At what age do we take responsibility for our actions? When do we become accountable for our decisions? I learned a critical life lesson when I decided to use John Steinbeck's East of Eden for a class assignment. I was 15. I haven't forgotten the book - or what it taught me about myself.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
MomentsCount.com As Go Daddy founder Bob Parsons says in his Rules For Success, "We're not here for a long time. We're here for a good time!" There's no place in your world that you go where you intend to spend eternity. Not even ...here.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Reach out
We fear rejection.
We fear disappointment.
We fear silence.
But, when pain engulfs our life, the smoke and flames can blind us to the exit labeled SOLUTION.
Times such as these we need the eyes, heart, mind, and strong arms of those who can see the difficulties in our personal world with a fresh view.
We are embraced when we reach to those who love us.
Humankind is a species dependent on its interconnectedness. In other words, the need to connect, to help each other, to hold one another close is what makes us, well, human.
And remember, when we reach out we offer something to the ones we reach to. We offer them the special opportunity to GIVE.
Life is an amazing opportunity to share time with each other.
Thank you for sharing your time with me.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Go on...pick a color! Any color!
Which color would you catch first?
Where would you put the first mark? The left upper corner? The bottom right, toward the edge? Or, would you begin smack dap in the center of the sheet?!
Is the image in your head before you start? Do you know what you’re drawing already? Or is it something that will have to evolve as you go?
What choices define what you lay on the surface before you?
Will the picture be a specific representation of something literal, like a bridge or a tree? Maybe you see yourself as an amusement park ride or a totem, like an animal that inspires you? Or will you cast aside expectations of exactitude spilling out shapes and shades of only your own secret definition, something asserting the abstract within or about you?
You get to decide.
It’s all CORRECT.
It’s your DECISION of YOU.
Let your mind unfurl onto the wind of your imagination.
You can be lines along a graph, definitive and clear.
You can be dots upon a canvas, expressive and suggestive.
You can be swirls throughout the universe, cosmic and mysterious.
You can be anything.
Perhaps you’re a scarred and well-used solid work-worn steel hammer enjoying a hard earned rest, lying on a richly golden plank of virgin lumber.
Or maybe a white- and red-checkered tablecloth in the middle of a grassy plain on an exquisite day, stimulated and aroused by the tussle snap of the summer wind.
You can be everything.
You are the inspiration of your own art.
You are the inspiration of your own life.
Be your masterpiece.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
A leader?
I don’t ask you the question as a challenge.
I don’t ask you the question as an insight.
I’m simply asking you a question.
And, I don’t know whether or not you have your own answer.
But, I will ask you to consider my question with honesty.
If you are a “Leader” you are tremendously necessary to this world of ours.
We are a gifted and an empowered planet.
We need leaders.
We need conscientious and informed debate and problem solving.
The answer to my initial question will be “no”, for many of you.
To those of you who in pride or in hesitation choose “no” as the most honest answer to that question allow me to hand you an observation to twirl around in the elegant light of your consciousness.
Your current truth of yourself may be changed by an act that moves you,
an idea that motivates you,
a horror that challenges you,
an adventure that educates you,
a crisis that alters you,
a milestone that compels you,
a phenomenon that excites you,
an emergency that galvanizes you,
a life that inspires you,
or,
a love that defines you.
I am not attempting, in anyway, to deny your understanding or belief in your “self” or your concept of your “self”. My point is simply, our life redefines us in ways we never expect. When this happens -- we change. It is as if the energy swirling within us and around us marshals forces of movement, impelling us to engage capabilities, skills, powers and understanding seemingly greater and/or more directed than we’ve retrieved before.
And I offer you this additional thought. Trust the change.
But, until it comes, if it ever comes….. I ask you to be the leader of that, which by its very definition, ONLY you can be the leader of – your INTEGRITY.
Friday, November 6, 2009
We are a giant Web, truly a Social Network...so, why do we so often forget that?
About a decade ago my mother and stepfather, because of a series of unfortunate investments and dismal financial missteps, found themselves living in their motor home in a shopping mall parking lot. Different people approach the world and its circumstances in different ways.
For my stepfather, well, it was a grand adventure. My parents were retired by this point. So he wanted to travel, use the opportunity to see every crack in the country he’d not yet visited. As a younger man he’d laced his motorcycle in and around every black-ribboned highway he could find the time to journey while raising a family and holding down a demanding job.
But for my mother, this storyline in her biography felt completely terrifying. For my mother her life had become a failure. She saw herself as – homeless. This brilliant, beautiful, capable and perennially creative woman perceived that after 65 years on this planet she’d lost her security, her dignity, her confidence, her self.
She kept me outside the loop of these circumstances when we would talk on the phone.
Shame, embarrassment, self-reproach, guilt, remorse, humiliation…these treacherous emotions often cause us to hide things from those that love us the most because we so fear their rejection or disappointment. Yet, it is the love of those that love us the most that so often is the rope and ladder back to our selves.
With nothing but the clothes on their backs, the vehicle to carry them and a few household items my stepfather saw freedom and my mother saw failure.
My stepfather was a very healthy sixty-nine years young.
My mother’s painful back injury complicated much of her life.
They lived in the shopping mall parking lot where their P.O. box was located.
My mother determined to continue to pay all her remaining bills on time or early. This was somehow proof to herself that she still had some control over a life she no longer recognized as her own because it had seemingly spun so completely out of control. Thus, she and my stepfather lived chained to a mailbox for almost a year.
My mother is no longer living.
She left this plane we all share about six years ago.
I miss ya’, Mom.
So, today and each day when I look around my community and I confront the horrendous truth of what the financial devastation of our country and our global economy has created I am stricken. I pass shopping mall parking lots. I see the motor homes parked overnight. I drive by parks and see the shopping carts packed with precious possessions, remnants of lives once much fuller. Driving under a foliaged freeway overpass in larger metropolises I see cardboard box beds. There are the stored and secured bags, newspapers and cans, these hard sought treasures are soon to become subsidizing income sources.
Forced to live a compromised life on public display, seeking shelter, food, cleansing, even a bathroom, always in the wide-angle lens of the entire world, knowing no safety, no respite from weather, meager resources, the need to be watchful, fear.
Here in the United States alone 3.5-million people are homeless, of those people 1.4 million are children. This means 40% of the homeless in this country are children……….
But what do we see? Mostly, we see the inanimate items, the symbols in the streets. Intellectually, we know what they mean. We understand the signals of pain, fear, devastation and personal destitution they represent, and when they begin that slow rising shrill scream inside us –- QUICKLY, we look away.
People, whose lives have been thrown in the air like a deck of playing cards, scattered about the room. But, I will tell you, a lot of those cards will never be found again. They will land behind a memory of shame too dark to revisit or fall in the depression of a weight too heavy to move.
Those cards I speak of don’t refer to personal possessions, to “things” or “objects” that define us. I’m talking to you about self-esteem, a personal sense of security, one’s comfort in the world. It’s these cards in the deck that are sometimes never recovered.
I look into the eyes of the people in those motor homes, the ones going through bags in the park or pushing shopping carts down the alleyway. I’ve come to know intimately the people who live beneath the overpasses.
They are not all my mother; They are not all my stepfather. They are not all any one person. Every one of These people, woman and man, infant, child, teen or mature adult or elder, each has Their own story. But, They have a story. They are not a byline or a stereotype. They are not a product of one event or one reason. But, They are too many and They are too limited in Their options. And this is what strikes deepest in me; for now, you see I realize while They are all different people and They are not any one person I am tortured and touched by all of Them; for I recognize Them all. For, any of Them by the slightest twist of life could be Me………
For my stepfather, well, it was a grand adventure. My parents were retired by this point. So he wanted to travel, use the opportunity to see every crack in the country he’d not yet visited. As a younger man he’d laced his motorcycle in and around every black-ribboned highway he could find the time to journey while raising a family and holding down a demanding job.
But for my mother, this storyline in her biography felt completely terrifying. For my mother her life had become a failure. She saw herself as – homeless. This brilliant, beautiful, capable and perennially creative woman perceived that after 65 years on this planet she’d lost her security, her dignity, her confidence, her self.
She kept me outside the loop of these circumstances when we would talk on the phone.
Shame, embarrassment, self-reproach, guilt, remorse, humiliation…these treacherous emotions often cause us to hide things from those that love us the most because we so fear their rejection or disappointment. Yet, it is the love of those that love us the most that so often is the rope and ladder back to our selves.
With nothing but the clothes on their backs, the vehicle to carry them and a few household items my stepfather saw freedom and my mother saw failure.
My stepfather was a very healthy sixty-nine years young.
My mother’s painful back injury complicated much of her life.
They lived in the shopping mall parking lot where their P.O. box was located.
My mother determined to continue to pay all her remaining bills on time or early. This was somehow proof to herself that she still had some control over a life she no longer recognized as her own because it had seemingly spun so completely out of control. Thus, she and my stepfather lived chained to a mailbox for almost a year.
My mother is no longer living.
She left this plane we all share about six years ago.
I miss ya’, Mom.
So, today and each day when I look around my community and I confront the horrendous truth of what the financial devastation of our country and our global economy has created I am stricken. I pass shopping mall parking lots. I see the motor homes parked overnight. I drive by parks and see the shopping carts packed with precious possessions, remnants of lives once much fuller. Driving under a foliaged freeway overpass in larger metropolises I see cardboard box beds. There are the stored and secured bags, newspapers and cans, these hard sought treasures are soon to become subsidizing income sources.
Forced to live a compromised life on public display, seeking shelter, food, cleansing, even a bathroom, always in the wide-angle lens of the entire world, knowing no safety, no respite from weather, meager resources, the need to be watchful, fear.
Here in the United States alone 3.5-million people are homeless, of those people 1.4 million are children. This means 40% of the homeless in this country are children……….
But what do we see? Mostly, we see the inanimate items, the symbols in the streets. Intellectually, we know what they mean. We understand the signals of pain, fear, devastation and personal destitution they represent, and when they begin that slow rising shrill scream inside us –- QUICKLY, we look away.
People, whose lives have been thrown in the air like a deck of playing cards, scattered about the room. But, I will tell you, a lot of those cards will never be found again. They will land behind a memory of shame too dark to revisit or fall in the depression of a weight too heavy to move.
I look into the eyes of the people in those motor homes, the ones going through bags in the park or pushing shopping carts down the alleyway. I’ve come to know intimately the people who live beneath the overpasses.
They are not all my mother; They are not all my stepfather. They are not all any one person. Every one of These people, woman and man, infant, child, teen or mature adult or elder, each has Their own story. But, They have a story. They are not a byline or a stereotype. They are not a product of one event or one reason. But, They are too many and They are too limited in Their options. And this is what strikes deepest in me; for now, you see I realize while They are all different people and They are not any one person I am tortured and touched by all of Them; for I recognize Them all. For, any of Them by the slightest twist of life could be Me………
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Did you hear that?! Well, if ya’ didn’t TURN IT UP!!!!!
Okay, okay!!
Truth’s out!!
I’m one of those people who turn their music up really loud in the car.
No, I mean REALLY loud!!
Yup!
I won’t lie to ya’.
Make note of that.
I won’t lie to you.
But, back to the topic at hand, playing the music in my car….it’s reeeaaallllly
loud!
Why? You may be asking.
Well, honestly, I love the feeling of the vibe rushing through me, infusing me with the energy of the music’s intention.
And I listen to music that has intention.
Additionally, I embrace my own intention in approaching the music.
Music is with me in all things I do.
Music lights my scenes of thought, carving the canyons of my silent depths in subtle tones.
It dwells in me.
But never deny me playful beats or hip swinging rhythms,
because music also moves within me urging me to respond to its arousing invitation to a-a-a…..whatever.
I am addicted to music. Are you?
I so hope you are, because music is amazing!!!
Music is a rich art of all sound melded into melodies of our imaginings.
For music is in an easy whisper, a clap of thunder, a jangling of keys, the wind’s moan through huge trees, the persistent ring of an unanswered phone, the repetitious clack of a train track, a wooden door’s eerie creak, the burst of a firework’s color splatter.
Breath is music.
The slight soft echo of separation between the lips of lovers in gentle passion, this too is music.
Music is an art of sound structured by time and rhythm. It molds our emotions by expressing ideas with melody, arrangement, harmony and instrumentation.
It colors itself and us as it is absorbed within us. And we are changed.
Even music, as simply a mere sequence of notes arranged in time, can activate the same reward centers in the brain as drugs such as cocaine.
In PET (Photo Emission Topography) scans of the brain, music lights up the entire brain. This indicates that even with just basic exposure to music the full brain registers activity, shows excitation.
Now add to all of this discussion that music’s repeatedly demonstrated capabilities, validated by reliable research studies done by credible organizations and universities, to enhance learning, influence intelligence testing, assist in mental health, aid in memory retention, positively influence the comprehension of new information, mitigate the effects of immediate trauma and post traumatic stress disorder, quicken the healing in and throughout the brain and body, including severe damage from debilitating strokes. These are, literally, just a few examples I’ve chosen to name.
But now, my tendency to play my music (gulp!) extremely loud has definitely paid off!!! Come to find some wonderful researchers at Manchester University
have found that LOUD music stimulates a part of the inner ear known as the sacculus. The sacculus responds to the beat in the music.
Apparently the sacculus, is sensitive only to very loud volumes, those above 90 decibels. An expert in the scientific study of music, Ned Thomas, explains that the sacculus is not thought to have any direct hearing function in humans, but it seems to be a part of a primitive hearing mechanism that has slowly been lost, as humans have evolved. He further discusses it has a connection to the part of the brain responsible for drives such as sex, hunger and hedonistic responses. (Heck, guess you know a whole lot more about me now, huh! LOL!)
At any rate, he elaborates further that when these desires are satisfied, the brain is stimulated into releasing “feel good” hormones that make us calm, happy and responsive.
So, I say, embrace the theory!
Turn up the music!
Release the “feel good” hormones!
Light up your brain!
And let’s all get freakin’ high………..on LOUD MUSIC!!!!!
All right!!!! Now, this is an addiction worth embracing!!!!
Truth’s out!!
No, I mean REALLY loud!!
Yup!
I won’t lie to ya’.
Make note of that.
I won’t lie to you.
But, back to the topic at hand, playing the music in my car….it’s reeeaaallllly
loud!
Why? You may be asking.
Well, honestly, I love the feeling of the vibe rushing through me, infusing me with the energy of the music’s intention.
And I listen to music that has intention.
Additionally, I embrace my own intention in approaching the music.
Music is with me in all things I do.
Music lights my scenes of thought, carving the canyons of my silent depths in subtle tones.
It dwells in me.
But never deny me playful beats or hip swinging rhythms,
because music also moves within me urging me to respond to its arousing invitation to a-a-a…..whatever.
I am addicted to music. Are you?
I so hope you are, because music is amazing!!!
Music is a rich art of all sound melded into melodies of our imaginings.
For music is in an easy whisper, a clap of thunder, a jangling of keys, the wind’s moan through huge trees, the persistent ring of an unanswered phone, the repetitious clack of a train track, a wooden door’s eerie creak, the burst of a firework’s color splatter.
Breath is music.
The slight soft echo of separation between the lips of lovers in gentle passion, this too is music.
Music is an art of sound structured by time and rhythm. It molds our emotions by expressing ideas with melody, arrangement, harmony and instrumentation.
It colors itself and us as it is absorbed within us. And we are changed.
Even music, as simply a mere sequence of notes arranged in time, can activate the same reward centers in the brain as drugs such as cocaine.
In PET (Photo Emission Topography) scans of the brain, music lights up the entire brain. This indicates that even with just basic exposure to music the full brain registers activity, shows excitation.
Now add to all of this discussion that music’s repeatedly demonstrated capabilities, validated by reliable research studies done by credible organizations and universities, to enhance learning, influence intelligence testing, assist in mental health, aid in memory retention, positively influence the comprehension of new information, mitigate the effects of immediate trauma and post traumatic stress disorder, quicken the healing in and throughout the brain and body, including severe damage from debilitating strokes. These are, literally, just a few examples I’ve chosen to name.
But now, my tendency to play my music (gulp!) extremely loud has definitely paid off!!! Come to find some wonderful researchers at Manchester University
have found that LOUD music stimulates a part of the inner ear known as the sacculus. The sacculus responds to the beat in the music.
Apparently the sacculus, is sensitive only to very loud volumes, those above 90 decibels. An expert in the scientific study of music, Ned Thomas, explains that the sacculus is not thought to have any direct hearing function in humans, but it seems to be a part of a primitive hearing mechanism that has slowly been lost, as humans have evolved. He further discusses it has a connection to the part of the brain responsible for drives such as sex, hunger and hedonistic responses. (Heck, guess you know a whole lot more about me now, huh! LOL!)
At any rate, he elaborates further that when these desires are satisfied, the brain is stimulated into releasing “feel good” hormones that make us calm, happy and responsive.
So, I say, embrace the theory!
Turn up the music!
Release the “feel good” hormones!
Light up your brain!
And let’s all get freakin’ high………..on LOUD MUSIC!!!!!
All right!!!! Now, this is an addiction worth embracing!!!!
Monday, November 2, 2009
Everyday you get up.
Everyday……
You do.
You wake up.
Now, are you one of those people who greets the day!?! Or do you stare at it?
I spend a lot of time blinking at the ceiling. It’s white.
It stares back at me. My eyes are blue.
I like to fancy myself someone who begins the day embracing controversy….
Maybe you woke to the screaming rattle of an alarm clock?
Perhaps you roused slow, in a snuggling embrace?
Or maybe the kids pouched on you. And wide-eyed, you discovered yourself suddenly running rescue on a morning already in jangled mid-derailment?
Or was it your parent who intruded upon those last few moments in the blissful land of Nod?
Was the dog wanting out or maybe the cat was jumping on your head?
Or could you be one of those interesting people who sets your internal clock to pop your eyes open when the time is just right. (I think that’s cool! I gotta try that!). However you do it. You do it! You get up.
You begin the day.
You start the day.
You begin.
You start.
Get it!?
You do it everyday.
Everyday.
YOU begin something new.
YOU start something fresh.
A fresh day!
A new adventure!
You HAVE a CHOICE
EVERY
NEW DAY
how you will
CHOOSE to
LIVE IT.
How did you create yesterday?
How are you creating today?
How will you create tomorrow?
I too, have to remind myself over and over again to live – on purpose. I too, have to remind myself, over and over again to glance at my personal compass, then review the fold-up map of my life I keep in the back pocket of my mind and compare my position with the plotted landmarks.
I live with doubts, as you do.
I live with questions, as you do.
We are flesh and blood.
We are mortal.
We have limited time.
But we each have value,
incredible value,
to ourselves,
to each other,
to the world.
We hesitate in the face of a powerful idea because we are frightened to BEGIN.
We stop on the surface of an inspiring concept because we are scared to START.
Starting.
Beginning.
They can seem so hard….. until someone does for you what someone did for me.
So, let me tap you on the shoulder, look you in the eye and remind you,
you are a pro at beginnings.
You are an expert at start-ups.
Here, do me a favor.
Heck, do both of us a favor.
Okay?!
Come on!
Grab a pencil and paper!
Got it?!
Okay, now take every year of your life and multiply it by 365.
Okay, got the answer?
Okay!
Now, take that number and add how many days have passed since your last birthday.
Okay, what number did you get?!
Great!!!!!!!!
That number is how many start ups you’ve mastered!!!
This number is how many beginnings you’ve completed!!!!
‘Cuz remember where we began this chat with you?
“Everyday you get up. Everyday……”
Get it!?!
So, I repeat, that’s how many start ups you’ve practiced!!!
This is how many beginnings you’ve mastered!!!!
Were they all successful??!!!!
Was it easy?
Was it work?
Was it a tightrope?
Was it a cakewalk?
How ‘bout yes, yes, yes, yes…..
And I ask you again, the question I ask myself all the time…
Were they all successful??!!!!
My answer -
Heck YES!!!!!!!!
Why?
My answer –
You’re STILL HERE!!!!
A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS IS ONE THAT SURVIVES THE DIFFICULT TIMES.
You’re ALIVE!!!!!!!!
You’re THINKING!!!!
You’re DISCOVERING!!!!!!
You’re CREATING!!!!!
Dang, seems to me you’ve done it beautifully because it brought you and I together on this page.
I like it.
And WE -- YOU & I -- both of us have a lot to accomplish.
YOUR LIFE has VALUE.
Each moment of your life is uniquely valuable!
Each moment is a new beginning!
Each moment is a fresh start!
You’ve got a lot to do!!!!
So, come on!!!
Let’s get crackin!!!!
Everyday……
You do.
Now, are you one of those people who greets the day!?! Or do you stare at it?
I spend a lot of time blinking at the ceiling. It’s white.
It stares back at me. My eyes are blue.
I like to fancy myself someone who begins the day embracing controversy….
Maybe you woke to the screaming rattle of an alarm clock?
Perhaps you roused slow, in a snuggling embrace?
Or maybe the kids pouched on you. And wide-eyed, you discovered yourself suddenly running rescue on a morning already in jangled mid-derailment?
Or was it your parent who intruded upon those last few moments in the blissful land of Nod?
Was the dog wanting out or maybe the cat was jumping on your head?
Or could you be one of those interesting people who sets your internal clock to pop your eyes open when the time is just right. (I think that’s cool! I gotta try that!). However you do it. You do it! You get up.
You begin the day.
You start the day.
You begin.
You start.
Get it!?
You do it everyday.
Everyday.
YOU begin something new.
YOU start something fresh.
A fresh day!
A new adventure!
You HAVE a CHOICE
EVERY
NEW DAY
how you will
CHOOSE to
LIVE IT.
How did you create yesterday?
How are you creating today?
How will you create tomorrow?
I too, have to remind myself over and over again to live – on purpose. I too, have to remind myself, over and over again to glance at my personal compass, then review the fold-up map of my life I keep in the back pocket of my mind and compare my position with the plotted landmarks.
I live with doubts, as you do.
I live with questions, as you do.
We are flesh and blood.
We are mortal.
We have limited time.
But we each have value,
incredible value,
to ourselves,
to each other,
to the world.
We hesitate in the face of a powerful idea because we are frightened to BEGIN.
We stop on the surface of an inspiring concept because we are scared to START.
Starting.
Beginning.
They can seem so hard….. until someone does for you what someone did for me.
So, let me tap you on the shoulder, look you in the eye and remind you,
you are a pro at beginnings.
You are an expert at start-ups.
Here, do me a favor.
Heck, do both of us a favor.
Okay?!
Come on!
Grab a pencil and paper!
Got it?!
Okay, now take every year of your life and multiply it by 365.
Okay, got the answer?
Okay!
Now, take that number and add how many days have passed since your last birthday.
Okay, what number did you get?!
Great!!!!!!!!
That number is how many start ups you’ve mastered!!!
This number is how many beginnings you’ve completed!!!!
‘Cuz remember where we began this chat with you?
“Everyday you get up. Everyday……”
Get it!?!
This is how many beginnings you’ve mastered!!!!
Were they all successful??!!!!
Was it easy?
Was it work?
Was it a tightrope?
Was it a cakewalk?
How ‘bout yes, yes, yes, yes…..
And I ask you again, the question I ask myself all the time…
Were they all successful??!!!!
My answer -
Heck YES!!!!!!!!
Why?
My answer –
You’re STILL HERE!!!!
A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS IS ONE THAT SURVIVES THE DIFFICULT TIMES.
You’re ALIVE!!!!!!!!
You’re THINKING!!!!
You’re DISCOVERING!!!!!!
You’re CREATING!!!!!
Dang, seems to me you’ve done it beautifully because it brought you and I together on this page.
I like it.
And WE -- YOU & I -- both of us have a lot to accomplish.
YOUR LIFE has VALUE.
Each moment of your life is uniquely valuable!
Each moment is a new beginning!
Each moment is a fresh start!
You’ve got a lot to do!!!!
So, come on!!!
Let’s get crackin!!!!
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