Tag Archives: daily compass

Urgh, I just can’t do it every day. But I’m not giving up!

Here you go:

“You never know what’s around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you’ve climbed a mountain.”
― Tom Hiddleston

What have you looked back at and been surprised that you accomplished?

Honestly, every single week. Every book I translate, every story I write. This year, when I earned the achievement to get the legendary weapon Dragonwrath and the battle pet “Lil’ Tarecgosa” in World of Warcraft – which took several months of weekly challenges to accomplish.  Or getting my law degree. Or getting my degree in political sciences and history on top of that. I guess I’m impatient with the little things, but I can keep going for years when it’s big stuff.

We might say that someone’s outfit or hairstyle is “on point,” but those style achievements pale in comparison with the strength and tenacity involved in a ballerina dancing on pointe. Perhaps “on pointe” could go in the urban dictionary as “working hard enough at something difficult to make it look easy.”

Where do you see yourself or others being “on pointe”?

That’s such an interesting approach to something I find very difficult. I guess you could say my English is “on fleek/on pointe” or something like that. You can’t tell how many years of hard work I’ve invested to get to this point of being de-facto bilingual. Actually, it feels so normal, so natural to me that I tend to forget that being fluent in any foreign language is an achievement. It’s hard to keep in mind that while many people speak English as a foreign language, not all of them are able to read books in English, and very few are able to translate English books or write novel-length stories in English. That is an accomplishment and I shouldn’t forget that.

As for other people… I think there’s always talent and most of all hard work and patience and persistence behind anything “on pointe”, no matter if it’s fashion or dancing or cooking or coding.

Some problems are overwhelming, and very possibly insurmountable. It’s a good thing that we generally don’t have to take on those problems by ourselves.

Who encourages you to persist?

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses”: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

(Daily one-minute reflections and meditations: Daily Compass)

The religious/philosophical/spiritual community that I identify with the most these days are the Unitarian Universalists. I like how they don’t ask me to leave my brain at the wardrobe, but they also allow space and time for what cannot be rationally explained, for faith and spiritualism.

I thought I’d do the ”Daily Compass” – a daily meditation, moment of introspection – posted by the online UU community “Church of the Larger Fellowship” in October.

So of course I didn’t. ?

Here’s my second attempt. I’m going to post each day’s Compass first, then the one I’m working on to catch up… Hopefully, I’ll stick with that!

Here we go:

October 7:

“Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.”
― James A. Michener

What aspects of your personality come out when things aren’t going well?

I get irritable and impatient and snap at people. If I’m not feeling well, I often just need space/time/quiet, not a dozen questions on top of everything else. If things are going really seriously awful, I’m actually better – I manage to keep calm and figure out emergency plans and getting things done after all. I’m no good with laziness and incomptence and shit in between. Of course it also depends on who’s around. I have trust issues and unfortunately one way to find out if I really trust you is that I don’t hide a seriously bad mood. ?

October 1:

“O snail
Climb Mount Fuji
But slowly, slowly!”
― Kobayashi Issa

What have you accomplished over a long period of time?

I’ve written several novel-length stories. Each took months and months to write. 

I’m also dealing with several chronic issues. Living with them is an on-going challenge and I guess also an accomplishment.