Over the past year, my life seems to have taken on a life of its own, to the detriment of my blogging on Making Ripples.
I feel somewhat like a duck trying to move against a strong current – everything looks calm and serene on top, but my feet are paddling madly just to make headway. This is a far cry from the leisurely lifestyle of a few years ago.
When I “retired” from Sun Microsystems at age 67, nine years ago, I started writing books and articles, branched out into custom woodworking and self-published Danger Quicksand – Have A Nice Day which is still available free on the Internet.
Needing more room for projects, and desiring a lifestyle that revolved around a real community, we moved to Floyd, VA in late 2005, where Gretchen and I and began to get involved in community projects and I eventually started a custom picture framing business to support Gretchen and other local artists.
Floyd Custom Framing was started in 2007 and has given me the opportunity to meet many artists and collectors while we worked on frame designs to showcase their works. It has expanded my understanding of the importance of presenting art as a final step in ensuring the viability of the artistic process. Thanks to word of mouth advertising and referrals, I continue to see new customers almost every week.
The continuing downturn in the economy finally impelled me to look beyond Floyd for ways I could provide services and generate income. This same downturn appears to be providing incentives for some people to make changes in their lives and this created an opportunity for me to resume an activity that I had reluctantly dropped more than 15 years ago which was a combination of career coaching and life coaching.
People appear to be held back by external forces, but that is only an apparency. They are almost always held back by their past experiences and the painful lessons they learned from them. This creates a mindset that makes it difficult for them to change the way they approach life.
Once people learn their real abilities, they move into action and make changes in a self-determined manner. They enjoy their new freedoms and refer others to me and I soon have no time for writing.
But, I still keep my schedule open for framing customers.