Help! I'm drowning...

Tears

I’m drowning in a sea of tears
The waters crashing all around
Were shed by me for years.

I wipe them away
Pretend they don’t fall
But know they’re here to stay.

I try to drown them with drinks
And running like mad
My heart is still broken, I think.

How can I heal?
And take this pain away.
How can I heal?
And bring back clear blue days.

No one can help
And heal this heart of mine
I walk this path alone
Until the end of time.

But I’m not alone
Though my heart says I am
They walk right here beside me
If I just reach out my hand.

Instead I close my eyes
Convince myself I’m alone
As my tears continue to fall
On this path that’s made of stone.

So I walk on my path
With tears in my eyes
When will my heart not hurt?
When will I not cry?
BCA ‘08

OK…so it’s not a pretty and uplifting poem. Sue me. :-)

It is, however, the truth of how lots of people live their lives. They believe that NO ONE else could ever possible understand or have gone through what they are going through right now. That is complete bullshit.

You are NEVER alone. EVER! And sometimes you have many people that will stand with you and help you through whatever is going on.

Let’s leave the past where it belongs…in the past. There’s NOTHING you can do about what has already happened. What you CAN do, is learn from it, grow because of it, and be a better person today.

Stop…take a look around you. You might find someone that will take your hand and walk with you through this mess we call life. You never know, until you look AND reach out a hand and try.

So c’mon…I’m the one standing over there waving at you.

How-To: Lose…

I'm a computer geek; just ask anyone who knows me. In the computer world, we have instruction manuals for just about everything. We call them How-To's. They usually give you a step-by-step formula that you can apply or modify to diagnose, fix, or understand just about anything in computers.

Today…I'm going to give you a How-To about losing. :-)

Why? Because I don't care WHO you are, WHERE you come from, or WHAT you do…at some point, you WILL lose. No one spends his whole life with nothing but success.

But, why learn how to lose? What's the point?

Simple. Once you learn how to lose, you can weather it more easily when you DO happen to lose, and you'll be better able to turn your loss into a success.

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm" - Winston Churchill

We spend hours and hours and even days and months learning how to succeed. Our self-help section of the bookstore is weighed down with tome upon tome of thoughts on how to succeed. Hell…it's a billion dollar business now. So, we ALL know that success IS possible. Funny thing is…we never learn how to lose and not be broken.

So many people, when they fail, simply give up or allow themselves to be derailed or broken. I think that it's a result of our Age. We expect EVERYTHING to work right the first time, in only about 30 seconds. Most people have lost the idea of working till you succeed.

NOTHING in this world, or nothing good, comes easily and without work on your part. Struggle is a guarantee in the race for success in any area.

The idea in general is to adopt the same mentality as a baby. If you ever get a chance, watch a baby learning to walk. He will fail 100 times and NEVER give up. He simply tries again and works, until he succeeds.

When asked if he would give up after 'failing' 700 times to create the filament for the light bulb… Edison responded that he did not fail, but instead discovered 700 ways that didn't work. For me, each failed build brings me closer.

Every failure is a time for you to learn. You look at what happened, what you did, how you planned, etc., and the next time, you are able to put that learning into practice and come closer to success. Let's look at a few thoughts about a losing attitude.

• Accepting that failing isn't the end, but rather a stopping point to reevaluate

• Willing to try anything and as many times as it takes to succeed

• Not locked into any particular mindset

• Happy, because they know that one more wrong option is taken off the table

Remember that the ONLY time you ever lose is when you quit before you succeed. No one can force you to lose; it's a choice that you make for yourself. Chose instead to fight…until you break through and stand in the sunshine of success.

"It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired, you quit when the gorilla is tired." - Robert Strauss

Keeping up with the Joneses…

We’ve all heard the saying and everyone puts a negative connotation on it. But is it ALWAYS a bad thing?

See…I don’t think so, but only if we change how the saying is applied and interpreted.

They way that I interpret this saying is not in keeping up with the newest, slickest, most outrageous STUFF, but rather in finding those people that I can learn from and model after and keeping up with them.

I believe that EVERYONE at some point in their life needs a mentor, guide, and teacher. While we can learn a whole lot about ourselves and our place in this world, we still need someone to show us the path. That’s all a mentor is for. To teach you enough and help you understand enough so that when they show you the path, you are ready to walk it.

Life isn’t about how much stuff you have…or how pretty you are…or how young you look…or what job you have…or how much you make…it’s about how you live and what you do with your life to make the world a better place.

So, how DO you make a difference in the world? That sound like a pretty big assignment. :-)

It’s really not that difficult, really. You just need to start with your own life and your own small circle of influence. And make it important to yourself to make that small space better.

But WHAT do you do to make the world better?

“One
Act of
Random
Kindness.
ARK.” – Evan Almighty

See, we make the world a better place by living our lives from our heart and loving every single person that comes into our circle of influence.

Here are a few ideas for you to think about adopting:

• Make everyone that you meet feel welcome and accepted.
• Refuse to speak or be a part of someone else speaking negatively and badly about someone else.
• If you offer to help someone, do more than they ask for.
• Take the time to visit someone that you know isn’t feeling well.
• Smile at everyone you meet.
• LISTEN when someone is speaking to you. No more thinking about dinner during the conversation. :-)
• Take the time to learn something new about everyone you meet.

Even if you don’t “Save the Cheerleader and save the World!” you will still make an enormous impact in your own life and the lives of any others that are brought into contact with you. You WILL make a difference, no matter how small.

“The best way to make a difference in the world is to start by making a difference in your own life.” - Julia Louis-Dreyfus

One of my favorite shows on TV is “Inside the Actor’s Studio”. At the very end they always have a brief Q&A. One of the questions is always, “If God exists, what would you want Him to say to you when you got to Heaven?”

I’m hoping for Him to say, “Good job son. You made the World a better place.”

I’m in church…and I have to fart

This is kinda how life usually works. You’ve got several different people telling you VERY different things. See…you’ve got your body, the world, telling you to just do it. You’ve got your mind, logic, telling you that if you lean a little no one will know. And then you’ve got your heart telling you to PLEASE don’t do that to the people around you. :-)

It seems that the world and your heart very rarely, if ever, agree. Unfortunately, this tends to cause a LOT of stress and hurt in most people’s lives.

You feel out of place if you follow your heart. People might even look at you a little funny. They might call you crazy to live that way, when EVERYONE knows that this (the world’s way) is how people succeed.

But really…IS that the way to have a successful life?

Sure! If you’re idea of a successful life is simply about money, fame, stuff, whatever. If so…God love you, the world can always use another shallow and material person. After all, it’s those kinds of people that make it what it is today.

If all you live for is to satisfy the next urge then I KNOW that yours will be an unfulfilled life. See…there is SOME truth to the old saying…

“Money can’t buy love…but it can buy a WHOLE lot of happiness!”

I can’t even argue with that. Sure! Money can buy a lot of happiness. Fleeting, momentary, and shallow happiness. You can get all the STUFF that you can get your grubby little paws on. And for those fleeting moments, until you decide you need something else (about 5-10 minutes worth) you’re happy. Then what? You start the little cycle all over again. Gee…what a GREAT way to live. :-)

So what if you live to satisfy your mind and logic and make sense of everything? W-E-L-L…that may work for a while. But eventually, you’ll find a whole LOT of things that just are the way they are and don’t make a lick of sense. Then the whole idea of living for logic is going to come right down on your head. There are TOO many things in life that defy explanation and logic. SO many things that have to be taken on faith and trust. Besides…in all honesty, logic is cold, distant, and also pretty shallow. YEA! What fun! Let’s invite HIM to the party. :-)

So that leaves living for your heart…and let’s face it, that REALLY daunting. Why? Because, based on everything that we’ve learned in growing up, the heart’s choices and decisions usually don’t make any sense. At least not to us and certainly not in the immediate timeframe that we are SO used to living in. The heart is a long term decision maker. We need to slow down, get rid of the instantaneous gratification mentality, and actually LIVE a life, not just exist through one.

Living a life for your heart is about simple and pure enjoyment of every moment. It’s about loving ALL the people you find yourself around. It’s about being in tune with the world around you and the people in it, and not getting sucked into the fads and misguided beliefs that come and go. A heart life is not about rushing and cramming everything you can into every hour of the day. Its pace is SO much slower than that. There is so much that a heart life experiences and enjoys that is NEVER even seen by anyone else. That’s the pure happiness and love and fulfillment of a heart life.

Sure, the world and the smartys will call you crazy and you might not have millions of dollars and toys before you shuffle off, but oh well. The world will still be the world when you’re gone, and smartys will still be trying to figure it all out, but you’ll actually take a heart that is SO full, you can barely carry it with you.

So figure out what kind of life you would want…and, damn it, START LIVING THAT WAY!!!

“With great risks comes great rewards” – Winston Churchill