48 days to go...

After the alarm went this morning, I missed getting up early. I stayed in bed half-awake for a couple of hours pondering various things. Comfortable for sure, but when I finally got up I realized that these hours had not yielded anything useful. The mind was mostly reflecting on the past, and switched to psychological time. I was happy to get back to real time, to the now.

The day went by peacefully. After exercise and errands around the house, my productivity only rose in mid afternoon when I got back to my research. Surprisingly this started while sitting in the back of the car, where I found that I could think clearly, and later over a soy cappuccino in Starbucks. Once the pump was primed, I could continue the flow back at my desk. I made good progress, focusing on the conceptual framework of the research and on planning of the data collection.

In between activities, I also put my success journey ideas of the past days into a mind map. It’s such a nice tool, I’m happy I downloaded the program. I made two maps so far.

To help me onward my life journey at 50, I asked three good friends a few days ago what they thought my strengths were that I could put to more use at 50. Two replied already, and I gave me valuable insights and advice. As another good friend mentioned, honest feedback can work like a mirror. We see things that we otherwise could not.

My youngest daughter decided on her own initiative to make a collage today, after doing her first one on Christmas day. I was happy that she caught the creative spirit. And my oldest daughter explored how to replace a DVD player that didn’t work. She realized she couldn’t rely on asking her Dad forever. Way to go.

All together a gentle day, with good progress and some nice things happening!

Photograph: Going with the Flow, from Osho's Zen Tarot