Two great surprises

My wife surprised me the other day by taking me out for dinner. What’s the phrase? Burning the candle at both ends? Well, the past month of so, I’ve been the burning candle in so many different directions that I melted the whole darned candle. I hadn’t really been taking care of myself and it was great to slow down and take a breath.

I love those kinds of surprises, the kind where you least expect it, but come away reenergized and enthusiastic about all that life has to offer. Oh dinner was pretty simple, just a local pizza dive, but I felt like I had been taken in for a tune-up and came out shiny and new again.

I’ve found two books by fellow bloggers that have given me the same kind of pleasant surprise. I started both not really knowing what to expect and came away excited about life. The books: Cindy Georgakas’ Re-Create & Celebrate: 7 Steps to Turn Your Dreams Into Reality and Cheryl Oreglia’s Grow Damn It! The Feeding and Nurturing of Life are about as different as the sun and the moon — one’s a self help book, one’s a series of heart-felt stories and tales of life — but they’re actually very similar in that they both dig into what matters and what we really want out of life.

Cindy describes her book as a blueprint to create your inner world the way you want it, examining motivations, asking questions, and weeding out patterns and past challenges. It’s a how-to book, but approaches it from the perspective of a journey. It felt like I was sitting at local coffeeshop chatting with a long-time friend.

“There will always be moments when we wake up on the wrong side of the bed, spill our coffee, get sick, etc., but if you are constantly in a state of doom and gloom, and have lost your zest for living, it’s time to take a long hard look at what you want.”

I’ve seen many of Cindy’s questions in the past in corporate training sessions and other events and I’ve asked myself many of them, but it was still interesting to challenge myself in thinking about them anew. And, oh, what a challenge for me:

What do I want?

I want the sun and the moon! Maybe you could throw in a few millions bucks and a life of leisure too!

Okay, Mr. Hotshot, that’s nice . . . that’s a start . . . kind of . . . but what do you really want?

Oh, I have to really think about this, I can’t just sarcastically joke my way out of it. Okay, how about peace and happiness.

Hmm, a little generic and a tad philosophical, how about some specifics?

Oh, crap, you really are serious.

Okay, Mr. Stand-up Comedian, or should we call you Jerry Seinfeld now? How are you gonna get there? What are you going to do to make your dreams happen?

Ugh!

Cindy seemed to be writing directly to me: “Life is meant to be celebrated at every stage of the journey. As much as I balk at Hallmark moments, because they feel like so much hype and commercialism, I still view them as an opportunity to come together, pause, and pay homage to those we love.”

She goes on: “We need to celebrate each moment, and take each lesson as it come up, which sometimes means crying through the tears until they pass, and laughing through the ridiculous.”

I’m still figuring out the answers to some of those probing questions, but it’s been fun and enlightening to see where the answers take me.

Similarly, Cheryl’s book is a series of stories about her life, her forty-year marriage, and life as an empty nester. Similar to Cindy’s book, I felt like I was reconnecting with a decades-long friend. In fact, the thing about Cheryl’s writing that I loved most was her willingness to laugh at herself and life. I love that kind of storytelling, because it’s a such a considerate and caring way to bring others along for the ride.

There’s no pretense, no arrogance, just a passion to share.

In her introduction she talks about needing to get inside her house when the floors were being refurbished and recoated, so her husband and son tried to lift her up eight feet and through a small back window. Of course, the going gets tough, and she has to wiggle her way through the tight enclosure and for a split second or two she fears getting stuck in the window, having to call 911, and the crazy image local firefighters would get as they pulled up to the scene.

Oh, the embarrassment!

In the end, of course, she scrunches her way inside and all’s well that ends well, but I couldn’t help but laugh, because I could easily see the same thing happening to my family and it’s the kind of thing I find funny in our everyday lives. It reminds me that our lives may be different — we may live in different states or countries, we may have different interests — but our hopes and dreams are more alike than we imagine. In addition, it reminded me that you have to laugh at life’s ups and down, life is too hard otherwise.

I love the messages that Cheryl leaves with her stories. Later in the book, she writes that she’s “been sipping the Kool-Aid of work-a-holics for too long. Resting gets a bad rap, and I’m here to repackage this preposterous vilification.”

She writes: “Idleness is not the root of all evil, as the Jones would have you think. It is the fertilizer that is required if you wish to Grow, Damn it.”

Right on cue, I found myself raising my fist in a mock “power to the people” movement. Where do I sign up? I too have a bad habit of running at breakneck speeds and sometimes forgetting to slow down and enjoy the ride. It served as a great reminder to stop in the moment, pull out my previously-forgotten journal, and jot down a few of the things I’m grateful for in my life. (My wife and kids topped that list.)

Oh, these two books were just what I needed. They made me think about what I want, who I love and what I want my life to be. Thank you Cindy and Cheryl . . . your wise words were very much what the doctor ordered. Thank you!

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Check them out:

Books:

• Re-Create & Celebrate: 7 Steps to Turn Your Dreams Into Reality by Cindy Georgakas
• Grow Damn It! The Feeding and Nurturing of Life by Cheryl Oreglia

Blogs:

• Unique Times with Cindy Georgakas
• Living in the Gap with Cheryl Oreglia