Tag Archives: Face Of The Earth

21

Excitement

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What gets you excited about life?

We should all be this excited by the prospect each day brings!
We should all be this excited by the prospect each day brings!

No matter what they do, every person has to find things that get him excited about life. They do not have to be complicated or expensive things. They get you going and allow you to feel happy about just living on the face of the Earth every day. 

I would never presume to speak for anyone but myself, but here are the things that I enjoy and make my existence a much more enjoyable experience.

1. Learning and Reading

learningWhen I was a young person, I did not care all that much for learning. It was something that you had to do to get to the next step in life.  This is the wrong way to present education in my mind.  All of us can learn and expand our minds into whichever areas interest us and strike our fancy.

In the past few years, I have learned more than at any time of my life, and it was all done by my desire to expand my mind.

It was not because of what anyone else thought or because I took a class to get a degree.  Learning was taking place because I wanted to be a better person and live a more meaningful life.   Learning gets me excited about living life today and looking forward to the future.

2. People Are Just Awesome

Few things get me more excited about life than the people I have met.  Each person is a unique mixture of personality and intelligence that allows them to contribute to the world in their own unique and powerful way.

Knowing these kinds of people are out there in the world, looking for the best way to live or just making the best of what life has given them, gets me excited about life.  I know that if the good people I have come in contact with are in charge of the world, the future is in good hands.   The people I know get me excited about life.

3. Change Is Always Happening

changeThere is one thing that I am sure of about life, and change will occur no matter what you do. 

Some of the changes you experience are going to flow smoothly, and some are going to rattle your cage a little bit more.

There is only one choice to make though, either you can fight against the inevitable change, which will lead to pain, grief, and sorrow. Or you can choose to roll with the changes that come your way.

I am choosing to ride with the winds of change because they are blowing whether I like it or not.  That is why I have decided to let the life changes excite me about living rather than force me into a depression about what I used to be.  Sometimes the things that change are precious to me, but some seasons come and go, and there are unique and beautiful experiences in those seasons.

Enjoy them while they last because they will change as surely as winter will follow autumn and summer will follow spring.  These changes get me excited about life.  It would be boring if nothing ever changed, ever!

4. The Boston Red Sox and Baseball

awesome red soxBaseball is not for everyone. It is a sport that seems to be moving at a leisurely pace but is not.

A mental aspect to the game should keep you interested and engaged throughout a game or a season.  The Red Sox are a passion for me because they are the team of my family.

The love of this team had tied generations together, and even when there was a hard time finding common ground, we could all state an opinion about the Red Sox.

This love of the Red Sox gets me excited about life because it connects me with the people in my life who I have cared about who is gone. I remember when my grandfather took us to Fenway for the first time.  It was the quintessential ballpark experience.

I walked up the stairs leading to the field, and the area was so green, the uniforms looked so white, and they’re a few feet from me was Dwight Evans, Jim Rice, and Carl Yastremski.   Then I glanced over at the green monster. I was around 9 or 10 years old that day, and any question I had about loving that team was answered on that day.

It is interesting to note about my grandfather. He was born in 1920 and died in 1993, so he never saw them win a world series. I like to think he was feeling the vibe I sent to him in 2004.  He would never have believed it.  I sent a special prayer to him that night because the Red Sox got us both excited about life.

5. Writing from my Inner Thoughts

quotes-about-writing-4Finally, there is the practice that has come to take up so much of my time.  For many years I fought against the urge to express myself in words and to arrange them in only the shortest and simplest patterns.

My prose expressed very little about myself or what I thought or felt.  It is only recently, like the melting ice at the end of winter, that the words have started to flow.

6. Creativity, I believe, is the key to unlocking your unique talents and thoughts.  If you are stuck at anything then, do something creative.  Draw, write, paint, sculpt, knit, spin, whatever you can do to be creative will lead you to the answer you are looking for.  Writing for me is the way I answer the questions that life has thrown at me.

I once worried about the quality of my words and the judgment they might render from others, but I have learned to let that go.  My words are mine. They express what I think, and anyone reading them can like them, hate them or ignore them completely.  That is their prerogative.  I can’t write anything for the sake of pleasing someone else, and it would be a waste of time.

Writing allows my inner thought to have an outer expression, the voice that can’t speak, speaks through the written word, and that is why writing gets me excited about life!

What gets you excited about life?

Questions

Tell Me Who Do You Love?

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Who do you love and what are you doing about it?

who-do-you-love-what-are-you-doing-about-it by Jonathan Hilton

Love is a difficult topic to discuss because there are so many parts inside of us that can be exposed through this discussion, that it is easier to brush it off and make a joke of it, to distract from the fact that love is a huge part of being human and being happy on the face of the earth.

This straight forward question is kind of fascinating because it forces you to declare where the love in your life lies.  I realize that there are many different kinds of love we experience during the course of a life.  Love brings with it a wide variety of experiences from the fantastic to the horrible and it can all come from the same relationships.

I Love Everybody

love everyoneEveryone in existence loves someone. There is no way that you can’t.  It might be unrequited love, or unfortunate love or bad love but we all love someone.

With that premise in mind I answer that I have a feeling of love inside for everybody.  How can that be? Easy, because I believe that we are all connected and although our physical experience is different, there is a similarity that we all share.  Therefore to hate someone else is to hate myself.

There were many times when I looked at people with a much harsher eye. I judged people with a cool and unemotional dislike,  not liking those who were not doing what, in my mind they should have been doing.

It is easy to judge others because it diverts the attention away from yourself.  Most things that you find annoying or as shortcomings in others are the weaknesses you generally recognize in yourself.

I know that every person is living their life the best they can.  I can’t judge their personal decisions because I have not experienced the pain or joy that has influenced them.  All that I can do is to be accepting of people just for what they are because inside of them is a person who is very similar to me.

Even if they are mean, uncaring or cruel to me or others, I do not let their bad behavior and poor choices dictate how I am going to think or feel. I forgive them, that is all there is to do.  I would rather that then carry hate or resentment in my heart.  Hate is a virus and will destroy your soul and make life quite joyless. I have carried that load enough.

But You Gotta Love You

lucy loveOf all the people you spend time with in your life, you have to be the most important.  It is difficult for many people to consider that they love themselves, let alone to tell the world that they do.

For many years I can say that I never forgave myself for the smallest of mistakes.  I didn’t love myself, in fact I didn’t like much of what I felt or thought.  Yet in the end it is true that you can’t give love to someone else unless you first feel it for yourself.

I believe that each of us has a gift inside that makes us special.  When we were young we felt it and had hope for the day it would come to light.  Yet for me as for others, life pushed that gift aside and made us forget what we had.  Replaced by a chorus of  “you should”, “You Could have” , “You must”, “If only you would have.”

None of these regrets push you closer to your true self, in fact they push that truth deeper inside and make it harder to find.

I am not sure if or when I will ever find that light that existed in me, but I remember that it did at one time and I am searching for it feverishly because I know that it is fantastic.  The possessor of such a gift must be worthy of love no matter who it is, and therefore the first love I feel must be for myself.

What Am I doing About It

end loveWell anyone who has been reading my writings or talking to me in person will know that I am trying to live in a way that is representative of the best of me. I know that I have fallen short in many ways in my life and without the help of others I never would have  been able to start this journey. I never would have known what to look for.  So I follow the path that is laid out in front of me. One day at a time and experience what is placed in front of me. I accept others for what they are and try to accept myself the same way.  Love is the most powerful emotion in the world and all good things are an offshoot of this emotion.  I am doing the best I can to follow the feeling of love.

 

Who do you love and what are you doing about it?

George Thorogood Wants to know too! Listen Below