HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Welcome to 2014. With the first entry, as you're reading presently, I present to you a lot of niceness and kindness and maybe a recipe for disaster flipped upside down and made into "self-promotion, progress and positivity."
Not exactly a name for a dish that rolls right off your tongue, but I'm pretty sure you'll appreciate it way more than your taste buds will. Probably. Hopefully.
Anyway, check out that link first. It's the magnificent work of my friend Milika. For those of you who are new to the whole blog ordeal or just are now tuning into the 2014 edition of Unspoken Words to Unexpressed Thoughts [ could you imagine if this was actually a thing? Bahaha ], Milika Cherée is one of my best friends I've met in my years at university. She's a glorious human being with whom I've developed such a strong and immense bond with that I would never have expected from anyone in my life. Of course, talent seems to find each other - he said ever so nonchalantly - and I've been graced with all the people in my life, just like her.
Take a listen. It's really good. Like... really good. And, of course, all the good in my life, I'd like to re-institute a way of sharing that with you. Naturally, that would be this. [ I also got the mobile application, so the entries should come more frequently than they have - he emptily promised once over. ]
I'd like to take a moment to say, as I always wish I could every moment of the day [ and probably will start in 2014 ] that I appreciate every single person in my life, out of my life or yet to come into my life for surviving each day they do, for making the choices they make. The world is filled to the brim with people of all types, of all shapes and sizes and with different minds, cultivated from different backgrounds. Here, I stand with more experience in my twenty years this life than I have in any other life I've experienced to date.
I'm thoroughly enjoying that strike-out feature. Sorry, I'll cut it out now. Haha.
"Self-Promotion, Progress and Positivity"
Before you begin, wash your hands thoroughly with pure, unsaturated gratefulness, unblended admiration and compassion-concentrate. After drying them with the acceptance of the world around you, you may prepare the appliances:
- You'll need one large heart. It's okay if it's beaten, tattered, broken, mended, full or empty - it just needs to be your own. You'll need to inspect it for any vices, biases or anything that could taint its composition any further. If it's a bad habit, you'll need to wash it with the same components you washed your hands with prior to preparation; a bit of a tenderness with the cleanse will do it good, but try to be patient - it will thaw and rid of its blemishes with undetermined and unprecedented time.
- If you open your eyes and inspect the heart thoroughly, you'll find with it a set of connections that plug into different parts of your body. This is tuned and intended to keep your body running well at a standard temperature of ninety-eight and six-tenths [ 98.6 ] Farenheit - thirty-seven [ 37 ] degrees Celsius for you intelligent creatures. It is homeostasis, your body's natural standard for functional operation. With it, you'll find your immune system and your different, internal regulators - blood pressure / cholesterol; blood cell count [ white and red ]; enzymes; acids; etc. Do well to observe and tend to their needs, requirements and, essentially, take care of your body.
- Next comes the great part we all love. If you take a container to place the heart in - preferably figurative and mentally fabricated, housing the actual heart right where it belongs [ in your chest cavity, in case you are following the instructions verbatim ] you can sit there and evaluate both your heart and your body with your mind. Take all the time you need: this is a recipe made for either one lifetime or many - however many you need to figure it out. With this evaluation, you should be able to find what you cherish: what you hold dear, what you appreciate, what makes you happy, what strikes you emotionally and what makes you want to go to sleep to wake up the next morning and breathe air for. Once you have made a list composed of more than [ but no little as ] fifteen things [ accumulative or separately for each category is not distinguished ], you are free to find things in your life that fit snugly in whichever places they belong. Feel free to bend the rules if it's something that doesn't seem to fit at all. However, if it is negative in any aspect, you must set it aside in a pile alienated from the container which houses your washed, thriving heart and your stable body. Let's call this rubbish. Not like we're going to refer to it another time. But, for your future purposes, and if you need to try your hand again at this recipe, "rubbish" is a starting point.
- After you've your plethora of pleasures, do well to find them in life. Once you have found them in your life, exact how you're going to share them with those around you. In what proportion? Are you going to share all of your happiness to convey to others who may or may not appreciate the things you do as much as you do? Are you going to share as little as possible to keep the bliss to yourself? It is suggested to give the heart the judgment, leaving whatever you share to the same compassion broth which should be pumping from the heart to the body.
- With the sharing testing the caliber of your happiness and your surroundings, take another look. Do these things still make you happy? Do they make the people around you happy? Do you appreciate the things or people with whom you've experienced these results with? Take three-fourths [ 3/4 ] of the negative responses and set them aside for the rubbish. Do not set them in the rubbish, merely make room for the quintessence of your happiness - for the things and people that mean the most.
- Add a [ 1 ] cup of sugar: do not get down in the dumps. Sugar - artificial or natural - does well for your cells. { Accredited source. } It is simply the energy source that provides your cells the capability to do what they need to. Whether this sugar is literal - eating healthier with more fruits, vegetables, proportioned meals and properly prepared diet-work - or figurative - holding a perspective that absolves detrimental attitudes and extracts happiness out of every situation, good or bad - it will do well if added in the right proportion. If poured properly, this will make the contents glaze with a lifetime of pleasant experiences and bonds that will be greatly appreciated at a later time.
- Stir steadily with an instrument of action. Do, don't think upon everything. Get out of your comfort zone for a few days or weeks or months and try something new that will not only make you feel alive and well, but will also bring you good karma and prosperity.
- Resolve what it is these elements of your mind, the cup of sugar and your listings and sorting, will do for you. Do not forget who is going to slave over this great concoction, who is going to provide this recipe success - and that is you. What do you aspire to be in ten years? Where do you want to be in life within the next fifteen to twenty? How about in one year? Let your options set for about a week or two, and see if any bubbles form. If they do, weigh them down with a thick powder of practicality and reason. If the mixture tastes bitter, add a half cup [ 1/2 ] of sugar with the intent to stop in case the mixture gets too light and sweet. You'll definitely be able to tell.
- Set this mixture and let it revel in its own juices. Success and prosperity may not come until the end of the recipe or it may have already exacted itself, but it is within the mixture. Let your ambition and passion ignite and heat up with excitement up until you're ready for your first step. Whether that is at a cooler temperature than the standard "I've-had-it-final-straw degrees" or the extremes of "I'm going nowhere with my life freezing" and "I-have-too-much-on-my-plate-and-I-don't-know-what-to-do-incinerating" it is all subjective to what you feel. Don't forget to feel. Just judge when you're ready to put yourself and your life to the challenge and, when you are completely prepared and dying to take that first step, open the ambition and passion and set the container in. [ It will be able to withstand all of that you need to endure, don't worry about that. Just worry about getting through the fire and flames. ]
- Don't give up. It's hard when it's hard and it gets harder when you least expect it or need it. But there's always a reason for everything. And just like any other experience in life, the end result may differ from the original product: if you give one-hundred percent [ 100% ] of yourself to your commitments and to yourself, you will have nothing to worry about. The container will take the form of the people and things you set aside for the rubbish or that were very cherishable to you. You'll wonder how they got in and how they protected you from the relentless heat of Life, but never mind that - you've got other things to tend to.
- Give yourself a break. Turn off the ambition, resolve, and prepare yourself with some gloves of adversity, of reminiscing and honor for your past to remove your container. It will be hot and weathered and possibly fragile, but your contents will have glazed over into a beautifully transformed heart. This heart that you recognize will have the same form, same shape, same beat, same everything. The only thing that will differ, but not limited to, will be its installation of appreciation. You'll learn to appreciate yourself so much more, ergo connecting appreciation, compassion, love and happiness to so much more in your surroundings.
- Take a moment to admire the changes you've made. It's not easy as cooking, per se, but it most certainly is doable. And not too many people follow the instructions. Some may waver, some may find faults and mend it to their own, come up with better or worse results - some may even end up with the same heart that they started with. After you spend about a few winks of your eyes, a few tears of admiration and the same gratefulness that bathed the heart before all else, fit the heart right back where it belongs and your body in the place it belongs. Your mind will have recalibrated to accommodate the matters of your new body, and you can enjoy your self-promotion, progress and positivity. Serving size contingent upon the willingness and capacity of your heart.
Twelve steps. Nothing truly symbolic of it, but I thought what better way to fit it to a trial system than to try and provide an opportunity to people to exercise it this year, one step per month. That way, if something goes wrong or something is confusing, you'll have a reference [ myself ] to relate to. I mean, I probably won't get it right completely at the end of this year, but together we'll get something right, at the very least.
"I can't do this alone."
- Milika Cherée . "Alone" -
- Milika Cherée . "Alone" -
And while the soul and heart of this lyricist may be bruised and blemished like the rest of ours, she has the same possibility of having positive results with this recipe for self-promotion, progress and positivity - a better year, a wonderful 2014, and an equally magnificent life.
For me, 2013 was the year of "I Can."
Now, 2014 is the year of "I Have."
Kind of in all senses of the word, y'know?
Happy January. Let's work on this one, large heart together.
First, I've got to wash my hands, if you'll excuse me.
<3 ~ Monty.
=]
