(Can’t see the video? Then try watching it at Work Happy Now - Hard Fun and Beautiful – Bamboo Edition)
This week has been up and down and left and right. My emotions have been a little unstable, but I’ve been doing the best I can. I feel bad for Nikki because I was really grumpy a few days ago. I had trouble finding a balance between work and play.
This video covers the Hard, Fun and Beautiful of my week.
Here are the topics I cover:
Hard
- Balance of family and work life. I do Work Happy Now on the side, so a lot of my free time goes to content, marketing and connecting. I’ve been having trouble finding a balance between family and work. I want to build this site up to help more and more people, but I don’t want to miss my son growing up. It’s a daily balance that takes a lot of awareness.
Fun
- I was asked to join an bloggers’ alliance spurred on by Darren of Problogger’s post, Let me Show You Inside a Secret Blogging Alliance. I’m not allowed to say who asked me, but it’s some really awesome people. I feel very lucky. I just know that I’ll take this blog to the next level. And of course, I’ll bring all of you with me.
Beautiful
- I have a bamboo plant on my desk at work. Most days I ignore it, but this week it keeps drawing my attention back to it. I can’t help but notice the variance of green in each leaf. There is also this little sprout shooting up from underneath the pebbles. I forgot to water it for a week and it still finds a way to prosper. We may not always feel appreciated at work, but we still have to find a way to prosper and grow.
How about you?
What happened to you that was Hard, Fun and Beautiful? I would love to hear what you have to say in the comment section.
If you haven't check out Work Happy the Google Way you better do it soon. I'm thinking about taking it down. While I'm thinking it over you better grab it. Just join my RSS or Email Feed and you'll get it for free.
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One of the first places I go to get an emotional boost is Marc and Angel Hack Life. All of the articles are top notch, but one of my favorite posts is Who Will Save Your Life?
If you enjoyed this video you may also enjoy:
You rock, Karl!
😉
Hope you're having an awesome Thursday!
Karl,
Balance...I can relate! Or, how I've really been thinking about it recently is in terms of harmony. How can I find that spot where there's harmony within it all.
Sounds like some pretty great things are happening - very cool! And for me, when I think about the beautiful - I think about last night. It was so good. I have a soccer team I'm coaching - my daughter's team - a different group of kids than I've coached before. And we did a little practice scrimmage against my son's team (who I coached last year). It was so fun - first of all to see how much fun my new players were all having out there. And second, to listen to all the kids on my son's team - many of whom I've coached before - all excited to play us because they were out to get me! A fun night all around!
Great vlog; I loved it!
Hard this week was balancing my time now that (and I'm so not complaining about this!) my boyfriend is home from Iraq and in the picture for a couple months. He lives 45 minutes away from me in a house in the country. I find myself spending a couple days out there at a time, and we're doing all kinds of home improvement things. As a result, I haven't been writing or doing my usual blog-related stuff and fell behind in some cases (although, what is "behind" exactly?! it's all my opinion of what I 'should' be doing). So finding balance was harder than usual now that I have new stuff to do and enjoy.
Fun this week was being a guest blogger at The Jungle of Life. Holy cats, I was like a kid on Christmas morning. Such an honor, and so many amazing people showed up to support what I wrote. (*bow*)
Beautiful this week was being able to practice surrender AGAIN. I wrote about it for the Jungle of Life post, and that very day during which I was responding to amazing comments, I was given unexpected news that begged me to surrender my will once more. "God's will, not my will, be done today." I'm always impressed at how the Universe works. Quite simply, it's beautiful how aligned all the energies are.
Happy Friday and may your weekend be awesome!
Hi Karl,
Ah, the big warm welcome is making a come-back! 😉 Glad to hear it.
Sounds like you've had a bit of a challenge this week with trying to find some balance between spending time with your family and on the Work Happy Now site. I wouldn't presume to speak on behalf of other readers, but the sense I get is that probably your regular readers would fully support you and understand a desire to want to spend time with your immediate family--especially your baby son. From what I'm told--and what I've observed with my niece, little ones grow and change very quickly; you really don't want to miss out on those special moments.
Work-wise, what was hard was an emotionally and mentally draining 3 hour conversation about the challenging work situation. In other areas, my sweetie is now half a world away in India for the next month or so, while I am "stuck" here on the west coast, for now, so that definitely feels a bit hard. (Thank goodness Skype is behaving itself again!) Not only am I missing my significant other, but I'm wishing I could also be there to spend time with his extended family, and I'm getting nostalgic for the weird and wonderful times I've experienced in my visits to India.
What is fun at the moment is having found a project that I feel passionate about and where I do get to use a lot of my talents. I have been volunteering with an organization called Be the Change Earth Alliance--helping to put together the latest version of the action guide that is given to participants in the Be the Change Action Circles. (The emphasis is on implementing practices that move one toward a more sustainable life style.) The really exciting part will be helping in designing the curriculum for a Social Justice circle. This is right up my alley and I can't wait to start pulling together some resources and maybe even writing a few short essays to introduce the modules.
One moment of real beauty this week was hearing a poem that a friend of mine had written several years ago. I resonated with the mind set she described in the first couple of verses and really appreciated that in the remainder of the poem she reminds us of the keys that are available to us help us unlock and move out from a place of being stuck. Sometimes hearing the right words at the right time is equivalent to listening to a beautiful musical composition.
Best wishes to everyone for a fun and beautiful weekend.
Hi Karl: I love how your bamboo plant finds a way to prosper even if you sometimes forget to water it. Congratulations on the blogging alliance, I'm sure you'll do great.
Have just finished reading the article on the blogging alliance. This is so great to see examples of people working together and cooperating to benefit a group, rather than getting caught up in the (almost unhealthy form and level of) competitiveness that seems to have become so much a part of the social conditioning in North America and many of the other industrialized, developed nations. The timing of reading this article--and the philosophy that seems to have been adopted by the group-- was kind of an interesting coincidence as I'd just finished watching a video on the Global Oneness Project website. The video, consisting of an interview with a community activist in South Africa, discussed cooperation among groups and communities to achieve goals that benefit everyone and how a win-win approach is often undermined by competitiveness and a mind-set that focuses on "limited resources" rather than "there is enough for everyone if we work together".
The other interesting point I noticed in the article was the observation that the number of comments left by other readers/subscribers increased after the alliance members started leaving comments. That mind-set of "No one wants to be the first to do something" is really fascinating--and perplexing. Thank goodness there are a few courageous souls who are willing to break from the herd and be leaders or try something different or we really might all be in a sorry state.
Thanks for including the link to the article on the blogging alliance--and for all the other great links that have led me to any number of useful and interesting resources.
Hi Marc, you are pretty amazing yourself.
Hi Lance, harmony is a great way of talking about balance. It's less about walking a tight rope and more about riding the flow.
Hi Megan, surrender is so hard. I've been using more surrender to relax in a situation. I find myself going back to old habits like tightening my neck and back. I just have to keep practicing.
Hi Sue, I'm glad you noticed. As for Be the Change Alliance, I think that's great. We have so many opportunities to change the world, we just need to seize them.
Hi Marelisa, Bamboo is an amazing plant.
Hi again Sue, I'm so glad you came back again. I always love reading your comments. Life shouldn't be a competition. It should be about helping each other. We need to work together to make this world a better place.
I had a lucky bamboo plant in my office, but it died (I guess it wasn't that lucky.) I still have my banana plant and I like the greenery. I think ambiance really does make a difference when it comes to enjoying your workspace.
I like your blog! Interesting! Hard? That would be my working hours and days. It is so tiring. Fun? I love my co-workers. Beautiful? I am working so hard for my one only daughter. I am a single mom. And my daughter is a beautiful princess who makes my life goes on.