged lawyer, and I found myself somewhat envious. It got me thinking about how, as a child, I never really wanted to be anything specific when I grew up. Sure I said singer/actor, but that was kind of a ‘just ’cause’ answer, not an impassioned one – my heart was certainly not in it. It just sounded fun to be famous and super talented, you know?

So, as I was thinking about how kids have these people they want to be when they grow up, and how ridiculous those things sometimes sound, and then how boring of jobs those kids typically eventually end up getting when they are adults, I got into the crazy-ish idea of, “Well, if I were a kid now, what would I want to be when I grow up?” And that’s when the fun started.

It didn’t take very long for me to come to my conclusion. Fully-passioned and excited, I felt a need to share the news with the world. I didn’t think much beyond that – sharing it – other than how fun it sounded, and how silly it would be should I actually somehow become such an individual. Why? Well, I said that I want to be a cello-playing ballerina artist who does astronomy and physics stuff for fun.

So, I posted about it on the beautiful world of Facebook. After seeing a few of the comments that friends made, however, I began actually thinking about such a career path for myself. Part of the whole reason I started thinking about it, was because I thought it crazy how kids, who can do next-to-nothing about it, are so passionate about what they want to do for their jobs, and yet adults, who have all the ability to do something about their current jobs, tend to be so dispassionate about their careers. So, here I am, taking on a child’s passion in terms of career direction/choice (really, choosing freely (as a child chooses) what I would do, if I could do anything I wanted), and I suddenly realized that I am one of those adults who is in a position actually to do something about my career.

Wow. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how easy it could be for me. Yes, it is loads and loads of hard work. I know. But I’m talking about practicality of the situation. I’ve recently re-begun ballet lessons, I’m picking up my own art supplies next week in order to continue in my student-taught art lessons I’ve been receiving, and I’m working at a school with lots of musical connections (likely with links to a student of some age who could start teaching me to play the cello). And this is all just in my small town in Japan. When I move back to my big city in the US this Summer/Fall, I’ll have innumerable resources at my fingertips. And, without even realizing this earlier today, I have made specific progress towards this goal for the Fall: I now recall that I have already spoken to a sort of art expert to help me find some appropriate art classes for me to take this coming Fall.

Life is looking beautiful on the career path front. I in almost no way have a ballerina’s body. And that’s okay. I don’t want to be on the main stage. I know that. But I want to be dancing ballet. 🙂 (I’m so excited about this, I can’t stop smiling and having a little delighted shudder race through me every so often as I think about it all.)

My cousin commented about my career goals being similar to the career of Hedy Lamar. I had to look her up, though I recognized the name. As I was on the phone with my mom, I asked her what she knew about Hedy. Just that she was a black and white actress, very gorgeous 30s look. When I found her Wikipedia page, I read it aloud to my mother, and we both were amazed – she was fabulous, and my cousin was exactly right in comparing my career goals to the career of Hedy Lamar! Check her out. She was awesome. She and the guy from Queen (Brian May) who has a PhD in Astrophysics. They rock.

So, yeah… that’s today’s ponderings that I cared to share here. 🙂 Peace out, yo.

Post-a-day 2017