The Crash

Sometimes I think God just like to mess with me, I think he get great pleasure out of seeing me get upset or thrown off task. Take this morning for example, I posted my first blog with no problem, I stat in on this blog with a solid idea of what I want to write, and BAM! My laptop decides its a great time to reboot with an issue.. So now as I write this I am running every security check, registry cleaner and spy program I have, to make sure it don’t happen anytime too soon, and to make sure all my data is safe.

Now I know God didn’t do this, but sometimes I wonder, maybe He didn’t like the topic I was going to blog about or maybe He just likes to see me get frustrated…. No matter, I can’t remember what the topic was, so it must not have been that great of an idea and I was able to get to some real work (my 9 to 5 job stuff).

But now I sit here with no real idea of what I want to blog about, no words of wisdom to give…

Funny how things work out, I had a “great” idea, or so I thought, all pick out for today, one little distraction and BAM, it’s gone… Life can be that way, we are moving along, and BAM, everything changes, we get distracted by the death of a loved one the loss of a job or a child is ill, and life seems to change, be it good or bad it changes.

What matters is how we deal with the BAM’s in our life, take my computer crashing this morning, I had a few options I could have taken, 1) Get mad 2) Fix it 3) Do nothing, or any combination of the 3, I chose to fix it, I didn’t get mad, I didn’t do nothing, I stopped what I was doing and resolved the issue, well in truth I had to my laptop went down.

When death or illness hits we have the same basic options, get mad, deal with it (fix it) or do nothing. Once again we can combine them anyway we like.  But what we choose to do will change the rest of our life… So choose wisely…

Paul

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Ten thousand and one reasons not to…

So why haven’t you changed yet?

Excuses about age, time, money, and every other item we throw into the mix to help us feel better about putting our dreams on hold will end up killing our hopes for a happy and fulfilling life.

We can create ten thousand reasons not to do something, and ignore the one reason why we should. Often times that’s what it comes down to, I know for me I use ten thousand and one reasons why I don’t work out, No time, I forgot, I need this, Ill start tomorrow, and on and on the list goes, and each day it is getting harder and harder to do. And one day, if I wait long enough, it will be true, I wont be able to work out, I be dead.

We each have that one area we need to work on, and most of us have the excuses why we don’t memorized. It’s a sad state… each day I tell myself, today I will start to use the treadmill again, pr today I will walk the dogs, today I will lift the weighs and go on that diet, but today never seems to come, because I am always finding excuses.

Excuses are easy to come by, any old one will work really, from the creative to the everyday. It truly don’t matter as long as you have one. If you don’t I am sure a friend will give you one, there cheep to get.

The excuses we use often times come with a free gift, the gift of believing. If we use the excuse often enough we will believe the excuse. It’s a rather remarkable thing really. You see if I tell myself enough that I will start tomorrow, knowing full well I wont, but after time, well I start to think I truly will start tomorrow. Problem is, tomorrow never comes…

So why haven’t you changed yet? What poor excuse have you used?

• It’s hard
• I will, but not yet, I need to do _____(fill-in the blank)
• I am waiting for this or that
• I was going to start today, but this happened
• Well I figured I needed to wait until this, then I needed to do that, and once this comes in the mail, and the moon if full, I will start, I promise!

And the list can go on and on…

So what is it you need to do?

• move
• go back to school
• clean out the attic
• work out
• quit smoking
• diet
• return to Church
• find yourself

What ever the task, what ever the goal you need to start today, no excuses, one small step, is a step in the right direction. As for me, a friend and I are to start walking at lunch time today. Not much, but a small step in the right direction.

Paul

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Knight’s and the net

The other day I wrote a blog concerning a TV program I watched about the Knight Templar’s. The basic idea of what I was writing was the fact that the TV show spent 10 to 20 minutes talking about how mean and evil the Knights were, yet gave just a fleeting mention to the fact that they were protecting and defending the Holy Land from attach from the Muslims.

I found the responses I received interesting, I posted this blog on my STATIC Youth  blog site, but also on my Linked In site in the Catholic Group I belong to. The STATIC Youth site received no comments, but the Catholic Group on Linked in, wow! I was called a Liberal Catholic, told to go to confession and basically my faith call in to question because I dared to say that the Knights may have done some bad things.

I responded to this person for a little bit, but I have decided it matters not what I say to him, he is just dead set on saving my soul, regardless as to what I have to say. It’s almost like tossing a life ring to someone on dry land. Now please understand, I am not saying I don’t need salvation, because I do, but what I am getting at is I have explained to this person, several times, that I am not what he thinks I am, nor and I attaching the Catholic Church. But that is just adding facts to it, and he will have none of that!

It did make me stop and thing a bit, here I am, online, have a major discussion with someone I don’t even know, being accused of anti-Catholic views, and basically  being told I am not a Catholic at all. How is it, that a person feels they can make such statements concerning someone they never met nor has he read anything else I have written, and based on his responses to what I have said to him, he will not read other things I have written. Have we gotten to a point were people feel free to attach you, to call in to question your convictions over the net. Have we allowed ourselves to be fooled in to thinking that we have gained knowledge of a persons soul or being over the net?

In some ways, yes we have, look at all the so call “long distance” relationships started via chat rooms, or people who claim friendships to IM friends they never had met. We have allowed the simple task of typing to each other replace face to face, we have allowed the net with all its cool and amazing possibilities to overshadow human contact. So in a way, I have lead myself in to this little mess, but contributing to it. Such is life…

Now, I will continue to post, and I will continue to dialog with others on the net, and yes i will continue to add people to my “friends” list, I just found it interesting, that’s all.

Paul

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Open Ears

How often do we participate in a conversation, but in truth we are only really waiting for our chance to speak? I know I do this, especially when it is a heated debate, I want so badly to speak my mind. I have been working on not doing that to much, but its like a favorite candy bar, you walk by it and have to have it. I just can’t always control myself, i just have to have that candy, i just have to get my argument out, its all the same thing to me.

We know, just from our own experience that when people listen to what we have to say and we listen to them, the debate or argument or just plan conversation goes better. There is a natural pace and flow to it. Now to listen does not mean agree with, but to just listen and take it in, allowing it time to settle in your mind and to form a thought.

Listening is a skill we all need to improve at, we all need to be reminded every now and than to just shut the mouth and open the ears. To listen to the sounds of everydayness and to the voice of reason. Listening is not just a skill for conversations with others, but it is also a skill for conversations with nature and self. The quit time we spend just sipping our coffee in the early mornings, or out on the front porch with a cup of tea at dusk.

The skill of listening to the silence is difficult, but not unattainable. Simon & Garfunkel stated it best in there song, The Sounds of Silence:

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

The seeds that are planted when we listen to the silence of self and nature can grow in to the changes we dream of, the new creation of self, only if we can learn to listen to the silence of self.

The task is daunting the reward is great. The other day I posted about self time, and in the past i have written about this topic and I will come back to it often. It is a skill that seems to be lost in a modern world where silence is looked at as unproductive or a waste of valuable time.

In days gone by silent time was treasured and looked upon as a treasure for only the well off. In today’s world we look at silence as a sign of laziness and a sign of the less fortunate.

Look at any great leader of the spiritual ways, Jesus, Buda and Krishna all call for and practiced moments of silence. As a Catholic we have moments in our celebration of of Mass that incorporate silence (or it should be, but not all Churches recognize this) we have seasons that calls us to prolonged silence and intense soul searching. The Church sees the importance of listening to the silence.

Listing to the silence of the soul allows you the intimacy of self, the oneness of time and growth and the universality of joining in the the silence of the ages. Silence offers a sort of magic that transcends time and space, giving us the freedom to listen to the voices of the past or future with the present always there.

I am not saying that through silence we can communicate with the dead or travel through time and space, but I am saying that through silence we free our mind to imagine the possibilities of our many tomorrows by  listening to the echo’s of yesterdays.

I have fixed many a problem through the quietness of listening to the silence, allowing my mind to freely flow over the waves of nothingness. Creating a openness that allowed the sounds of reason enter into my soul planting the seeds of forgiveness or love, plucking the hatred out by its roots and allowing the waters of creation to feed me.

So today, sit and have a conversation with the silence, open your ears and listen to the nothingness of the universe and hear the voice of God speaking.

Paul

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The Power of Emotions

Emotions can help you or hinder you, it is up to you. I have often talked about how our attitudes will shape our our comes, how we can think our way in to a new you. The opposite is also true, we can think ourselves out of a new you, we can think ourselves in to the same old same old.

The power of positive thinking is only defeated by the power of negative thinking. The human mind is capable of many great things, it has the power to land a man on the moon and to start horrific wars, the same mind can do both. Our capability is only limited by our lack of imagination. Our greatness is with in us, and only our emotions keep us from achieving our goals.

The power of negative thinking can be overwhelming, and in today’s society, the negative takes the forefront, over shadowing all other emotions. We are encourage to feel the negative emotions, we are made to feel sub-human if we do not. New daily news feeds off of our fears, manufacturing crisis after crisis, our schools teach our children fear (unproven global warming science) and our government thrives off our fears grabbing ever larger portions of the privet sector.

We as a collective mind buy in to the fear, we all look for the negative emotions and try to use it to our advantage, we publically state our shock and outrage but privately we are celebrating the momentary power surge we receive. 

If we truly wish to change, to grow in to a better self we need to learn to control the negative emotions, we need to learn not to buy in to the mass hysteria that drives the masses. To so called “true feelings” of negatives need to diverted in to a positive. The task at hand is truly a monumental task, all the forces of humanity are working to control you, to scare you in to a submission, the choice is yours.

Here are some things to consider concerning negative emotions:

Anxiety and fear strips away courage and makes great performances impossible.

Doubt makes even the best decisions feel difficult and causes procrastination.

Anger rips your focus away from your goals.

Frustration can only serve to make you quit.

Guilt makes it impossible to enjoy any successes you achieve.

Jealousy and envy create dishonesty, hate and corruption. Your thoughts and emotions are the only things that can truly stop you.

 

Paul

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2+2=4

Sometimes simplicity is called for and other times it is mandated!

 

We all too often make things to complicated, we tend to add a level of difficulty to any task we do, or to any achievement we wish to gain.

 

Just look at the new math being used in schools, we can’t just say 2+2=4, no that’s just way to easy. But in the end 4 is the answer we come too.

 

We feel that we have accomplished more, if it’s harder, more steps, or more confusing. But really it doesn’t have to be that way, we add layer upon layer to all we do, then we feel that we have accomplished a great and mighty deed.

 

We do this to ourselves, we tend to lean that way naturally, but I am revolting against that, if fact I have been for sometime, I refuse to make things more complicated then they already our. I take each matter I must deal with, and break it down to the simplest; I take the complicated equation and turn it in to a 2+2=4 equation.

 

If it is true at the 2+2 side of the equation, then it will be true for the complex equation also. The truth of the matter or the gain of the process will be the same, regardless of how we went about it.

 

As long as the process was healthy and prosperous, the formula used to get there is secondary. So why complicate matters more with complicated steps and procedures, reduce it to the easiest formula, and achieve greatness with fewer complications.

 

Live life by the 2+2 rule, and find that really nothing is that complicated to do or understand. Remove the layers of complexity that we have added, get back to the basics, and watch as your life clears up, and come back in to focus.

 

2+2 has always equaled 4 regardless of how you do the math, keep it simple, and straight forward, and your life will have a new clarity.

 

Paul

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