Disconnect Your Oughta-Pilot(tm)

Wow! I can’t believe so much time has gone by since my last post. You have my profound apologies. I just got caught up in moving to Portland, surviving the loss of my beloved laptop, and creating a whole new website!

Talk about a lack of attention to intention.

What exactly is that three-word phrase and what does it mean?

As I mentioned in my last post, the phrase, “Attention To Intention” popped into my consciousness one night when waking up from a dream. What it means to me is that you need to always keep your intention clearly in your mind. I know the idea is a little insulting, but the process involved is rather like the old carrot on the stick. Keep the carrot (intention) always before you and you’ll always be moving forward towards your goal. Keeping it present is the most important aspect of this; that and having a clear goal in the first place.

Once you get your sights set on the prize, it’s a lot easier to not be diverted by all the Oughta-Pilots(tm) that show up as soon as you’ve identified it.

You can’t believe how wonderful it feels when everyone around you is giving you advice and yet you don’t lose sight of what you’re doing and why and you can take their advice, but remember that advice is worth what you pay for it. By that I mean, you don’t have to take it as gospel, consider it if it sounds valid, but remember it may not be any truer than anything else you’ve heard.

WE Are In Charge Of Our Own Choices

I say there are only a few truths: Water is wet, rocks are hard and perhaps there’s a few more out there, but you get the idea. You do NOT have to do what your parents/teachers/spouses/guru-of-the-days  say once you’ve chosen to live a life of your own making. They’re trying to do the same thing you are – find happiness and satisfaction. Poor folks who don’t know what you do – that we’re all in charge of our own choices.

So, to summarize, choose your goal(s), and don’t lose sight of it.  Keep it in front of you somehow – with a vision board, bulletin board, screensaver, anything that works for you. Filter all advice through your own belief system, disconnect the oughta-pilots(tm) and fly, baby, fly!

My poor little (?) doggie, Hobo, had fleas.  We’re in the final stages of erradication (I hope).  But as I was spraying under and over his bed in our room once again, it occurred to me that fleas are very much like Oughta-Pilots(TM) in that just when you think you have them controlled and gone, one or two will pop back up and bite you!

I’d wash him and his bedding, air out the rattan basket, vacuum and spray the rug under the basket and any place he’d been laying and he’d get into his basket, ready for a nap (he does that very well, by the way) and just when he was relaxed and drowsing off, he’d suddenly jump up and out of the basket and start scratching and biting at himself. Poor thing.

He caught fleas last Thanksgiving when we visited my daughter and stayed at the Travelodge near the Portland Airport (don’t ever stay there with a pet). He’s one of those dogs allergic to fleabites so we almost lost him. But the battle sure has made me think.

How many times have we thought that we’d handled an issue, a problem, a test or a challenge and thought we were finished with it? So we relax and go about our merry way until it shows back up and smacks us in the face once again?

I woke up with a start the other evening, with three little words going around and around in my brain -

ATTENTION TO INTENTION

I’d be really interested to hear what those three words mean to you.  Next post, I’ll discuss what they mean to me.