Family tree: on the basic handbook and its heritage
The Basic Handbook. The name of this entire book comes from a life guide I created for myself in March 2011, which I dubbed The Life-Art Handbook (read the original post and comments, and the first follow-up revision and comments). My inspiration was those company handbooks businesses give to their employees and investors, and my purpose was the same: to articulate my core values, my work, and my goals. I wrote my handbook after a period of intensive journaling and self-questioning, and it remains a work in progress. The current version is as follows.
Satsumabug’s Life-Art Handbook
Created and revised March 2011
What do you want?
I want to be happy, in the moment and for life.
Ground Rules
To be happy:
- I am attuned to myself, as well as connected with the world around me.
- I have ample time for both work and play.
- I enjoy an uncluttered home, a growing garden, my relationship with Erik (my husband), time with Lyapa (our cat), and my beautiful body.
To feel balanced (not overwhelmed):
- I do one thing at a time, whenever possible.
- I know what’s important during any given hour, day, week, or month. I have articulated my goals and my priorities, and I re-articulate them whenever necessary. I discard what’s not important to me.
- I know the difference between importance and urgency. I know what needs to be done now, and everything else can wait its turn.
- I don’t over-schedule or over-commit myself. I take on only what I can handle and what matters to me.
- I don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I do only what I need to, realizing that saying no to some things means saying yes to what I most want.
- I thoughtfully choose how to spend my time; time does not spend me. I know what I’m trading off.
- I ignore all “shoulds” and listen only to my internal guide.
Ways to connect with the world
- I blog, and read and comment on selected other blogs.
- I take appropriate-length time to email the people I appreciate.
- I make and take appropriate-length phone calls from loved ones.
- I spend time with family and friends, when I want to and only for as long as I want to.
- I regularly spend time outdoors.
- I choose mindful outings at regular intervals.
Ways to connect with myself
- I enjoy some quiet and still time, every day.
- I spend time with my body, listening to her needs and desires, and nurturing her.
- I eat mindfully and with enjoyment.
- I move my body joyfully and regularly.
- I present myself to the world in ways that make me feel at ease and at my most beautiful.
- I choose activities I love.
- I cultivate happiness.
When I work:
- I cultivate lifelong fulfillment and self-expression, and raise global awareness.
- As long as I feel a commitment to writing and to art, I will call myself a writer and artist. It’s my declaration to make, and I stand strong in it. The only thing that can make me less of a writer or artist is if I don’t feel that commitment anymore.
- My commitments determine what’s important to me in my projects. They help me guide myself according to my own vision and no one else’s.
- Nothing is urgent unless I believe it is. Nothing is required unless I think it will help me grow. I set my own guidelines based on what feels right to me, and I trust that I will meet my commitments and touch on them regularly enough to keep momentum and thoroughly explore my interests and my skills.
- I commit to visual arts as a means of expressing those visions that come to me in dreams and in my waking hours. I commit to the fullest possible development of my ability to express those visions — in all their strangeness and individuality — via drawing, painting, sequential art, or whatever media necessary, and through exploration of other artists and their work, and anything else that piques my interest.
- I commit to developing my writing as a means of self-expression, to convey ideas, and to build community and a feeling of shared experience. I commit to regular reading to let others’ ideas and words wash over me. I commit to regular and fully honest writing, on my blog, privately, and elsewhere as I see fit.
- Creating and editing are different processes. I do not allow value judgments to touch my creativity. Critique and editing come afterward, in the revision stage or later.
When I play:
- I cultivate happiness and a sense of abundance and adventure. I tune in to myself.
- I realize that my time and energy are finite and can’t simply be maneuvered into giving up space where there is none. When adopting new practices, I start slow and take as much time as I need.
- I seek out adventures and new experiences.
- I do not feel bad for “not working.” Play enhances work, and the division between them is not always solid.
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The Handbook’s Heritage. There’s no way I could have written this handbook just out of blue. As it was, when it occurred to me to create it, I’d already spent several years mulling over my life and what I wanted out of it. I made a tentative first step in 2008, when I laid down a short list of realizations about myself (read original post). That was a pivotal time of my life, because I had recently left graduate school — I’d seemed destined to walk the academic path — and was wondering desperately what else to do with myself.
That same year, I also created a life list (aka bucket list, or 100 things to do before I die), which I revised in 2009 (read the 2008 version and comments, and the 2009 revision and comments). I had thought of the list as a fun and somewhat silly exercise, but it proved unexpectedly helpful. It brought me clarity about my life direction, and from time to time I still find myself mentally checking items off it (or amending some of the items). I’ll need to do another revision soon.
Many of the other chapters (posts) in this book have their origins in this same period of my life, because that’s when I first started asking myself the vital question: how do I want to live? Notice the wording — it’s not how do others think I should live or how do I want to make a living. It’s about living, and it’s about me, as an individual. Ultimately, that’s what this entire handbook is about.
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 