"Happiness comes from your own actions." That is a quote inspired by the Dalai Lama. I say inspired because the original quote was a bit longer. I shortened it a bit to say what I wanted it to say. The actual quote was, "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions." I guess you can say that it made me happy to cut it down a little bit!
All kidding aside, I think you can tell which people make their own happiness, and which ones wait fro others to make them happy. It comes out in their attitudes. I know one lady who meets everyone with a smile and is constantly doing things. She doesn't wait for people to come over and make her happy. She goes out and meets them! I will not say who this woman is, but since I have known her she has been continuously involved with at least three to four social activities that I know of, and has travelled regularly. Not just in the states either. In sum, she knows what makes her happy and she pursues it! Meanwhile, I have met others who do nothing but create drama and make others miserable in their own unique way. Let me ask you, "Who would you rather be around? The person that is happy and does things to make themself happy, or someone that makes others miserable?" Hands down, I know my answer! So, how do you make yourself happy? That is totally up to you. Avoiding stress and being around other people that are happy are good starts. For me, I like to look for the little things that make me happy each day and pile them up one after the other. Morning hugs from my daughters, coffee, eggs, a good workout, the beautiful scenery in my area, joking with friends, and doing fun things with my daughters are ways that I stay happy each day. Hikes, canoe trips, and picture-taking trips are also high on my list. In the end, don't rely on your friends to make you happy. Instead, set up each day so that the only one responsible for making you happy is you.
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“You are not stuck where you are unless you decide to be.” That's a quote by Dr. Wayne Dyer. I think this self-help guru was absolutely right about this one!
I here so many people say they hate their job or they hate the area where they live. I tell them, "then find a new job." or "Then move!" Well, you wouldn't believe the responses I get to that. Well, I wouldn't make as much money somewhere else... or all of my family is around here. Well, then don't complain! If you are not happy where you are or in what you are doing, then it is up to you to change it. So many people are afraid of moving away from what they know... or move out of their comfort zones. I know, because it happens to me too. We get comfortable, and even though we know in our hearts that there is a better way or a better place for us, we get comfortable with the status quo and get afraid to try. In the past, I have run my own business. I loved being my own boss, but circumstances changed in my life, and I went back to a corporate job to make my life easier and to get a consistent paycheck. Even so, not a day goes by where I don't either look for a new business to start. I know that for me to be happy, I need to be running my life... not just in the hours between 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m., but all the time. If you are not happy with something in your life, then you need to make a decision and act on it. Everything does not have to change in a day, but you do need to take at least a small step in that direction each and every day. Life is short. Don't be miserable because you are too afraid to take action. Remember, not taking action is an action in and of itself. It is a negative action, though. Tomorrow, take a step back and look at where you are in your life. Try to find the areas where you are not happy and then take steps to change them. Even little steps involving just looking for alternatives to the things that make you unhappy, will make you feel a bit better. Look for opportunities that will lead to your long-term happiness, and then take actions to make those opportunities a reality. Rome wasn't built in a day! But remember, Rome never would have been built at all if someone hadn't taken those original steps necessary to begin it. Be happy. And take the steps necessary to become happier Today is a very gray and rainy day where I live. I've been up in my room all day, both sleeping and writing and honestly, I lack motivation. I haven't done a post about happiness in a while, and I think it's long overdue. Everyone could use some motivation and good vibes for a rainy and dreary day. This being said, I've dug up some quotes about happiness from the corners of the internet that you've hopefully never heard before. Enjoy.
“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson “It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.” ― Chuck Palahniuk “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” ― Albert Camus “It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.” ― L.M. Montgomery “Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” ― Guillaume Apollinaire “Generally speaking, the most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves; the happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others...By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves.” ― Gordon B. Hinckley “I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.” ― Groucho Marx “Happiness is not a goal...it's a by-product of a life well lived.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt I like playing with Lucky. We play go-fetch, tug-of-war, and sometimes Daddy even let's me walk him on the leash. One time in the dining room I was playing with Lucky in my sleeping bag and he just jumped on me. Finally I pushed him off! And as soon as I did, I said ''BAD BOY.''
Lucky likes to eat a lot, but he is on a diet. He does not get a lot of meat because of this. He does get lots of vegetables though. Just like Daddy! Although he can have meat, he does not get a lot anymore. One time Lucky took Perry's water bottle. But he got it back, which is a good thing. Ashleigh "“There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.” That's a quote by Seneca. You say you don't know Seneca? For shame! Seneca was a tutor and adviser for Nero, way back during the Roman empire. He was forced to commit suicide after being found complicit in a plot to assassinate Nero. Was he guilty? Who really knows. I guess he found something that could both alarm and harm him!
Regardless of what happened to Seneca, I think his quote, for the most part, is spot on. I find that the things that really bother me and stress me out rarely do more than that. All of the worries that I have seem to be about what could happen, and not what has happened. At one point, I was worried that I was going to lose my house. My business was not doing well, and funds were getting short. All of the worry and stress was keeping me awake at night, and many of the solutions I came up with were either short sighted or too long-term oriented to be of any help. So what happened? I resigned myself to losing my house, thought out an exit strategy that wouldn't be too bad for me and my daughters, and then stopped worrying about it so much. (Yes, I still worried and felt bad... just not as bad as I had been feeling.) After resigning myself to my fate, I found a way out. Some of that way out included lucky things happening, but still I went from one small victory or coincidence to another until I finally worked myself out of my jam. Two years later, we still live in the same house, and I no longer have a mortgage on it! In accepting what I thought was inevitable, I stopped worrying about it as much, and in so doing made better decisions. Some of those decisions involved a bit of luck, but at the same time my mind was able to focus better and I could see different opportunities that I couldn't see earlier. Tonight, while reading Seneca's quote, I saw the wisdom in his observation. I suffered more from the apprehension of what I thought was going to happen, than I did from what actually happened. In hindsight, I can also look back and see that even if my worst fears were realized, I would have survived and eventually have been happy since the things that mean the most to me would have still been with me. I of course, mean my daughters, If ever you are alarmed about a potential outcome, please take a look at your fear. Ask yourself "What is the worst that can happen?" Once you can accept what the worst thing is, find ways to neutralize its impact on your happiness. Look for what really matters the most to you, and see if you can find a way to protect that, no matter what happens. With knowledge comes peace. Instead of focusing on what might be the worst. Think of ways that the worst may not really be anything else but change. The only constant is change. There is a bonus quote for you. Look it up and see who said it... although I think I may have discussed that quote once before anyway, so you can likely find the answer to that question right on this blog. Since change is constant, it makes sense that some of that change will be bad and some of it will be good. As long as its not fatal for you and yours, then you will survive and bounce back. Life goes on, and worries and fears will not work to make it any better. Thus, when you start to worry, think of Seneca and his insightful quote. Sometimes, people mistake happy and joyful as the same thing. I do it too, sometimes, where I will use the words interchangeably. For the record, the definitions I am using for the two words are:
Joy: The emotion of great delight or happiness. Happy: Delighted, pleased, or glad. Contented... favored by fortune. Using those definitions, then I'd say I have been, and will be happy, but I haven't been joyful in quite some time. Happy? Yes. Joyful? No. To be honest, I can't think of the last time I had a moment of great delight was when Sharon told me she was pregnant with Ashleigh. Prior to that, I can think of maybe four occasions where I was joyous. All of them revolved around the birth of my children... except for one in which I coached an 8 to 10 year old basketball team to an undefeated season and beat my Dad's team in the finals. Aside from those times, I have been happy, but not truly joyful. Funny, when I was growing up I would watch movies where there were so-called joyous occasions. (The end of "It's a Wonderful Life" comes to mind here), and I would see some idiot (picture Jimmy Stewart)with a huge grin on his face and running around all excited and I would wonder "what is that guy on. and where can I get some?" The looks on their faces were just so over the top, that I could never really picture anyone ever really being like that. In other words, I thought that they were gigantic phonies (which, of course, they were, They were actors, of course they were being phony!). I would see them, and I would think "I could never be like that." And I guess I was right. I never could be that way. When I have had my moments of joy, I have been serious and contemplative, not loud and dopey. And yet, the more I look around, the more I see people acting just the way Jimmy Stewart did in "It's A Wonderful Life." or like how Dorothy acted when she finally woke up at home in The Wizard of Oz. It makes me wonder "What is wrong with them?" or "Is there something wrong with me?". Of the two, I don't think there is anything wrong with me. I have fun. I am generally a happy person... or I try to be. I just can't pretend to be something I am not. Believe it or not, I believe these phony portrayals are actually bad for people's psyches. People see these actors acting dopey and overly kind, and then they wonder why they don't ever feel that way. They shoot for an ideal that is false. Yes, I have felt joy in my life. At no point did I ever run around like Jimmy Stewart smiling and making a horses ass out of myself. If I ever did, my sense of joy would end quickly as I would get very very embarrassed. In fact, when watching that movie, that is the emotion I feel most for Stewart's character... embarrassment. The character actors around him act like it is the happiest moment in the world to be approached by that madman. And they all smile and act like it is super. That's all it is folks. Acting! Don't ever act like that around me. Be happy? Yes, definitely! Be excited? Sure. But don't act all crazy and expect me to join in. Crazy doesn't live here... and never has. "Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are the seeds, the harvest can either be flowers or weeds." The above is a short quote from William Wordsworth, who was a poet in the 19th century. I'm pretty sure most people already know where he was coming from with this quote, too- your thoughts are what make the greatest impact on your life, as they influence the choices you make and therefore the path your life will inevitably take. I'm sure most of you have heard the quote "every day you wake up and make a choice- to be positive or negative" or something along those lines, and honestly, it is quite true.
If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you should know that I'm an advocate of positivity and try to encourage people to live their lives as happily as they can. I'm one to always try and notice the little things in life; the silver lining in every dark cloud and the good in every situation; so on and so forth. I may seem a bit redundant, but it's only because I've seen the change that looking at things positively can have on lives- including my own. I've talked a few times now about my bout with depression about a year and a half ago; and how coming to terms with my past truly got me through it. I chose to take something incredibly shitty and use it to help myself and others in similar situations- I found my own silver lining (after about 4 years). In reality, if you were to ask ANYONE who knows me if I'm an optimist or a pessimist, they'd say neither. I'm a realist and I choose to see things exactly as they are- no more, and no less. And while you may wonder how someone can be a realist and yet so positive... it's because I choose to see life itself for what it is. It's something everyone goes through, one way or another. All of us LIVE. No matter the time. None of us know how much time we're given on earth, and I'd rather spend my time as well as I can. I've found that I don't achieve nearly as much when I'm upset or stressed out, and thus I am constantly in pursuit of things to make me happy. Because even though I may see things for what they are... it doesn't mean I zone in on negativity and ignore the good things. I can still look at a sunset and see its beauty; and I can still dance in thunderstorms while simultaneously accepting the fact that my generation is completely SCREWED. - Maddie "Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success." That's a quote by Albert Schweitzer. Albert won a Nobel Peace Price back in 1952. He was both a theologian and a philosopher, which kind of sounds like an interesting combination.
There are lots of ways to define success. In fact, I think if you ask ten people to define success, you are likely to get ten very vague but different answers. My idea of success when I was younger was much different than my idea of success right now. When I was younger, I figured if I had lots of money, a pretty wife a big house and time to party, then I would be extremely successful. Obviously, I wasn't thinking very deeply about things back then! That was when I was in my teens by the way. Going back even further, my definition of success was tied to how well I was doing playing sports and how big I could get my baseball card collection! Nowadays, it is easy for me to see that my ideas of success were flawed. They were flawed because I was not looking past the moment. All of those things, were things I wanted at that moment. Nowhere was there a thought about what was best for my future. Nowadays, I define success by how much time I get to spend with my daughters, and what I can teach them to make their lives easier in the future. Helping them to successfully complete their goals both in the present and for their futures gives me an immeasurable amount of happiness. It helps me to define a part of what I believe it means to be successful. It is not my only definition of success though. I also define success by how much ability I have to accomplish tings that I like to do. My ability to take karate classes two times a week and to help teach two other classes is a sign of my own personal success. My ability to take my daughters different places to allow them to grow and see new things is also a sign of my own success. Almost none of the things that define success to me has to do with material things. My car and my truck are both just tools to me. They get me from point A to point B. My house, is a sort of store of my wealth and a place where I can safely raise my family. The antiques and nice furniture that I own are more vestiges left over from my earlier life, A lot has happened to me over my fifty years on earth. My wife has died in my arms, my father and grandmother have both passed away, and I have both started and lost businesses and jobs. Through all of that, I can still look out my window and at times say that I am happy... and mean it! I think Albert had it right. Happiness is the key to success. If you want to be successful, then you first need to find a way to be happy. You can make millions each year and still feel that you are missing something. Look at Robin Williams or Kurt Cobain. Happiness doesn't come from where you live or what type of car you drive. It comes from inside.After many years, I think I can say that I am finally at peace with myself. And that, after my children, is likely the greatest feeling of success that I have ever felt. "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” That is a quote by Annie Dillard. Dillard is an American author who won a Pulitzer prize in 1975 for general nonfiction. I like her quote because it is short, to the point, and on target.
How we spend our days is ultimately how we spend our lives. The quote makes me stop and think about how I am spending my day. Too much of my day is spent working for others. Not enough is spent on what is truly important... teaching my daughters, exploring the world and generally keeping the people I care about happy. Although everyone has to work to survive, I am painfully aware of the time I spend working for others, likely because I once spent over a decade working for myself. When you work for yourself, the hours you spend are actually bringing you all of the benefits of that work. When you are working for someone else, they are deriving all of the extra benefit from your work above and beyond whatever they are giving you to do the work in the first place. So how do you want to spend your life? And how close are you to living your life in the way you want? After reading the above quote, I asked myself that question. I want to spend my life enjoying my daughters' company, hiking the Appalachian trail, practicing karate and learning. Short bouts of reading, sleeping, and watching the occasional movie would also be nice. So how am I doing? I spend a lot of my day working for someone else, and an hour or two teaching my daughters. Ashleigh gets traditional school work from me, while Maddie now gets most of her schooling through VLACs and instead gets (what I hope are) deep conversations from me to help her learn to cope with life. Twice a week, I get to work out and practice karate. In between, I try to get little jobs done around the house and generally do everything else that normally needs to be done during a lifetime. Sometimes I combine these functions. When I hit the men's room, I'll pick up a book and read a chapter or two before I come out. Otherwise, I find I do not schedule enough time to read. RIght before bed, I will also pick up a book and read for a few pages. My bathroom book is different than my bedroom book, thus I can often read one to two books a week. Another way I combine activities is that when I come in from outside, I make sure to hit my punching bag a little bit. It is rare that I can schedule a full thirty minutes on the bag anymore. I am just too busy. Thus, by making sure to punch it or kick it a couple of times as I walk past, I am sure to get at least a little practice in each day. In the end, the one constant in my life is that I always try to make time for my daughters. Children are the most important things that anyone can do in their life in my opinion. Why have them if you won't schedule time to enjoy their company. The bar can wait. Your old friends can wait. Hell, the job can wait! Enjoy your children while you can! Because pretty soon, they will be enjoying their own children. (picture by Maddie) So many people walk about, living their lives for others. They care only what people think of them- how they are perceived by the public eye. Why is it so important? I've never quite understood. Looking at me, I suppose you could say I am the same. I follow trends, right? But then again, everything is a trend. Nothing is unique any more. No matter what you do, there will always be someone to copy you, or someone who has the same idea. It can be quite discouraging... thinking you lack individuality.
But you don't. You as a person are unique. You cannot be replicated, no one is exactly like you. And no matter how hard you may try, you can never be anyone else. You can try as you might to follow the crowd around you, but you can't escape yourself. You will always have your own mind, your own way of thinking that nothing can change. You will be yourself. So many people spend their lives trying to be what they aren't, only to realize on their deathbed that they wasted their time being miserable at the expense of others. I never want to be like that. I want to live my life how I wish to live it; and I want to be happy. I don't care how many people try to pin labels on me; or what stereotypes I get caught in. I am determined to be happy. I am determined to make my life's purpose happiness- both being happy; and making others happy. I CHOOSE happiness. I CHOOSE to be happy with who I am. I choose to follow the bits of the crowd that I like- because the bits compose me. I am unique. And I live to express. As long as I am happy... I really don't care what others think. Maddie "Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life." That's a quote by Walter Anderson. Well, part of a quote actually. Walter was getting a little wordy so I just distilled his words a little bit. There are a lot of Walter Anderson's out there, and I am not sure which one said this. I doubt it was the tax evader, but it might have been the CEO of Parade Magazine. Or one of about ten other famous Walter Anderson's!
To get back to the quote, bad things do happen to all of us. Oftentimes, those things do have a way of shaping our personalities a bit. But, no matter what happens, you ultimately are the one who decides who you are going to be and how you act. So many people want to blame others for their own shortcomings. They blame lying on how they were brought up, or backstabbing "because the person deserved it!" Truly, this is not the case though. God gave all of us choices. We all know right from wrong. The decisions are ours. Same thing with how we treat others and how we view the world. The decisions are ours. My wife died three years ago. It would have been very easy to just go around all depressed and generally be miserable. God knows I felt it for a long time! But that would not have been good for me, my daughters, or my friends. What good would it have done any of us if I walked around miserable? I made a conscious decision to be happy. To find the little things that could make me happy on a daily basis, and to celebrate those things. I go out of my way to do something enjoyable every day. Whether it is enjoying a cup of coffee, playing with Ashleigh, chatting with Maddie, or chit-chatting with my Mom over dinner. I workout hard two times a week, and make sure to read a little bit of fun stuff each day. There are other things I do also. I block people on Facebook who whine and complain and I try to avoid people who bring me down. I also try to avoid working out with people who don't add any effort to their workouts! These are little things, but I find they keep me happy. I honestly believe that God did not put us here to suffer. He also did not put us here to make others miserable. I try to treat all people with at least a modicum of respect, and I try to teach my daughters to do the same. Bad things do happen in life. And occasionally, they happen to good people. Don't let those things define you though. Grow past them! Remember the good times! Forgive those who caused the bad! Celebrate and remember the good times and special moments. And try to forget the pain. I have always had a high tolerance for physical pain. In general, my tolerance is high because I have learned to recognize the pain, and then put it in the back of my mind and ignore it. Focusing on the pain won't help me to function any better. Thus, when I have a choice, I recognize the injury, and then do my best to work around it as if it doesn't exist. I try to do this with emotional pain, too. It is a little bit harder to do with that though. When I think of my wife, I try to remember the good things about her, and try to forget the things that came from her addictions. Life is short. Don't spend time worrying about what you can't change. If something bad has happened. Make certain that it won't happen again to you, but then go on and live your life and not dwell on the past. That is what I am trying to do anyway. "You can never step in the same river twice." That's a quote by Heraclitus. This is a great quote. In essence, he is saying that no matter how much you think things stay the same, they are always changing. It reminds me of the quote "the only constant is change." I heard that quote stated by Spock, from Star Trek. I am not sure where he pulled it from, but it has the same meaning.
So many people go through life in a rut, feeling that nothing ever changes. They do the same things over and over again, talk to the same people and never go anywhere new. What these people fail to see is that change is at their finger tips! If you are not happy doing what you do, then very simply do something else! Not happy with your job? Then change jobs or careers. Not happy with what you are eating? Then eat something different! Life really is that simple. The problem is, people are afraid of change. No matter how much they want it, they get frozen for long periods of inaction. They think about change, and then think again. Finally, if they are lucky, they will make a move. In the meantime, they sit around thinking that nothing ever changes. And yet, even in the act of just thinking about a change, things have changed. Think of the quote about the river above. Physically, you could step into the river at the exact same location every day.. and yet, the river would still be different! The water flows down river. The water may have been pure the first time you stepped foot in that river. But the water flowing by that spot where you stepped in is not the same water that you will step in tomorrow. The water upstream may have been muddied by the tread of thousands of feet or poisoned by a careless person. The river has changed... your perception of it has not. Meanwhile, just by thinking about change, you have changed your perceptions. If reality is not changing fast enough for you, then you need to change your reality. By this I mean, sometimes thinking is not enough! If your finger is above a flame, you need to move it or you will get burned. There is no thinking about it. Move it or get burned. If you want change to happen quickly, then you need to take action right away! Be careful though. I find that taking action without thinking it through, particularly on large, life-changing actions can be disastrous. Decide what change you want in your life. Think of a plan that can achieve it quickly for you. And then start acting on that plan, Remember, the only constant is change. Change can happen glacially slow, or it can come quickly. Either way, it is best to approach the changes you want with a plan. This is yet another quote that is a metaphor for positivity and happiness. It seems that quotes like these have become a trend for me- and I can't quite say I have a problem with it. They simply encourage my belief- which is that you can find the good in anything if you try hard enough and that perspective is what makes or breaks you. In general, I myself have become a happier person over a course of the past year via doing this.
I really don't think people realize how freaking depressed I was last year. It was the WORST. I let everything bother me and stress overtake my life... and while I said that I wanted to be happy, I really didn't know where to begin. I began believing that I was incapable of being happy because I couldn't identify it. I felt lost and desperate and honestly, if it wasn't for my dad and a few close friends I probably would never have discovered my happiness. But I don't mean to give myself no credit. Honestly, you are the only one who can TRULY find your own happiness. Your road is yours to walk alone- others may walk it with you and make your journey easier; but no one can walk it for you. That is the way of life in so many cases- including depression. Others will certainly try to help you, but it is YOUR demon to defeat. I'm certainly glad I managed to defeat mine... and I just want to say thank you to those who gave me the encouragement required. -- Maddie I may get around...I may laugh alot... Now you'd think that I'd be happy with the life I got Nobody knows...nobody sees Ain't nobody really knows the inner side o'me... I may seem secure...I could have it made... You might think you see a lucky man who made the grade Nobody knows what dreams I see Ain't nobody really sure just who they wanna be... Those are lyrics by Billy Squier. I used to listen to him a lot when I was in high school and college. I thought about that song for the first time in a long while last night. My daughter and I were coming back from the movies and we were chit-chatting about different things. Somehow, we got to a conversation where I brought up we all wear many masks... a bastardization of Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage" quote meshed with Andre Berthiaume's "We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin." quote. She mentioned to me that while it's true we all play many parts, she tries to keep on the same face and be the same throughout. Very admirable, but also nearly impossible to do (at least to me, anyway). I thought about my own life, and where I need to keep parts of me in check. Not in major ways mind you, but just in little ways where decorum calls for a different attitude. In church for instance, where I find it is better to sit quietly rather than kid around with my daughters and try to make them laugh... or at the dojo where I try to just focus on my workout. Those are just basic examples. There are others too. But our talk brought those lyrics to mind after so many years of not thinking of them. It was weird, because what we were talking about barely touched upon what I think about when I read those lyrics. For quite a while when I was younger, I felt misunderstood. Not so much about what I said, but about what I didn't say. Oftentimes, I would hide my true inner feelings away figuring people would just know from looking at me or the way I acted. And to some extent, that was true. Those who knew me really well, DID know somethings about me. But not all things. You see, we all do wear masks that we hide behind. Sometimes we don't even realize it. They have become so comfortable in some situations that we put them on without even realizing it. Our friends and lovers, those that know us best, have seen many of the masks... and they can still recognize us for who we are. They may even chuckle when we put on a mask we may not have worn in a while. But I doubt anyone knows all of our masks... including ourselves! Now don't get me wrong. I am not talking about something sinister here. And mask may be the wrong word for what I am talking about. I guess I am talking about a break in your usual behavior pattern, or facial expression, or way you say something. Verbal and nonverbal cues that you are putting on a facade. We all do it. Whether it is our biggest exaggerated smile for a baby, or the look of empathy that crosses your face when you hear a sad story about a person you really know nothing about. There is nothing wrong with these affectations, unless you let them fool you as well. And this, I think, is where we all fail. We become so used to wearing certain mantles, that we allow them to graft onto our skin, and make us into people who we are not. When your inner feelings differ from your outward persona on a regular basis, then this has happened to you. Don't let this happen to you. When your inner feeling match your outward persona, this is when you are one. It is alright to put on a mask on occasion... so that you don't scare the hell out of children, for instance. Or so that you can sit through the church service without disrupting the Mass. Just don't let any one mask become you. True living comes from a life without masks. Cheers to you Maddie, for inadvertently reminding me of that. (For the record. "Nobody Knows was a great song by Billy Squier. He dedicated it to the life of John Lennon. The last couple of verses of the song are below.) * Photo by Maddie by the way! "I see my future at the rainbow's end
Happy hours...timeless friends And if I ever chance to find my way Rest assured...I will stay... You may see your life as a compromise You may live to find the promise dancin' in your eyes Nobody knows...it's meant to be... Let the magic of the moment say it all to me." "You have no need to travel anywhere. Journey within yourself." That is a quote by Rumi. So who is Rumi? A good question, and one I also asked myself. It ends up that Rumi was a 13th-century Persian poet. I was a bit relieved to hear that! I thought he was going to be some old wasted hippy messiah or something.
No matter who Rumi was, I must say that I really do agree with his quote. While I will be the first to admit that I am not a world traveler, I have traveled throughout much of North America and I must say that there is nothing that I have seen that can match my imagination. Don't get me wrong, I have been pleasantly surprised by some of the places I have been... a small town in Mississippi, so far off the beaten path that railroad tracks run down the main street and shop keepers come out of the stores and chat with the train engineers as the train slowly rumbles down the street. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Peoria all surprised to the upside, as did Cincinnati, while Philly, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Dallas all seemed a little less special than I had imagined. To be honest, if I close my eyes for a moment I can picture beautiful landscapes of places I have never been. Amalgamations of places I have read about or pictures I have seen. So far, none of the places I have been can match the beauty I can perceive in my own imagination. Images are not the only thing you can explore in your mind. Your thoughts can also be examined. What do you think about when you are alone? I know that I oftentimes contemplate things that I normally won't talk about with most people. Furthermore, there are some things that just don't come up in normal everyday conversation. A wise man should know his own thoughts, that way he can better judge the thoughts of others. So, after saying all of that, does that mean that I am against traveling to new places? Not at all. All I am pointing out is that we all have things to explore within our own minds. While travel is nice, it is not necessary for a person to be well traveled to be a well rounded person. Know your mind, and the rest will follow. Travel if you can, but don't feel bad if you can't afford to travel often. Hormones are different for every person. And just because some of us don’t know how to adapt to them or control them doesn’t mean others don’t. Every person is different and handles every aspect of life differently- including hormonal changes in adolescent years. So while you’d love to dwell on the fact that “we are teenagers therefore we have every reason to be depressed”, I’d rather be an outlier in the statistics. Yes, I get depressed- but who doesn’t? I’ve just learned to pick myself up after. Learned that everyone falls down, but when you fall you need to get back up. If you want to remain down… Then don’t complain about being stepped on. You’re the one making the choice to remain upset. You’re the one causing your own pain and then expecting everyone to understand. I get it. I’ve been there, done that, and it sucks. It’ll get you nowhere but places worse than where you already are and it’ll make you feel like life is worthless. It’ll make you want to die because you’ll feel no one understands you; and the fact of the matter won’t be that no one understands you but that no one cares. 80% of the population don’t give a shit about your woes and the other 20% are glad you have them. You need to move past this destructive stage and see that regardless of science, there are ways to be happy. Fluctuation in hormonal patterns that trigger random behaviors? I’ll buy that. Full-fledged uncontrollable depression being blamed on hormones and the fact that you’re a teenager..? I don’t think so.
The quote above is one of my own- though I'm not sure if it's ever been used elsewhere online before and quite frankly, I am too lazy to go search for it. In any case, in the context it'll be used in in this post, it's my own quote.
I wanted to make this post a positive one, because lately- so many of my friends have been so damn depressed. It's awful, honestly... I can't believe it. There's so much sadness in the world as it is without letting small things impact you and weigh you down. From regret to worry, these trivial things are controlling my friends' lives for no other reason than they don't know how to move on and realize that the past can't be altered! I really do believe that knowing that is a key to life. Once you realize the past can't be changed, you can learn to live without regret- and honestly, I think that removes a lot of stress from a person. Worry can't change the future, and regret cannot change the past. Both of those emotions are pure negativity and they aren't productive in any way- all they do is cause trauma, stress, and weigh you down to make you feel like you're wrong about everything. I don't know about you, but that sounds like no way to live life in my opinion. To get back to the title of my post- when I say make your own day and don't let it make you, I mean that only you have control of how you choose to perceive and react to your day. While not every day will be a good one, there is always a way to make the best of things. The world could be falling apart around me (which it essentially is, what with all the shit going on surrounding war) and I could still find a reason to smile- even if it was just admiring the sky. There's always happiness. You need to identify it, and then search for it. -- Maddie It's funny how the mind works. Every once in a while you'll hear an old song in a new light. It happened to me today. The song "Question" by the Moody Blues came on. I have known and liked this song for decades. I saw the Moody Blues in concert once back in the late '80's or early 90's (who can remember dates!). And yet, I saw the song in a whole new light today! For those of you who don't know it, the song is about the choices young men had to make during the Vietnam War. The writer, Justin Heyward, always said that the song was actually two songs he put together to make one. Well, when it came on the playlist today on my iPad there was one part that really made me feel a deep sense of loss. I'll quote it below and then give my thoughts on it afterward. If you don't know the song, I just posted it on my facebook page. Feel free to go listen to it there, or just look it up on youtube. "Between the silence of the mountains And the crashing of the sea, There lies a land I once lived in And she's waiting there for me. But in the grey of the morning My mind becomes confused, Between the dead and the sleeping, And the road that I must choose. I'm looking for Someone to change my life. I'm looking for A miracle in my life! And if you could see, What it's done to me To lose the love I knew, Could safely lead me to The land that I once knew... To learn as we grow old The secrets of our soul." To me, these are the words of someone who has suffered a great loss. They immediately made me think about my wife and how much I miss her. How sometimes upon waking in the morning I feel like she had been there resting with me, but that it is now time for me to return to the land of the living.
In the end, I think we are all looking for miracles. The one person who can bring happiness back into our lives. The only thing is, that that person is already here for all of us. There is no need to find them. We are it. Only you can control how you respond to life. You are the maker of your own reality. You can make it happy or sad.. Most of us let our reality bounce around so much that we don't realize the control we have over our own happiness. Still, life is better when its shared. Wanting someone new to enter your life is not a bad thing. As long as you don't make it the only thing. I chose the silence of the mountains, over the crashing of the sea... and that is part of how, I bring happiness to me. Above is a picture of my driveway. And to me, it is one of the most beautiful things in the world. Not the pavement itself (I am not THAT crazy), but the way it fades away into the woods. It reminds me of a line in one of my favorite poems by Robert Frost, about the road less traveled.
There is beauty to be found in going ones own way. Too many times, I have been lured towards someone else's sense of beauty, and been disappointed. Not that what I saw wasn't beautiful... just that it wasn't really for me. Cities that I have been told are exciting or quaint, just end up being another overpopulated shit hole. Meanwhile, cities that I have been told I would hate, oftentimes hold good memories for me. Maybe it was because I went in fearing the worst, and then found things less bad than I thought (All except for Detroit... That town I was told was a hellhole and I found everyone was right about that one! I have fond memories of Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, yet remember being disappointed in San Francisco, Philly and Las Vegas. Phoenix and Nashville were both full of charm, while I found Miami, Baltimore and New Orleans a bit worse for wear. I am sure others may find my opinions backward. As I said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It is rare that I find cities beautiful. Instead, I like scenes that are closer to what my driveway looks like. Since I was young, I have always had a desire to run away to the woods and recharge. I used to love to go up to my Aunt and Uncles farm in Canada when I was a kid. In my teen years, I would often go hiking by myself or with my dog in Hartshorne Woods. The trail was about 3 and a half mile and ran in a loop. You could walk from Navesink all the way to Twin Lights if the mood struck you. Oftentimes, I would go right before sundown. If you walked up the right loop of the trail you could branch off and walk up a steep incline. Once you made it to the top, there was a big rock (or group of rocks, it's been a long time) that would let you look out over what I always called the Buttermilk Valley. Oddly enough, I don't know if that is what it was really called or not. It must have been, because I likely would not have come up with such a sappy name for it on my own! Even so, I would often hike up there alone with a small cooler or a cigar or pipe, and sit at the base of the large rock and watch the sun go down over the valley. It wasn't a perfect view, but it was a nice view and it was very peaceful. I'd sit there and watch until dusk started to fall and the shadows were getting long. Many times, I would go down the hill again practically in the dark. I didn't mind. I enjoyed catching a buzz up there alone in the quiet. Sometimes I would hear people above me on the rock. Sometimes they would smell my cigar or pipe and stop down to chat. That was okay too. I'd share a beer with them and talk awhile. But the best times were when no one bothered me, and I got to sit there and enjoy the view with my own thoughts. I find my home at the top of "my" mountain has the same feel for me. I do not have a view overlooking the mountains or a valley. In fact, I am surrounded by trees, But I still love to look out the window of my office, or go stand on my front porch and look out over my yard and into my woods. I like to feel the sun on my face (or a brisk wind) as I stand and listen to the wind blow through the pines. The peacefulness I get from that just can't be found in the city. Do I ever miss the city? Yes, sometimes. I still like to go to museums or go to concerts etc. and for that, cities are useful. People watching is also usually more fun in the city too... since you get a hell of a lot more variety. But even so, I would not trade my little slice of heaven for an apartment anywhere near the city. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and for me, I have found that beauty in the hills of New Hampshire. "Be Weird. Be Random. Be Who You Are. Because You Never Know Who Would Love The Person You Hide." Okay, so I found this quote on a poster (above) and I have no clue who said it. Given the picture of the cat, it was probably a hippy. And that's okay.
As I have gotten older, I have found more and more to like about the hippy movement. Make love not war? I'm all for it! Equal rights? Yep, nothing wrong with that either. How about: Leave things better than you found it? That works for me also! Okay, so after that last paragraph you might ask: Well, aren't things okay?" Yes, and that's the problem. Being "okay" is not the same as being happy. But okay is not bad enough for anyone to care either! "Okay" means just more of the same shit. Which brings me back to the original quote. Don't pretend to be something you are not, or someone who is really the opposite of your nature. I would think that this will only end badly. Remember, people are drawn to people who are similar to them. If you pretend to be someone you are not, you will likely attract someone who is very different than who you truly are. Meanwhile, if you always act as you truly are, you are more likely to attract someone who is really like you, and who will love you for who you are. Or, of course, you could attract someone who is pretending to be like you truly are, which could also be a problem. In the end, honesty is the best policy. Be who you are. Be open to meeting new people and listen to what they say. Sometimes, it is easier to see with your ears and your heart. If you honestly want your life to be real, then don't be an illusion to others. |
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