thinking thursday: ideas that make you want more

When I was in graduate school, my idea of a fantastic day was wandering in the library stacks unrelated to my own studies, letting my eye move from shelf to shelf in unfamiliar Dewey Decimal land, until they landed on a book spine, a color, a title, a word that stopped them, and then sharing that with someone else.

I read a lot then, and now. And sometimes I bump into ideas that need to be shared, and thought about, and discussed. Those are the things I share on Thinking Thursday. Welcome to the serendipity of my wanderings.

Mind

As you start your 2016 reading list (you have one, right?), consider reading more work by women and people of color.

And if you like to plan ahead, here are some great books being published in 2016.

Dear god, stop complaining so much. Really, stop. To help you (and me), here’s a guide to not complaining for a month.

Body

I HAVE NO IDEA HOW I HAVE LIVED WITHOUT THIS FOR 56 YEARS.

Travel just got that much more fun.

So much is being said about decluttering that decluttering itself needs decluttering. Here’s one look at it that really made me laugh.

Soul

If you didn’t already know it was the New Year, the deafening roar of articles about resolutions and goals might provide a hint. I didn’t write one, I didn’t make any, I see goals as merely experiments and habits as more powerful, but I did run into a few New Year posts that I want to share with you. Perhaps something from one of these will resonate with you, and help you live more fully in the way you want to live: Make Your Own Rules, 11 Resolutions for a Better You, 20 Mental Health Resolutions for the New Year, 10 Tips for Getting Fit in the New Year. I believe there will be 1-2 ideas that will spark a journey for you, something that makes you nod in recognition of need. Take it slow. Each month, just try to build one habit you want to incorporate into your life.

Here’s how to keep loving someone. “To keep loving someone you must examine yourself. You can’t blame again and again and again. You cannot be a victim to your life. Sometimes you have to realize the problem is, in part, you.”

Speaking Up

This is a new section for Thinking Thursday. As you might know, I have launched something called The Art of Activism, a series of courses and other work on speaking up and being an effective ally about a variety of topics like racism, sexism, transphobia, classism, and other -isms. In each Thinking Thursday, I will link to a few important resources for those who would like to learn more about the ways in which each of us perpetuate -isms, most often without knowing it, and how we can help stop those -isms and gain more self-awareness and systems change expertise.

For example, privilege is a trigger word for a lot of people. Add “white” to the beginning of it, and all hell breaks loose. As someone wrote on my Facebook wall this week in response to a post I wrote about racism, “White Privilege??? You think its white privilege for the 80.000+ white people sleeping on the streets and eating out of dumpsters?” I’m going to have to ignore that egregious and histrionic use of punctuation for a moment. I posted this article for his reading pleasure. And I applaud another friend’s response to him, which is right on target: “Your life will never be shitty *because* of your skin color. That doesn’t mean it will always be rosy.”

Word

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

What is your voice for the new year? What is this year’s language? How are you using both of those?