DAY 31 - So many thoughts

My open-ended return ticket expires in 60 days. I called my airline to inquire about the cost of extending my ticket. They are finding out what my options are. I miss Los Angeles, but I am progressing with my business and personal goals here. I may want to stay and take more time for myself. I am not sure yet. I used to randomly deem things as too expensive, too time-consuming, or too complicated and just deny myself whatever it was. Now I question everything--especially things I see as limitations and times when I think I do not have a choice. Limitations are rarely as absolute as my Mind thinks they are. Most of the limitations are personal fear and old information. In the case of the ticket, my thinking defaulted to "my ticket expires so I have to go back." These days I am getting in the habit of asking myself, "Is that so?" As in the case, the answer is invariably NO. Even if the ticket expires I do not HAVE TO go back. There are always options. It's just a question of how much effort I choose to exert to allow myself knowledge of available options and then effort to exercise those options. Now the True origin of where effort comes from and why is a VERY long discussion for another day. But now that I have gleaned much clarity on that issue, effort is a not as hard to come by especially when coupled with patience.

Checklist:
Class today, read half a chapter anyway, yes journal, 10 min. practice, five servings of fruits and vegetables, no icecream or sweets, but simple carb-wise, I had two pieces of bread and oatmeal, five glasses of water.

Gratitude List
1) Rudyard Kipling Poem "If" (I read it for the FIRST time today)
2) Emule.com (site where I found poem)
3) Oatmeal
4) Orange juice
5) John Keats
6) Byron's Manfred
7) Norton Anthology of Literature
8) Professors Huber and Hall
9) Mrs. Gershberg
10) Jerry Elam

Just in case you haven't read it recently or were like me and have never read it until now. Here is Kipling's If. Enjoy!

If
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!