2016 and "being busy"

I wanted to start my first blog entry of 2016 with an overview of 2015.

Then I discovered this unpublished post in my blog's "back room" - written in August 2015.

And looking back on the year, this is so profound that I feel it needs to be heard.

Unknowingly I seemed to have written this as a message for the future - for 2016.

August 2015:
I wrote, "I'm happy to say that my days of immobility in terms of movement and being unable to drive are now over.  Although I still have not regained full mobility of my right arm and shoulder.  Bone growth is progressing at a slower rate than expected.  I am able to do most of the basic day to day tasks.  But my year has not been as productive as I planned it to be.

WAIT...
Maybe it actually has!
Why do I measure success in terms of productivity?
And what does it mean to be "productive"?
Does the work that we do on the inside...how we overcome our own obstacles and fears, how we deal with adversity...not count when we measure productivity?
Is it just about OUTput then?
I'm somewhat shocked at my own values in this regard while I'm writing this.
Productivity seems to be weighed according to what we can measure, that which is quantifiable - that is how I've been conditioned.  Is that perhaps because external behaviour is visible and measurable and exchangeable for that other visible and measurable commodity that dictates most of our lives - money?
If we're physically busy, then we are seen as productive and successful, it seems.

BUT...
Today I'm challenging my own views.

You see, I've spent almost half of the year so far on my back.  But I got to read many pages that I've always wanted to, but never gotten around to doing before.  I had time to contemplate and think things through.  I had an opportunity to practice working, writing and sketching with my non-dominant hand.  I kept a journal - The Left Hand Chronicles - because I could only use my left hand and basic art materials at the time.  My lines were childlike but they were the most authentic marks I'd ever made on paper.

Left Hand Chronicles 2015 from Anel Stricker-Bessinger on Vimeo.

Deep processes of healing and growth were unfolding way beneath the layers of my skin.  Like the slow, deep movements of magma, water and tectonic plates under the earth's surface.  In time, some of those changes make it out to the surface of the earth and into the atmosphere.  The magnitude of those changes become visible to the eye only after they have actually occurred - sometimes months or even years later.

SO THERE...
Productivity is not just that which can be measured and quantified in terms of behaviour.   Success has no set definition either.  The criteria that define it are uniquely personal and very different for each individual.

I saw a wonderful quote the other day.
Beware the barenness of a busy life
Selah."

So here's to a wonderful 2016 and to living your own, unique brand of success.  

And may your sense of peace and contentment flourish as a result.
With love
Ax