Category: mindfulness

Searching for Happiness

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Well, I’m not searching, I’m happy.

But this post  makes me think.

Doland recommends taking one day every week or every month to simply observe yourself:

It’s about tuning in to what you are doing, who you are doing it with and how it makes you feel. How much worry, stress, anger, joy or contentment do you experience on a given day?

Your happiness audit should assess not only major elements of your life, like your job and relationship, but also seemingly inconsequential aspects like how you occupy yourself on your commute and what you eat for lunch. Check in with how you’re feeling and what you’re thinking. You’ll find that certain, perhaps surprising, things give you more pleasure than others, just as some detract.

The solution, according to Dolan, is to deliberately make it very easy to do the things that make us happy. Dolan believes we can structure our time and design our surroundings in such a way that we can quickly make a habit out of doing things that make us happy. These changes are small and incremental, but this is precisely why he thinks they work so well.

Ya, makes me think.type

Finding Yourself, Losing Yourself, and Finding Yourself Again

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It’s the end of the year, and I get introspective around this time.

I also get sad, but that’s another story.

When I was younger, I refused to get sad. I was a Pollyanna girl, sure that everything would turn out all right in the end. “I’m fine,” is our family mantra, and I lived that way a long, long time.

But I’ve been in a lost period for the last few years, trying to figure out who I am and what I want to be when I grow up. In the process, I’ve changed from Pollyanna to Eeyore. I’ve been whiny, critical, and gloomy, sure the next plane will crash or my business will fail.

Sometimes we’ll never figure out what sends us spiraling. But now, five years later,  I’m grateful to be seeing the light. I love working on my presses, sharing time with my young students, and helping to run Water Street Studio. The other day, one of my students stopped by with a gift (pictured above). I was touched he thought to create a framed set of type, including the word “write” and my initials. Seriously, touched.

These days, I’ve learned how little I really can control in my life. But giving in to that helps me appreciate everything else so much more.  Now I say, “What’s the worst that can happen?” And the answer is usually something I can live with.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be a Pollyanna again. Wedged where I am feels like a good fit-a little vulnerable, a little realistic, and a lot hopeful.

All righty, then. I have some wood type waiting for me, and my hands are too clean. Back to work.

 

 

 

Am I Screaming?

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IMG_1137I was bemoaning to a friend in the shop yesterday that I hate “selling.”

“You have to yell this time of year to be heard,” he said.

I wonder. What happens to our minds in all of this loud noise? Can we filter?

I dislike filling the social media I handle with pleas for people to come see us (even though I love what we do). This time of year is crazy. Everyone wants to get their message out there.  And dealing with so many accounts (I volunteer with two organizations), I am proud that I’ve only put the wrong photo on the wrong social media twice in the last week.  Not bad, eh?

Seth Godin says, “the people who care are the people who will listen.” So, friends, here you are if you care to listen :)

In the meantime, I’m going back to my press for a while.

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When the Words Won’t Come

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UntitledI’ve been having a hard time writing lately. My dreams are of presses and type, my spare moments have me reading instead of composing. The words roll around in my head. Until they decide to take some shape, I will ignore the guilt.

*****

Who knew?

Besides artist and author, Nin was also a publishing entrepreneur. In January 1942, she sets up her own small press in a loft on Macdougal Street, and soon set out to print and self-publish a new edition of her third book, Winter of Artifice, teaching herself typesetting and doing most of the manual work herself.

I totally get this:

You pit your faculties against concrete problems. The victories are concrete, definable, touchable. A page of perfect printing. You can touch the page you wrote. We exult in what we master and discover. Instead of using one’s energy in a void, against frustrations, in anger against publishers, I use it on the press, type, paper, a source of energy. Solving problems, technical, mechanical problems. Which can be solved.