There are already working methods that just need to be applied to resolve our procrastination and time wasting, by willfully choosing to follow them.

Schedule your time into manageable steps towards your goals.

Break up these steps with breaks like in the Pomodoro technique.

Remember any larger step should be broken down, like the example of a birds paper project broken down like in the book Bird by Bird (or like in the popular phrase how do you eat a elephant? one bite a time. or how do you run a marathon? one step at a time...etc.).

And, finally, remember that in order to get the small steps done you surround yourself with motivation and you make the steps small enough to seem so easy you might as well do them anyway.

God gave us free will to show He trusts us, has faith in us, as He wants us to have faith in Him.

God gave His only begotten son Jesus Christ so that we may be able to overcome our flawed human paths for the moments we turn to Him, in a renewal of that trust, and to have a living example of how that trust is to be lived.

We trust God when we thank Him in spite of seemingly adverse worldly circumstances, knowing in our own small portion of the world we are not able to clearly see the heavenly results of those events in God's infinite plan. 

​God's plan is The Plan.

Enlightenment for me came from my moments of complete and free peace of heart with God and my blessed relationship in closeness together with my wife appreciating all our lives.

I knew deep down that God's voice was in those ocean waves crashing below us, Point Lobos, China Beach, New Year's morning, January 1st, 2018, three years and three months into my marriage with my beautiful wife.

I knew it as I knew I was breathing air, as I knew I was alive because I was thinking, that this perfection, this peace beyond any worry, was real. I knew it was God's voice of creation and none other, for the peace and certainty of how the events had led up to this heaven by trials and by learning the value of trust. And I realized that God's heaven was waiting for us even more perfect, with full reconciliation one day.

Say life is made up of choices, between good (right) and bad (wrong), or bad (forced) and worse (even less good), or good and better, and sometimes between good and best/perfect/our dream-plans.

Jesus set in our Scriptures, which we use to guide our lives, the definition for what is the steps toward eternal perfect life and how to live, in Matthew 19:21, which you should now look up in your moment of study.

To focus on the perfect life, and to trade everything we have invested in, in worldly dreams and plans, in our possessions, in our opinions independently set, in our relations with people's ideals, in our worlds of fiction and politics and gossip and judgements, to trade all of that fully over to Christ is the most free feeling we can ever have, on Earth as it is in heaven.

We need a constant reminder to bring us back to that state of mind in our worldly environments, and that is by Primary (task chosen to be for the best), Backup (task to manage anything else in our environments to center that environment on that primary task) and Justification (the making sure of our choices we make to be toward that perfect life of what Jesus would want us to do, that is, to serve God with complete confidence in God's goodness, not putting trust in worldly ways above him no matter what habits and little excuses and so-called environmental obligations seem to ask for our attention.

Primary, Backup, and Justification (Jesusification). That is the trust, the gratitude toward God and honoring Him with the praise of serving Him with our lives which were given us as a gift of stewardship, a limited but immeasurably precious gift of time to spend on Him.

In our prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary, we emphasize using the word "Blessed" in the first part of the prayer, in honoring her position in how she served our Lord Jesus, in her closeness from that relation, in her goodness from that relation.

Blessed is something in contemporary culture tend to define as being put above, or to be of comforting worldly circumstances, but that is a shallow and entitled viewpoint to take, even unfair, because we play by God's rules in His universe, and not our own, created being's, rules.

What, in contrast, can be taken from the use of the word in the prayer, is that we are blessed when we are close to God, and we are closest to Him when we serve Him with complete confidence in His goodness (faith).

In the following blog posts I intend to take a moment to reflect on earlier things I have written, and attempt to put them into the perspective of my growth that has happened over the course of my writing this book.

I noticed in the hardest moments, when all seems lost, that even then a prayer can be answered if we hold that hope a little longer till the trouble passes.

To give trust in God in those moments is the true test of our character, and of how far we've grown, even if there is a human imperfection in the nearness to failure.

If one holds onto dreams in even those tough moments and doesn't give up, then one is loving oneself enough to hold in there long enough for one to grow. In better times and worse doesn't just go for you and your loved ones, but also for loving one's self and what those bucket list dreams are. Those are the most important things and holding them dear is for a reason, and recognizing that reason is respecting the positive side of you even when the down side is feeling like it's caught up in the glitches of life's roller coaster ride.

So dream, and love yourself by never giving up on those dreams. Always.

I love my wife dearly, and I love my love of writing. I love my passions for beauty and for music. That is who I found out who I am. And that is what I dream of, and why I am here.

The ill effects of phone overuse can be narrowed to that use of phone that is unproductive and that isn't as valuable as in person interaction.

Thus we can focus our use of phone, of its apps, of its media and messages, and limit it to just that which is productive and more valuable than in person interaction, and when it runs out of those types of things, consciously decide to do in person interaction.

Until we develop the To Dreamers: Zen Dreams app, we will have to settle for limiting the phone use on our own willpower and awareness by constantly evaluating action. Is this a better interaction than others? If not, then do others. Is this only a distraction because it's new and not because it's important? If it's not as important, than do the more important things. Soon life falls into good time management.

When we think of love, we may have romantic idealistic notions of what we think it should be, and of what we want from it.

However, love is much more complex than a set of expectations being fulfilled in a destined way.

Love is also about weathering through the discussions in a compassionate, understanding way. Love is about understanding the other person without putting any of one's own perspective upon it, just listening and taking it in with the open mind that makes the heart want to know the other person's soul.

Love is about knowing that there will be moments when communication fails, and to weather through those times without assuming anything about the other's true feelings based upon that moment's situation. Love is longer than one moment's evaluation.

To summarize, love is deep, when it is to last. So reach into the core and look for the reasons why you feel you want to connect, and draw from that very deep well whenever you need to quench your thirst.

Father Ramon Zarate says that the word "Compassion" comes from the prefix con, "with," and the root passion, "suffering".

I extrapolate that when we have compassion we are of the mindset that the others and ourselves have the Jesus in common.

The best friend that you should see in each other.

When you miss someone that has passed or that is absent in the environment, remember that there is a part of each of us in each other. We are of one body in Christ, and we feel that they a part of our heart, mind, and spirit, when we feel them and think of them in our consciousness. So we are never really without anyone else. 

That goes for everyone and everyone else, such that we should recognize that part of ourselves in the physical and spiritual humanity in each other, that existence we share together, of the same kind. And we should care for them in trying to help, where we can. And connect with that part in them so that they see themselves in us and feel the empathy to help us too.

Even evolution theory does not practice that competition among like kinds to be beneficial, as a rule. It's a matter of seeing living as not us or them getting the benefits of giving and of experience, but of us AND them getting those benefits from... love.

​Now you know the answer, but what about the question?

There's a Christian song that talks about the "eye of the storm" where God gives us shelter. I've seen a sample of that sheltering today.

In my life I've dealt with trouble with mixed results at my own composure. When it's someone else going through the motions of wrestling with their circumstances, you've just got to listen to them and silently give the prayers of intention of help over to God, who is the only one who can resolve those circumstances of others, through God's using us as His instruments and through the rest of the world.

In the storm one is lost in the rationalization of why you should not be grateful. It's just people around you acting like they've always acted but once in a while it seems personal. Yes life isn't "fair" if you define the fairness on our personal perspective. But trusting in God's plan and being grateful for things is like turning a light switch on to see the wisdom.

In the eye of the storm, God grants us peace in His graceful presence because we put our faith in Him. One can only hold one thought full in the mind at a time. Choose to take a moment to let the emotions pass. Choose to take a moment to be grateful in spite of circumstance. Suddenly the world seems much brighter, much calmer, more perfectly fitting into God's mysterious plan.

I once used to think that facing one's inevitable mortality, when it came close enough to count time left, was about knowing that you didn't regret any of the decisions you made, because you had to make them and accepted them as done.

While that makes sense, it makes even more sense for there to be regrets that you learned from which would have been done differently, some of which are also even humorous and can give a perspective leap of appreciation, all three of which are positive aspects taken only because of the regret. However those are benefits one could (and might prefer to) live without if one chose one's own fate...if one were to live without making the mistakes, according to one's own will and plan. What one then would need to face mortality, is to accept one is going to meet the maker and be able to, if it still matters to us after, be able to hear the reasons for the bigger plan that we are in, and appreciate that we know just little bits of that puzzle we can guess at. What is life, after all, if not mysterious?

Secondly, for the younger years I thought that mankind was about community, about working together because it makes more impact, and about finding one that one can team up with and share life with. I thought, in fact, that one like me had to be unhappy because of the time I had in solitude waiting for a meaningful relationship to form. My later relationship fulfilled my greatest expectations, perhaps because I appreciated it so much, but if a person were to choose solitude in religious and spiritual organizations I feel that contentment is possible in that community too, for I would choose to enter one should my wife ever pass away before me (something I fear sometimes), one could still be as content and fulfilled through the closeness of appreciation a relationship with God.

Thirdly, I've reflected on the famous quote by Descartes, and want to share something I've concluded that seems more in tune with our definitions in English. Reality (stating that something is true and existing) equals experience (some of the senses) combining with one's thoughts (the way one interprets those senses, our perspective). Therefore, part of reality is objective, while part of reality is subjective. When we deal with it we cannot separate the objective part from the subjective part entirely, though we can change what the subjective part is with more subjective thoughts over time, for better or worse. I assume my own perspective has improved with time, but perhaps that is part of the relative perspective.
​

Ever wonder why those who have terminal illness can be so positive in their outlook?

Because they don't have time to be cynical.

The key to giving worth to life is its finitude, its limited gift. Not to cut it shorter but to pack more into the moments that matter.

To focus on just what is good, and to be grateful. We all have deadlines.