folded grocery list.

"Will you whisper softly into my ear, 
all of the words that I need to hear, 
and I will love you even in your darkest hour, 
my dear.
And when the music begins to fade, 
taper, drift away, 
will you still dance with me anyway?
For our time together will surely 
slip from our hands, 
quietly, strand by strand, 
but my memories will be as many as the sand.
Then I will sit by the old oak tree, 
just as I promised you I would be, 
and I won't cry for you, 
but for me, 
because it is you that is finally free."
© Katie Daughtry 2013

...written on a folded grocery list.
xx
kj

what do you desire?

source

There's a recurring trend in today's society- we think too much and do too little. We think about what we'll go to college for and base our decision on success, we think about what we could do but we never do it; and I'm tired of all this thinking and wondering and worrying. I just want to write books and make things and live in the mountains in a little white house with hard wood floors and lots of light and is this too much to ask for? But really, there's so much emphasis on sustaining our $4 coffee miserable lives and less emphasis on doing what we're passionate about, what we desire. Alan Watts said it best:

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What do you desire?

What makes you itch? What sort of a situation would you like?

Let’s suppose – I do this often in vocational guidance of students. They come to me and say, “Well, uh, we’re getting out of college, and we haven’t the faintest idea of what we want to do.”

So I always ask the question, “What would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?”

Well, it’s so amazing. As a result of our kind of educational system, crowds of students say, “Well, we’d like to be painters, we’d like to be poets, we’d like to be writers. But as everybody knows you can’t earn any money that way.”

Or another person says, “I’d like to live an out-of-doors life and ride horses.”

I said, “Do you want to teach at a riding school? Let’s go through with it. What do you want to do?”

When we finally got down to something which the individual says he really wants to do. I will say to him, “you do that, and forget the money.

Because if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You will be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing. Which is STUPID!

Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.

And after all, if you do really like what your’e doing, it doesn't matter what it is, you can eventually become a master of it. It’s the only way to become a master of something, to be really with it. And then you’ll be able to get a good fee for whatever it is.

So don’t worry too much. Somebody’s interested in everything. And anything you can be interested in, you’ll find others who are.

But it’s absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don’t like in order to go on doing things you don’t like and to teach your children to follow in the same track. See, what we’re doing is we’re bringing up children, and educating them to live the same sort of lives we’re living in order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life by bringing up their children to bring up their children to do the same thing. It’s all wretch and no vomit. It never gets there!

And so therefore it’s so important to consider this question. “What do I desire?”

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It's time we stop thinking too much and start doing more. So, what do you desire? 

xo

kj

living passively vs. passionately.

photo credit

there is a gigantic difference, living passively or passionately. for a while I had a hard time choosing between the two. there are so many passionate people who either fall flat on their face pursuing that passion or completely change their mind on how they feel the very next day. so instead of trailing along behind them, I tried the passive lifestyle, regarding everything with a yes, no, or whatever, displaying no emotion or strong feeling toward anything at all. getting through life relying on the music I listened to and the books I read to speak for me, feel for me. not becoming attached to anything or anyone was the easy way out because, frankly, it hurt less; and, frankly, my heart was whole, unbroken. it was also cold and untouched. but once upon a time a girl dreamed about writing books and creating magazines and becoming a role model and reaching out to those without a voice of their own and giving them one. and this girl realized spending her nights dreaming of what she could do in this world while spending her days doing nothing at all and loving nothing at all and hating nothing at all and feeling nothing at all would, in turn, create nothing at all and be nothing at all. to be passionate, burning with love for life and people and purpose, will cause immense heartbreak, pain, disappointment; but living passively will not change the world. there is a choice, with two very different outcomes. and it is true that living passively opposed to passionately is safer for the muscle we call a heart, but is an emotionless life a better life to lead? is our purpose to die with a heart intact and untroubled? I certainly hope not. I hope to leave a piece of my heart in every place I go and with every person I meet. I want to die knowing I loved with everything in me and crushed into a million little pieces by the beauty of this world we live in. what about you?

xoxo

katie josephine