Rachel’s Musings

Many people look to supernatural sources to fill their need to belong to something larger than themselves. But just looking up into the sky reminds us: we are part of something larger – the whole universe! Then looking around us, we can realize, we are part of a community. The whole world is larger than we are. We are a part of that. Instead of looking for supernatural largess, which comes without evidence, we can simply reaffirm our interconnectedness and draw strength and inspiration from that. No God required.

Almost everybody by now knows that forgiveness is a good thing. If you carry around anger, you’re only hurting yourself, not the person you’re angry at, no matter how much you plot revenge. Plus, revenge is not sweet. It’s immature. So, when I realized that I was carrying around a big sack full of grudges against my ex-boyfriend, I decided I needed to forgive him. I just didn’t know how! An Internet search simply reaffirmed how important forgiveness is but there were no exercises that sounded that they would actually work. I decided to just start making a list of the things I needed to forgive. And an amazing thing happened! With every “I need to forgive him for…” that I wrote down, it felt like I moved closer to forgiveness! Just writing down the grudges – as silly as they seemed – helped me to let go. And, yes, I also started a list for myself because there were a few things that I needed to forgive myself for, too. I am not sure how lasting this will be but it feels like a good start!

Try it yourself:      Continue reading this post » » »

I am still trying to figure out how to get this blog to look and feel the way I want it to. I am playing around with themes and found a wonderful tutorial on how to create your own theme here: Small Potato’s Tutorial. I find it amazingly generous of him to share all his knowledge! I did find out that it’s a lot of work… Plus, I am not sure yet if I have the artistic ability to create my own theme. So, for now, I am using one out of the box and tinker around like mad (including validating the front page, which wasn’t valid code…). But at least now I feel like I know a little bit more about what I am doing – thanks to SP’s tutorial…

Reflecting on the Q12 veneration in the company I work for, I realized that this is a perfect enticement to become married to one’s job. We’re not supposed to be just satisfied with our work. We’re supposed to be engaged! Satisfaction isn’t good enough. It has to be engagement – the first step toward marriage… But why should I be engaged if there is no prenuptial agreement? When I am employed at will and there’s no reciprocity in commitment? Yes, they are paying me for my services, so let me be satisfied with that. If you want me to give you my soul, ensure me that I will still have a job tomorrow and the day after. According to Ilene Philipson’s research, it is not even good for my mental health to be engaged or married to my job (in her book “Married to the job”). She also eloquently shows that the commitment is one-side: there is no job security. I can understand why an employer would want us to be engaged: more productivity with (likely) less pay. It’s a good thing for them. But I fail to see why it would be good for me.

Why do pedestrians not stop at red lights? What is so important in their lives that they can’t have a few seconds or a minute to stand and breathe? Is it really worth risking their life?

A red light can be an invitation to stop and breathe, something we do so seldom in our hurried lives nowadays. So, next time you’re hurrying along, tempted to cross the street because there are no cars, honor that light and stop. See what happens if you focus on your breathing and turn this “annoyance” into a mini meditation.

With the economy continuing to deteriorate, everybody in the financial services sector is worried. Rightfully so. At work, I have been assigned a multitude of projects to figure out why our losses are getting higher. Well, I would guess it’s because the economy is getting worse but who am I to think instead I work away at the projects looking for the needle in the haystack. I have this strange feeling that there is no needle, no smoking gun. As a banner in Bill Clinton’s campaign headquarters said: It’s the economy, stupid. Our initial analyses even show this: there’s deterioration across the whole portfolio; strongly suggesting that things are rough for everybody. Yet, we continue our mad search for the needle… Maybe it’s so that we have the feeling that we are doing something; that we are in control, after all, even though we clearly aren’t.