Ebb and Flow --- Sometimes you just have to be a noob

I am not particularly a religious person - besides the occasional generic prayer for some poor soul to have kindness directed at them or the moment of pause I always have at the sight of emergency vehicles (Please God let things be okay for them...)  Even these moments are simply my way of directing positivity towards negative situations rather than expecting an actual response from a deity of my choosing.

I however do believe in The Flow - generally speaking it's the idea that life gives you what you need at any given moment.  If you keep doing the wrong thing The Flow will put you in a cyclical existence until you get the point.  And if you fight The Flow, well, you'll often wish you didn't.

All that said - I don't believe in a life full of waiting for a "sign" or not doing things because you've not "felt the flow tell you."  It's a weird balance to strike.  Often, the underlying mantra in any lesson I feel I'm learning is the famous "Let it Go" and let whatever I'm trying to battle against work itself out.  Very similar to the Buddhist idea of non-attachment.

So, how do you strike a balance between letting The Flow carry you and still know when to put in effort to make something happen?  I find myself in a place of learning that balance.

You see, I went through a long time of fighting the flow and wanting what I couldn't have.  So, I had to take pendulum swing over to the side of extreme floating...but now that I've achieved what I consider a good life balance (happy at my career, in a healthy relationship, etc) I feel it's the time to take that one step forward and hone my sweet Flow skillz, if you will.

I come from a family of people who want the end goal, but not the work to get there.  I also have a tendency for this same line of thinking, that focus on the end game rather than the joy of getting there (who doesn't want the million dollar idea RIGHT NOW!?!?!).  The trick now is how to organically go through growth in something without focusing too much on the end game.  And so, that is my personal goal for 2011 (one of many).  To grow in areas that intrigue me, without pushing too hard or looking too much at the potential big picture to stop me in my tracks.

My recent goals surround learning a new language (just for grins - check out these excellent language lessons through Mango software provided by the library for FREE!!), perfecting a Paletas recipe (to eventually have a stand!), writing in this blog (to hone my communication skills) and learning Excel/programming language better to help perfect my personal and joint budget tracking and to understand software better.

These all sound like fine goals - but for one of these such goals - I caught myself today after just putting my toe in the water of the idea - looking at all the ways I could do it better, could make it faster, stronger, leaner...then I realized I was psyching myself out from taking step one by already critiquing it as not the best I could do. 

So, my personal lesson of today was "Sometimes you have to be bad at something before you to get to be the best."