Got a second to read this?

Your time is valuable.  There is no doubt about it.  We all wish we had more time in a day.  We all have the same, certain amount of time in a day with lists of items to accomplish within that time.  We all have plans that consume our time.  Time comes, time is filled, and time passes, leaving us with memories, or even regrets.   How often do we say, “If I only had more time!”…or… “I just need a little more time!”…or… “Maybe next time!”?      

Yet, how do we fill our time?  Do we cherish our time? Do we waste our time?  Do we use our time wisely?   I’m sure we can check the box next to each of these scenarios at any given time (ha ha) in our lives.   I’ve certainly strayed from a project or two…or three by daydreaming about an upcoming camping trip or checking someone’s status update on social media.  I’ve wasted valuable time with loved ones by being preoccupied worrying about the future, something I don’t have control over!   I’ve made a list for a day, and have looked back at the end of that day wondering where I spent my time and why so little was checked off the list.  I’ve been angered when someone hijacks my time.  I’ve wondered how often I have hijacked someone’s time.    Once time is gone…well, it’s just that- gone.  So we multi-task, trying to extract as much as possible from each segment of time.  Right now I’m writing this, helping my son with a puzzle, and prepping dinner.   That doesn’t mean I’m doing any of it very well!   In fact, all too often we cheat our projects and our people when we squeeze time.    

It all comes down to how we fill our time.   Time is a resource.  For most of us, we have a certain amount of control over how our time is spent, whether we want to admit it or not.   We get a choice about how to spend these hours.  We decide how much we spend, on what, who, and how much we give away.   The worst choice is to waste time.  When it comes to projects, we want to be able to get a lot of quality accomplished in as little time as possible.  

At The Transmogrifier, we are investing our time to assure our users of quality images and inspiration.   We are using, spending and filling our time working to help other creative individuals by generating inspirational and supportive ways to save time.  If we can help free up just a little more time that can then be spent on other priorities in life, then we are thrilled.  And that is our goal: to inspire and to assist.  That is how we choose to spend some of our own time.  We are happy to do so.  

Well, gotta go!   It’s time to get back to work.     

Okay, maybe this isn’t that philosophical. But I think it is important to talk about.  Animals and pets aren’t for everybody.  I get that.  I would never force the issue.  However, because all our team members here at The Transmogrifier own and adore dogs, I’m writing about it!  Our dogs are part of who we are.  Our dogs make us more human.   This entry may end up more as a story than a philosophical presentation.  It’s not short.  Maybe, maybe you’ll be able to relate.  Or maybe you’ll look at animals a little differently, see them for their healing capacity.

I’ll use our dog, Hudson, as an example.  We got this chocolate Lab as a 4-week old puppy right after Christmas one year.  My husband and I were feeling particularly gloomy after a long battle with our mortgage company and facing the inevitable scenario of “losing” our home.  We had also just lost our 11-year old black Lab to a twisted stomach a few months before Christmas, so it was time to get some puppy love again!  Hudson came to us maybe too young, but we accepted the challenge and the extra cuddles needed.  Our attachment was instantaneous and the bond between Hudson and myself was strong;  he was my dog.  

By the end of the year, we had in fact been forced to short sell our home and move north to a great location on 10 acres. Our new home was beautiful, and we finally lived alone for the first time in our 10-year marriage.  We had always had roommates or renters.  We should have been ecstatic with the positive changes, room to breathe, and our 2 puppies, Hudson and Ellie.  Yet, we were the unhappiest we had ever been.  We had been struggling with infertility for over 7 years, felt our identity and worth as homeowners had been stripped, were further from friends and family, felt like failures, isolated and lonely.  The transition was almost too much.  My husband sank into a depression and I lived each day with fear and anxiety.  This was a husband I had never known.  We were drowning, but in separate parts of the ocean, unable to help or hear each other.  We began to lose hope, and quit treading water.  

Besides faith, our Hudson was the only thing that got us through.  When I couldn’t move to get out of bed in the morning, Hudson was there nudging and patiently encouraging.  When I came home and couldn’t find Chad anywhere, the panic rising, Hudson led me right to him.   When we had no laughter, Hudson did something crazy and funny that reminded us of a lighter time.  We may not have laughed, but it broke the grip of sadness for a moment.   Hudson cared for us when we should have been caring for him.  Hudson cared for us when we couldn’t care for each other. 

Just as we felt healed, on a rainy day around Christmas, two short years after he came to us, Hudson left us.  He was struck and killed by a car that didn’t even stop.  The waves threatened to pull us under once again, the dark sadness knocking on the door.   It was a miracle that Ellie didn’t follow him as those two were inseparable.   I can still feel that desperation and emptiness today.  Yet, even in death, Hudson healed us.

Almost nightly after he died, I dreamed of him.  In the dream Hudson told Ellie to stay with us, that he had to go; his work was done. He told her new and amazing things were coming to us, and he didn’t need to take care of us anymore.  Joy was coming.  Then he turns and is gone.

It was just over 9 months later, that we welcomed baby Nathaniel into our lives and hearts, another miracle.  

Hudson was our angel; of that we are convinced.  He came into our lives when we needed him the most, taught us about unconditional love, and left us with memories that continue to heal us.   

All too often, you hear people say, “I don’t have a choice”.  I don’t believe that, and I know many people who would agree with me.  Life is full of choices.   Some are easy ones about what to have for lunch, which route to take to the market, or what to wear for the day. Others are more complex and affect our lifestyle and core beliefs, relationships and people in our lives.  Choices are about options and corresponding consequences.   Sometimes the consequences seem too hard, so we make a different choice. Maybe not the right one.  One of my choices has me worrying about the consequences. 

Right now, twice a week, I have to do something that, quite honestly, scares me.   Not only does it scare me, it brings conflict.   This conflict is threatening my emotional stability, physical well being, and the balance in my relationships.   I’d be less than honest if I said I didn’t wonder about my choice.  Actually, it isn’t the choice I question, it is my strength, or lack thereof, to face the possible outcome.   

Every Monday and Thursday, I have to face a man that intimidates me.  I don’t trust this man;   I don’t like him, and I don’t respect him.   Yet I am shaken with each encounter, anxious, and physically affected beforehand and afterwards.   It would be easy for me to say I don’t have a choice about these encounters.  A piece of paper and some official people tell me I must do this.   However, I agreed to this, so I made my choice.  

Don’t get me wrong, I know this man’s story on paper; I see him for the manipulator that he seemingly is.  If I’m right, he has a conflict with me and who I am just as much as I do with him.  It feels like my presence unnerves him.  Our interactions are brief, filled with nervous energy and unspoken tension.  My job is to remain calm and logical, cooperative and uncontentious.  If he is aggressive, I can’t be.  If he is intense, I must remain relaxed.  He says and does everything right in front of those official people, smiles and plays nice.  His eyes say something different, and my gut tells me to flee.  I don’t flee; I choose to stay.   

I don’t think I am afraid of him.  I am afraid of what he represents.   This one man represents the potential for an incredible amount of loss.  Loss that would be heart wrenching.  Loss that would affect my joy, my family, and my hope.   So I have another choice.   I can choose to let this situation keep me in a state of worry, fear and unease.  If I do that, it will continue to rob my time of happiness and security.  It will continue to take me away from moments and memories I can’t get back with my babies.  Or, I can choose to face this situation, these visits, knowing that it is what it is, and he is who he is.  So today, I choose joy and love.  I choose to give my whole heart to my babies, my family, my friends.  And if my choices lead to loss and heart wrenching sorrow, at least I gave each day joy and love now.  I have to choose that. 

Related articles

• TMG Philosophy: Cause and Effect – Part One

This is a subject that I think is so important – I will write about it in several parts (fair warning)…

The concept I want to talk about is “cause and effect.”  The way my mind works (this may be a fairly scary area to go into), this has always been a pretty straight forward idea.  For instance, as a kid if I was told not to do something and I went ahead and did it anyway, I could expect that there would be an “effect” for what I did.  Make sense so far…?

Another idea I firmly believe, that is closely tied to the concept of cause and effect, is the idea that when you break it down, life is quite simply a series of choices.  We all have many, many choices to make in our lives.  Some are hard, some are easy.  Some may appear to be easy, but turn out to be more complex or difficult than we anticipated   In any event, we have choices to make and hopefully, at the end of our lives, we have made more good choices, than bad.

The thing that makes choices even more exciting is when that whole cause and effect thing comes into play.  Even choices that we believe are good, and the right thing to do, may have an unintended effect that could even be negative.

Again, does this make sense to you so far…?  If it does make sense to you, then let’s move onto the next idea.  If it doesn’t make sense… well, I guess you should stop reading because this is just the beginning of my thoughts on this (hence, the “Part One” on the title above).

Okay, since you have stuck with me, I guess I can assume you understand what I am proposing so far.  If we agree that there is definitely a cause and effect, and that life is in its most basic form – a series of choices… then why do people seem to be so stupid…?

Admittedly that last statement was a bit harsh, but really – why is it so hard to understand? For instance, we talk quite a bit about learning, exploring, and asking questions on this blog.  That is because those things are firmly rooted in who we are, and as such – help to make up our philosophy. The obvious effect of all of that is that you learn and see new things.  That, for the most part, is a good thing.  Right?

So, when you listen to people (or even listen to yourself) and there is this theme of “why am I stuck in this” –  (fill in the blank) or, “I am tired of this”  – (fill in the blank), and so on, doesn’t it make sense that the answer to whatever is that is irksome is to change it.  So now you have choices to make.  Is it really that bad? (Yes or no.)  Are there other options?   (Yes or no.)   Is it time to make a change?  (Yes or no.)  And of course that process goes on and on…

The “effect” in what I am talking about is your life.  And by and large, you are the “cause”, so take charge and make choices that will hopefully have the “effect” you are looking for.  Make sense so far…?

More to come…

One of the major ideas I want my son, Nate, to acquire in life, is to not take himself too seriously.  It’s a tough one, but important to remember that we and our problems won’t stop the earth’s rotation, and that we need to laugh at ourselves and our situations more often than not. Of course, to an 18-month old, when his truck falls off the couch, you’d think the earth DID stop moving, and tantrums rule the day. However, I’m learning very quickly that he will learn about not taking himself too seriously most effectively by watching our example as his parents.  This is a humbling exercise daily, if not hourly.

Of course, I could just tell Nate repeatedly not to take himself too seriously in life, and hope that works. Success probably wouldn’t follow, though, unless I back that up with living it out.  So I started thinking about how I do this.  Is it innate?  Did I learn it?   It sure feels like a discipline to me, and one I fail at miserably sometimes.   I’m a list person, so I began a list which goes something like this…

I believe part of not taking yourself too seriously is knowing who you are:  the good, the bad, the ugly, the strengths, and the weaknesses.  Go one step further.  Know these vices and virtues, work on what needs improving, use your talents, admit faults, understand what might not improve, and accept the journey.  I’ve been knocked down a few times before I accepted the journey, and know I’ll have more knockdowns.  I’ve made enough messes and mistakes that could have been avoided had I admitted my weaknesses, my limits, and my faults. Everyone has.  That’s the next part of my list.

Nobody is perfect.  The mistakes we make, the blunders we cause, all can be learning opportunities if we let them.  I’ve told myself this for years, but I’ve only really practiced this recently. I definitely am exercising this now with Nate.   In doing so, when a coworker, family member, friend or even stranger tells me something about myself, my life, or my work that feels negative, I can say, “Yep!  You’re right, I am/it is INSERT WHATEVER HERE… but I’m working on it.”  And then I don’t tend to carry it around. When I burn everything I attempt to make in the kitchen, I can usually laugh it off (after a dramatic hand to the forehead action). When I fall in public, cause half the grocery shelf to collapse, botch an assignment, run into someone, spill my drink on the stranger next to me, hit my head on a closed window as though forgetting the barrier is there, fall off my bike, trip while running, etc…I can say, “yep, that’s me…soooo not going to make a big deal about this”, and basically diffuse these scenarios by laughing at myself, or joining the others laughing at me.  That’s the last part of my list (I think).

Humor.  Have it, find it, embrace it, use it! Having a sense of humor makes accepting my quirks, even admitting them, that much easier.  Laughing at myself is actually a relief!  When Nate was 8 weeks old, I was mixing his formula in a big batch. We were in the home of two very important people in his life, the wife next to me, her husband holding their little dog across the counter. I shook that formula as I nervously talked to them, determined to prove I was a great mom by perfectly mixing and preparing Nate’s bottles.  Just when I was feeling confident, the cap flew off the container and a half gallon of warm liquid flew across the counter, covering the husband and their little dog.  Formula dripped from his chin and the dog’s ears.  The 5 second silence seemed like hours as I calculated my next move.  Pretend I don’t have a skeleton, sink to the floor and out the front door?  Attempt to dry him off?  Pretend nothing happened? Growl? Cry?  So I laughed and said he looked thirsty.  One by one they joined me and the laughter became accented by apologetic snorts. Years ago, I would have lost it, and then beat myself up over it for a long time.

When blunders happen, when turmoil strikes, when my toy falls off the couch and I’m super close to throwing my own tantrum,  I try to find that humor, forgive myself if I need to, and allow myself a little joy knowing the world will still be spinning when my chaos ends.   After all, it’s not all about me. My baby boy helps me live this out every day, and reminds me not to take myself so seriously.  For that, I’m so grateful…and here I thought I was teaching him!

So, just a heads-up, but this entry may be more of a rant than actual philosophy.  I feel a compulsion to talk about RESPECT as it has been on my mind even more lately.  So, here goes…

As an artist and creative individual, I believe in the “gray area”  – a lot.  What does that mean?  Well, I am not talking about gray area morally, I am talking about not seeing the world in such a linear and black and white way, so that point of view ultimately harms you.   Being black and white in your point of view leads to making assumptions about things, about people and keeps you from having an open mind, which is what you need in order to explore and be creative.

On some things, however, I am very black and white.  One of those is the idea that “fair is fair” and that you treat people with respect, because that is only fair.  As the owner of a business, I have hired many, many people over the years and as a result, I have also had to fire many, many people over the years.  (Now, one could make the point that I must not be good at hiring – but, that is not my point)  Firing someone is not easy.  There is clearly a lot of tension and even anger.  I can honestly say though that in all the times I had to fire someone, most of the time it ended with them shaking my hand and thanking me.  Seriously.  They would thank me.

Some would say it was for the opportunity to work there at the company and others would say it was for how I handled this firing process.  I soon came to realize that they were actually thanking me for treating them with respect.  They may have been very angry with me and even hated me, thinking I was ruining my own company by letting them go, but they always made some mention of respect and how I had treated them.

I believe everyone needs to be treated with respect, and I have found that I expect to be treated with respect (mainly because that is how I treat people).  As a result of this expectation, it is no wonder that I get very upset when I (or even worse – a loved one or friend) is not treated with respect.  That is when I become very black and white and see a definite cause and effect.  “They have crossed a line and now need to be punished to the full extent of the law” (whatever that means…!)  I have very little desire to try to “understand” why they did what they did – it’s just wrong.  Unacceptable. Period.  End of story.  They must be brought to see the light, to be shown just how amazingly and utterly wrong they actually are!

My wife is on the other side of the world, working a temporary contract in another culture where that idea of respect is, well, different from how I tend to see it.  They are not bad people (I am really trying here to be more “understanding”) but they just treat people differently.  So this week when they were so rude and disrespectful to her – it was really, really hard for me to not get on a plane and go over there and beat some respect into them.  Then, slowly, and begrudgingly I realized that that attitude was not the best attitude to have, and that I had to admit – I was not respecting them.

Don’t get me wrong here – I have not been fully enlightened.  I still feel a strong urge to beat some sense into them (very respectfully of course) but, I am realizing that it is a lot easier to respect someone who treats you with respect, than someone who does not.  I know – kind of a “duh” moment there – but like I said at the beginning of this – I tend to be a bit more “black and white” here and not as open minded so I am learning…

So, this morning I am sitting in a hotel lobby in Orlando, Florida, writing this blog entry, eating my breakfast muffin sandwich (which was way too expensive by the way) and waiting to go out and get some shots (photos, not tequila!).

The other day I was out walking around the grounds of the hotel, exploring and trying to find some interesting shots when I kept running into small ponds and streams blocking my way.  There were things on the other side of these barriers that I wanted to get to, but I kept getting blocked at each turn.  The water in these ponds was an odd greenish brown color with things floating on, and just under the surface.  The water was pretty murky and it was hard to tell if it was a foot deep or 10 feet deep.

I really didn’t want to get my feet wet, and not knowing the depth of the water or what was in it, I just decided to see if there was another way around.  For a good part of two hours, I wandered through the paths and tried to find a way out of the grounds of the hotel, but was always blocked by these “water hazards”.

In a few cases I came across a sign that made it even clearer that I should not venture into the murky water.  It read:  “DANGER Do Not Feed Alligators”.

A sign in Orlando, warning you not to feed the alligators, which, when you think about it, doesn’t NOT feeding them only make them hungrier and more desperate…?

Some of you may now see how this blog entry ties in to my last blog entry about “fear”.  Some would say that there is a good type of fear that keeps us from doing things that could be harmful to us.  I do believe this is true and in this case, I am not sure that it was actual fear of alligators that was keeping me from entering the water (my heart rate wasn’t increased, my palms were not sweaty, etc.) but more the fear of the unknown:   Were there even alligators in there?  If so, how many?  How big were they?  Had they just eaten a deer, someone’s pet or a small child so they were now lethargic and napping on a full stomach?  Had they moved to a better neighborhood, possibly one with better schools, closer to work…?  My mind calculated all of this, and many more options and I finally decided that since I did not know enough, it would be better to avoid that water.

And that is my point.  Some barriers are in fact there to keep us safe.  And some are there to protect us from the unknown.   But I firmly believe that it is our responsibility as individuals to study those barriers, ask questions, and generally just learn more about why we are being told we cannot do something.  Then we need to decide if we want to question and test them or not.  Sometimes the barriers need to be broken and sometimes they do not.  It is not black and white.  In short, we are meant to explore, and exploration is risky.

Now that I have finished my muffin sandwich and iced-tea, it is time to get out there and explore…

You should too (just watch out for the alligators)…!