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Marcus Lopés

Storyteller and Actualizer of Dreams

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A Life Worth Living

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a life worth living

As we near the end of the year (it’s closer than you think), I become a bit more reflective. Am I really focused on what matters? What more can I do to fulfill my dreams? How can I be of service? Mulling over those questions, I am thinking more about how I can live a life worth living.

Life isn’t easy at the moment. Inflation is on the rise. We are still dealing with COVID-19. The war continues in Ukraine. Millions of people are struggling to make ends meet. There are a lot of reasons to give up, to crawl into a deep, dark hole and stay there. Working with the public, there are many, many days when I want to build a cabin in the woods protected behind fortified walls. No one in or out. All of those things together have me asking other questions: How do I stay focused and sane? How do I throw off the doubt and fear? How do I cut myself off from the noise? [Read more…] about A Life Worth Living

Change is Hard

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change is hard

At the beginning of October, I received an e-mail with the subject line: “Your Last 3 Months of 2022.” The e-mail was from Jeff Fajans, a creative performance consultant with whom I had worked in the past. I did not open it — not until yesterday — because the subject line alone sent me into a tailspin. Three months left in 2022? WTF? For the previous nine months, I had been chastising myself for not doing more, for ‘wasting’ time, for being unfocused. I knew I had to change, but sometimes change is hard. Still, was I going to spend the last three months of the year doing the same thing?

Facing Reality

Last week, I finally sat down at my desk and took time to look at everything that I want to do before the end of the year. In some cases, it is a matter of what I need to get started on. But to make any sort of real progress, I knew I needed more than a mental game plan. I had to write it down and face reality. I needed a plan to hold me to account … because change is hard.

I cannot tell you how uncomfortable writing out the plan made me. Seeing all the goals on paper — and the concrete actions I would need to take to achieve them — had me, once again, doubting myself and my worth. Could I really do it? Who do I think I am? At what point will I fail? The negative chatter was trying to hold me back before I even made it out of the gate. Because change is hard, and I was already looking for any excuse to let myself fail. [Read more…] about Change is Hard

Time for a Reset

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time for a reset

It was bound to happen. And it did. In a spectacular fashion. But if I am being honest, I think I knew it would. Despite the rules. Despite telling myself I was committed. And despite knowing how it could potentially change my life if I just stuck to the plan. So, on my journey to become a digital minimalist, it is [begrudgingly] time for a reset.

Bending Reality

The height of the pandemic — when we were at home and locked down — was a period I look back on with nostalgia. Why? Because it was a time when I thrived. Financially, it was tough, but it was also then that I was free. Free from a job for which I had lost enthusiasm. Free from many social norms that I had always been at odds with. And especially free to do the things I loved (write, run, read, cook/bake) every day.

As the world began to open up again, I desperately wanted to hang on to that state of being, somehow bend reality to make it last longer. While it was good that we were moving out of the pandemic and back to ‘normalcy,’ I knew that I could not go back to the way things used to be. I could not go back to my old job, could not keep doing the same thing over and over. In almost every area of my life, that meant it was time for a reset. [Read more…] about Time for a Reset

Be Intentional

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intention

The last week has been hard. Learning that I had tested positive for COVID-19 knocked the wind out of me. Not having the energy to do much of anything gave me lots of time to think or, perhaps, brood. What am I doing? Am I still on the right path? Is this where I am supposed to be? Still, I do not have an answer to any of those questions. And, in a way I had not expected, I ended up lost. When I started feeling better, it felt like I was spinning wildly. No longer acting with intention, I did not know where to start — or if what I have been trying to do even mattered anymore.

Let’s Talk About ‘Intention’

We all face challenges in life. I like to believe that how we react to those challenges defines, in part, who we are and who we can become. I reminded myself of that as I started to get lost in my brooding because I did not want to feel like I had hit a dead end. Really, where I am now is a part of my journey, but I do not have to let it be the essence of that journey. Instead, I can change the direction and, consequently, my thoughts and how I see myself in the world. To do that, though, there must be one principle that rules my life: intention. Because, as Oprah Winfrey writes in The Wisdom of Sundays, “Thought by thought, choice by choice, we are cocreating our lives based on the energy of our intention.”1 [Read more…] about Be Intentional

The Creative ‘Balancing’ Act

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balance

We live in crazy times. Not necessarily crazy, but so much different from when I was a child. Technology has changed how we live and work. Politics are more divisive, and uglier, than I can remember. It is a me-first world, and trying to keep up can leave you exhausted. And through it all, we are trying to follow our own path, do what we love — be a beacon of hope in a world seemingly turning in on itself. To do that, I used to think that it was important to bring balance to our daily lives.

I was wrong. [Read more…] about The Creative ‘Balancing’ Act