Your Morning Thought

RICHARD Currently I am deeply engrossed in a book titled "Nonviolent Communication" - Marshall B. Rosenherg, PhD.  I  am in the beginning third of the book but the premise so far is that we, as a people, have never really been taught how to express our emotions.  Rather than expressing what we feel we describe what we think we are.  Typical expressions would describe how you feel about the situation...not how you as a person actually feels.  "I feel unimportant to people." describes how you feel about the way others are evaluating you...where "I feel sad" actually describes how YOU feel.  I am only partway through the book and I will tell you I am struggling with it.  It is hard to get yourself to start thinking this way.  But I am told it will be worth it. Onto the meat of the subject. Feelings...nothing more than feelings.  Unique to the human condition.  We are the only animals that have the ability to control, adjust, regulate,...

Inspiration or desperation? Change happens.  You cannot avoid it.  I mean, I suppose you could.  We could put you in a corner and feed you the same meal 3 times a day.  Keep you safe and warm...but what kind of life would that be? I do and have done a lot of different things in my life.  I am a live performance artist.  I do acoustic folk covers and originals.  I have been a fire breather/eater.  I run a music festival, served on public boards, ran restaurants, opened restaurants, designed bars.  In high school I was in marching band and helped start the high school's first indoor percussion program.  For me, it has never been enough to sit on the sidelines.  I want to be in the arena...in the thick of it.  Why watch the show when you can be the show? I did a lot of open mics and live performances in my 20s.  Never thinking too much of it.  It was fun...and there was free booze.  It was always crazy to me to si...

Yes, This Is It Now is the time, for everything. Things sound cliche until they don't.  I know a lot of times in my experience I used to think these sayings were just that.  But there is a reason they are still around this day.  They are true. I am not quite sure where this blog is going to go today, so I am just going to ride the wave of consciousness streaming out of my head. Recently I have been reading the poem "If--" by Rudyard Kipling and it has been striking some notes for me.  I wish I would have read a lot more in my 20s, but I am guessing I wouldn't have filtered it correctly anyway.  But the first stanza, if I am remembering my English class correctly....speaks of keeping your head while others are losing theirs. If you can keep your head when all about you        Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   This has been interesting in my life as I have always been a relatively stoic person. ...

Start On a Good Note This is a good one...literally.  So, I know in my life I was NEVER a morning person.  It was so bad in my teenage years I didn't bother getting up until noon.  One sure way to avoid being grumpy in the morning is to wake up in the afternoon.  This went on through my 20s where I worked 2nd shift to avoid the morning.  I remember a few times having to battle it out with the lady who cleaned the apartment hall at 6:30 a.m. like it was her religion.  Poor lady, just trying to do her job. Just like that jerk in the McDonald's coffee commercials....Mr. "Don't talk to me, I haven't had my coffee".  That was me.  Just a bear, until recently. I have been working banker's hours for about 4 years now.  I have had some success with getting up early on a regular basis before, but it wasn't because I was in a good mood and ready to start the day.  I was forcing myself to get up and go to the gym.  I was still miserable....

The Ultimate Choose Your Own Adventure Do you remember as a child reading these books?  They were paperback and the premise of the book was choose your own adventure.  The book would start off with a general story and then you get to a spot where you had 2 choices, at least, to make.  You would make your choice and go to the page corresponding and the story would continue.  Based on your choices, you would get a certain outcome.  Sometimes the outcome would be good, sometimes it would be no so good. Life is a lot like the choose your own adventure.  Here in the United States, and I am sure in other countries as well, we have the unique opportunity to basically do whatever we want with out life.  It is guaranteed to us in our constitution.  The pursuit of happiness.  Does not mean we will get there, but we have the right to pursue it. There have been a couple things in my life that were true blessings.  They sort of landed in my lap...

You Must Give Up Who You Are “When He [God] talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters The giving up of one's ego to become who they are truly meant to be.  All of our lives we have it drilled into us...Don't do this, don't do that.  Sit up straight, sit down, lay down, be quiet, don't say that, get in the car, go to school, go to college, GET A JOB!  Be nice, don't offend anyone, you shouldn't do that, watch your language, hold your tongue, play nice. Eventually...at least I would hope...most men get to a point where they say ENOUGH.  I know this didn't happen to me until I was near or in my 30s.  I realize this happens to a lot of men at or around that age, I am not unique in that perspective...

Because You Aren't Focusing On The Good For a very long time and I think we are all taught this...for a very long time what I tried to do was find everything that was wrong and fix it.  When I went down the self improvement path, that is exactly what I was doing.  I found all of the things I didn't like about myself and tried to improve them.  It doesn't work that way, well, it does...BUT it doesn't work as well as focusing on the good and improving upon those skills. It is okay to be bad at things, not all things were meant for you.  You can have all of the passion in the world, but if you are bad at the skill you are trying to develop, you are wasting a lot of time to be mediocre at best.  I suppose a person could go on to be the best one-handed guitarist in the world, but you are still a one-handed guitarist. That being said, when are you going to start developing whatever skill you want to develop, focus on what goes right. For me, I have to go back to my...

Say Thank You! For all of it!  If you can start to see the lessons in all of your failures and all of your hardships in life you will, number 1, be able to get over things quicker, and number 2, be happier. In my life experience, I have had a few of the more not-so-great things happen.  I know in my youth I had issues getting over death.  I didn't like going to funerals, I didn't like the idea that all of our friends, family, and eventually us...well...it goes away. The girl I took to my junior prom, her fate was to die in an automobile accident.  Her last words to me were "You should live a little."  Interesting...and perhaps...perhaps I am little uptight about life and life decisions.  I wasn't for a long time.  I do realize now that not every decision is life or death...but very small decisions over a very lengthy period of time are...quite literally life or death decisions.  I think overall, we can all make better decisions that bring ...

Don't Invite Them In Don't invite them in.  Think of it like this.  Say you are sitting around on the couch and the doorbell rings or there is a knock at the door.  You standup to answer it, you wonder: "Who could that be?  I haven't invited anyone over, this is strange."  This is often how negative thoughts come...just out of nowhere. You take a look outside and it is that friend.  You know that "friend"...the one that never has anything nice to say about anyone.  You know they are just looking for a wall to spew their negative word vomit against.  Your heart sinks, you already feel low...and then against your own better judgement, you invite this friend into your house...and there they sit. "Could I offer you some tea?"  You ask, trying to be a good host. "Tea?  Uhhh, don't you have any coffee?" they respond. "Sure, I have some Folgers in the freezer for guests."  You offer. "Oh, Folgers, gross.  Who drinks that...

Stuff is Never Enough Throughout our lives we are conditioned to believe that stuff makes us happy.  The game shows on TV show people that are just elated to win a new car, a new kitchen, a new boat, or even large sums of money.  While I will agree that these things provide "comfort", they do not provide happiness...for you will only be as happy as you can be right now in this moment. This holds true.  In my experience I have been just as happy, if not happier, when I have had less than nothing.  I am far worse off now financially than I was 4 years ago...but I am happier.  If money and stuff were the answers, there would be no millionaire suicides nor millionaire mental breakdowns.  Sure, it might be nice to have all of these comforts during your mental breakdown, but I doubt any of that would matter to you in that state. For those of us that are going through some trying times, you might ask "How long will this last?"...Well there are a couple answer...

Your 24 Hours This is an interesting topic.  We all have the same amount of time in a day.  For most of us 9 or 10 of those hours are committed to the workplace.  30 minute commute, 4 hours, lunch hour, 4 hours, 30 minute commute, home.  Those commute times can easily be filled with great audio books.  In the summer time it takes me about 15 to 20 minutes to walk to work and I fill that time with motivational videos or an audio book.  YouTube is fantastic.  I spend the money on YouTube Red so I don't have to worry about the ads.  YouTube changed my life.  Through it I found a bunch of fitness friends, I have watched about every single Elliott Hulse video there is.  Like anything else, there is a lot of nonsense, but the hidden gems are so delicious. Before I changed my life...my 24 hours used to consist of, well...not a whole lot.  Kind of existing, handling things as they came at me...no real plan.  I spent a lot of time s...

Don't Matter  "Everyone's a critic." I guess first off...What I don't want people to get out of this post is that we shouldn't be critical of ourselves.  We should.  We should take other people's opinions and use them to check ourselves.  What I want to get across is for when you have moments of doubt because of others, ignore it.  People will say such things as "You're such a loser,  what makes you think you can do this or that?"  Don't listen to those people.  Those people can even be your closest family members or "friends". On the other hand of that, if you are doing something like...playing guitar for instance...and someone comes up to you with advice.  "Hey, you might want to drop D on that song or capo up and see how it sounds."  Take their advice...and try it out.  You have nothing to lose in that scenario.  Let us not let our egos get so big that we can't at the very least take a different look at ourse...

Raise Your Standards Oh boy.  This is a good one. Let us get one thing straight.  Your life is not one big decision.  It is not one big decision that go you to exactly where you are right now.  It was thousands of tiny little decisions and a few big ones. Now, I am trying to think back on where my life got off track.  I moved to this small town in 2002.  Prior, I was in college and working at a club as a bartender.  Not the type of club  you would think of.  Not attractive women partying it up on the dance floor to loud techno music.  It was a Fireman's club.  Mostly middle aged dudes sitting around watching Walker Texas Ranger.  This was not a bad job, I made a lot of friends, got to hear a lot of stories.  I did not take it very seriously and my effort showed.  My father got me the job and I did enjoy my time there slinging swill to the masses. August of 2002 I got the phone call that I would be moving to Coudersp...

Give to Live Throughout my life I have witnessed many things.  The "Give to Live" approach to life is one that I have adopted.  "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want".  If I am down to my last dollar, I shall give it away.  My last bit of food....for it is my belief that he will provide.  What proves this?  I have never gone hungry.  Although I know there is starvation in the world...but there ought not to be. We are very fortunate in this country to have a vast supply of food.  I mean, there is food everywhere...to the point where we have an epidemic.  But I don't want to get off course here...but then again...I am not sure where this blog is going. ANYWAY. Give to live.  Yes. Give of yourself...give of your time...give of  your gifts. Every single one of us was given at least one gift.  A talent of some sort that we are meant to use to serve the world.  There are a couple different was to look at this depending on...

Why Do People Do What They Do? This is a good one. I gave up trying to figure this one out a long time ago.  You can be pretty much what you want to be in this life. Some people, for some reason, choose to be liars.  Choose to be mockers, choose to be negative, choose to be whatever one chooses to be that seems to fit their way of life. I think we all at one point or another tell some great lies to fit into whatever social circle we are trying to fit into.  I am guilty of this...We lie to get what we want.  The interesting thing about that is, you are building a house of cards.  It is a lot easier to just tell the truth.  BUT, be aware people are out there that will twist your reality in such a way that you will not know up from down.  These people are known in the psychology world as "gaslighters". A common form of this creature is one who will put you down in order to make themselves feel superior in some way. Now, I am not saying we all don't do s...

Something to Believe In So here we are.  I am struggling bad with life in general.  Still making it to work because I have no other choice.  I go to work, I pay support or I go to jail.  That simple, I can handle this reality.  Dog is dog...relationship over, dead grandfather, my own father has forgotten me at this point...still living in the woods. Yeah...so girlfriend at the time dumps me via text message...it was a LDR...so whatevs...I do what any white blooded American male does after that...I go and get fantastically intoxicated.  The next day was the worst.  I have stopped getting normal hangovers by this point.  I would fall into deep depression along with a great case of anxiety.  Thoughts of ending it...I was hashing around the ideas of checking into rehab, but something happened that I didn't end up going.   I was to the point where I was asking our HR department about taking FMLA.  I was just in a very bad spot....

Expectations vs Reality Oh boy.  So everything kind of came to a head...well many times in my life.  The breaking point.  At what point do we say "That's it!  I have had enough, I am not doing this anymore!"? Did it with smoking, being obese, marriage, jobs.  I have been known for my patience as a person.  I love to give people the benefit of the doubt.  I love to give myself the benefit of the doubt.  But at some point...something has to give. So we are going to skip around a little bit in my story.  At this point I had left my marriage/relationship of 13ish years total...5ish years of marriage.  I was living in a friend's hunting cabin...a trailer off the beaten path.  My father was in a nursing home at this point and my grandfather had fallen ill.  Personally, I had gotten into a relationship for all of the wrong reasons and I was just about to have a mental breakdown.  I had my dog Hops at the time and spent th...

Don't Give Up The Good Stuff So I remember vividly what happened and where things started going wrong. Exit real life, enter alcohol.  I had no idea what I was messing with.  The slow rot that is the devil's drink.  I have a healthy respect for the stuff now, back then, I did not. I come from a long line of drinkers.  My grandmother was a closet alcoholic.  My father was an alcohol abuser, most of his brother were alcoholics or died of alcohol related diseases.  Mostly strokes.  My father had a massive stroke and eventually passed from the effects of a life devoted to drinking  more than one should.  Seemed for awhile I felt it proper to follow suit. I never really messed with the stuff in high school.  I was too busy chasing pretty girls, making out in the back of the band bus...playing in marching band...picking up musical instruments.  Only vice I had back then was cigarettes. I remember specifically my first real buzz.  I...

All Pain Hurts The Same Back To The Wild - Langhorne Slim  Dealing with pain.  This is a tough one. I can remember as a kid being pretty much fearless.  We used to have a swing set out back, I would climb to the top and walk around.  Cars driving passed would beep, I remember one time a gentlemen encouraging me to jump from the swing set into the pool.  I also recall being taken to the doctor once for falling from the top of the pool ladder onto ground.  It was an above ground pool, so it was one of those A frame ladders with the railings up the sides and over the top.  I placed a piece of plywood on top of that....and in my attempt to get on top of the plywood I fell..directly on my back, knocked the wind out of me, but I was no worse for the wear. Then there was I used a serrated knife in an attempt to open a milk jug...slipping and cutting my thumb...couple stitches.   The time I ducked under near my mom's pot of boiling spaghetti, d...

OQP Only Quality People Okay!  So now up to this point I have been on my weight loss journey.  Changing my life...gaining confidence...people are noticing...feeling pretty good about myself. Bring on the negative people and the negative thoughts they bring into your life. It will always be amazing to me the ability of people to make everything about themselves.  It will also always amaze me the ability of some people to turn something very positive into something very negative.  These kinds of people are so negative that if they walked into a dark room they would start to develop...like camera film from the old days. I took control of my life and decided to lose weight and get healthy.  This was a very personal decision and a very hard road.  Some of the responses I received...in no particular order Your head looks too big now. You are losing too much weight. It's easy for you. Don't you think you have lost enough? You are just going to gain it ...

Motivations is Fickle, Discipline is Key  New year, new me time!  Everyone, well most everyone, is excited about the opportunity of a clean slate, a new year, a new outlook, and of course, our new year's resolution.  Today, many are headed into the gym for the first time or starting that new diet or have that new weight loss system...lord knows there are about a million out there. In my life, my change came about when my doctor, Dr. Barke (bless this man) sat me down and had an honest conversation about my weight.  Here is my tip, don't take weight loss advice from an obese doctor...their heart ain't in it...lol...Dr. Barke was a thinner man, he handed me some documentation and gave me 6 months for marked improvement or I was going to start therapy to figure out why I wasn't taking care of myself.  This was about 4 or 5 year ago now...and I believe this will be my 3rd year headed into the gym at resolution time. After my conversation with Dr. Barke, I knew I h...