I want to talk to you about freedom. I want to talk about freedom from the bondage of self. And I say self, as in the I, me, the individual and the personal nature of one’s own life.
I want to encourage movement because otherwise, there is only the stagnant nature of things. There is only the “more of the same” and though I say this, I want to encourage myself as well as someone else. I want to inspire the person who is reading this who might be at the edge or who might be thinking about resigning or giving in.
Mental Jam Session
How long ago was it? Or even if it was long ago, still, the question becomes, “Did it really happen?”
I swear the past is a thousand years ago or equally as good.
There was a time when everything was different. For example, I saw a young girl using an outdated flip phone the other day and thought to myself. “Wow. I remember them.”
I remember the time when cell phones had yet to make the scene. I remember a time when beepers and pagers came out. I remember a time when people used pay phones.
To Move Beyond It
The one thing I know and that I’ve known for a while is that we often grip the details of our past. Whether this is regret or pain or sins from an old self; or whether this is the inability to get away from old thinking or old responses, I know what this is like. I know exactly who the past is. I know them well. In fact, sometimes I call this me. Sometimes I call this a mixture of who I was and who I want to be. Other times, I shake my head and asking the ever-popular question, “What the hell was I thinking?”
Why did I trust this person? Or, what did I say anything at all.
I could have kept my mouth shut. You know?
I know what it means to say something out of anger. I also know what it means to make a poor choice or wish I could take back something I said. Then again, I am sure that everyone knows what this is like. I’m sure there are people who’ve lied or said a mean thing; and now; to add color, they find themselves on the fringe of regret.
A Little Thing About Slander
The saying goes that when the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser. And this fits us now, that rather than debate a fact or hear an opinion about a person, place or thing; people dive into ad hominem attacks in which we attack character or motives instead of debating the fact itself. I see this now. I see the character assassinations. I see this in politics. I have seen this happen with divorce. I have seen this with the cancel-cultures around us. I see the slanderous attacks on people which tend to linger and burrow far deeper than people imagine.
Continue readingFrom Choices: Don’t Go At It Alone
I get it. It’s the stressors in life. It’s the little crazy details that keep us thinking. Or better yet, this is what keeps us awake. Am I right?
One thought leads to two and then two to four, four to sixteen and then sixteen to oblivion.
Next thing we know; there we are, lying in bed with a mind filled with various thoughts, overthinking life and over-complicating the factors we face; as if we have to fix it; as if we are responsible for fixing the national debt, solving unemployment, curing cancer, stopping pain and suffering, and having conversations in our head when in fact, we should really be asleep.
And So It Goes
And so it goes . . .
We’ve been here before. We’ve been through tough times. We’ve seen harder days and better ones too. But hey, this is life and there are no guarantees. The second show is never the same as the first but then again, you only get one shot. So, there is no second show.
What I am about to do is share a brutal piece of honesty with you. It’s not pretty. But pretty or not, truth is still truth.
We can’t recreate the past. We can’t take back what was said nor can we uncross the boundaries. In the end, when we face the anxiety of humiliation and exploitation, the question is no longer why or or how did this happen. Instead, the question becomes what am I going to do about it?
How am I going to improve?
The Anxiety Trip
It all starts from a trickle, like a droplet from a faucet. It’s an idea that begins at the size of a grain of sand. And then it grows. It’s a thought based condition. The droplet becomes an open flood-gate. It’s an idea that grows and takes shape.
Thoughts take form in the mind and then suddenly, we create a scenario in the mind, which is complete with a fully imaginative video – almost like a movie, like a psychological tragedy which is complete with all the characters in our life and leads a plot that is unfortunate or tragic.
We create a concept in our mind that hits all the triggers and hits every alarm in our anxiety system. Next, we’ve thought ourselves into “Red-Alert” status.
Facing the Isms
What I am about to share with you comes from a personal perspective. And I agree; opinions are subjective. Perhaps life is subjective as well. However, our differences do not have to mean that we have to fight or argue.
Deep down, I do believe that we all want the good things. We all want success. We want ease. We want joy and, equally, we want to be valid and enjoyed. We want to be included and regarded.
In most cases, yes, there are exceptions to the norm; however, most people are good at heart. I would argue that there are times when goodness is hard to see. I will say there are times when peace seems more of an impossibility than just unlikely. Nevertheless, as good as people are; even good people are capable of bad things. We all make mistakes. We all say things that we wish we could take back. Ignorance is not prejudice – even if we are. Ignorance isn’t.
Again, I go back to the quote from Twain when he said, “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
There is something to this. Deep inside the shame-machine, I know there has to be a conscience. I know that there is training behind hatred yet we know the difference between right and wrong. Intellectually, we understand the difference between kind and hurtful.
Fix Your Grin
In short, we have to allow for changes. We have to understand that not everything will go as planned and, in fact, not all plans will account for every obstacle.
There will be miscalculations. There will be setbacks. There will be the unexpectedness of natural events. Yet, there will also be days like this when the sun shines and the world awaits us.
So, fix your grin and be ready for it all.
There will be slips and falls and inaccurate assumptions too. As a matter of fact, there’s a word for all of this. It’s called life. Be ready to live it.
From Inside the Classroom: Finding the Value of One
I wonder now.
Where was I on this day back in 1988? I wonder, for example, the math that went into deciding my turns or predicting my future. I say this because if at all, if we are anything; we are most certainly an outcome. And now as I approach you with this thought, although my time in math class with word problems is far distant from me now, the idea of finding the outcome in a mathematical equation means the possible result that depends on probability.
I pause here to warn you that I was never an exceptional student – especially in math or science or especially in understanding probabilities. I say this and admit that intellectually, I understood the basic math of me plus you. It was the emotional math that was often miscalculated
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The Written Addiction 