Chaser to maker

This clipping from my first collage sums up how my life has changed. When I met Jim Paredes in his Tapping the Creative Universe seminar in Manila in December 2003, he challenged all of us to forego tv, radio, and books for the two week duration of the classes and to work on unlocking our own creativity in stead.

Apart from writing daily morning pages, one of the assignments was to make a collage at home about our life and what we saw changing in it, and to present it to the class. Those were touching moments. We all lowered our defences and opened up to connections with the creative universe, and many of us took the opportunity to embrace changes in our life.

In the four years that have passed since that class, I have spent a lot of time reading, writing, playing music, and sharing time with family and friends. And I realized today that I hardly ever watched tv anymore in all that time. I keep up with world news by taking a quick look at websites every day, but this takes me minutes rather than hours.

Everything seems to pass from one generation to the next, though. My daughter is now a fervent tv watcher. She seems perfectly content when she sits in her "command center" corner with computer and tv arranged closely around her and ipod available at all times. But then, she’s also investing much time in creativity, like singing, figure skating, guitar, and drawing Japanese mangas. She caught the creative bug as well.

For me, the tide in life has clearly turned. I am happy to live more inside out, in stead of letting my life be dominated by consumption as before. Like the shepherd boy in The Alchemist, I have come to realize that the treasure is buried at home, right where I am. So I continue walking on my path to grow and to help others. And it’s an exciting journey every day.

In between my coughing and sneezing this weekend, I managed to complete a number of tasks that increased my motivation to do more. Yesterday, I registered a domain name for a website that I want to develop this year in support of my life coaching plans. I also put my goals and targets for 2007 on paper, so I can prioritize my time and focus my energy.

John Maxwell quotes a Gregg Harris as having said that 67 of the 100 people he surveyed had set goals for themselves (that percentage includes me now!). However of those 67 people, he said, only 10 made realistic plans to achieve their goals, and of those 10, only 2 people followed through and made them happen. Ouch! What a powerful reminder to stop procrastinating and get on with our life as it should be lived! Except that each person’s purpose is different. So it is a personal journey of inquiry to figure out where each of us should go, how we get there, and to make sure that we do.

I am walking in that direction, and I am happy to have a better map in my hand after this weekend’s work. The other hand still holds a hanky for my sneezing.

Photograph: Detail of my life change collage in December 2003.