Your Journey

"Cross country skiing is great if you live in a small country." -Steven Wright

How you get to your destination in life can take many different forms. The road may be smooth or muddy. The wind might blow in your face or carry you in its arms. It is impossible to predict what type of journey it will be.

The point is to carry on with your journey. Make a choice to pursue your dreams, your visions, and your goals. How you get there is how you live your life. Know that you will never get there by allowing grass to grow long and tall around your feet.

So instead of standing still, I write this blog and books. Attitude in Words, Changed Lives, and Live the Journey were never meant to change the world. They were meant to energize my journey and help chart a course of advice for my children. The pleasant surprise became the impact my journey has had on other people.

The wake of our own life spreads to others far beyond what we would expect. That is what I find so amazing about our lives. The road we take to reach some destination is filled with all sorts of surprises. Some of those things will be (simply put) absolutely rotten. Other encounters will be truly delightful.

No matter what type of circumstances you encounter on your own journey, enjoy and learn from each of them. Holding regret and pain only keeps you in one place. It prevents you from moving forward to a new and better place for your life.

And while I am not the most inspirational or motivational person, I am a person that wants myself, my family, my friends and you to have a great life. It may not be the life you first envisioned, but it will be your best life.

Keep moving forward, whether it be in the old broken-down jalopy or cross country skiing across a very small country; your journey is and will be amazing.

Binary Choices

"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself." -William Faulkner

In my profession we deal in the exacting nature of how computers work. This world of laptops, smartphones, digital watches and most everything else is based upon two digits. A one (positive) and a zero (negative) is where it all begins, traverses and ends.

If I add two zeroes, I get a zero. If I add a zero and a one, I get a one. If I add one and one, I get ten. Have I started to make your head spin slightly?

The reason I was thinking about this had to do with a quote I have heard frequently. Without going into details of where the quote has been used, folks have been saying, "two wrongs do not make a right." And in a binary sense they are correct.

Each of us make decisions each day that will result in either good or bad. You might say that those lines are blurred, but only if you let them. We can choose to correct a wrong or compound it with another wrong. We make these choices all day long. We let someone merge into the busy traffic flow, we fudge numbers on our taxes, we hold a door open for someone carrying packages; we make binary decisions.

And this is not a race to see who ends up with the most points. It is about moving your life forward in a positive way. It means creating a better you with each decision you make.

Choose to make the right decision with every opportunity. Choose to make yourself better then whom you were yesterday.

Amazing You

"You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body." -C. S. Lewis

There is a wonderful National Geographic documentary regarding the human body. The shows takes you on a tour of what is both simple in elegance yet intricate in how it is achieved. Our body is quite amazing in how we are put together and operate.

Watching this show made me think of the resilience our body has to fight off infection, repair bones and recreate. The complexity of how we collect data (senses) and process it lightening quick can boggle the mind. And the mind itself is a wonder.

We take care of our bodies in order to keep it running well and as error free as we can. The body certainly has biological mechanisms inside that cause it to take care of itself. But the soul we have also wants to keep the body healthy and moving.

It is said that our bodies have a soul inside which provides guidance. I am of the belief that the soul has a body which gives it the ability to do great things. The word 'soul' was derived from the Greek word ψυχή, pronounced IPA. It is a verb "to cool, to blow" and would refer to the vital breath our bodies need.

I am not smart enough to debate the whole body, soul and spirit question. It is just a matter for us to consider all three of them. All have purpose and all three need to be taken care of. Our spirit gives purpose to the soul which in turn gives purpose to the body.

While our physical body ages, it takes more care and effort to keep it in good shape. Our soul gives us reason to do so but the soul needs to be refreshed and kept alive as well. And in the grand scheme of these things, never forget that you are an amazing person.

Maybe the subject is a little too deep for thought at this moment, but just know that you can do amazing things. Your body will keep doing its thing which will give your soul time to accomplish even greater things. Yes, you are amazing.

Quiet of Night

"Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree." -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Lately I have been waking up each night at 3:00AM. An odd time in my mind and surprisingly on the dot. At first it came upon me like a rude awakening in anticipation of the phone ringing. Yet the phone never rang, the daylight came and no bad news arrived.

The next time it was again, eyes wide open, roll over to look at the clock and "03:00 AM" staring boldly back at me. This time I lay awake not in anticipation of the phone, but questioning the significance of it. So I decided to research it, not in depth but enough to satisfy my curiosity.

The Internet is full of thoughtful responses to the question. It could be my internal clock is somehow adjusting its sleep cycle. To others it could be the 'witching' hour to the peak time of paranormal activity.

There are religious connections for Christians to 3:00 AM regarding the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is called the 'spiritual' time of night in which one should pray. I'm not certain what it is but thinking about it, I had the sense it was my mother waking me. I don't mean that in a literal way because she passed away from Pancreatic Cancer in 2008.

But it made sense to me in my overly active 3:00 AM mind. So I said a couple of prayers for the health of family and friends and also thought of my mother, having a short conversation with her in my mind.

In the bigger scheme of things, I can't tell you for sure what is causing me to awake at this time. I can't even tell myself for sure what I believe it is. It could be my internal clock, something spiritual, my mother's spirit talking to me or someone simply slamming a car door to go to work each day at 3:00 AM.

What I can tell you is that I'm using the time to reflect upon the coming day. I'm taking a few moments in the peaceful quiet of 3:00 AM to remember lessons learned and make the coming day a better one. It could be that 3:00 AM just happens to be my daily time to try and find enlightenment.

What ever it is, I'll enjoy it for as long as it lasts. I'll enjoy my short chats with Mom. I'll enjoy it as a time for prayer. I'll enjoy the quiet still of the night.

Find your moments in the bustling daylight or the stillness of night. Find a time to reflect, to capture a moment of zen or just to enjoy the quiet. It will refresh and renew your spirit for whatever lay in front of you.