Learning With Homer is fun to play! It is helping to teach me how to read. My favorite
part is listening to the stories.Homer, Millie and Tut are my favorite characters. Homer is fun to learn with. Ashleigh
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Today, I have had absolutely NO idea what to blog about. I got up late and got a late start on my homework... I rushed to get everything done and completely forgot about my blogging up until about 30 minutes ago. Now, I need to hurry to publish a blog post, and I have no idea what to write about!!! Why do I have to publish a blog post so fast?, you may ask. Well... upon starting this blog, Dad wanted to make sure we all kept up with it and blogged daily. So, he made some rules. We both have a deadline of 4:00 PM to get in our post, or Dad has to pay me $2 OR I owe him a 2-page paper, depending on which of us violated the rule.
Dad likes to keep Ashleigh and I motivated and doing things. From karate to hiking and doing different activities in the area, Dad loves to spend time with us and encourage us to follow our dreams and explore new things. Karate, while it isn't our choice, has become a large part of our lives. I have to keep doing karate as long as I am living under my Dad's roof... but I couldn't imagine my life without it. He pushes me to do well and I am now, after 10 years and 3 different karate schools, a second degree black belt. My sister only started last year, but she is already an orange belt. And it's not just karate! Dad also encourages us to express interest in other things and then pursue our goals. For example, a couple of years ago I wanted to learn how to play guitar. I took lessons for a bit, but unfortunately had to stop... now, I want to take it up again since I am older and hopefully will start taking lessons next year. I expressed interest in psychology, and Dad has been letting me take online courses about Sociology and Psychology. Most of my friends talk bad about their parents... calling their parents unsupportive, hateful, annoying, or flat out horrible people who don't get them. I feel like most of my friends don't actually spend time with their parents, if that is what they see them as. Or perhaps the parents don't spend time with the kids... I don't know, but I feel like I have an unbreakable relationship with my Dad. He does understand me, 95% better than almost all of my friends do and he respects me as a young adult, even though I am 13. He gives me "enough rope to hang myself" and is very... loose, in a way. No alcohol, drugs, sex or odd piercings are easy rules to follow. Dad lets me have my own style, allowing me to dress how I want (within reason). And I think this is what more kids need... parents who know how to lay down the law where it is needed but at the same time understand that the kid is their own person. Too many parents are either too strict (not letting their kids hang out with their friends of the opposite sex, not allowing any electronics whatsoever and choosing their kid's wardrobe) or too loose (allowing 12 year olds to get nose rings, tongue piercings, allowing drugs and alcohol and allowing slutty clothing). What we need is a good mix of in-between... and that is what my Dad is. Thank you Dad... for everything. I love you. Maddie Not to get back to yesterday's topic or anything, but a question that I think most people don't ask enough is "Why?" So much learning can happen with that one word question. Why? Why does my mind go back to little nonsensical things that happen to me? Over and over again.
Why do I remember some things that really have no meaning and get a sense of pleasure from them? I just don't know. Do you remember riding a tricycle as a kid? Where you were, the color of the tricycle, what you were wearing? I do. Unfortunately, I don't remember what I was thinking at that specific moment. I do remember it was a beautiful spring day and at that moment I was standing next to my tricycle...just looking at it, I can see myself doing it like I am flashing back to an out of body experience...yet I don't know why. Why do I have a strong urge to buy a car that was already 25 years old by the time I was born? Or why do I derive pleasure from something a stranger said to me? Or the smell of my dog (sometimes) after he has come in out of a light rain? Why. indeed? And I guess, more importantly, why does it bother me that I can't answer these questions? With so many things out there to ask questions about, and so many things that can be answered, why do I keep coming back to these same nagging questions? Sadly, these memories of little moments in time and little inexplicable yearnings don't always center on happy things. Some of these little memories are very sad, and come back to me at inopportune times. Thank God I work from home! Sometimes these little thoughts ...old memories, spring up out of nowhere and make me feel like crying. Why? I don't know. Sometimes I can be working on a spreadsheet and a thought will just pop into my head...like holding my wife as she took her last breath. I don't know why the thought pops in my head. It happened again a few minutes ago as I worked on my spreadsheet for Marathon Oil. One minute I am trying to estimate depreciation expense for 2016 and the next I have tears streaming down my face. I can't explain it. But I'd like to know why. Why? is a question I ask a lot. It goes with my job. Why is this company doing badly? What makes it different than its competitors? Why is the valuation for this stock out of whack? Why do I care? Why? If any of you can answer any of those questions, and if you can spare a moment to answer a confused individual, than please leave me a comment. Maybe your response will help me to figure out one of my myriad of questions. Thanks. I like pizza! Today, my Grandma is taking me for pizza. We are going to Athens Pizza,
which is near my dojo. I am hungry. I can"t wait! Ashleigh I don't know what it is with me and computers. I can't seem to do things right with them or keep them in running condition WHATSOEVER. If it's not out-of-date software clogging up my computer, it's bugs and viruses. I can't seem to do anything right. No matter how hard I try to keep up with my computer's demands, I cannot keep it working! Right now, my dad is messing around with my laptop to get it working. My Internet connection went out completely and wasn't working, and while I hate going to my Dad for technology advice, this time I gave in. My laptop isn't that new, so I'm not surprised that it's running slow lately. It's at least 7 years old, and hasn't really had any problems up until this point.
Every once in awhile, I try to imagine what it would be like to not have ANY electronics whatsoever... and then dismiss it as a nightmarish horror that I never want happening. Truth be told, I rely on the internet a LOT... My homework is all done online, as is my social communicating. I depend on my internet connection to be strong so I can get in papers on time, to talk to my friends, to play games, and to listen to music. However, the internet hasn't been around forever... in fact, it was created when my dad was in his early twenties. When I ask Dad what he and his friends did for fun when they were younger, he often tells me they would be in the woods and far from home on most days. Granted, I can't even come close to doing the same. Dad grew up in NJ, where all his friends lived within 3-4 blocks of him. It was much easier to go out after school and just hang around until night. It also made more sense- there was no other way to communicate at that point, so hanging out was a good alternative to the internet. I, however, live in New Hampshire. My best friend lives 45 minutes away from me and the closest friend I have lives 9 miles and 15 minutes away. So, talking online is the easiest thing to do. On the weekends, my friends and I hang out at each others' houses... but that's essentially it. What were things like when YOU were a kid? Let me know in the comments... I'm curious to see what things were like before the internet. Maddie The longer I live, the more I realize that the answer to all of my problems lie in questions. Any time I have a problem, I find I can't solve it until I find the right question. Over the past few years I was struggling on a number of levels. Metaphorically, my house was burning down around me, and my focus was on putting out little fires here and there, rather than how to take care of the entire conflagration at once.
The problem was that I was asking myself the wrong questions. An easy example can be found with the family finances. At one point, my expenses started to rise exponentially due to a number of reasons while my income was falling. I immediately started cutting back on expenses trying to conserve cash. I was focusing on the wrong questions. I was asking myself "How can I save some cash?". I should have been asking "How can I increase my income?". That likely would have saved me some grief in the near term. Even so, in hindsight, that would have been the wrong question as well. It would have been a better question (possibly), but still the wrong question. The question that would have helped me on all fronts would have been "How can I better allocate my time so that I can attack and solve all of my problems at once?" To tell you the truth, I still can't answer that one. I see now, that if I tried to answer that question, things likely would have been different and likely slightly better. Even so, I still can't see how it could have solved my real problem...that there were not enough hours in the day to get everything I needed to do, done. I do think that if I thought about it, I could have came up with a schedule that would have helped a bit in every area, but likely not enough to solve the problems. A baby's needs must be taken care of directly, not at the whim of a self imposed schedule. If her diaper needed to be changed at 3:00 in the morning, then so be it! That would not have been able to wait, even if I had a schedule for when I should be sleeping. I am rambling now. There is a part of me that honestly feels that questions are the answers we are looking for...and that asking questions are the right way to solve problems. At the same time, life happens! All the questions in the world will not stop a baby from needing to have her diaper changed! I guess there are some questions that just don't have a good answer. Back then, many people would think: Need more cash? Get a real job! Outside of the home! Yes, but then other more important things are neglected. I have two young daughters, who are already growing up without a mother. They need nurturing at a level that a nanny just can't give. They need to learn to love, not just like. They need a parent in their lives! As do all children. I have a wife, or ex-wife who is very sick and needs help. I cannot and will not abandon my responsibilities! Not then. Not now. Not ever! Another question: "Nannies couldn't help you? Yes, nannies did help some. But nannies work a schedule and are expensive. They also don't take the place of a parent. If you believe a nanny was the answer for me, then why don't you go and have a babysitter raise your children? See how that works for you. Questions? Yeah, they lead to answers...it's just that sometimes those answers aren't always the right ones. When that is the case, it is likely because we aren't asking the right questions to begin with. You may be asking "Where the hell is he going with this post?". I don't know. When I started out, I wanted this to be a happy post that showed how asking the right questions will give you the answers you need. I still think they can, but now I realize that it all doesn't come down to asking one question. One question can't give you the cure all to all of the problems in your life. The answer, I think lies in never stopping asking questions. I am in a more comfortable place now than I was a few years ago. No one question got me here. I asked and answered many questions. And I am still asking more every day! How can I better help Ashleigh to learn to read? How can I help Maddie to get through her teenage angst years? How do I pursue my own happiness? Next week, I may have different questions. In fact, I know I will. Questions are the elixir of life! You only stop having questions when you die! In the end, the tragedy of life would be to not ask good questions in the first place and then also, to have not tried to pursue the answers. That's enough for one day. Do you have a question you want answered? If not, then you just aren't living life to its fullest. Pursue your questions and look for answers. I like to watch movies. My favorites are "Scooby Doo".Scooby is the best because he
solves mysteries and catches bad guys. I like to watch movies with Daddy. Ashleigh Today, I took a little time to reflect on who I am as a person. This thought was driven by something that my priest likes to say at church: we are all sinners, but we are called to be saints. I started thinking to myself about how everyone is, indeed a sinner... but also, so much more. As Shakespeare once said, "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts." I play many parts in my life... a daughter, sister, friend, best friend, student, stranger, black belt, teacher, enemy, confidant.... and so many more.
Everyone you see has some small impact on your life. Even if it's tiny. Have you ever walked around your local grocery store and caught yourself subconsciously judging a person? Like not even on anything big... just you'll notice something about what they're wearing or how they are walking. Then, even if you don't want to remember them... you do. Did you know that the human brain is incapable of creating an entirely new, unique face? It has to take features from what it has already seen before. Meaning every person you have seen... you still have memory of. In dreams, the same rule applies. Any person in your dream you have seen before... you've seen at least a piece of in real life. So that stranger you saw in your sleep? Yes, they actually exist. Or at least a certain feature of them does.. I've had a dream where a person has looked a lot like my best friend but with different hair, body and voice. It's so odd, how the brain works... it's the same reason that it can't think of a new color. The brain can only understand what it has seen before- it can't create something new entirely. So... if the brain can't create something new, why does no one have the same dream? You may be asking yourself. Well, just because the mind can't create, say, a new color or a new face, it doesn't mean the mind can't take the billions of things it sees and create a landscape based off of that, or a new person based off of features it has already seen. Does that clear things up? Well... I've managed to successfully twist my blog post around again! I started talking about who I am, and ended out talking about dreams. What's the weirdest dream you've ever had? Let me know in the comments. Maddie What a difference a week can make. Last week, nearly my entire back yard was covered in snow. This week, I can see my lawn again. This is big news considering that the ground has been snow covered since late December. At its peak, the snow was easily up to my hips!
I am looking forward to the Spring. Green slowly returns to my woods and the air is filled with the sound of birds chirping. Rustling in the brush alerts me to squirrels and chipmunks, porcupines and fisher cats. Last night, I heard coyotes howling close by. I have to be careful with Lucky when that occurs since a pack could likely take him down if they use a concerted effort. We saw the first deer of the season last week, and soon I would expect a flock of turkey to make an appearance, as they do every year. Animals do not recognize property rights...at least not ours! Animals do mark their territory, however, and I am sure that animals can recognize the scent of a predator. Can you? I doubt it. When I was younger, I knew a boy who later went on to kill his girlfriend with a knife. Nothing about him shouted killer. He was laid back, an athlete, didn't do any drugs that I knew of...and yet he went on to become a killer. Stress and emotions can lead to ugly changes in some people. That is all I can figure. I have noticed that it is the little things that can lead to large swings in my moods, both good and bad. When my wife was still alive and my life was disintegrating around me, I found it was the little things that bothered me most. The business I built over a ten-year period was crumbling around me, and yet it bothered me less than not having the time to get caught up on my household chores. When my entire life was shattering around me, my attention was drawn by minutia. I can recall small negative details in great detail. Meanwhile, I can barely remember signing my divorce papers. I can remember driving back from the lawyers that day...it was raining, my wife and I were both crying, sad tunes were on the radio. Neither of us were happy. Even now, I feel like crying dredging up those memories. Small details can lead to large emotions. Thank God that small things can lead to positive feelings as well! Many people seem to look for their happiness in big things. For months they look forward to going away on a trip. They fly half way around the world and put themselves into months of debt for a week of "happiness". I always find these people the least happy of all. It is so much better to be able to be happy in the moment...let little things drive your happiness! A hug, a look, a good conversation. These are what I try to have drive my happiness. The feel of a cool breeze on a warm Spring day. Yesterday was a beautiful Spring day, and I was happy. A number of little things just combined to make for a great day. To start, the sky was blue and it was warm enough to go out without a coat At 8:30, I went out to meet a lady to sell her a pocketbook (don't ask). After selling her the pocketbook, we chatted for about ten minutes. She was pretty and easy to talk with and I enjoyed our talk. It's nice to get out and meet new people sometimes. After I returned home, I checked my Facebook page and there was a message from the woman I had just met. It was the kindest thing that anyone has said to me in quite a while and it made me feel good all day. She said "You are one of the most inspiring, endearing and interesting people I've ever met! Good luck to you and your family! Sounds like everyone is on the right path!! Have a blessed day!!" What a pick me up! Oftentimes we go through life and talk with others and never know if what we said had any impact on them or if they even listened to what we said. In this instance, I know what I said was heard and appreciated. It gave me a great pick me up. Again, it just goes to show how the little things we do can have a large impact on the people we have contact with. Here was a woman I had never met, who said something so kind that it brightened my whole day. Unless she reads this blog, or I see her again in the future, she'll never know how much that small act of kindness (a pm sharing her thoughts) impacted my entire day. Later, I spent some time with my daughters on the front porch. Although we didn't say much while we were out there, the moments we had together, just enjoying the breeze and each other's company are the things that my memories are made of. As I enter the Fall of my years, I hope that more of my memories will be like those moments on my porch. Sharing a cool Spring breeze with the ones I love. My teeth are growing. I have baby teeth. When they fall out the tooth fairy will visit me.
And I will get new teeth.Candy is no good for teeth! Ashleigh Lately, my friends have taken to fighting verbally with each other over the internet about the stupidest topics... from religion to gay rights, I can't scroll down my Facebook wall without seeing one snide remark or another. It's getting ridiculous... we're 13-15 and this stuff SHOULD NOT BE A BIG DEAL. I try to stay out of the arguments and drama... I leave religion and all that stuff OUT of my friendships. If someone WANTS to openly talk about anything with me, not argue but actually maturely discuss... I don't mind talking. But I dislike hateful bashing of one person because their culture or belief happens to be different from yours.
I personally am a Catholic. I go to church every Sunday, I am an active member of my church and I do pray the rosary and go to adoration. However, when I tell this to my friends, they are shocked- religions, not just my own but many others have been stereotyped over the past few years and my friends are amazed. 95% of them think Catholics are the type that don't swear, dress in uncolorful and sack-like clothing, read the bible 24/7 and try to stuff their religion down everyone's throat. I'm quite the opposite! I don't filter what I say in any way- what I say is what I think. While I don't dress provocatively, I'm not afraid to wear colorful clothing and let my own style show through. I seldom read the bible, and I never try to force my opinion or belief on anyone. I don't necessarily agree with my religion on everything either. I don't hate gays, in fact two of my friends are gay. I think people should be allowed to love who they love and not be judged for it. I don't hate people of other religions nor do I judge them for it- my best friend is an atheist and we have never once argued about religion. If anything, we completely ignore it and leave it out of our friendship entirely so we don't cause un-necessary problems. I guess what I'm trying to say is that having arguments online is completely stupid. You're never going to change someone's opinion via the internet... especially not with an overly dramatic facebook post. Maddie Ever notice that you never see people take a shit on TV? Think about it. Taking a poop is something you do once or twice a day Add in peeing and you likely go to the bathroom 4 to seven times a day (more if you are a female in my family and we happen to be travelling to New Jersey). Even so, unless you are watching All In The Family, you never see anyone go to the bathroom or hear the flushing of a toilet...unless of course it is the bad guy flushing drugs down the toilet to not be caught with the goods when the cops are at the door!
Indeed, if you get your sense of what life is from TV, you would think that no one goes to the bathroom and that everyone is either happy and sarcastic or mad and homicidal. Real life is different though. In the real world, we all need to go to the bathroom. Most people are not packing heat and our problems usually don't go away within a half an hour, commercials included. In fact, TV promotes coarseness and anti-social behaviors because they are not common. TV is there to entertain and show you things that are hopefully outside of your every day routine. That's is why it is entertaining, because the stuff isn't supposed to be happening to you routinely. Here is another example: Did you ever notice that bars on TV are filled with hot babes and studly guys...Maybe some not-so-good-looking people too, but well dressed uglies who exude money or power. Now think about the last time you walked into a bar...filled with average-looking people, maybe more than a handful of drunks and everyone looking to others for a good time. I know that at the bars I have gone to (both high-end power bars and low-end dives...strip clubs, private clubs and after-hour dives), none of the places exude the same type of quiet energy that you see at the bars on TV. Busy bars are loud and noisy, so much so that you can't hear your friends talking to you. Quiet bars still have noisy drunks in them thus meaningful conversations are tough to have there as well. People, all I can say is that if you compare your life and happiness to a TV show and you feel that your life is wanting, then you are out of touch with reality. TV is not real life...even the reality shows. I honestly feel that all of you would be better off if you stopped watching TV all together. There are so many things that make life great...but you need the time to experience them. How can you experience them if you are constantly sitting in front of an idiot box? Do you ever see a TV character sit in front of a TV for an entire show? Of course not! They are actually doing things...that's why you are watching the fucking show! You are watching people pretending to live particularly active lives. They may be pretending to be working...or pretending to just be getting off of work, etc. etc., but they are still acting! I guess what I am trying to say is that if you want a different life, then you are actually going to have to live it. If you are not happy right now, and you want to be, then you are going to have to do something differently. Doing the same thing that makes you unhappy, will only make you unhappy! Do something a little different every day! Take a step out of your comfort zone! See if it doesn't make you happier. And for God's sake, get out from in front of that TV! God bless! Maddie does her make up well. I like her eyeshadow. Purple is my favorite color She adds in layers
of blue. Maddie will teach me when I am older. Ashleigh With Ashleigh sick and Maddie grounded, I had a lot of free time this weekend to get things done around the house. Given some unfortunate circumstances, our house has become a bit of a warehouse. My garage is filled with my wife's old possessions and my basement is filled with my mother's stuff from New Jersey. Even without these things, we have too much stuff.
Over the past couple of weeks I have taken steps to rectify this situation. There is still a lot to do though! This weekend I cleaned out three boxes of stuff from the garage and got rid of a large plastic bag filled with junk. My daughter and I also put up a number of items for sale on the Rindge Tag Sale Treasures group page. Most of the items were put up at prices ranging from $1 for a pair of earrings, to $3 for a purse or a pair of shoes. All together, we sold about $28 in merchandise. What doesn't sell online we will bring to a flea market in June and try to sell there. Yesterday, while watching a cartoon with Ashleigh, I started cleaning out the drawers underneath my bed. In general, I wear jeans and T shirts nearly every day, broken up with an occasional sweat shirt or polo shirt. There are only so many of these that anyone needs, particularly since I have a tendency to wear my favorite ones over and over again. Still clothes have a tendency to pile up, so I made sure to go through it with a critical eye to get rid of stuff that I felt I would never wear again. I was very successful! I got rid of a full garbage bag of shirts that I felt I would never wear again. I also gave away my denim jacket, that I have worn every winter for the past 10 years or so. It was literally falling apart around my shoulders! The cuffs were frayed and there were holes along the collar and sleeves. One of the button holes had ripped open from over use, and the color had faded from a deep blue, to almost white with stains of gray from putting my elbows down on dirty things (I guess). Regardless of how the holes and stains got there, I decided it was time to retire the jacket. I will now have to go out and buy a new one, or use one of the many jackets that I have. As for the shirts, the oldest one that I got rid of that I know for certain was from 1992. I know this because it had the year printed on the front! Some of the shirts may have been older! Some of the shirts had barely ever been worn. Others had been worn a lot, but were now too big for me...I have lost about 65 pounds over the past year and a half! Cleaning out my library has also been a chore. I love to read and I likely have about a thousand books. Some of these books I felt I would never read again, so I donated those to the library to make room for newer books that I had bought, but hadn't read yet. We also keep a well-stock reference section to our library. My room, the library, the garage, the basement all have seen my handiwork over the past two weeks. Although we all likely have places in our homes that need Spring cleaning, one of the most important places to do an occasional cleaning is your mind! Without careful attention, our minds get filled with old, worn out ideas that no longer fit the people we are. I notice that some things that used to make me laugh, no longer do. Stories about idiots getting drunk and doing stupid things no longer make me crack a smile. I no longer care what is on the idiot box or what people think of what happened on "the shows". I no longer worry about what is in style, or what new restaurants have opened up that I "just have to try!" I guess the best Spring cleaning anyone can do is stripping away the nonsense that passes for importance in our own minds. The more I inspect my own beliefs, the more I see how much stuff that I cared about never really mattered anyway. The most important things are right in front of us! Nothing we see on TV really matters...it is all illusion! What bars I went to or what beaches or what (fill in the blank) I did never mattered! Who I did these things with is what mattered. It's sad that often times we unconsciously felt that it was better to do the things we did in an altered state of mind. "Meet for drinks?". No thanks, I am way past that! I will meet somewhere to have a nice conversation, but whether you drink and I have a soda matters very little to me.Some people can never see past the clutter in their own heads. It makes me sad. I am happy that I have cleared some of the clutter in my own head. It's an ongoing project. A Spring cleaning of the mind is far more important than any progress you can make in your basement or garage! In being homeschooled, there are a lot of pros.... but also a lot of unseen cons that kids do not appreciate OR show very often. This is a list that may not stand for ALL hoemschooled kids, but I'm willing to bet it holds true for a majority of them.
Pros: Working in pajamas Being around your family all day More internet time Getting done with homework early Good lunch Ability to get up and take breaks Pets are allowed Tests have shown that homeschooled kids are usually smarter than kids in public school No EXTRA homework after our school day is done Getting up later Cons: Being around your family all day Less social interaction Usually don't make friends as easy Stereotyped easily Higher work level Waiting for your friends to get back from school after getting done early I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees all this. While there are cons to homeschooling, however... I would NEVER give it up to go to public school. I'd be bored... I wouldn't like being around people in general... and my IQ would probably lower. All joking aside, I love being homeschooled and I wouldn't trade it for the world. Maddie Sometimes, all it takes is something very small to make someone's day. Since it takes so little to make someone happy or to make someone feel good... why don't we do it more often? I think the problem lies in not knowing what makes a person happy. While it's easy to see what upsets and annoys someone, it is not as easy to see what truly makes them smile and feel good about themselves.
For my dog, taking a daily 10 minute walk with me or sitting for 15 minutes with his head in my lap after dinner is enough for him to be content. All I have to do is say the word 'walk' and he jumps up and starts dancing in his own little way. He loves running and chasing after me, and he enjoys chasing after rocks as I throw them into the woods. He finds joy in these small, simple, effortless things... and it makes me feel good to know that he is happy. My sister likes it when I take some time after dinner to play with her, or going for walks with me, and even helping me to bake. The other day, her and I made a basic Nutella Mug Cake as a treat after lunch. It was easy to make, not very messy, and took a grand total of 10 minutes to complete. She loved spending the time with me and seeing what a little mixing, some basic ingredients, and a microwave could make. For my dad and grandma? I think they're just happy when I'm not being a handful! All joking aside, however... we have our little things we do for fun as well. Grandma and I enjoy cooking and baking together, and going out shopping every once in awhile. We like our late night talks and our summer outings, and being outside in the spring and fall. Dad and I love doing karate together, hiking and fishing, and sometimes just sitting down and talking for a bit while playing xBox. These small things make my family happy... what makes your family happy? What can you do to increase the level of joy and good spirit around your house? Take some time and reflect on this post, and see where you can make changes in your own life. Maddie We were listening to Tony Robbins again this morning and the above headline was something he said that he really didn't elaborate on. To me, the sentence has a lot of meaning. It means, "just because you don't get something right now, doesn't mean you are not going to get it at all...just that you are not getting it right now." Too many people take every little thing that happens to them (or doesn't happen to them) as if its the end of the world. It's not, Sometimes things just take time to develop.
Being patient is something we learn as children that many people seem to forget by the time they become an adult. Think about it, little babies may want to walk, but they need to wait until their legs develop enough to hold their weight and their sense of balance improves enough so that they don't fall constantly. Toddlers want to read, but they need to learn the alphabet first and understand how the letters can be placed together to represent sounds before they will be able to read. Moving along, children can't wait to become teenagers, and then to get their drivers license. Next, many people then seem to place a great emphasis on reaching the legal drinking age. None of these things happen overnight, and it is God's way of teaching us patience. Once we become adult, it seems nobody is content to wait any longer. Everyone seems to want instant gratification, It has gotten to the point where most people can tell you why they are not happy...or better yet, why they think they are not happy. Nine out of ten times it has something to do with possession. Not possession by a demon or something like that, but possession of some object or title. I see it all the time, someone gets really into a car and puts it on their want list. Next thing you know, they are striving to get that car and that is all they can talk about. Finally they get the car, and they go back to being glum. The glory isn't in the achieving of your obsession, but in the chase. I guess in the end, what I am trying to say is that we all have things that we strive for. We shouldn't tie in our happiness to only the achievement of that goal. Happiness will only be fleeting that way. Instead our goal should be happy while we pursue our goals. The achievement of that goal will then only make for another happy day! We all have things to be happy about. I try to be happy every day. While I can't say that I achieve that goal, I at least try. So should you. What makes you happy? Why? Can you be happy without that thing happening? I hope so. I try to find happiness within me, and the triggers for that happiness to be the small every day things so I can experience happiness over and over. Hugs from my daughters...a good cup of coffee... a joke among friends. All of these things make me happy. I try to avoid the things that make me unhappy as well. People who always complain, bills I can't pay off at the end of the month and a lack of time to do the things I want to do make me unhappy. Thus I try to avoid those things while increasing the time with things that make me happy. That's it for now. I like to play with legos. Legos ,are fun to play with. I build stair cases and zoos. Zoos are fun to build and look at.
Ashleigh For the past week and a half, I've been playing the game Tomb Raider on my xBox. Just last night, I finally finished playing it. The total gameplay time was about 20 hours, which was good... and the game still has an online multiplayer mode that varies each time depending on which of my friends I decide to play with. Now, as you can imagine, as the game progessed it got increasingly harder. In the beginning, there was no tutorial... the game just teaches you how to play as you go along.
For those who don't know what the game is about, it's essentially about a girl named Lara Croft who is an explorer/adventurer. In the game version I was playing, she was trapped on an island held under the curse of the Sun Queen, who was allowing no one to leave. Some of the obstacles Lara had to get over in the game were incredible... from scaling cliffs to climbing to the top of rickety towers thousands of feet in the air, the game was very thrilling and also very difficult to get the hang of. While playing, I'd often think about what I would do if I were in the same position as she was... and I'd think to myself, "I'd be dead within minutes". To be honest with you, the first time I attempted to do many of the tasks... I DID die in the game. It took me usually 5-10 attempts before I accomplished the harder goals because I needed to learn how to control my character properly, etc. However, even when I did die... I didn't have to start the whole game over. There was always the trusty save file waiting for me, that checkpoint I could rely on to save my progress. A lot of people love to use the saying "life is a game, so play like you mean it". While I myself have said this... I've come to find that I don't agree with it. In life, there isn't a save file waiting for us if we make a mistake. We can't go back and alter the past, no matter how much we may want to... and every choice we make has an impact on our current situation. Once we've made a choice, we can't find it leads us to a bad ending and just restart to get the more desirable ending. No, we have to live with our poor decisions... and sometimes die with them too. There are no extra lives. There are seldom any wonderful coincidences. And everything we say and do has a repercussion. Playing the game and seeing how many times it took me to get a freaking controller move correctly made me questions how many times it has taken me to get something right in my own life... how many chances I've used up and wasted. How are my mistakes affecting me? Do I even REALIZE what I am doing is a mistake until it is too late? So many questions, and barely any answers. To anyone who thinks life is a game... before you go saying that, please stop and think about what you're saying. It makes no sense. UNLESS, of course, we want to explore the probability that our whole world is a gigantic game and we are being controlled by another form of being that we aren't even conscious of. Then, there are many different possibilities. In games, when a character dies and the save file loads... the character has no memory of their death. They just go back to what they were doing just before their death, and the player often makes them act differently or switches how the character acts in that situation.IF we are but characters in some other being's game... how many save files have we un-knowingly ripped through? How many mistakes has our player made and then fixed... because in any game, there is no way you can get through without your character dying at LEAST once. Just some things for you to think about... Maddie Back in 1969 the New York Mets had a motto that they repeated like a mantra as they headed into the playoffs: "Ya Gotta Believe!" Well, the team believed in themselves, and they went on and surprised the country by beating the highly favored Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. The amount of power that your thoughts have is incredible!
This week, I have been listening to a Tony Robbins Seminar on changing your life through changing the way you look at things. In general, he thinks that what you believe goes a long way towards how you live your life. He takes it a step further though. He believes that not only do you have to have positive thoughts, but you have to act on those thoughts. In other words, it is not enough to believe that you want to be happy. You also have to take actions to make it so. I believe he is absolutely right! No matter how bad things get, you can take steps to make them better. Things may not become perfect right away, but things will get better. Over the past five years, I went through a major crisis. Early on in the process, I felt my life was crumbling under me...and it was. In three years, I went from happily married with a stable income, to divorced with no income. Although that may sound bad, it doesn't even touch the surface of the bad things that were going on in my life. I was too focused on the bad things going on in my life and I often felt like Job. At one point, I believed I was going to lose my house. The bad in my life peaked when my wife died. At that point, I began to feel that things couldn't get any worse...and they didn't. Over that five-year period, I didn't just let things happen. I actively worked towards improving my situation. The problem was that there were too many negative things happening at once and while I was focusing on solving a problem in one part of my life, the problems in other parts would surge forward and overwhelm me. I constantly felt like things were going to get worse no matter what I did, and they did. Time management was a very big problem for me that cleared up once my wife passed away. The girls had three supervised visits a week that took up a lot of time...particularly since they had to be supervised. Driving Sharon to her doctors' appointments and court-ordered therapies was also a time suck. The courts had made me responsible for getting Sharon to her appointments up until about one year after our divorce. Although I had the nannies supervise many of the early visits, it was up to me to supervise the visits once I could no longer afford the nannies. Once Sharon passed away, time management became less of an issue and I began to make progress in other parts of my life. I guess the point I am trying to make is that once my wife passed away, my mindset changed to "things can't get any worse". I truly believed that, and so things began to get better. A month after my wife died, I got a new client, the first in two years. By the end of a year, I was working a new job. I sold a house in New Jersey that allowed me to pay off the mortgage on the house we live in in New Hampshire. Once I truly believed there was light at the end of the tunnel, surprisingly, there was. A key for me is that I not only had to believe that things could get better, but that I was also actively trying to make things better. I had been trying the whole time to make things better, but it wasn't until I had hope that things actually started to get better, Belief and action...having one without the other is hopeless! I can believe that things will get better, but if I take no action to make it better, then my belief is misplaced. Meanwhile, if I take action to make things better, I need to believe that it is going to work, otherwise my effort will be doomed from the start. Think about it, when you think something isn't going to work, you put less effort into the action. Although I was taking action during my "bad" time, my efforts were too focused on minutia...fixing one small specific thing, instead of on trying to fix the bigger picture. It is ok to work on the minutia in your life, as long as it is tied to the bigger picture. Trouble occurs when you focus on the minutia and ignore the larger overall picture. "Ya gotta believe"? Yes, I think so. But even more importantly, you need to take action! |
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