Inspired By... Leo Babauta's Art of Living

I read a lot of blogs, and one of my favorites is Zen Habits.

Last week, Leo wrote about pursuing the art of living.

I was especially struck--in the way you are struck by something that seems so OBVIOUS but you didn't say it--by the following parts of his practice.

Joyfear. Joy is an awesome thing to have, but joyfear is present in the powerful moments in life where joy and fear mix, where we’re taking chances and doing something outside of our comfort zone that both excites us and makes us face the possibility of failure. I now embrace these moments rather than avoiding them.

Not avoiding discomfort or uncertainty. When we avoid discomfort, we are limited by our comfort zone, and new learning and new ventures become impossible. When we avoid uncertainty, we only stick to what we know. But we can purposely become good at discomfort and uncertainty, by practicing in small bite-sized chunks, over and over.

I need to embrace both of these in the rest of 2013.

Kate's Interview

Kate's class interviewed her today. Here are her responses.




Chad and I were just talking about how to have our girls think about being things other than princesses, so I loved hearing we have a budding firefighter vampire.

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All men are created equal

Kate (reading): "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."

Kate: "Men" means lots of people. If it meant just boys, that wouldn't be fair.

AMEN, sister.

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