The real, authentic you

Everyone wants to be loved and accepted. The real authentic you has a deep seated, powerful desire for affection.So the world should be filled with love and acceptance right? Well, look around. Is it?

No, of course it isn't. Because although we all want love and acceptance we, on the average, do not give it. Instead, we hide behind our facade of toughness and invulnerability and throw hate grenades at other people, hopefully tearing them down before they get to tear us down. We generate lies about who we are and what we want so that others can't hurt us. While it seems like a good idea in theory, the armor is never thick enough, the walls are never high enough and we still get hurt. And even worse, this way can never ever lead to being loved and accepted.

To solve this problem we need to change gears. Now, for a real thought provoking question. How are babies and domestic canines alike?

They each are completely filled with the desire to be loved. There isn't a single ounce of falseness within them.They pour out who and what they are in every moment. Unconditional love oozes from every fiber of their being, from them into us. And we can't help but love them right back.

Sheer ecstasy at being around someone that they love is their sole motivation for every action they take. Their happiness is infectious. We catch it even if we think we don't want to. When a baby smiles at us we know they aren't trying to trick us into anything. They aren't luring us in so that they can hurt us. They are simply sharing joy.

It has been said that it is better to give than to receive. Well, in terms of love and acceptance, the saying should be if you wish to receive you must first give. See, we show the world, by our way of being, how we want the world to treat us.

When we put up a false front, lie about who we are and what we want, we tell the world that is how we want others to act around us. When we put on armor and pick up weapons we tell others we want them to attack us.

When we cloth ourselves in love and acceptance we show others that we want to be loved and accepted, but more importantly we show them that we are willing to give them what they truly want. And when you are willing to give others what they truly want they are much more willing to do the same for you.

Contrary to what you might think, when it comes to emotional energy, negative plus positive eventually leads to the destruction of negative, leaving behind the same amount or even more positive than you started with. Negative plus negative only leads to a larger amount of negative. And positive plus positive, of course, leads to more positive.

By being who you are, you free others to be who they are. When they realize that they can safely let their guard down around you, then there are two people who can be themselves. And gradually more and more people will be drawn to you as a result. You can't force the world to change. But you can encourage it.

So stop lying about who you are and what you want. Let out the inner child. Be authentic. Be real. Be you.

What you desire is not important...

 ...to most people.

This does not mean that if you were to actually ask other people if they care about your wants and needs that they would say no. It simply means that others generally do not think of what you want when they make a decision.

When I am hungry, the first thought in my mind is not making sure that one of my roommates has food to eat. It is not that I don't care about whether or not they starve. It is simply that when I am hungry, the first thought on my mind is how and when I am going to solve my own issue. Often I will invite others to join me in fighting hunger, but I am solving my hunger whether they choose to do so or not.

This concept is very important in life and most people are either unaware of it or don't understand it. Other people, in general, do not care about why you do or do not want a thing, what they care about is why they do or do not want a thing.

When you want something from another person the easiest and best way to get compliance from them is by showing that person how it will benefit them.Sell them on the good it will do them and they will be with you all the way.

One sibling may want another to take them to the mall to meet up with someone for a date. If the one who wants the favor just says "hey can you take me to the mall so I can meet my date there" the other is likely to just say no. But if instead the request is more like this "hey if you take me to the mall and pick me up later i'll do all your homework for a week" then there is a compelling reason for the driver to say yes.

No matter what the request, it does not assist your cause in any way at all to show how that thing is beneficial to you. In fact, it will almost always cause trouble for you.What happens is, you describe how this thing is good for you and the other person comes up with excuses and reasons why it is not good for them. You are being selfish so why shouldn't they? If everyone on the planet were altruistic all the time then doing something new or different just because it benefited another person would be commonplace. Unfortunately, our world is not currently that way.

But, if you start out the conversation by pointing out how the other person's life will be easier or better in some way by doing the thing that you are asking, it becomes much harder for them to say no and many of those excuses magically fail to appear. Others like it when you make their lives better
for them.Another way to do the same thing is to show them how the current way does not serve them and the new way would.

So when attempting to get others to agree to a request or some new change, what you want does not matter. It is how well you cause the other person to see the way or ways in which they will benefit that really matters.

In order to be truly successful YOU have to be different. Other people don't care what you want, but the easiest way to get them to do what you want is to show them that you care what they want.

Happiness and Satisfaction

Did you ever hear that old George Carlin bit about new and improved? He used to say that it irritated him how commercials and advertisements everywhere boast about their new and improved products. His point was that a thing could be either new or improved. But not both.

I mean, think about it, if something is brand new it has not been changed or upgraded, simply by the definition of new. And once a thing has had changes made to it, to make it better, thus improving it, it is no longer new. If you use the old item as a template to assist you in making a new item, you can improve upon the old idea, but the new item itself is not improved. It is simply an improvement of the old item. In such a case the old item would be improved and the new item would be new. Simple right?

Well happiness and satisfaction work kind of the same way. While it is technically possible to be happy and completely satisfied at the same time, it is very unlikely to happen. And in fact if it does you are likely deluding yourself somewhere. What makes me say this?

Both are states of mind. And although they seem similar, especially if we are just comparing dictionary definitions, they refer to different things.

Happiness is a choice, one that many people, for whatever reason, do not select. It is a positive filter that we can see the world through. It colors what you say and do, how you interact with others and how they react to you. It is a general way of being. And once chosen its an always on thing that only changes when you decide to make a new choice and no longer be happy.

Satisfaction is more about a comparison between your vision of everything you want in life and what you currently have. It is about ambition. And not just the idea of one day taking your boss's job. Its more than that.  It is about your ambitions in every aspect of your life whether they be financial, spiritual,religious,mental or physical. The size of your family, who your friends are and what kind of people they are, where you live, what toys you have for your amusement,what level of education you have, how you spend your free time, all these things that you have, when compared to your perfect vision of life determines your overall satisfaction with how things are.

For a happy person, a temporary appearance of unhappiness is generally only a reflection of dissatisfaction with a current event. Once that even is handled the person goes back to their generally genial nature.

Here is the key and how it ties in to the Carlin bit. Being happy is healthy and natural. But being satisfied for any real length of time is not. The reason for this is once we reach a goal it is perfectly natural to make a new goal, to always desire and strive for more. This is not greed. It is simply the way life works, constantly pushing on to learn more, do more and see more, to steadily increase itself.

It is when this increase of life stops that dissolution and death set in. So I wish you every possible happiness and a great dissatisfaction with life.

Some perspective on what is normal

When I was a kid, (no really, it did happen) my step-dad was always trying to get me to be like a normal person. It was his idea that I should follow traditional habits and patterns. Have I mentioned that he and I never really got along? He was constantly punishing me for failing to fit within his intended mold.

It has never been my way to walk in the footsteps of others. I would rather blaze my own trail for like minded individuals to follow if they wish or simply to show others that they can find their own way like I did.

Normal people work 9-5 jobs he would say. In my mind I would reply, but normal people are unhappy. He would also say normal people go to college and get a degree so that they can make more money. To that my internal voice would say, normal people are dead broke living paycheck to paycheck.

We get the idea of being abnormal as bad from peer pressure. Parents, teachers, neighbors, friends, siblings, everyone makes us feel like the only way we are good enough to be part of anything is if we are normal.

Literally what is normal is simply the average of all people together, once the super highs and super lows are discarded. If society was filled to the brim with wealthy, sane people living, happy productive lives, then being normal would be totally awesome.

95% of the population in America lives just a little above the poverty level. 2/3 of the population are unhappy, including many illnesses and diseases brought on by stress. The average person does not have enough free time and spends much of the time that they do have worried over the things they either do not have the time for or can not do due to financial stresses. Still want to be normal?

What is normal is what is average. So, if you are normal, you are plain jane and vanilla. You stand out in no way at all. Mediocrity is the epitome of normal. Being normal is taking the path of least resistance and at the end of that road is the least amount of rewards.

Who is not normal? Anyone earning in the top five percent. Movie stars and successful musicians. Best-selling authors. Professional athletes. People that earn awards and recognition. Anyone at all who is in any way rich or famous.

If you find that you are a normal person, you have bought into the lie that being normal is the way to acceptance. The people that find the greatest acceptance within our society are those aforementioned celebrities.  It is quite often in point of fact that the things that make us not like other people are the things that make us great.

Choosing to be normal is like choosing the death sentence to any future  creativity and accomplishments you may have otherwise had. You can be normal if you want to. But I'm gonna look for a better way

To think or not to think

I read something today that a friend of mine had re-posted on her Facebook wall. It was part of an article that suggested that if you want people to think, you should give them an end goal to work towards and let them use their own creativity to figure out how to get the job done.

The article pointed out that, instead of doing this we tend to give people instructions on how we want something to be done and then they just blindly follow the instructions on autopilot until the task is complete. Both ways gets the job done. But only one of them actually engages the minds of the people doing the work.

This caused me to be reminded of the Matrix trilogy. While there are tons of allegories, philosophical lessons and religious overtones, those movies drive home for me how most people live nearly their entire lives without doing any active thinking at all, once they get out of school.

People tend to make a few basic decisions that drive their life in a certain direction and then just tune out for the rest of their lives. The routine becomes all there is.

Wake up. Go to work. Come home. Spend some time with the wife/kids/computer. Go back to bed. That's all there is to Monday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday are for getting drunk with the buddies/homegirls, watching sports  and forgetting about the trials and tribulations of the week. And then its back to Monday to start the whole thing all over. This goes on for a handful of decades and then we retire. Shortly after we die of old age.

It has been said many times and many different ways that all that truly separates man from the animal kingdom is our capacity for rational thought. If that is true then why is it that 99 out of 100 of us insist on spending nearly our whole lives as zombies, just following along with the masses.

We have the ability to look at our lives objectively, to see the things that we like and do not like about them. We have the power to change the things that we do not like, to craft the life we have into the life we want. Why don't we? Why don't you?

I believe that giving people a task and letting them find their own solution is a tremendously good idea. It saves you the trouble of needing to figure out every little finite detail. Besides, someone else is bound to think of different things than you do, perhaps even better solutions than what you would come up with. And very few people, if any, enjoy being micromanaged.

Encouraging others to come up with their own way of getting a thing done, gives them the opportunity of warming up their little used mental capacities and then allows them the opportunity to decide for themselves if they want to continue thinking for themselves or go back into the Matrix and let their thinking be done for them.

The latter of two evils

It is said that there are two kinds of evil in this world. First there are people who do evil things. And second are the people who see evil being done but do nothing to stop it. I say that the former is bad enough, but the latter is by far the greater of the two evils. The first is a thing done by but a few people here and there. The second is done by society as a whole.

Many people like to tell themselves that they don't do evil things so they are not to blame for why the world is the way it is. But how often does it happen that you see injustices done to other people and you choose to do nothing about it? Whether its a mugging in some back alley, bullying on the playground or some form of extortion by local gangs, how often do you see things that you know are not right, but you look the other way?

Every time these crimes occur and we look the other way, we are sanctioning the behavior of the animals that perform them. We are telling the people committing them and everyone else around us that we agree with what is happening and think it is alright.

You may want to tell yourself that you are just looking out for yourself. You say it's okay. I didn't do anything wrong and I am not bad. That person who did the evil thing is. They are in the wrong.You keep your head down and hope nobody notices you. But they do notice. The person committing the evil act is empowered by your cowardice and lack of willingness to make things right. They are encouraged to continue acting in the same manner. And every other person that sees what is going on and does not do their utmost to stop what is going on perpetuates the cycle as well.

It is your moral obligation, your duty in fact, to stand up and protest when you see others performing evil acts. We, in America, the land of the free, the home of the brave, more than anywhere else, should be ashamed of allowing ourselves to be oppressed by anyone, especially after the lengths that our forefathers went to in order to ensure our freedom from such tyranny.

Find others that see what is going on and are also not okay with it. Band together and confront the evildoer(s). Take whatever measures are necessary to correct things.

Whenever possible work within the limits of the law. But if the law is on the side of wrong, you must do what is right, both for yourself and for those you care about.You may get beaten up. You may in fact get killed. But is life really worth living under the thumb of oppression, being controlled by the whims of evil men? If you cannot hold your head up high and be proud that you are willing to fight for what you believe in, aren't you already dead in your heart and mind?

My aversion to social media

For a long time, I have resisted using social media sites on the internet. That's not to say I have never used them, just that I have not been comfortable with them. I have both a Facebook account and a Twitter account, but their usage has been sporadic and light.

Originally, my resistance was due to mistrust over the usage of personalized data that these sites collect. I thought I wanted my general every day actions to remain anonymous. But, recently I started to really do some serious thinking.

For one, I am not ashamed of anything I do, though some of my habits and choices are things that others may not agree with.The idea of keeping my private life private has always been part of why I avoided the social media. But it occurred to me that I really don't care whether my life is private or not. I am rather fond of saying that there isn't anything I wouldn't do privately that I wouldn't also be willing to do live on public television. And if this is true what I am I doing hiding from these social media sites?

Avoiding Facebook or Twitter isn't going to keep my information away from the federal government. They already know where I live.  I don't have any intention of posting "racy" pictures of myself anywhere. But so what if I did? I am not a gorgeous teenage girl that is likely to get stalked or kidnapped.

Part of the usage data collected by these websites is used for advertising purposes. There is no worry that my purchasing habits will be at all influenced by additional advertising, even if it is more focused. I buy what I want to buy and commercials seldom influence that.

 I have a message of empowerment and enlightenment to bring the world. My vision of world wide change due to waking up the masses and educating them to the fact that they can choose a better life if only they are willing to work for it, is not going to happen if I am "hiding" from the internet.

For a very long time I was looking for an online business that I can really get behind, something that supports my beliefs. In the Empower Network I have found such a business. The products and core steps of the Empower Network are set up to teach people how to constantly improve themselves while learning to promote a business. It is literally designed to empower people while helping them earn a living online. In just two short years, they have helped tens of thousands of people to start making a living online, people who have never had success online before.

Promoting this business, promotes my beliefs. Just by being, it makes the world a better place. And social media sites are a big part of promoting the Empower Network. Based on all these things, I really have no reason to continue avoiding the social media.

So, out with the old way of thinking and in with the new. 

Are you coachable?

We all want successes and victories in life right? But it's not easy when life keeps throwing us curve balls. Just around the bend is always some new set of experiences that we have no idea how to handle. And nearly every time we start to think we may be just about to be getting to the point where we can start to tread water with our current problems, the next waves hits us.

Now, if we were reincarnated life after life, over and over and were able to remember each of our past lives, this wouldn't be such a problem. Each life would have some similarity to the lives that had gone before it. Then every life after the first would be easier as we would remember what we did before and be able to better gauge what decisions we had made that were good and which to avoid making in the future.

It would be easier, but such is not the case. Reincarnation may or may not be real, but if it is we don't carry those past memories into future lives. However, that idea does bear within it the seed that will, once it bears fruit, assist us in solving many of our problems.

The thought behind that idea is learning from experience. If only we could learn everything from our past experiences, life would be so much easier. While we can not do that, we can do something just as valuable. We can learn from the past experiences, the triumphs and defeats of others. And the information will be more timely and relevant because it will be from people who are currently living.

Think about any sports team out there. The all have a character that more or less leads the team to victory by showing them what to do and what not to do. Imagine the chaos that the NFL would be like if there were no coaches at all. If there was absolutely no direction whatsoever, nobody to compare one teams performance to another, nobody to point out when mistakes were made. Any team ever winning a single game would be sheer chance. Talent and skill would be practically useless because nobody would know where to apply it or when.

Life is the same way. Without the guidance and coaching of people that know better than we do what to do in certain situations, success is simply a shot in the dark. That is why it is so important to be able to accept constructive feedback from others.

 Other people can tell us, from experience, how a thing that we have never successfully done is going to work. If you have failed to do something ten times and someone else has succeeded just once, then they have information that is valuable to you, whether you want to admit it or not.

It is the nature of our egos to not want to accept that other people may know more than we do about a given thing. It is natural to resist the feedback, but deadly to our chances of success.  If you don't want your chances of success in life to be just plain luck then you need to be coachable. If what you are doing is not working and someone who has already accomplished that goal offers a solution, set your ego aside and give their idea a chance.

How much control do you give away?

People say, the most important thing in the world is freedom, especially people that do not have it. But here, in the land of the free, we tend to give up most of that freedom to other people. Now I'm not talking about some of our laws being too prohibitive, because we actually do need laws to help govern ourselves. And if we did not have them, things would be absolute chaos.

No, what I am talking about is peer pressure due to public opinion. It is quite natural to want to be liked. What is not natural is allowing the fear of not being liked to make your decisions for you. But, we as a people, do it all the time.

We rush out to buy all the latest fashion trends and learn the lingo of our peer groups just so we can  be accepted. We say it's because we like those things that we assimilate them into our life. The truth is we see that other people think they are cool and we want to be cool, so we do them.

Do you realize that every single time you do that, you are allowing someone else to control what you do? You are not making a decision for yourself. You are letting others decide for you. We do this without thinking about what we want or what we would like. We just clone what other people are doing.

I have a friend who is a rather extreme example of this. It's not what you think though. He doesn't follow all the latest trends and listen to the cool hip music. Nope. He's decided that he is all about originality and being different from the masses. Anything cool and popular, he automatically chooses the polar opposite of. He will actually go out of his way to avoid doing something that he has heard is popular.

So if the cool in thing was to wear a black shirt with thin white stripes, he would wear a white shirt with thin black stripes. That's cool and awesome right? He's being his own person and not letting anyone tell him how to dress!

Being a nonconformist does not make one original. It just changes the criterion used to let other people control you. One could actually prevent my friend from doing something that he would really enjoy doing, just by making it popular.

Also, different styles and trends fit each person's inner self in different ways. IF you want to be truly free, stop letting other people tell you what is cool and what is not. Sample a variety of different ways of being and find the one that works for you. As new ideas and styles come out, test them and incorporate the ones that are really part of who you are and leave the rest by the wayside.

The odds are that a lot of your choices will still fit within a specific niche, but the ways in which you are different from the epitome of that style will show your originality and ability for free thinking. You can be cool and unique at the same time.

Good teachers still have a lot to learn

Many people see teachers as pillars of light shining through the darkness of the uneducated masses. They are sometimes looked at as the superheroes that draw our children out of that darkness and mold them into knowledgeable young adults.

Teachers are certainly those things, but they are not infallible and they do not know everything. The best teachers are themselves good students. They can and do learn what parts of their teaching methods are working for some students and not others.

Good teachers are adaptable and flexible, not fixed in their ways. They take constructive feedback from parents and students and use that information to find new more effective ways of teaching.
There multiple different ways of teaching a given thing. For example, some people learn better by listening, some learn better by watching and some, most in fact, learn better by doing. Learning a thing by doing a thing is called experiential learning. Now if a teacher uses experiential learning as their primary method, they will have more successes with that method than by any other. However, if some of the students of that teacher learn better by memorizing details that they hear, those students will do poorly unless the teacher is aware of that and makes that part of his or her lessons as well.

Also a good teacher is willing to accept the possibility of being wrong from time to time. After all, we are all human(supposedly) and do sometimes make mistakes. I remember multiple times while growing up, finding errors in my text books or on tests. Some teachers stubbornly defended whatever it was the printed word said, no matter how stupid or ridiculous it was. And it made them look just as stupid and ridiculous. Others admitted right off when an error was made and made every effort to make others aware of it so that the correct information would be available in the future.

What you may not realize is that we are all teachers and students. Every person you know or will ever know can be both teacher and student to you. There are things that you can learn from everyone alive, rich and poor, noble and peasant, elder and younger. Every man woman and child on this planet is a vast storehouse of knowledge and experiences. And you can fill your cup with that knowledge just as you can fill their cups with what you know.

But are you a good student? Are you a good teacher? Are you fixed and rigid in your ways? Is what tradition you is right all that you are willing to accept? Are you willing to admit when you are wrong? Are you open to new experiences and new ways of thinking? Are you able to take constructive feed back? Do you have a good message for others? Can you see how your knowledge and experiences could be valuable to others? If there is a better way than the one(s) you have been following do you want to know what it is and will you let others show it to you?

Expletive Deleted

To me, comedians are like modern day philosophers. After all, it is part of their job to stand back and look at the world and see just what is wrong and what is right with it.If they were not able to do this then they would never be able to find acceptable ways of imparting to us horribly inappropriate details. And isn't that what comedy is all about?

There is a comedian I was listening to the other day. His name escapes me at the moment. But what he said was important. A good deal of his bit was about how he hates the "N" word.

Now he was very specific. He was not talking about the racial slur commonly used to refer to black people, in this country, for over a hundred years. While horribly unacceptable that wasn't what he was referring to. He was talking about people that say "the n word" instead of using that slur.

Its like saying you are too self righteous, too good of a person to use that word yourself, but you are in no way at all shy about forcing someone else's mind to use that word every time you avoid it. Let's be honest. Whether you say that particular racial slur out loud or not, you are still saying it in the minds of all the people to whom you say "the n word". Unless they have never heard the racial slur spoken aloud before they all know exactly what you are saying and what it references. It really isn't any better than just coming out and saying it.

Am I suggesting that we all just start throwing racial slurs back and forth? Far from it. I am suggesting that we remove that type of language, in fact all expletives, curses and swears from our vocabulary altogether. Is it going to happen? Probably not. But I still think it is something we should attempt to do.

We teach our children that they should not swear. But we do it. That in and of itself creates hypocrisy and trust issues. We get mad when they say one word but say it is okay for them to say another word instead.H E double hockey sticks(LL) isn't okay but heck is. Shoot is okay but that other SH word isn't.

If you know anything at all about psychology you probably realize how ridiculous such a thing is. To the child we are just arbitrarily deciding that one vowel consonant combination is taboo but another is okay.

Expletives, in general are things that come out of our mouths when something is wrong and we want to announce that wrongness. When we stub our toes or cut ourselves, the words come out. Whether the words we use describe some improbable sexual act done with a donkey or we say phooey or fiddlesticks the meaning is the same. Why do we lie to ourselves and say that one is wrong and one is right? If either one is wrong, both are.Why don't we just say ouch or that really hurt?

Personally, I do not have a problem with swearing, it does not bother me whether a person uses every foul word in the book or whether they have some cutesy method of cursing. But an expletive is an expletive no matter what words are used. It is the intent that goes with those words, the volume, pitch, duration and a dozen other things.

A friend, a lover and a stranger can all say the same exact thing to you and it can be a casual greeting, a welcome invitation and a dire threat respectively. It is the intent behind the words that truly matters.

If you have a problem with people expressing their displeasure with the wrongness of a situation, then it is my opinion that you should remove all forms of swearing from your life, no matter how benign sounding your choice of words usually is. If what you have a problem with is the appropriateness of the verbiage that another person uses or the context and setting under which they use it, well then, that is another conversation altogether.

Have both.

As young children we are encouraged to have fun, be happy, and silly and to enjoy life in general.We play lots of games, have all different kinds of toys and make friends easily.

But at some point we are told that that part of life is over and that we have to grow up. We need to get serious about learning the things that we will need in order to have a good life later.

I think that is probably what started me on my original path to rebellion. My step-dad and I always disagreed about how life worked. I refused to believe his point of view. Even now, thirty years later, I still don't agree with it.

It seems kind of stupid, to me, to be told that you have to give up a perfectly good life full of joy and happiness so that you can suffer through a bunch of stuff that you have absolutely no interest in, just so that one day you can go back to being happy again.

Why can't we have both? Grow up and be a child at the same time. Studies have shown that short breaks every thirty minutes to an hour during work or school lead to much more productive work being accomplished, both in volume and quality.

While I may be fairly good at it, in general, I have no interest in being an adult. I want to spend my time playing games, reading and going on adventures. And I bet you do too. Learning new things is enjoyable to me just so that I can find other things that are fun to do and other people to do them with. Teaching is fun for me because I like seeing the inner child in others light up when it learns something new.

We all have responsibilities as adults, things that we cannot get away from. And yes, some of those things do actually require us to be serious and disciplined. A lot of them don't though. And why shouldn't we have fun at every other possible moment where we are not required to be a grown up?
Besides, the end goal isn't real for any of us until we reach it. Until then now is the only time that ever matters. Why suffer through now after now after now that is simply crappy because you aren't allowed to have fun?

If the matter isn't death or the loss of some big account at work, live a little. Be serious when you have to, have fun when you don't. Hold both. Make all your nows as enjoyable as you can until you are done being an adult. And then be a kid all the time.

I mean isn't that really what being rich is about? The freedom to do what you want when you want? We should cram as much joy and happiness into each moment of life as we possibly can. And isn't that what the child within all of us really wants?

The road to empowerment

Self improvement, empowerment, enlightenment. They all mean more or less the same thing. It is the never ending journey of personal enrichment for mind body and soul. There is always more room for personal growth and improvement regardless of how far we have come. Just past the current obstacle is another breakthrough.

One may wonder, if perfection is unobtainable, if there is always more to do, why bother at all? I feel there are several good answers to this.

Which of the following sounds better to you? You can strive for perfection and perhaps get close but maybe fall a little short. Or you can shoot for mediocrity and probably make it. If you make it, go you, you succeeded at being average. But if you fail at mediocrity where does that leave you?

That's why they have a a saying "go big or go home" because nobody cares if you strive for and succeed at being mediocre. I'd much rather work my tail off striving for perfection (and fail) than coast my way through being average.

Also something most people seem to miss is that enlightenment is about the journey, the path itself, the road you take and all of the choices you make while upon it. Where you end up is far less important than each step of how you got there.

We have character development over time. As we have new experiences we learn more about both ourselves and the world around us. Our minds expand to encompass new ideas that we could not have conceived of at the start of our journey. You are not the same person that you were five years ago. And you will not be the same person five years from now that you are today.

There may come a time where you have achieved all the goals that you had previously set for yourself.  And if that does happen, you will set new goals and milestones for yourself. The reason for this is that what you believe is the perfect you and the perfect life for you changes as you accomplish more and more.

And last but not least, the only way to have any real control over your life is to stop coasting along and letting others make your decisions for you.Stop letting your parents run your life. Quit blaming other people for your problems.You get to stand up and take responsibility for your life and you get to be the one that makes sure it is on track so to speak, as well as deciding for yourself what on track looks like.

Why bother? Because the people that "bother" have a real a chance of succeeding, of having their lives work for them instead of against them. They are people that matter and make a difference in the world. Why bother? Because what kind of person would you be if you didn't?

Everyone has their place. But why be a sheep when you could be a wolf? Why let things just happen to you when you can be the kind of person that makes things happen?

Unleash the power of your imagination

Sometimes knowledge is our worst enemy. That may be hard to believe at first but if you think about it you will realize that it is absolutely true. You know that certain things are possible and certain things are not. These things frame what your limitations are, literally defining what you can and can not do.

Have you ever seen one of those cartoons with Bugs Bunny or the Roadrunner character where they just walk out on to thin air or trot across the ceiling for a scene or two? But when Yosemite Sam or Wile E. Coyote try to do the same thing they fail due to the laws of gravity and physics. Someone comments on it and the reply is that the other guy could do it because he never studied law.

Now this is an extreme case that is kinda funny and would never work in real life but there are a lot of real events that work exactly that way. There are hard set limitations that you can not do anything about. Without oxygen you are going to die. That's a fact. Written in stone right? Or is it? It is.
Unless you figure out what it is that oxygen does for your body and find some other way of providing that thing. OR find some way of making it so that your body can continue to function without that thing.

See most limitations are not real.They are statements that are only true if you can not change the circumstances that they deal with that cause them to be true. They are simply challenges that have yet to be solved. A healthy mind or group of minds using the power of their imagination given enough time can solve any problem.

Think about this. The people that often come up with the best and greatest solutions to our problems are younger minds. People who have not been firmly indoctrinated in the beliefs that define what can and can not occur accomplish things that we know are not possible. Their solutions often work because they were not aware of the obstacles that others see in solving the problem.

The way most people try to solve problems is by starting with the limitations of circumstance and attempting to jam ideas into the box so to speak. The way creative problem solvers solve problems is the opposite. They just look at the goal and work backwards wondering how to get from the goal to where everyone else is.

It is not that their thinking is outside the box. It is that they are often not even aware of the existence of said box.

Inside the box thinking is like we could do this if we could get past this thing. But this thing is in our way. We can't do much about it so we're kinda screwed. It is signified by a lot of "if onlys" or "it's too bads"

Outside the box thinking is more like what if we did this or that or worked it from this angle. Using your imagination has a lot more "what ifs" and "why don't wes"

And as always it comes down to choice. You always get to choose whether to use the power of your imagination to drive yourself on to success. Or you can choose to let obstacles get in your way.

There is no problem that you cannot solve with the power of your mind. So why don't you? Let go of what you know to be true and free your imagination. Test things that would work if known limitations did not exist and I guarantee you will be surprised with the results.

School isn't working

Why do we send our children to school? Wasn't the idea to give them the knowledge and skills that they will need as adults in this world?

At some point it was decided that every student should learn the "three" R's. Reading,writing and (a)rithmetic. I find it ironic that that became a saying considering that reading is the only one that actually starts with the letter R. It is kind of fitting  though since school is filled with so many things that seem like a nice idea but when you look closely don't make any sense at all.

I agree very strongly that the three R's should be the absolute minimum at which we strive to teach our children. But our current system is failing at even that. The average student graduating from high school in America reads on a fifth grade level, can barely multiply and divide and has handwriting so atrocious that nobody else can read it.

For that reason alone our system needs to be seriously revamped. But even if we manage to bring those things to a manageable level, there are so many other things that are wrong or do not work and so much more that our kids should be learning.

Although the No Kid Left Behind laws are being repealed the truth is we have had some kind of program in our schools that does more or less the same thing for nearly a hundred years. And it has been failing that whole time. Children are individuals. No two of them are the same. Holding them each to the same standards is both stupid and unfair. What is simple for one is nearly impossible for another. Some children need a curriculum that is individualized due to learning blocks or starting school years later than others due to family issues. That is not to say that we should coddle them. I believe we need to be harsh but fair.

And on top of that. The three R's are not enough to get by in life today. The way the world is today everyone should learn sociology and psychology to better be able to understand their neighbors on spaceship Earth and to learn how to deal with their own feelings. When do they learn how to get a job or what people skills they will need in order to keep it?

It also wouldn't hurt if martial arts were taught to children in schools so that everyone has the capacity to protect themselves when they need to. Not everyone needs to know the atomic weight of iridium. But everyone needs to defend themselves or someone else at some point in their life.

And last but certainly not least. What about self empowerment? When are they supposed to learn about The Law of Attraction? Or the power of being a positive influence on their own lives and that of others? When do they learn the skills that they will REALLY need to not only survive but to get ahead and stay that way?

If school really is supposed to give our children what they need to live the best lives they can possibly have, then our whole system is woefully inadequate and needs to be reworked.

Have any good ideas?

Fear of the dark

There are a great many things in life that do not make sense to me. Most of them have to do with a thing that I see in others that I do not see in myself. Fear due to being surrounded by a lack of light is one of those things.

I do not understand this. Nearly half of the world is covered with it at any one point in time. It's mentioned or shown just about everywhere in books, movies,television shows, and songs. Why are so many people afraid of the dark?

For most people, it seems that fear of the dark is really a fear of not knowing what is out there. Or in other words, when we can not see what is happening we invent or imagine things to fill in the gaps. We superimpose our thoughts onto reality, literally taking something that is inside our head and planting it firmly within the darkness. People that do this are using their imagination in an unhealthy deconstructive way.

It seems to me that positive rational thinking people, that deal honestly and logically with the world would not have any reason to imagine monsters of any sort in either the light or the dark. Maybe I am wrong, perhaps there is no connection.
But I am not afraid of the dark. Or of the things that go bump in the night. I prefer darkness. Here in Florida, due to the heat, nighttime is often the only time where being outside is even remotely bearable, especially in summer.

I enjoy sitting alone outside, after sunset, feeling the air around me begin to cool, surrounded in a cloak of darkness, silently listening to the cries of birds, the buzzing of insects and other animal sounds, watching people scurry along, hurrying to be indoors. The darkness is a welcome home and a familiar friend. For me, it is comforting, relaxing and peaceful in a way that day time can never be.

I have been alone in the dark, in enough different places throughout my life that if there were monsters hiding there, somewhere, I think I would have seen them. Darkness is the natural condition just about everywhere that the light of the sun is not currently shining. Yet we treat the darkness as unnatural. It is true that there are dangerous things in the darkness, but no more so than there are in the full light of day. If we do not fear the light we should not fear the dark, for one is simply a lack of the other.

My son who just turned three is not afraid of the dark either. In fact, late in the evening he will often turn the lights out so that we can play with his toys in the dark. Studies show that between two and six is often when this fear begins due to a drastic increase in the use of the imagination that occurs in this time frame. I will observe carefully to see if this happens with him, though I have a suspicion that it will not. It is not in my nature to be afraid in general and from what I have seen so far, I think it may not be in his either.

Vision. What you see, you create.pt2

Yesterday, we talked about how my vision ten years ago for how I wanted things to look today did not turn out quite the way I actually wanted it to.  It was mentioned that specific things were just the way I wanted them to be, but others were not.

And therein lies the key. The things that I was specific about came to pass. The things that  I wanted but only imagined in a vague sort of way either did not happen or went horribly wrong.
Some people would say the fact that I got any of the things that I wanted was sheer luck and I should be happy with my results. And I am. I am ecstatic that many of the things we worked so hard for turned out the way we wanted them to.

We, me and my chosen family, no longer live in separate apartments. We have a house to call our own. Not including the house itself, our debts have dropped dramatically. Our home is a peaceful, nonjudgemental environment, where people can feel free to be themselves, as long as who they are is not a danger or threat to others within the home. People can let their guard down here, reflect on their lives and relationships and can tear down the parts of who they are that they do not like and begin the process of personal reconstruction.

Every bit of that was something I very specifically wanted to make real. It was not luck. It was a vision of how things could be, backed up with enough desire to cause the actions necessary to make that vision a reality. Concentrated effort made our home and its current environment what it is today. Not luck.

Just as the parts that did not turn out well were not bad luck. They were simply poor planning or in some cases not planned for at all. But the great thing about time is it brings us experience. Before starting on this grand adventure it was something completely new to me and I had no idea what sort of pitfalls lay ahead.

Now that I have had some practice living in and working with the people in our home I have a much better idea of what to expect. I can and have adjusted my vision and goals accordingly. It is more fully fleshed out, less vague. Before I was literally creating something out of nothing. I had a blank table in front of me with a single puzzle piece on it. The level of specificity necessary to create the whole puzzle exactly as I wanted it would have been nearly impossible to achieve no matter how long was spent planning it.

Things are different now. A lot of what we intended to create we have. What we have now is a puzzle that is more than half put together. I just get to work with my family to find or create the missing pieces. And once we do, then we'll scale the camera back and start working on an even larger puzzle.

Vision. What you see, you create.

Ten years ago I had a vision of what I wanted my future, my now, to look like. And for the most part it does. There are parts that I wish were different, but the things that I was specific about in that vision happened more or less the way I wanted and expected them to.

When I was young it was pretty much just my mom and me against the world. We were dirt poor but I was happy.  But then she met my step-dad and it turned out to be me against the world. He made me pretty unhappy. And even when she did disagree with him, which was often, she submitted to his will in how to treat and raise me.

I decided around the ripe young age of six that I didn't have a family and wasn't going to until I could choose for myself who they were going to be. Fast forward through my teenage years full of frustration and angst. By the time I was in my mid-twenties I had gone through a lot of self empowerment and transformational stuff.

There was this one group of people that I regularly played Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games with. Most of them were amenable to my overall philosophy of empowerment and the pursuit to bring positive change to the world. We got along really well and spent a lot of time together. They were all good people. I got this idea in my head that these people should be family and that we should live together, pooling our resources and our debts, over time allowing the former to grow and eliminating the latter.

At the time we all lived in separate apartments. It appalled me the amount of money that was being thrown away every month. None of us owned our own residence and at the rate we were going none of us ever would. We were all separately struggling to survive.

My vision was for the core group, which at the time was four of us, to move into a house together, vastly cutting down on our monthly payments so we could get out of debt and actually own something, while at the same time bringing our message of personal growth and self improvement to the world.

For awhile I was fired up and really motivated and it showed in our results. It took a little over a year. But we did find a house big enough for us to move into. The problems came in that it was not just the four of us. Initially when we moved into the house there were not four but six of us. Things kept fluctuating until at one point there were twelve of us living in the house.

Our other friends had heard about our idea and thought it sounded great. They saw the good in what we were doing and jumped on the bandwagon. They wanted the pay off but they did not want to do the work of bringing the vision fully into reality. For awhile, it became pretty uncomfortable around here. Somehow it was harder to pay our bills with ten or more people working and living here than it was with four. The housing market falling apart did not help at all. The "new" people would not work together here and things were more or less chaos. I almost gave up.

Gradually, people started leaving. And with each person that left it actually got easier and easier to run our household.  Our debts are decreasing. Our secondary mortgage has been paid off.  There is a good chance that in the next year or so we will own our home free and clear. There are six people living in the house now, four core group members and two roommates. Or as I like to say it, four family members and two roommates. As a family we love and support one another. We do our best to make life better and easier for each other.

Over the last ten years a lot of mistakes have been made and a lot has been learned. I have a new vision now that includes the things that I have currently that are not exactly the way I want them and things that I do not have but do want. And this time I have a one year, five year and ten year vision. The shorter goals can be used to more directly focus on ensuring the larger picture turns out the way I want it to.

What does your now look like? Do your results match your vision from ten years ago? What is your vision for the future?

Food and hunger in America

October, November and December. The last quarter of the year brings with it quite a few holidays and as a result many opportunities for family and friends to get together and celebrate, to enjoy each other's company and to party.

When I think about families and friends spending time together, I often think of all the less fortunate people out there, the ones that have nothing to celebrate and no food or drink to celebrate with.

It is estimated that the planet currently grows enough food to feed at least ten billion people comfortably. I think that number is an extreme underestimation. I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that not a single person in America starves because not enough food is produced.

There are places where farmers are literally paid to burn thousands of tons of produce rather than to have it shipped somewhere else that it is actually needed.

Places like McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and other popular fast food chains  have quality rules set in place where after a certain amount of time they are required to throw away food that is no longer "fresh". Depending on what the items are the time is generally between ten and twenty minutes. They are not allowed to give the food to their employees or even to local homeless people. Or even sell it at a discounted rate due to its lack of freshness. They are required to waste it. And even if only an average of  1 pound per restaurant per day is wasted in this fashion,(and this is an extremely conservative estimate) there are 160,000 fast food restaurants in the US alone. That is not including other types of restaurants and would still add up to nearly 30 thousand tons of wasted food each year.

Grocery stores often turn away produce trucks if they do not like the look of the produce. Then the drivers of those trucks have to try to find somewhere else that will take the food off their hands. Often it ends up simply getting dumped.

It is  estimated that between ten and twenty five percent of the food that consumers in America purchase is wasted, due to uneaten leftovers or food that goes bad before it gets cooked. Focusing on changing this one statistic could go a long way towards feeding all of the hungry in this country.

Economic conditions in our country are not as good currently as they have been in years past. And yes there is poverty, even here in America. But I can't help but think the real problem here is greed and inefficiency.

The average American eats just under 2,000 lbs or 1 ton of food per year. There are a little over 300 million people in America. And currently, 1 in 6, or 50 million are struggling with the inability to provide enough food for themselves to eat. An extra 50 million tons of food per year would feed the hungry within our country. And I firmly believe that there is at least that amount of surplus food here that is going to waste each year.

The food already exists to feed our hungry. How do we find better ways of getting it to them?

Are you already rich?

With the staggering heights to which our national deficit has reached, why is it that America is considered one of the richest, if not the richest country in the world? It is because of the many things that are a part of our daily lives that we just take for granted. We have these things and just naturally forget about what life was like without them.

If you live in the United States, chances are good that you live in a house, apartment or condominium. You have hot and cold running water, electricity and a car. You can shower with hot water, indoors, on a regular basis. Your food can be stored in a refrigerator and quickly heated up in the microwave. You are not limited to working within walking distance of your home. There are airports in every major city.

A quarter of the world's population does not have access to electricity. Close to half do not have water piped into their homes. Worldwide, there are approximately 1 cars for every 6 people. In the US the ratio is almost 1 to 1.

The country as a whole produces far more food each year that it's citizens could ever possibly eat in that time. Food from all over the country is shipped to local grocery stores, providing wondrous variety for each meal, at reasonable prices. This alone is a thing that people in many other countries would consider a great treasure.

The US has a system of government that while not perfect does allow its citizens to live in relative peace and safety. It has a well armed and trained military. The laws and police keep the local streets safe.

And first and foremost we have our freedom, the most valuable thing in the world.
We here in America have things that people in other countries only dream of. Our every day lives are much easier than those in other countries. We do not spend hours every day carrying water from a nearby stream or river so that we can have water to drink or to cook with. We do not need to carry coal or wood for fires. Half our day isn't spent preparing food.

We have systems set in place that let us focus on just one or two things but let us take advantage of the great works of others. We do not have to each create everything of value that we need in our lives.
There is a great deal of difference between the wealthy and the poor in the United States. The rich often live on large estates in elaborate, lavish, homes. But even most of the poor here have access to more and better things than many other people throughout the world that are considered well off. It is a difference in standard and perspective.

Typically, we just expect more here. And that is both good and bad.

For Evil 's sake

How many times in a book or a movie have you seen the main villain get into a monologue describing how truly vile and dark their current plan is? Don't they often start cackling with glee over the sheer evilness of their plan? They revel in the pain and suffering that they are causing.  They are evil just for the sake of being evil.

Those who make a living entertaining us and engaging our minds in flights of fantasy like to make things clear. They want it cut and dried so as to polarize the reactions that we give them. We are subconsciously left with the impression that there are only two possibilities.

You as the viewer are vile and despicable because you agree with the cackling maniacal fiend. Or you are a decent human being that wants to see the bad guy fail and the hero prevail. In books and movies, it is just that simple.

When most of us think about evil the images from those stories are what come to mind. But in real life, things are seldom that way. That is not to say that there are not people in this world who commit some of the same horrendous acts as the villains in the stories. But their motivations are often a lot more complex.

The things they do may hurt a great many people but that is usually not the reason why they are doing those terrible things. Many of them are lashing out at authority figures in the hopes of forcing grand change to the whole system. Others are trying to get even or to right past wrongs that have been done to them.

We have a tendency to think of people that do things that hurt us as bad or evil people. And while their actions are certainly not good they are not really evil in the movie villain sort of way either. I tend to look at things as either good, evil, or selfish.

If a person is doing something to improve the situation of another person or group of people and is doing what they can to avoid hurting others than I see it as a good act. If someone is doing something solely for the intention of hurting a person or a group of people and no other reason, it is an evil act. If a thing is being done for any other reason, I see it as selfish. Being, selfish is kind of a neutral, sorta grey area with both light and dark tendencies.

When being selfish a person is thinking of the benefit doing a thing will bring them. There is often no thought for how it affects others. Most of the things that other people do to hurt us are not done specifically because they hurt us. And even the very few that are, often are done in an attempt to balance the scales. You or another person hurt me in this way, so I am going to do that thing to you, to make it fair.

Many political campaigns, war supporters and even religious debates attempt to vilify the other side. They attempt to make it a clear cut situation of good versus evil. It really only takes a little common sense and an open mind to see that things are very seldom that simple. All of these things are driven by selfish desires for the world to be seen a specific way and to bludgeon you into agreeing so as not to be forced to see yourself as the villain in the story.

The world is not full of evil. It's full of selfish. And selfish can be good and it can be evil but more often than not is simply self serving with no knowledge or care of whether it is one or the other.

Nostalgia is killing your dreams

Is there an event or series of events in your life that you find yourself often reminiscing over, whether by yourself or with your friends? You probably find yourself saying that "remember when?" and "those were the days"

We tend to have nostalgia about good times in our past. But whether you realize it or not, there is a good chance that that very thing is hurting your chances of success in the future. Now before you disagree, realize that I think that great memories of the past are a good thing.  It is just the attitude we tend to take about our current times that are killing us.

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't it always seem like what we are really saying is those were the good old days and now they are gone and this is what we are left with? We used to be great. Life used to be awesome. Wonderful things used to happen to us. We are fond of the lives we used to live and dread the one we have now.

Why not use the glory days of our past as a template for the future? Sure we can never go back to exactly the way things were before, but certainly they can be better than they are now right? What circumstances made life so much better then? Did life really change all that much? Or is it simply how we look at things that changed?

If what changed is that we became jaded and beaten down by negative experiences with life, through good will and conscious effort we can repair our damaged hearts and minds. If it is circumstance that made life better then we can find ways of changing our circumstance to be more like what used to be. Again, it can never be exactly like it was. But, there is no reason why life cannot be just as good or better than it was at the highest point in our past.

Just because we accomplished something great once does not mean we are done. We have within us near infinite potential if only we are willing to work for it. We can go on accomplishing great things every day for as long as we live. Our past accomplishments just serve to show definitively the least of what we can do and have already done. We can do so much more. The only limits that exist for us are those that we place upon ourselves or those that we allow other people to place upon us.

Stop looking at your past as the pinnacle of your life and everything afterwards as the long inevitable downhill ride. Instead take stock of the things you have already done and point out how each thing has pushed your limits that much further than they were before and enabled you to know and do more. Resolve to use past victories as the momentum, the fuel if you will, to push you on to future victories.

Never give up. Never surrender. Live each and every day as if it were your last and strive to be as far ahead of the pack as you can so that you are an example for others to follow. But, more importantly, be an example for yourself to follow.

A first impression is not a person.

I spent some time today looking over previous posts that I have written here. It actually surprised me the number of completely different things that I have talked about over the past few months. My knowledge and experiences are rather eclectic, literally all over the place. Every day of my life is a new day full of value that I and other people can learn from.

And I am no different from anyone else in that regard. We all have unique valuable experiences that others can learn from even if we do not realize it. There is no way to know what or how much you can learn from any other person. But it is a fact that there is something valuable that you can learn from every person.

Yet it is said that the average woman will decide within the first two minutes of meeting a guy whether or not she wants to be with him. The average boss will decide based on first impression alone whether or not the person they are interviewing is a good fit for the job. Things like physical appearance, posture and facial expressions are often the sole tools used to make these decisions. This is completely unfair because the true value of a person is what is inside and there is no way of knowing that in such a short span of time.

We see a homeless person on the street and based on how dirty, dingy and ugly they look we decide that it is no wonder that they are homeless. Many homeless people are disabled vets with a great understanding of battlefield tactics and strategies, things which with just a little bit of tweaking can be effective and useful ideas for how to run a business better. Many others are people who were at one time skilled carpenters, auto mechanics, or metal workers. Others still are great scientific minds capable of solving difficult or dangerous problems that we need solutions to. But, we decide, and wrongly so, that, they have no value within our society.

We are being unfair to both ourselves and the other person when we just throw them away based solely on our first impressions. Do you like it when people shun you because of a bad first impression? Of course you don't. So why treat others that way.

Now I am not saying you should just ignore glaring warning signs that something is wrong with a person. But I am saying that if they are not an immediate threat to you, that you at least give them a chance to prove to you that your first impression is wrong. And even if your first impression is not wrong, even if what you do not like about them turns out to be true and valid maybe you could look past that to see the gems hiding within the trash.

Every adult, during their lifetime, has thousands of hours of experience, many of which could be positive life changing events for you, if you can manage to see past their flaws. Just  imagine how much better life could be for all of us if everyone actually learned from everyone else, instead of judging and avoiding one another as much as possible.