Center of Gravity! The infamous COG. This sun drenched drugs-and-alcohol rich party has never particularly appealed to me, as something to spend money on. Maybe it's because it comes every year in the town that I live in, or maybe it's because concerts make my ears hurt (bring on the earplugs). But then it occurred to me that volunteering could have a whole host of benefits, including working out manual-labor style and free free FREE tickets to artists I probably wouldn't mind hearing.
The concerts were fun and the sun did its job. What impressed me the most about this experience was its brevity. There was nothing I was really building. Sometimes I feel the compulsion to gain, to go places and grab on to opportunities. But I spent a weekend straddling the line between work and play. The festival wouldn't last, set up would become tear down. And it did. And I helped. But was there a point? I didn't make any money that I could save for future needs. I didn't search for a job with the 12+ hours I spent volunteering. I spent three hours picking up the garbage of people who likely consumed too much and hopefully went home safe. Everything about this experience was temporal. When you party with friends, or sit at home watching TV, you probably feel like you're connecting and recharging. When you work for money, you are clearly getting ahead even if its small step after small step. So why did I enjoy this investment of effort? Sure, I had concerts to look forward to, but not on tear-down day, and not every night. There must have been something else going on.
This is just a thought. But I'm going to venture that any activity, however pointless it may seem, is a step in the right direction if you're thinking positively inside yourself. I read a book called Hardwiring Happiness that riveted me. Since I am naturally interested in how psychology and biology interact, I can't get enough of brain stuff. What's particularly unique here is that anyone, in any circumstance, can experience heartfelt happiness. They just have to train their brains to hold on to and sustain healthy thoughts so that it actually becomes effortless. Effortless! How many things in our lives can we describe as involving no effort? We try to grasp at happiness or peace with a multitude of techniques, but the resulting fulfillment can be fleeting at best.
I'm just really enjoying the moments of my life lately. Not always, but at an increasingly frequent rate. I hope that people I know and then the people they know will feel the effects of unshakable confidence, as they build up their own inner resources by wiring their brains accordingly. "There was nothing I was really building". WRONG. We are always building something, we are always believing something, and we are always being something. Having no job right now, I am taking the chance that I wish I had taken years ago. I am looking inside myself to find what I had been looking for externally. If picking up trash can exemplify what I am learning, then maybe it isn't the most popular of ideas. But I'll keep focusing my thoughts on happy things. In the end, that is enough.
