Everything Possible, Nothing Required

Last week, as many of you know, I attended Camp Scripps, a camp run by and for alums of Scripps College, a liberal arts college for women in Claremont, California. Sister alumnae reunited for four days of workshops, camaraderie, connection, and fun. Workshops included tiara-making, creative writing, belly dancing, flamenco, yoga, art journaling, T’ai Chi, water aerobics, needlepoint, meditation, flower arranging, basket weaving, soul collage, soap making, art jam, Nia, poetry, and more. There were also botanical garden and photography walks, lectures, and a panel on how to get your book published.

Despite the fact that I’d known about all these yummy offerings, I’d left for Claremont intending to slow down and do very little except teach my own writing workshop and appear on the author publishing panel. I’d been working hard the preceding months and needed a vacation. But I didn’t take one at Camp Scripps; my intention fell by the wayside as I found myself going to sleep at 2 a.m. and waking at 7. The workshop offerings, pool time, and late-night conversations were too enticing to resist. So I hurried from one activity to the next—a happy hurrying, but hurrying nevertheless.

This week I’m taking a couple days off with my husband. Nestled into our Idyllwild mountain cabin, reflecting on my recent camp experience, I consider the Camp Scripps motto: “Everything possible, nothing required.” I’d like to incorporate this motto into my daily life. Obviously, unlike camp, many things in life are required, but much of what I think is “required” really isn’t. Waking up at the crack of dawn to work on my memoir is not required. It’s a choice I make. Same with blogging, teaching, and coaching. I do these things because I have chosen them, and they have chosen me.

Here’s this morning’s musing over what is and isn’t “required” in my life—a curriculum of my own making:
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• Racing through my life is not required; vacations and breaks from work are.
  
  
• Connections with friends—old and new—are required.
  
  
• Thinking I’m not good enough is not only not required, it interferes with the “everything possible” part of the motto I’m welcoming into my life.
  
  
• Hiking is required. So is dancing. And singing.
  
  
• Raw food is required: fresh, organic greens, juices, sprouts.
  
  
• Living in a “state of emergency” is not required. I may not be able to control what happens around me, but I can control how I react to it.
  
  
• Sleep and rest are required. I have to remember to recharge my batteries.
  
  
• Perpetual email-checking is not required; checking in with myself is.
  
  
• Yoga, meditation, and journal writing—required with a capital “R.”
  
  
• Excessive social media hours are not required. When I’m hungry for connection it’s a sign to turn within, to connect with Spirit/Source.
  
  
• Snuggling with my husband and giggling with my daughter are required.
  
  
• Laughter. Summer. Fun—all required.

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How about you? What’s “required” in your life and what is not? You choose. When we make these choices clearly and consciously, everything really is possible.

Camp Scripps 2012 photos: http://ow.ly/cnS4t