It's that day of the year when it's pretty much requisite to write if you're a blogger. New Year's Eve, the day of which I'd always like a double dose, because I'm terrified of commitment, but somehow can't let go of what happened on the last 364 days. It was all so good, and sweet like sugar. And while I know the coming year holds more of that sweetness, bidding adieu to the last year is always bittersweet.
It has been a good year, though, this two thousand and fifteen. My kiddo is growing. I'm finally in this place in my life where really, I'm pretty happy doing what I'm doing, lovingly caring for my sweet little family, ensuring our lives are simple and open for the adventures that make us tick.
I challenged myself this year, stretching the limits of what I could do. I rode with faster people and alternately made myself ride slower some, too. I made myself go to the dentist (ugh). I blogged more, and forced myself to come up with new, creative content (Now if I could just do that with more regularity...). I raced my bike, made new friends, and joined a team. I worked hard to be centered and gentle, even when I didn't really feel like it, because I know people afford me that kind of kindness. I tried to cut back on whining (though some of you may be skeptical). And I learned to accept failure not as a moment to break, but as a way to learn.
Wait, you want to know how my 2015 resolutions turned out, don't you? No, I didn't ride 5,000 miles. I was close, but I had a year full of breakthrough rides and experiences I wouldn't trade. Did I read a book each month? Yes. Did I follow my blogging guidelines? Most of the time.
Oh, and my 2016 resolutions?
Do a better job with recycling... we suck at this.
Read a book a month.
Do more yoga.
Spend more time in the hammock.
Be happy.
That's it. Simple goals, that will be good for me and those around me. Because why overthink things, when everything is so great?
Wishing all you wonderful readers out there a happy, warm, healthy, sweet 2016. Do something awesome with your free time tomorrow... if you Instagram a moment, hashtag it #lifeonthebigchainring so I can see what cool stuff my friends find along the way. Go out and conquer!
31 December, 2015
23 December, 2015
Friends, a Butchered Interpretation of Multiverse Theory, and a little bit of a book report.
I'm not really a believer in romantic love at first sight. I am, however, a believer in platonic love between friends at first sight. I think you can look at someone (I can anyway) and know almost instantly who my people are. I think back over the past couple years of my life, in which I've made amazing adult friends, and nearly all the situations are the same. I saw them, and some deeply seated tribal instinct was aware that we would be friends. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but the more intimately I know those exceptions, I can't believe I didn't pick up on our shared vibes. The people for whom I care the most, the ones with whom I connect the best, it's like my heart and mind handpicked them for me as I walked along my path, like trees in the forest that I bump into when I'm mountain biking. Except my friends don't rough me up. They believe in me, believe the best things about me, even though they see me at my worst. I believe the best things about them, and believe in them unfalteringly, and really don't even remember when I've seen them at their worst.
Our friends' interpretations of our character, physical and metaphysical, and our own... they're like some sort of cataclysm, two worlds colliding in our heads. What if we saw ourselves how others see us? Especially those who care for us, encourage us, and see within us our great potential?
A small takeaway from multiverse theory is that there are infinite versions of ourselves playing out across other universes, in good ways, in bad ways, any way you can imagine or can't imagine. Endless us. Built from stardust, doing whatever it is we do in other ways. The theory also posits that if, due to uneven expansion of universes, the two branes of the parallel universes brush together, we could meet our other selves.
Here's where I butcher the theory for my use. What if we could snap the branes together and become our better, more confident selves, under our control, smashing the two worlds together. What if we're living in two or three closely threaded parallel universes? What if what is inside our head is our own, and the greatness our friends see is yet another? And sometimes, through pictures, our friends' words, or raw data on our computer screen, we see through our own pathway through the universal fabric to the next universe?
When Scrooge meets with the Ghost of Christmas Future, he struggles as he discovers his own grave site. He sees his name on the headstone, and begins to fall apart at the seams, on seeing through to the other universe that could be.
"'Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,' said Scrooge. 'But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me.'" A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
How explosively great could we be if we let down the sheets that block us in, like Scrooge's broken coldness locked out the good, and kept in his old personal self perceptions? Our faltering perceptions of our own abilities are often the very things that hold us back from our goals. Break through, and soak in the wonderful things other believe about you. I'm tired of wishing I could see what others see in me.
My resolution this year is to actively pursue belief in myself and what others have to say well about me. Accept compliments. Absorb encouragement. Drink it like it's the best tea I've ever tasted. Say goodbye to the doubts and replace the why nots with "Why the hell not?!". Our lives are too short and cosmically special to continue to not be the best us, and believe in the best us.
Snap through that space time continuum. Abuse scientific theory (not really, but I had to include this...). Be your best damn self. Take chances, accept invitations to rides where you know you're way outside your ability level, read something new and challenging, learn to make something new, learn to do something exciting and strange. Because you can. Your friends, your window to the other you, already know you can. Just listen to them.
Our friends' interpretations of our character, physical and metaphysical, and our own... they're like some sort of cataclysm, two worlds colliding in our heads. What if we saw ourselves how others see us? Especially those who care for us, encourage us, and see within us our great potential?
A small takeaway from multiverse theory is that there are infinite versions of ourselves playing out across other universes, in good ways, in bad ways, any way you can imagine or can't imagine. Endless us. Built from stardust, doing whatever it is we do in other ways. The theory also posits that if, due to uneven expansion of universes, the two branes of the parallel universes brush together, we could meet our other selves.
Here's where I butcher the theory for my use. What if we could snap the branes together and become our better, more confident selves, under our control, smashing the two worlds together. What if we're living in two or three closely threaded parallel universes? What if what is inside our head is our own, and the greatness our friends see is yet another? And sometimes, through pictures, our friends' words, or raw data on our computer screen, we see through our own pathway through the universal fabric to the next universe?
When Scrooge meets with the Ghost of Christmas Future, he struggles as he discovers his own grave site. He sees his name on the headstone, and begins to fall apart at the seams, on seeing through to the other universe that could be.
"'Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,' said Scrooge. 'But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me.'" A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
How explosively great could we be if we let down the sheets that block us in, like Scrooge's broken coldness locked out the good, and kept in his old personal self perceptions? Our faltering perceptions of our own abilities are often the very things that hold us back from our goals. Break through, and soak in the wonderful things other believe about you. I'm tired of wishing I could see what others see in me.
My resolution this year is to actively pursue belief in myself and what others have to say well about me. Accept compliments. Absorb encouragement. Drink it like it's the best tea I've ever tasted. Say goodbye to the doubts and replace the why nots with "Why the hell not?!". Our lives are too short and cosmically special to continue to not be the best us, and believe in the best us.
Snap through that space time continuum. Abuse scientific theory (not really, but I had to include this...). Be your best damn self. Take chances, accept invitations to rides where you know you're way outside your ability level, read something new and challenging, learn to make something new, learn to do something exciting and strange. Because you can. Your friends, your window to the other you, already know you can. Just listen to them.
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