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Ah… November…

I’ve closed my eyes for all of a minute and we’re already halfway through the month! You know time is running when you’re used to writing daily and you look back at your blog and realize you’ve been snoozing a bit too long.

I’m slower when the winter comes. It’s just the way I am. I’m not built for this kind of weather 🤣

I have always found that people subconsciously reflect the weather patterns of the places where they live. I, for one, am a lot warmer as a person in warmer climate. When the cold strikes, there’s very little that can persuade me to get out of my little nook and live a little. Over the years, I’ve made a concentrated effort to combat my nature; otherwise, I end up eating and sleeping myself into oblivion during the winter months.

On the other hand, place me in a warm country and I am full of life, and there’s very little that can keep me sitting still. It’s a completely different reality from the one I live in the City of Ice.

Whenever I grow detached from myself, I remember something my dad once said to me: just like you have the power to furnish your home so that it brings you a sense of comfort and safety, you can also furnish your city. If you learn to fill your city with good memories, every place on earth can feel like home.

I get it; but I can’t pretend I’ve mastered the trick.

The City of Ice never felt like home to me, at least not until I had a chance to miss it. Walking around today, I was frozen to the bone, and somehow found comfort in the frozen feeling. Ah! November! I walked past Christmas ornaments that have been, I kid you not, consistently put up with absolutely no change in the design for at least 5 years. Ah! A sense of familiarity!

The City of Ice never fails to astound me with its redundancy, and yet it is ever beautiful. Every year, like clockwork, my mood changes at around this time. I become less patient, begin to experience more severe chronic pain symptoms, and want to roll up under a rock and sleep away the next half year. But, somehow, I revel in the magic of it all. It’s a great reminder that good times are coming, that transitions are necessary, and that difficult moments make the good ones all the more wonderful. It’s also a great reminder that life is worthy of celebration and that we need to fill our world with good friends, good causes, strong family ties, and as much love as possible. And so, this makes it the best season for giving. It is when you feel most cold at heart that you should extend your hand to help others.

That has always worked for me.

What about you? How are you handling the changing seasons? Are you excited, inspired, full of ambition… or are you ready to take a nap, like me? What do you do to keep your head above water?

How do you manage to remember that we design our own luck?

M.

Sometimes, we need to slow down for a moment to be able to think clearly. Before taking a chance on a new venture, idea, or goal, we need a moment to contemplate in silence. This is really only a moment. The longer wait tends to happen after the idea has been born… it is the space between inaction and action. It’s only human to get stuck in that limbo for a while.

I’ve always been quick to think but slow to act. I see this every day in people around me too; everyone has a great idea, but very few are actually putting on their crazy pants and getting to work. Why? Because your best ideas are often based on childlike curiosity, hope, creativity, and excitement… and as we age, we begin to lose faith that achieving these dreams is possible.

When I was a teenager, my dad and I were taking the train back home after work/school, and he was telling me about a potential job opportunity out of town. My dad is often quick to think and even quicker to act. That explains why I spent my life country hopping. I saw the spark in his eyes that day, the one that always shined through when he had a new adventure planned. This time, I wasn’t excited. We had just recently moved, again, halfway across the world. I still missed my friends. I was upset. I remember crossing my arms and saying “dad, we can’t do this again. This needs to stop.”

My dad was alarmed by my reaction. After all, he raised me living on the fast lane, never knowing when we would change course and always adapting seamlessly. Shed a single tear and move on. He didn’t expect The Shut Down. So he told me about his view that life is a journey through train stations at various destinations, and that every train goes somewhere different. “Sometimes, you only have a split moment to decide to hop on a train,” he said, “or else, you will miss the chance forever.” “But there will be other trains!” I insisted. “Yes, and you’ll have to live with where they take you if you decide to hop on one of them. But the problem is, most people are so afraid, that they spend their whole lives living in one train station.”

I understood what he meant even then. While moving too often was frustrating and often painful, stagnation was my biggest fear, and still is. Yet, here I am on a train this morning, every morning, and it isn’t leaving the station.

What is the cost of inaction?

This week, I started the process of getting my business idea registered. I have been developing two ideas: one is fun, creative, and appeals to my youth. The other is more formal than my day job, and doesn’t really excite me. I decided to venture forward with my intuition, the inner guide that says “yes, you can only make X dollars per hour starting with this business idea, while the other will make you XX dollars, but… you know what… it’s time to put your crazy pants on, and do what you actually want to do!”

I can’t say that I’ve hopped on a train to a whole new life like my parents often do. They raised me with guts and survival instincts, but I am not quite ready to go back to the Bedouin life. For now, I am still a little stuck in my train station… but I’ll be opening up a shop instead of waiting around.

What’s your crazy pants dream? What are you waiting for to make it come true? Let me know in the comments below!

And remember… we design our own luck!

M.