When I get comfortable.....

There has been a lot of newness in my life as of late and no matter how resistant I am to change, especially for not seeing it at the moment, it always seems to change my life for the better. In my volunteer work; members of my group have asked me to step up my involvement as they think I have a lot of experience to offer and should take up more of a vocal and active role, and deep down inside I know they're right, except "I'm comfortable" where I'm at.........This upcoming Chinese New Years Lion Dance is another place I feel "comfortable"; I'd climb into the tail of the Lion, knowing what I need to know, doing what I need to do, so I'm good to go, right?.......then things changed, "I was stuck in the head position"!!!!,yikes, well, now I have to relearn a totally new dance, a new pattern, new moves and I soooo wasn't expecting this! With my employment a few of my superiors have been hinting around at me moving into more of a leadership role in certain aspects of my position with the company, but I'm resistant, because "I'm comfortable" where I am, I know the drill, I know what I need to do and I go and get it done. But, you know what, "comfortable" is BORING, when I really take a look at it, it really chokes me off from who I really want to be and where I want to go with everything I'm involved in. But if I really think about it, lying to myself and saying it's all "ok" is one thing, living the lie is another. Sometimes I wonder if  God is up in heaven, looking down and says, "Hey Moses, come here for a second, look, look down there, it's Robert, watch this",......and you get the picture. When I become "comfortable" life/work/people/my classmates/instructors get in my way and make me "uncomfortable" so I can grow, especially when I'm ready, but really don't think so. Robert.

Time flies when you make bad choices

Where did the week go; I was going to blog Monday, but work kept me out past my "enough" time (time where I've decided that after 5:30 it's time to call it a day at work). Tuesday I was going to blog, but it was another crash and burn day as far as machines breaking down in the cold went. Wednesday was full as I went out with one of my classmates to have a really good "politically incorrect" long awaited where we're at cut to the core discussion after class, Thursday was another work late day finishing off at 10 at the gym and through all that, I knew I couldn't run away from an inspiring comment I heard in one of the classes this week. Sifu Brinker had mentioned "that no one has ever made him mad" he has only "chosen" to get mad after someone does something. That really stuck with me as I thought of all the times I've had mental meltdowns, acted out, hurt someone, hurt someone also by "doing nothing", using sarcasm (the ability to tear flesh with words???) and applied it to this last year, but most of all "how can I make it different for this upcoming year"? I've already started doing things different, as I've learned many times "when I do different things, different results happen", imagine that. When I take a look at my anger/reaction pattern/fears certain things have to happen. Now, I can go up three hat sizes in less than a second when someone does something that I perceive as wrong, but 4 basic things have to happen, 1)Provocation; something has to happen, 2) Arousal; I realize something has happened, 3) Assessment; I analyze what's happened, and the last one that really causes the "stuff" to let loose is 4) Action; where I do something about whatever. The #4 is where I usually end up in all sorts of scenarios from imploding and staying pi**ed off for a month or reacting in a physical manner. So it comes down to pretty much everything good and bad, getting things done or not done comes down to the common denominator of  "my choices". I've  been looking a lot at the painting of Travis' and the lion on the Kwoon wall the last while (wondering where he'd be at in his training) and keep asking myself, with a lot of self reflection,; the thoughts of "Tell me your best reason for not being here, tell me about your bad day, tell me why you can't" and if it is better than the reason in the painting, I might think about it.  Pressing on and pushing forward, searching for the "repeatability", Robert.