Rate My Haiku

Bluejay Through a Kitchen Window 

Drip in the kitchen
Bluejay in a barren tree
Keep pipes from freezing.

Why is haiku so fun to do? I think it's because they tend to just come to you, presenting themselves almost fully formed, arising out of a moment, very much like the moment itself.

Then you can look at it later and relive that moment, and remember that it was a moment, which in tern (no pun intended, this was supposed to be "turn") helps you to remember the present moment and come back to it quickly.

What do you think? Is this one any good? Feel free to put one of your own in comments.

Photo curtesy of Garden Walk Garden Talk.

Latest Book Review of The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder

Thanks to CLW for the latest review of The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder - A Mystery by Todd Wright:

Self Improvement AND Murder?The Self Improvement Book Club Murder, by Todd Wright, is a murder mystery about Detective Bookman's journey to enlightenment, along the way, he just happens to solve the murder of Sue Ellen Pinkus, who was a member of the so called Self Improvement Book Club. Detective Bookman and his partner Alec Berg are faced with some "Self Improvement" of their own as they search for clues within the books from the club.

Wright's work of fiction sent me on a personal quest to read the non-fiction books the club members were so passionate about, such as; A New Earth, The Power of Now, The Secret, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Think and Grow Rich, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and many more. Two thirds of the way through The Self-Improvement Book Cub Murder, I was no longer concerned with "who did it" (I had complete confidence in Bookman) instead I wanted to follow Detective Bookman's path of personal growth! I was encouraged to start my own Self-Improvement book club (one where we actually read the books) and I have recommended this book to several friends.

I enjoyed the fictional setting and appreciated Wright's depth of understanding of "New Earth" concepts, which were very obvious through the insights and application of those concepts he brought out in his character's daily lives, all in just over 200 pages! If you are a Tolle fan, you don't want to miss this book! I look forward to improving myself further with Wright's next book.

Who Would You Invite to Your Dinner Party?

I've been doing a lot of thinking about this lately. I don't know if it's because I'm going to win a contest soon or what, but it's kind of a fun question.

Almost as much fun as picking the guests is choosing the ground rules.

First, all of my personal friends and family are excluded. The reason for this rule is obvious. I can't invite all of them to this once-in-a-lifetime event, so I need to have recourse to a rule that excludes them all equally. That way I can shrug and say, "If it were up to me . . . "

But for this rule, I would invite my octogenarian uncle who would thoroughly enjoy the night, though he may not appreciate most of my selections. This would be especially true of my aunt who would undoubtedly be his date. I would invite them anyway if I could. But rules are rules.

What's Your Drama?

Ok, I'll go first.

My drama has been to allow my pain-body to take over my thinking in the context of a love relationship.

No, that's too abstract. Let's try again. My drama has been to take things personally in the context of a love relationship. There, now that's something people can relate to, I think. 

Things said and done by my significant other would be felt as intense "emotional pain."

[Ok, now I've said the same thing in three different ways. Take a moment and look at those three descriptions of my drama and try to understand how they're all saying exactly the same thing.]

This "emotional pain" would cause me to react against the supposed source of this pain, my significant other. But of course, she wasn't impacting my physical body in any way, so how could she have been the source of my pain? She couldn't. In fact, it was my own thoughts that were causing this "emotional pain," so called. I was doing it to myself.

Your Outer World is a Reflection of Your Inner State

Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in a marital relationship. It's one thing to believe that the person sitting across from you at the dinner table is mean, a jerk, exhibits all sorts of negative unconscious behavior. That very well may be true, and you can work very hard to try to "fix" that person. That effort is unlikely to succeed, but you can try.

 The more important question is why? Not, "Why is this person like this?" Most people in bad relationships spend the bulk of their time pondering this question, both in their heads and out loud. It's a futile inquiry. The better "why" questions is, "Why is this person part of my world?" For the answer to this one you have to look inside yourself. That's where the title to this post comes in.

Introducing The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder Book Club

For those of you in the Lexington (Kentucky) area, I've decided to form an exploratory committee to gauge interest in what would be the first of its kind in the world: a loose-knit social organization I've pithily dubbed The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder Book Club, or the SIBCMBC for short.

The SIBCMBC would meet once a month to discuss one of the books featured in my novel, The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder, books like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, A New Earth, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Secret and others. We would start with The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder as a roadmap to the other books. And when we get through all the books, who knows where we'll go from there.

We would have food to eat (a potluck arrangement) lots of good conversation and games for the kids (I made this last one up, there will be no games and probably no kids).

If you think you might be interested and/or have ideas, please let me know. Feel free to leave a comment of send me an email at toddwrightnow@gmail.com.

Avoid Dramatic People

What a liberating feeling! I've learned to avoid dramatic people! I used to fall pray to their painful whimsy because I used to be dramatic myself. And this is really the key to getting past these people: recognizing and acknowledging your own drama.

Without a nice soft spot to sink their drama hook into, dramatic people have no hope of reeling you into their made-for-TV movies. Don't judge them and don't judge yourself, just recognize and acknowledge on both counts. And don't try to help them. The more you engage, the more you get sucked in.

The only way to help them is to avoid them altogether, leaving them to occupy a world of their own making, full of drama and other dramatic people. If this is not a formula for sufficient suffering that stands a chance of breaking them free of the self-inflicted burden they carry, I don't know what is. Perhaps by being forced to go ever deeper into their drama in this way they will emerge free on the other side of it.

One thing I've learned: Life plays chicken with you until you learn not to flinch. Drama is the bad habit of flinching at everything that life brings your way. And Life won't stop bringing these "opportunities" your way until you learn not to react to them, that is to say dramatize them.

And this is one of the many ways that we can understand that the Universe is truly a beneficent place. It will never give up on all of us drama queens.

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