I have had to pause to ask myself about my path quite often. What makes each of us unique? Let me tell you what I think. Each of us is born with unique talent or skill that is ours alone. It is given to us at birth, and we need only to follow it to find our purpose in life.
Life isn’t ever that easy, though. From the moment we come into the world, we are met with limits and expectations from others.
Sometimes the limits come from a place of love, like a parent guiding their child safely, and sometimes they come from a much darker experience.
It matters little where the limits come from, and they cause us to be ashamed of who we are and what talent we have.
These “would have’s” and “should have’s” of life make you shy away from your true self, pretending to be something more acceptable. Some who experience abuse early on in life never really get to see their authentic self, making it much harder to find.
Looking For Me
Are You Looking For Me?
I have been hot on the trail of my authentic self for much of the past two years. It has been a slow and sometimes scary chase. It all began almost two years ago.
When I realized that I didn’t know anything about life, I was not happy, and like many people hadn’t been happy in a long time.
There had been moments of extreme happiness, and I enjoyed people, but the inner feeling of joy escaped me. I had resigned myself to think that this was how you felt in life, empty and bored.
I was waiting for the clock to run out. However, life had other thoughts, and events reminded me that I wasn’t always this way.
Dreams were a vital part of my youth. My imagination guided me in almost every adventure I had every day, and I dreamed of everything from playing for the Red Sox to racing horses.
I believed that everything that I thought of could happen, and it was just a matter of getting a little older for me to do all of those things. That person was my authentic self, the true me. I was gifted with the ability to dream vividly, and it seemed life was determined to make me forget that.
The Cover-Up
Over the years, the feelings of trying to fit in, not rock the boat, and be “normal” made those thoughts move from the front to the back of my mind.
Finally, they were forgotten, neglected, and abandoned as I got older. I was an adult, and there was no place for dreaming in adulthood.
It was like knowing a secret that you couldn’t remember, but you knew it was a good thing, and if you could connect with it, then all would be well.
Life, however, moves in, and the job, the relationships, and the expectations all jump on top of you and push that authentic identity far back into your memory and may never let it out. Like you are asleep and can’t wake up.
Waking Up
I am not unique because I think others have gone through some traumatic events and are shocked by the malaise of life.
I started to remember it piece by piece, and it is still coming back to me. Like waking from a slumber, you begin to experience life differently.
Each of us is born with an authentic self with abilities meant for us alone. Some people are right to them their whole lives, and others never see their authentic selves again.
Most people spend their early life forgetting and the second part of their life trying to remember. It doesn’t matter who you are or what age you are; there is a unique person inside you that is a mere alarm clock ringing from waking up.
Do you know your authentic self?
“Authenticity starts in the heart.” Brian D’Angelo
“Authenticity over everything.” Anonymous
“If you’re your authentic self, you have no competition.” Anonymous
“Don’t trade your authenticity for approval.” Anonymous
“Honesty and authenticity are a big deal for me.” Scarlett Thomas
“Authenticity: The courage to be yourself.” Anonymous
A few years ago, I was driving down the road with my best friend of forty years when the song “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” y Meat Loaf came on the radio.
We laughed and said how stupid the song was, but then almost without our conscious choice, we were singing along loudly and we both knew all of the words to that song. Two dudes in their mid-forties who obviously had too much time on their hands as adolescents.
As we talked about the song and the message that it sends, I started to realize that there was a reason that some people of our generation (me) have a difficult time with relationships because we spent our adolescence listening to Meat Loaf, building up some quite unreal and pretty unhealthy expectations of ourselves and what we should look for in relationships.
In a different conversation with another friend I realized that I knew the words to every song on Meat Loaf’s Bat out of Hell Album. A fact that I am neither proud or ashamed of, but in awe. As I listened to each song for the first time in years, the lessons from the songs came back. These meatloaf lessons were hard-hitting and impactful. Like I was my seventh grade self again.
This is what I learned from listening to Meat Loaf when it comes to relationships. R ember, I listened to this music as an impressionable teenager and this is the top things I learned about life from this talented musician.
***Bat Out of Hell Notes***
The Pyre can be burning, even on the edge of ice field and somewhere there is a tank full of time.
Heaven can in fact wait.
Long ago and far away was so much better than it is today.
There is no paradise by the dashboard light
Math would tell us that two out of three is kind of bad, Unless you play baseball for a living.
If you have trouble with an answer, then you should sleep on it before you decide to give an answer in the morning about loving someone forever.
Having promiscuous sex in a car is going to lead to a life time of regret and have you praying for the end of time so that you can escape a bad relationship. On the good side, keeping your word is important regardless of the consequences.
Being all revved up is no good if you don’t have someplace to go, especially on a Saturday night.
Don’tlook for gold on a sandy beach, don’t drill for oil on city streets or a ruby in a mountain of rocks they will lead you to frustration. Just play the lottery.
Crying icicles is worse than crying tears
There ain’t no Coupe de Ville at the bottom of my Crackerjack box.
If you keep on telling someone you want them, you need them, but there ain’t no way you are ever gonna love them. They will eventually accept it as a pretty good deal.
I am in fact glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife
It is cold and lonely in the deep dark night, but as long as you listen to baseball you will be OK
Just because it never felt so good or felt so right doesn’t mean it will end up good or right.
**** two out of three is in fact, quite bad, if you only do 66% of your work, you will flunk at school or get fired from your job, you will be seen as a failure, so Meat Loaf was wrong and Jim Steinman was not a math major or very motivated apparently.
Gratitude
Thank you Meat Loaf for all of the great life lessons you taught us on your educational and entertaining album Bat Out Of Hell, I am grateful and I am sure my whole generation is currently dealing with your relationship “advice.”
There are certain things that time will make nostalgic and music from your youth will allow you to travel to a simpler time. List n to Bat out of Hell when you have a moment, and as you uncontrollably sing along, think about how messed up the lyrics are. You will understand suddenly why you have a problem committing in a relationship today.
Perhaps the most significant power you have as a human being living on this Earth is the power to forgive. No matter what has been done to you, said about you, or taken from you, that loss, anger, and the problem will be a part of you. Until you wholly and thoroughly forgive the person you perceive responsible for whatever misfortune you encountered and release it from you.
Moving On
Your Gift For The World
Before you can ever really start moving on with your life and grow, it is necessary to forgive everyone in your life for any wrong, accurate, or perceived. I know it sounds drastic and challenging, but it needs to be done to move on in life.
Forgive them sincerely, and you will find that weight will be lifted off your shoulders. In life, it seems inevitable that somebody will do something that will appear to be a slight to you, or it could be downright vicious. Holding onto that thought of anger and holding a grudge against someone will only make you less of a person and stop you from reaching your potential. Bitterness is all that you will gain if you harbor ill feelings about anyone, and your life will be less because of it.
Throwing Hot Coals
Anger Burns The One Who Holds It
Being angry at someone for something that they did, either real or perceived, will end up hurting you in the end. I heard it described as trying to throw a lump of hot coal at someone you are mad at. Perhaps you will hit them, and they might be hurt, but the only guarantee in this transaction is that you are the one who is going to be destroyed.
There are few things in life more difficult than letting go of our anger. Anger helps us cope and allows us to feel like we have power. When in reality, you are giving all of your power away. You are allowing someone else’s words or actions, determine your feelings. All you have to do is let those feelings go and forgive. All of your power is then yours.
Experiencing Peace
It is probably unreasonable to think that you can forgive everyone for everything immediately. Like any journey, you need to start with a tiny step and then take another and keep on moving. The momentum of your trip will build as you go. Slowly but surely, take back control of your feelings, relationships, and life.
What I have found is that when you remove the anger, the energy you previously spent on festering anger and perpetuating the negative thoughts about someone else is better and easier spent on focusing on the great things about people in your life. I feel luckier and better off because of it.
Avoid The Negative, Follow the Positive
It is YOUR choice
Forgiveness will help you release all negative thoughts and feelings that can negatively impact your life. Suppose you spend your time thinking about things that perpetuate anger, fear, worry, hate, revenge, avarice, or grief. In that case, you are focusing on the negative, and it isn’t easy to be optimistic about your future when that is your focus. These emotions need to be avoided. If you are experiencing anger about something, you have the choice to let it go. If you feel fearful about something, let it go. Experiencing fear will not fulfill you or make your life whole. Let it go; you will find there was nothing to be afraid of in the first place. Worry is the same. Most of the time, fear is wasted effort 92% of the time. (read the explanation here).
Replace those thoughts with those of goodwill, sympathy, kindness, good cheer, or any idea emanating from a spirit of love, and you will be much happier. Forgive whoever wronged you for whatever they did and replace thoughts of anger and revenge with ideas of understanding and respect. You will improve your quality of life and the quality of life of all those around you.
How You Know Forgiveness Has Truly Happened
Just saying that you forgive someone is not enough for true forgiveness. It is a start, but to forgive someone and move on, you have to release all negative energy surrounding whatever event occurred. The heat test will allow you to know if you have sufficiently done this or not. It is simple and fools proof. Think about a person or an event, and if you feel any searing pain or emotion about the activity or the people involved, you are not done with them. If you honestly experience feelings of love, peace, and well-being, forgiveness has taken place.
Quotes on Forgiveness
“Forgive all who have offended you, not for them, but yourself.” – Harriet Nelson.
“Forgiveness is the sweetest revenge.” – Isaac Friedmann
“Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.” – Louis B. Smedes
“Life is an adventure in forgiveness.” – Norman Cousins
“Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.” – Hannah Arendt
“Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.” – Indira Gandhi
“Genuine forgiveness does not deny anger but faces it head-on.” – Alice Duer Miller
“As long as you don’t forgive, who and whatever it is will occupy a rent-free space in your mind.” – Isabelle Holland
“Anger makes you smaller, while forgiveness forces you to grow beyond what you were.” – Cherie Carter-Scott
“Forgiveness is like faith. You have to keep reviving it.” – Mason Cooley
“Only the brave know how to forgive. … A coward never forgave; it is not in his nature.” – Laurence Sterne
“Remember, you don’t forgive someone for his or her sake – you forgive them for your sake.”
“Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting, nor does it mean that you’ve given the message that what someone did was okay. It just means that you’ve let go of the anger or guilt towards someone or yourself. But that can be easier said than done. If forgiveness was easy, everyone would be doing it.”
“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.” – Katherine Ponder
“There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.” – Bryant H. McGill
“A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” – Robert Quillen
“Forgiveness is me giving up my right to hurt you for hurting me.” – Anonymous
“Sincere forgiveness isn’t colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don’t worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way, and time-just like it does for you and me.” – Sara Paddison
“Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.” – Marlene Dietrich
“Forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving, of life.” – George MacDonald
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” – Louis B. Smedes
“We are all on a lifelong journey, and the core of its meaning, the terrible demand of its centrality is forgiving and being forgiven.” – Martha Kilpatrick
“To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.” – Robert Muller
“Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.” – Mark Twain
“Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.” – Oscar Wilde
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting.” – William Arthur Ward
“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” – Paul Boese
“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.” – William Blake
“If you can’t forgive and forget, pick one.” – Robert Brault
“He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.” – George Herbert
“Without forgiveness, life is governed by… an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.” – Roberto Assagioli
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
When 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
There 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
Baseball 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
Finally, 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!
When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in?
Are Your Ideas In the Darkness?
There are times in everyone’s life when they feel like they are all by themselves, with only their beliefs to guide them. These times are opportunities to define your life, what your principles are, and how you will share this with the world. Will you continue to think as you always have? Or will you move in the direction of change and growth? That is a test that life likes to give us from time to time, and we must find the lesson and maintain our humanity and compassion in the process. There is no question difficult times are tough to endure but they bring with them an opportunity. One way or another these moments will come to define your life, providing you with depth in the way you view life and your place in it. You will have the chance to become more understanding of the plight of others in the world or you can build bitterness around your own situation. The decision is truly yours. What light do you bring into the world? One of illumination or destruction?
The Dark Side
Fear-based thought will lead you to the darkness.
When difficult times arrive, you may forget the soft glow of the idea you strongly believe in, you can lose your positive attitude. This experience can cause disillusion, anger, hatred, and, most of all, self-pity. Why is everyone against me? If they were real friends, they would support me no matter what. Poor me! These are natural emotions and thoughts, but that is all that they are. We are not our thoughts or emotions. In this case, they are all caused by the actions and opinions of others. The danger is that once you start down the path of self-pity and anger, you are in danger of staying there for a long time, if not forever.
All of these are fear-based emotions and thoughts, which can have no other destination than to make you unhappy, angry, and scared. There is no way that you can embrace the good in something and grow if you spend all of your time, though, and effort in self-pity and anger. These emotions can become pervasive in all aspects of your life, and relationships end; you will find that you look at everything with a veil of suspicion, and it will become nearly impossible to be truly happy. This change can be caused by any tragedy in your life, losing a job, character assassinations, the death of a loved one, or any of the significant obstacles of life. Fortunately, this is not permanent or fatal unless you want it to be.
The Light
When you carry the light of an idea into the darkness, you will always have a choice, for
Thoughts and actions based on love will bring you to light no matter where you are
every adverse reaction above, there is a positive choice available to you. This choice is the path of growth because these decisions come from love. Compassion, understanding, kindness, and forgiveness are all examples of this type of reaction. It is pretty easy to display these characteristics when times are good and everything is going your way, but quite a different story when facing challenges. You get laid off from your job unexpectedly, how do you react? It would be understandable if you were angry and felt it was unfair and wished terrible things on all of those responsible, but what will that accomplish when you look at it?
You will allow the things that happened to you to define you and all of your actions. Or you can accept that it happened and look for the positive. This optimism may be the push you needed to finally follow your dream and become a doctor or an engineer or whatever you have always wanted to do. Difficult times and opportunities often walk hand in hand if you keep your eyes open. Forgive those that you feel wronged you, accept what has happened, and move forward with courage. I can’t tell you for sure, but open your eyes and embrace the changes, and you may find yourself significantly happier than when you began this journey.
So if you feel like you are marching into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believe in, make that idea one that honors you and leads to a more significant light in the world. If it creates love, it will do that. If it starts with fear, it will most likely lead to misery and pain. Look for the light in the situations you face, and even the worst things can ultimately positively impact you and the world. There is no way to change the past and what has happened. You have one hundred percent control over how you react to them.
Nobody in their right mind would ever set out to fail because accomplishment is what people have been programmed to strive for. Yet, I look at our society, and I see a significant fear of failure in the eyes of most. It has been bred from our earliest school days, “Do what we tell you and succeed,” “Never try something your not sure of, or you might fail.” I think that history is full of people who have seen their share of disappointment and failure. Yet, these initial setbacks worked as a springboard to future success. Failure is never fatal. Quitting is. Why is it that our educational systems seem to fear failure so?
A Harsh but Effective Teacher
At First You May Fall
Failure is a word that has negative connotations attached to it. Nobody wants to be seen as a failure, associated with a failure, or even admit that they have experienced failure.
The perception of being a failure can harm different parts of our society, from stock market prices to the power of a celebrity at the box office. Being a winner is preferable to being a loser. Yet, it is a fact that sometimes we all lose.
However, if you spend a little time looking at the lessons that you learned over the expanse of your life, you probably learned a lot more from the losses you experienced than from any other teacher you have ever had. Failure is not fun to experience, but learning to deal with it and rise above it is one of the most valuable tools you will ever acquire.
Failing Can Open Doors of Opportunity
Once you learn this lesson, no goal is too far from your
But You May Find Inspiration
reach. Once you take ownership of what has happened and recognize why you fell short, you can take steps to continue working to achieve that goal. Often your ultimate success was driven by that initial faltering attempt.
One of the best things about becoming involved in athletics as a child is learning how to overcome setbacks in a controlled environment, learning valuable life lessons safely. These lessons are directly applicable to life. You will not always get the job, sometimes there is criticism of your work, and you don’t always win.
If you keep striving to win, though, and you evaluate your shortcomings honestly, then a person can overcome almost any failure and find success in the end. That success can extend to any part of your life.
Why Are We So Afraid?
It seems like today and parents are so involved in their kids’ lives that often, children are not allowed the freedom to fail at anything.
Either because they never want their kids to feel bad, or the parents are living vicariously through the accomplishments of their young ones.
Either way, kids are often taught that everyone is a winner and participate in non-competitive games, which sends an unrealistic life lesson because life is not that way.
Life has a way of testing you and finding out what you are made of. Life is a game that you can’t win, you can only play it, and a healthy part of it is that sometimes things will not work out for you.
I would think that if I had never understood this that the first time failure came to me, I might have a nervous breakdown and never recover. Yet, the hope of accomplishment and greatness keeps people marching forward, despite the risks of failure and the pain involved in not getting what you want.
If you work toward a goal, then you will have an opportunity to achieve that goal.
Give It A Shot, Then At Least You Know
When it comes never to try, you will avoid experiencing this failure, but you will also never learn the lessons that failure inevitably teaches you. All things are not accomplished quickly, but if we persevere, we can achieve almost anything.
Great thought!
Never trying is way worse than failure. You will never know your capabilities unless you test yourself.
You will never improve physically, mentally, or spiritually unless you push yourself a little. When you push yourself, sometimes you fail.
Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back to it. Learning this lesson will be one of the valuable experiences you will have. And at least you will know, definitively once and for all, what you are capable of. You are a great human soul with unlimited potential and effort, and fearless acceptance of the consequences will take you there.
If you haven’t achieved it yet, what do you have to lose?
You Can Do It Now!
There are two ways to go with this answer, and you can say: “If something hasn’t happened yet, then it is not ever going to happen.” This will lead to losing the few strands of hope you have left for accomplishing the task you dream about.
Or the other answer can be: “The time must be ripe for whatever it is that you have brewing and dream of achieving, and the only thing you have to lose is more time passing before you achieve whatever it is you want to accomplish.” Thus leading to the achievement of your dreams. I don’t know about you but the second one sounds better to me.
THE TIME IS NOW!
I believe that there is no time right now to do whatever you have been thinking of achieving. This doesn’t mean that you have to do it all today, but start moving in that direction, and you will be surprised where you may end up as you approach your goals.
There may be seemingly insurmountable obstacles in your path, but even the tallest mountain can only be crossed by taking initial steps. That is the way of the world, and if you long to achieve something, you can do it.
When you look at the part of the question yet, it would seem to indicate that you have
We all have that voice in our heads. Trust yourself.
been thinking of doing something for a long time, maybe it seems financially unrealistic, or seems to take away from your family time, or some other reason.
There will always be a reason if you want to avoid accomplishment. There are lots of people who have accomplished great things after a lot of struggle.
Historically speaking, you can find many who persevered and contributed much to the world at a much more significant age. Leanardo da Vinci was drawing significant sketches as he enjoyed his sixties, Michelangelo created sculptures of great talent in his eighties, Winston Churchill traveled the world and contributed to society right up until his death at the age of ninety. Leo Tolstoy wrote novels as his seventies rolled by. So it has been proven that it is never too late to achieve anything.
Picture Your Success
Well, what would you do?
The most important factor to hold on to when you are seeking achievement is that you have a clear picture of what you want to accomplish, then the path will open up to you as you investigate how to make this thing happen.
Often it is not the destination but the journey that provides the most fertile ground for growth and contentment, and if you never get started, you will never experience any of it.
All it seems that you have to lose is the regret of never knowing if you could have achieved your goal or desire or not. How many people go to their graves with regrets about what they never tried? How many allowed a failure or twenty-nine failures or a hundred failures to stop them from learning and accomplishing what they might accomplish if they only tried just one more time. I think that in the end, there is nothing to lose, except doubt and regret.
If you haven’t achieved it yet, what do you have to lose?
Today when I think about myself, I don’t feel different from the person I was at younger moments of my life. Yet I know that when I look in the mirror, that person has seen some things, been quite a few miles, and hopefully gained some wisdom. I think we all ponder what factors make us unique in a world that is constantly trying to make us as uniform as possible.
I think that it is kind of mind-boggling to think that of all of the billions and billions of people that have ever existed in the history of the earth, that there has never before been anyone who is exactly like me, and there never will be another again. The same is true for all of us, and there is something in that knowledge that forces us to take a little responsibility for our actions and the lives they create.
I am a one-of-a-kind original, as all people are, which is something powerful to think about. But still, I want to express what makes me a unique individual.
My Power
The first thing that you have to look at is the attributes I was born with, from my personality, which is uniquely my own, to how I react to and interact with the world. These actions are all mine and always have been. I think that I have contained the same personality and been the same person since I
I am what I am………awesome!
I was able first to be aware of life around me. Sometimes, I take things too personally, and I don’t give up on others very easily. Even when they have given up on me. I love to learn, and that is my real superpower because it allows me to continually grow and become a better person simply by using my brain. I have always put people into two categories. One is the sponges; these are people who soak up everything in their lives and learn from them. Taking the valuable and squeezing out the things which don’t matter. The second is rocks, hard and impenetrable. These people are so busy being right in who they are; they don’t absorb anything new and valuable. Growth is impossible. Which type of person are you?
My personality has been influenced and cajoled by the experiences that life has given me. My upbringing programmed me, and although I don’t think anyone meant me any harm, I have been spending my life unraveling the limiting beliefs I was instilled with as a child, from money issues to relationship knowledge. But in essence, the person at the core of my being is the same one who started this journey, just a more complex version.
My History
The second reason I am me is my family and our history. Each of the people of all relationships that touched my life, from my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings, has all left a mark and helped mold me into the person I am today. Being brought up as the second child of four was the most influential portion of my childhood. The activities we participated in as a family were the first lessons in what is important.
Whether it was the direct lessons, they taught me, like be polite or don’t steal. Or the indirect lessons that they taught by showing kindness, compassion, and caring for others, I am indebted to my family for much of what I am today and for what I will become in the future. I often recall all of my grandparents; now they are all gone, those thoughts are all that is left. What would my grandparents think about the world as it is today, I wonder?
You will choose who you are
This was me at 5 years old. What advice I would give him.
Thirdly, I think that your life experiences make a big impact on who you are and, even more importantly, your reactions to the things that life throws at you. The past year has been a reminder to me about the yin and yang of life, how there always seems to be a dichotomy in all things. Where great good exists, there is the potential for great bad. I know this is true because that was my life in 2018.
There are circumstances you love, wishing they would last forever, and some which aren’t so nice to experience. With each experience, pleasant or difficult, you will always have the choice of what you take from it. In fact, often stressful, painful experiences are often the most educational, motivational, and ultimately valuable moves. How to grow, heal and forgive are often the most valuable residues of the suffering we face.
You alone are responsible for deciding if you learn something and move forward or be so devastated that you can only look backward with regret.
This is a personal choice that nobody can make for you, but one has gone a long way in defining who I am today and why I am me.
Many factors will cause us to reevaluate our lives, the death of a loved one, a serious illness, or perhaps the ending of a relationship.
That new perspective can catapult you into one of two directions, forward to accomplishment or backward in regret and despair. Sounds harsh, but there are only two ways you can go every day in the life: you are getting better, or you are getting worse, nobody stays the same.
Who am I in my own thoughts? To quote Lady Ga Ga, I was born this way, and there is really no other way I would rather be. I have spent too much time in my life worrying about what other people think of the actions I take and how they may look to them. The only person I really need to be concerned with is myself. I choose to base my life choices on strong, positive values like kindness, compassion, understanding, honesty, and integrity.
In the words of Carly Simon, “Nobody does it better.” I am the best me I can be, and that will have to be alright with everyone. Welcome to August 2021!! It’s a pleasure to make it this far.
When you fall in love, you sometimes don’t have control over your senses. You are prone to do unpredictable things and might be susceptible
So Does the Music
to influences you would never otherwise fall prey to. Music can creep into your life. Let me rephrase that lousy music can creep into your life at that point and leave an indelible mark on your memory. One that will never honestly go away no matter what you do. I heard a song on the radio today, which brought this horrible phenomenon clearly into my thought, Billy Ocean singing his mid-eighties hit, “Suddenly,” and I realized that not only did I know every word, but I was getting a little emotional thinking about it. Weird, I thought, to hear music from so long ago. Billy Ocean is haunting me. Something needed to be done. The video of the song Payphone below sums up my thoughts on love songs.
I decided to be proactive, which led to this post. I am exorcising the demons of all of the silly, stupid, bad, and downright awful songs that have been tied to my memory by “love.” I thought this would be short but………….
First, those as mentioned earlier Suddenly by Billy Ocean, don’t worry if you watch this. The lyrics are included so that you can sing along as you listen to this song. I, unfortunately, don’t need that kind of help.
Next up is a song called Cherish by Kool and the Gang. Very similar sound to Billy Ocean. I must have had it bad actually to have liked listening to this stuff back then. But here it is, number two of the songs I need to forget. I often wonder, “what does the heart do?” Then I realize I will never understand and listen to Kool and the Gang.
The following is so embarrassing I almost left it off the countdown, but if I am honest, it has to be in there. Listening to Bonnie Tyler’s, Total Eclipse of the Heart, I often wondered why nobody would ever turn around? Oh, I know because now and then, I fall apart. I hadn’t heard this song in years, but maybe it is good to listen to………… now and then.
The next two go together because they came from the same movie, “Dirty Dancing,” yes, I saw it, and it has emotional connections to several loves of the past—time to put them all in the rearview mirror. The first is “Time of My Life,” this video has been viewed 106,208,763 times. Make that 106,208,764 after you watch it! Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, thank you, I sympathize.
The other Dirty Dancing song is by the late great Patrick Swayze himself. She’s Like the Wind. I am not sure what being like the wind has to do with love, but it must have had something to do with it. Besides, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”
Sometimes a song is just tied to that special someone so tight, you can’t help but think of them whenever you hear it, ten, twenty, or thirty years after that heart -stopping individual has moved on down the road. Gloria Estefan’s song, I don’t want to lose you now is one of these for me. I really didn’t know this until I heard it playing in the background one day. Definitely made me think of a certain person at a particular time. It is a sappy song, but I, of course, can sing along perfectly.
The same can be said for I Can’t Stay Away from You. My life in the late 80’s was a Gloria Estefan soundtrack I guess. Sad but true.
As scary as these are, I could go on for at least ten more entries, I won’t, but I would love to hear what songs haunt other people.
It just goes to show that love stinks, and so does the music!
It is a difficult task indeed to start to think about what you are most grateful for. Many people will say money. Some will say, love. Some will say, family. Some will say something else entirely.
I am thankful for all these things, but to me, there is no doubt that showing your gratitude is the most important thing to do. The feeling of gratitude is important. So for me, I guess the act of feeling grateful is the thing I am most grateful for today. Here is why.
Taking things for Granted
I was the type of person who took many great things in my life for granted. Not appreciating the things that people did for me out of the goodness of their hearts. Yet, I was not grateful. In fact, I think I felt entitled to all the things I had in my life.
The problem with that is that you are never pleased with what you have but are always angry or worried about what you don’t have. This is the problem with a lack of gratitude. No matter how much you get, you are never pleased.
When You Lose Everything, You are Grateful for Anything
In my life, I had the good fortune to lose everything. In that time of turmoil, many feelings of self-pity and anger eventually will consume you or push you to make changes. I decided to change.
It started with a change in attitude. The sun didn’t rise and set because I existed, and I could make a decision every day to decide how that day to be happy. Happiness started with a realization of how lucky I was to have anything at all.
That realization expressed provides the feeling of gratitude. When it comes to events that are difficult to deal with, your designation of either good or bad is your perception of the experience. The experience is still the same. You might as well be grateful for it.
Gratitude leads to more Gratitude.
Once you take a moment to express your gratitude each day, it has been my experience that the momentum will build, and you will find more in your life to be grateful for. I have read that the act of being grateful is one of the most important emotions that you can experience because it opens the door for more things to enter your life that will deserve gratitude.
So I am most grateful for the time I take each day to appreciate fully what I experience in my life every day. Away from labels of good or bad, they are experiences that provide all of the situations that combine to teach me the things I need to know to follow my purpose. It is the moments of thankfulness that we find what is great in ourselves.
Over the years, the feelings of trying to fit in, not rock the boat, and be “normal” made those thoughts move from the front to the back of my mind.
I am not unique because I think others have gone through some traumatic events and are shocked by the malaise of life.
