Nike and Fearlessness

Fearlessness, Nike, and victory are just names, and what's in a name? I have a couple of names, as did Toni Morrison, and my story is as accidental but full of emotion as hers. Actually, I named myself a few times over my 62 years but one name that has stuck has been Niki, short for Nicola, based on the word Nike, which as everyone knows is a popular running shoe with some odd political opinions.

According to Greekmythology.com (and most Classics scholars), Nike was the goddess of victory in Greek mythology, depicted as having wings, hence her alternative name "Winged Goddess". She would fly above the battlefields and champion the winners. She may be the daughter of Ares, who was the god of war. A tough chick. Being a Goddess, she didn't worry too much about getting old.

Getting Old

Turning sixty can be a big deal for people. In our society, we can feel like our lives are over. Younger people don't respect us. Our jobs may have become useless or boring. We can gaze upon a flat future full of medication, mediation, monotony. Our dogs die. Our kids leave town, and come back hardly ever.

Ya, well, that wasn't me. I turned 62 this past summer and I still have some kick in me. I'm channeling when I was fourteen and hiking in the Rockies on my own. If all else fails, I can always go back to being a doula and charging an exorbitant amount to provide people with the kind of compassion their mums or their aunties would've given them in a better day and age. I can head up to my mountain hideaway and live off mushrooms and wild strawberries. Or I could move to Rome and do private prenatal classes in English. Then again, I could just stay here in the 'burbs and live off my pension. Either way, one has to capture that fearlessness in life that gives you a charge, that element of surprise that can light a fire under your butt.

My Great Aunt Tillie lost her fiance in the Great War, and never married. She and her brother lived out their lives in Hackney, in a small flat. She was an armchair revolutionary. "To the barricades!" she would yell with her fist in the air.

Can you be a fearless charioteer in your own life? What is something you've done this week that makes you proud, that lights that fire? I'd love to hear from y'all! #fearless #Nike

Passion? What's your Agenda?

Oh, my. I don't buy myself stuff very often but I've gotten tired of trying to keep my busy life organized with mediocre tools.

Busy life?

Mother of Five - only two still at home.
Wife.
Vegetarian cafe partner, no employees.
Running keeps me sane.
Housework, shared with husband and two young adult males.
Teach birth companions and provide mentorship to aspiring midwives.
I don't attend births that often any more (not on call 24/7 any more!) but I still do prenatal classes from time to time.
Building up online presence and working on online courses so we can transition to nomadic lifestyle in 2021...
Occasional social events.
Bills to pay, for home and cafe.
Novel written but not published yet.
Book about birth almost sold out so second edition needs to be written.
Occasional English exam marker for local college.

Need I say more? And I know your calendars are just as packed! So, next list:

Mediocre tools?

I started a diary when I was ten years old. I kept one all through my children's younger years, and beyond. Then when I was running an organic farm in central Italy, with four young boys to care for, I realized I needed to plan ahead. I started an agenda then, and carefully wrote down when I needed to plant or harvest, go to PTA meetings, hatch goose eggs in the incubator or prepare for a family visit.

As you can see, I have tried many shapes, sizes and themes of agendas over the years and they've been pretty useful. I always weave between agenda posting and journalling, trying to get the past, present and future to come together on paper.

The most useless of the mediocre tools is my laptop. I have about seven calendars all competing for space, and while its nice to know when my son's basketball practice is, I don't need to have that information readily available. I use Google calendars to link with two of my websites, and that is very useful. My phone also competes for my attention, but the calendar isn't pleasant to use and ... half the time I don't even look at it.

So, what to do?

A few years ago, a client of mine showed me an amazing agenda she was using. Its called a Passion Planner. It does everything I always dreamed my agenda could do. I looked it up online over the years, decided it was too expensive, and went on using my phone, laptop and various notebooks and diaries.

This year, I am doing more, and more different projects are coming my way. I decided to go for it and buy myself a gift.

I LOVE THIS AGENDA!

Ok, get over it. It feels a little hokey when you first start. Set your timer for five minutes and organize the rest of your life. BUT IT WORKS! It's a little bit like running a marathon: put one step in front of the other and you reach the finish line. This agenda helps you figure out your goals, make a priority list, and organize the steps you need to take to get there.

Here are my goals for the coming year: 

now that I've written them down, they don't seem so daunting.

and here is my road map for the next few months, with one goal highlighted and detailed.

my coming week. 

I am using different colored pens for different categories of stuff I have to do, and I may make one more small purchase and get a pack of fine-tipped colorful felt pens.

My final question for you: do you have an agenda? Throw it away and plan your passions!
PS: The folks at Passion Planner are offering you a 10% discount with the code PASHFAM10. Go for it! Tell them Rivka sent you (montrealdoula [at] yahoo dot com).