“Take your needle, my child, and work out your pattern. It will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
My friend, Lon, sent me this quote today after reading my post from yesterday about making patterns instead of plans. It should be noted publicly that Lon is one of the people in my life who cheers me on no matter what and that I reciprocate that support. When I start a new project, when I end a project, when I’m just going about my life, Lon sends me positive messages that keep me going. This quote today was one of many that Lon has sent me over the time we’ve been friends, and I thought about it all day today.
While it’s easy to tell people “go make a plan”, “go make a pattern”, it helps to have some direction on how to do these things. I’m really great at making plans, though as I said yesterday, my life never follows them. My life unfolds in patterns. While I try to remain as open as possible to the universe presenting me with opportunities, I do seek out certain types of opportunities. Which begs the question, “how do I decide to find certain opportunities or patterns?” What gets me going in the directions I’m going in?
If you’re looking to create positive patterns in your life, I hope the following ideas help to get you started:
1.) As much as I may love a certain path I’m on, I’m never afraid to do an about-face and try something completely new.
2.) I got over the “I don’t think I can do that” dilemma a long time ago. Barring brain surgery, I don’t think there’s much I can’t do if I really put my mind to it.
3.) I’m a pretty relentless person in every sense. If I really want to go somewhere, try something, achieve something, it’s going to be tough to dissuade me. Developing positive patterns takes persistence. Don’t give up.
4.) I believe in the process of continuous improvement. (Somewhere my business school teachers are smiling wide at this statement.) As a child, I was obsessed with perfection until I’d been disappointed so many times that I realized perfection is rarely if ever attainable. And thank goodness! If perfection were consistently possible, think of all the fantastic, imperfect experiences we’d miss out on. My yoga teacher, Lauren, explained to us that our yoga would never be perfect – no one’s is – so we don’t have to worry. Learning is a life-long process so take your time and enjoy it, knowing that no matter how much we learn, there will always be more.
5.) Biographies and autobiographies help. A lot. I read them all the time. And from them I take little bits of learning from the lives of others, and follow the examples that I admire the most.
So go ahead and take up the needle, as Oliver Wendell Holmes counsels us to do. You cannot fail. This is your life, your pattern, to create. Just keep at it. You’ll be surprised what a beautiful masterpiece you can weave. And my deepest thanks to my pal, Lon, for just being marvelously you, because you inspire me to be me.
Christa Avampato 