Minutes From Somewhere

Hey there, all...

Schwartzenegger won, the Cubs lost, *and* I have a cold. This is the start of a beautiful day. :P

I took the day off work to get some rest, chew some vitamins, drink some tea and see if I can't rest off the worst of the cold. It's taken a couple people down pretty hard already, and I can't really afford to miss a two or three day string.

It seems I've been pissing a friend or two off recently, by making a misstep. With one friend, it basically came down to expressing a concern extremely tactlessly when he was already depressed to begin with. Add to this the fact that I've been hesitating on helping him out of a jam and well, there's that situation. The other is...probably something I'm doing that's pissing someone off and I don't know about it. Hopefully the latter one can be smoothed over with a simple explanation. The other one...I don't know. Maybe a week or two away from each other to get stuff out of the system.

So here I sit, again wondering if I'm really as good a person as I want to be. I mean, we all make mistakes, but how many of mine can be avoided with a bit more foresight? I'm reading a book on the idea of listening, and how it can be used to facilitate Zen practice. It's a pretty decent book so far, and listening has never been one of my really strong points; I mean *listening*, without reservation or judgement, association or an attempt to categorize...just, well, listening, taking in the information.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about where I am, and what I want to be doing...and well, why I want to be doing it. Moreover, why I can't seem to get the ball rolling solidly when it comes to my guard. I've gotten into the habit of pushing myself these days, partly because I really do *enjoy* what I'm pushing myself to do, and partly because I feel it's really really necessary. If I don't create, if I'm not constantly working on ways to get these stories out, I get very disappointed with myself. I should know better, but I don't. ;)

Everything in my life is good. I've become aware that people could get this wrong impression of me from my journals, you know, because I'm constantly worrying or wondering about this or that. :) These are just things I think about, stuff that I can't really have conversations about with anyone in particular but things I need to say anyway. :) I'm happy, really I am...but things could always be better. I'm never content with something that's just...'pleasant'.

but why *not*? When is well enough? Why can't I just take what I've got and be happy? Why question everything? I think I have a reasonably satisfactory take on things, but not *really*. I'm one of those people who believe that all humanity is basically good, and that if left to their own devices people really want to do what's best. But *why* do I believe that? I've gotten the urge to explain that more than just with, "Well, it's my belief."

I would explain a bit further, but I've been talking about it quite a bit already. <:) Maybe I should start devising filters for folks...