Tag Archives: Fall

21

Both Sides Now

Leave a comment

the flip side of lifeWouldn’t it be nice if all we had to deal with in our lives was a success in all we do and happiness in all experiences? I think everyone would feel the same way, no sadness, loss, or grief, just happy things that are easy to deal with, yet we all know that life isn’t going to come as quickly as that. We all must go through some difficult times, and I think that is OK because you will never appreciate the good in life unless there is the opposite aspect to compare it to in life. There is always a flip side. How do you know that life is giving you what you need now? You are experiencing it. Please take a moment and focus your conscious thought on this very thought of how opposites teach you lessons and see what words and actions arise from it. It will probably be a better version of yourself, and you will value the joyous times and good experiences all the more when they happen.

Sunshine and Rain

No matter what your preferred weather is, there is difficulty enjoying it thoroughly without having experienced the opposite of your desired temperature. For me, it is the weather of the fall in the northeast.

sunshine without rainWe are blessed with pleasant temperatures and cooler weather at night, which is perfect for sleeping. Each day it seems that there is a different and wondrous color scheme on display. Fall has a feeling in your heart that you can’t explain, feel. Yet the appreciation I have for this season is deepened by the hot, uncomfortable summer weather and the oncoming extreme cold and snow of winter. Those intense experiences help you tune into the perfection of September/October that you are experiencing in the perfect dance of autumn.

If the weather were as you like, all of the time, you would eventually find that you lose the special appreciation you have for it. It would be more difficult at any rate to find that appreciation for the beautiful autumn days, and they would be “days.”

I think this is true about all things in life. We need to have what we don’t want to know what we do want and, more importantly, appreciate it when it is in our lives and seek it out daily if you can.

Being Alone Leads To Growth

Most people long for comfort and company, yet many have this in their lives and manage to throw it away because of a bit of moment or slight that they perceive. If you

have ever been without someone who “gets you” and is forced to live your life truly on lonely makes you appreciate relationshipsyour own, then it is difficult to appreciate it when you have that connection partner in your life.

You would be much less likely to throw that relationship away if you knew what real loneliness felt like inside. The warmth of happiness and connection should stop people from cheating and taking their partners for granted.   The opposite side of this coin would help many a relationship find its way through rough waters.

Empathy for another and understanding the feelings, dreams, and ideas that make someone else tick is, to me, one of the most critical features of any relationship. It allows you to understand and be understood, give accordingly, and receive. When empathy is gone, and people start worrying about their own needs without concern for the needs of the other, trouble is not far away.

Sometimes you need to be alone to allow yourself to grow into the person you are meant to become. Much like a seed needs to be in the ground alone, you may need the same situation to allow yourself to grow in understanding and ideas. Life is a tricky game, and none of us have all the answers at the outset. That is why it is so damn impressive. You do not have to be lonely to appreciate the company of others, but it certainly does make it a lot easier to remember and keeps your empathy at the surface.

Loss Makes You Appreciate What You Have

If you have never lost everything, you do not appreciate everything you have quite as much. Everything is a subjective word that can apply to anyone and their situation. You may lose your family, friends, possessions, or guiding principles and strand you in life with no clear guidance or a place to call home.

Whatever it is that you lose, a friend, a family member, a relationship, it is through this loss, you will learn to appreciate what you do have. When you evaluate the things you have lost in your life, remember to include equal time thinking about the good that you have in your life and the appreciation you have for it — practice gratitude to some degree every day.

Sometimes the wounds of the loss are too big, and we can never move past them. Sometimes the pain of loss or the idea of the damage has engulfed us and our identity to the point that we can’t see around it. My experience tells me that once I have let something go, there is an appreciation for the people and things that are in my life that I would never have known.

You don’t have to lose everything to find this appreciation, and you have to look at what you have in your life and be grateful for it.

Seeing the Dark Side

To be human is to possess the ability to be very, very good, but each person also comes equipped with a dark side. Much like Darth Vader in Star Wars, we all have to choose which side of life our thoughts, choices, and actions will take us. There is power in being positive, helpful, honest, kind, and a decent human being society would fall without this attitude is prevalent. But there is a dark side in all of us.

One of the things that make good people so beautiful is that we make a choice each day to be that way. Sometimes, it can be a natural choice to follow the voices of fear and separate, ridicule, lie, gossip, or be selfish. Each of our actions balances out in our vibrational energy and just what you are putting into the world mentally, and with your efforts, you will get back to you. If you are not happy with where you are, look at your mental game and see how it is playing out. Take affirmative action, and positive will happen. Follow the light side of the force.

Look at the Flip Side of Everything

So my final urging is to look at the flip side of everything that you experience each and

Superman is not as great without a villain to compare him to.
Superman is not as great without a Lex Luther to battle against.

every day. Noticing that there is something positive for you to appreciate in every situation. Enjoy moments of downtime as well as deserved respites from the whir of activity that often rules your life.

Appreciate the moments of being by yourself as opportunities to grow. Nobody knows who you will end up with, but remember that making yourself the best person you can, will bring the person into your life who will make you better. With the heart-wrenching bitterness that death and loss of a loved one get to your life, there is an appreciation for those you live with still that can envelop your heart and touch your soul if you look for them.

That is why we should always look for and appreciate the flip side of the coin because we would never understand the value of moments in our lives without it. Light without darkness, happiness without sadness, love without fear, the experiences that we live define us by our ability to appreciate our journeys. 

“Belief systems thrive in circumstances of the collision. Their opposites energize them.”– James P. Carse

“All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.” – Marc Chagall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOPwviOUenA

 

 

21

Seasons

Leave a comment

Seasons-  each of the four divisions of the year (spring, summer, autumn, and winter) marked by particular weather patterns and daylight hours, resulting from the earth’s changing position concerning the sun.

It is a fortunate thing, to be experiencing the spring of the year! A wise person once said there is no way to stop the seasons from changing. That is true in nature, and it is true for your life as well, just like the planet rolls around each year, inevitably bringing an awakening, a vibrant life, and slowly a return to a darker cold slumber. So do our lives move as well. The sad part is that there are over 7 billion people globally, and a tiny fraction ever evaluates their existence in any thoughtful manner at all. The seasons provide us with a natural lesson on how to appreciate things.  Do you pay attention? Or are you caught in your own thoughts?  Look at the seasons of life, and you will appreciate the experience more.  This begins with really looking at the thoughts you entertain, the words you speak, and the actions in life you take because of all of these things.

Season of Eyes Shut

It seems like people live their lives and flow through the seasons with their eyes closed to the change that is coming to them. Each year the seasons move by and with them a lesson. Still, the young person is too involved in the physical world and what other people think of them to pay real attention to the knowledge the world offers—a chance to love, enjoy, and find experiences that color our lives.  Very rarely do young men and women remove their conscious thought from what they want to accomplish to imagine how it all fits into the big picture.

Worrying about your relationships, jobs, and living arrangements dominates thoughts. Life passes you by, and all you try to do is collect as many things as possible. The value of things is temporary, but the value of experience stands the test of time. Youth is wasted on the young, and the spring is wasted on selfish, individualistic behavior.  As you get older and time becomes shorter, you realize there is a reason for this, and you become envious of the time you had that is now gone. Unfortunately, others are frittering it away with their eyes tightly shut, looking at themselves and ignoring the world.

Enjoy the Seasons

It is common in the area I live to look ahead to spring during the winter.  It gets dark early, there are major snow events, and the temperature is frigid. But it provides a unique experience people in areas which are warm all year don’t get.  There are cold hard moments that come in winter. If you pay attention, they will wake you up to the soft, warm moments that will come as the calendar moves toward spring and summer. We all need to appreciate more warm, soft moments.  Winter creates this appreciation.

Spring brings hope and renewal, and summer brings vitality, fall brings sober acceptance of change, and then we are back to winter again. The seasons mimic the experience of our lives. As we age, we go through seasons, but most don’t notice these things are happening.  We are young in the spring, and our summers are spent doing, going, collecting, competing. Fall is the time you realize there is an end in sight, and winter is that end, like it or not. We all hope our winter is a long way away, but………………we never know.

Be in the Moment of the Season

There is nothing as inevitable as the passing of time, and the human experience is a finite thing. Our seasons are flying by, and all you have to ask yourself is, are you making the most of it, or are you wasting your time?  It really doesn’t matter what you do.  The human experience is a gift.  Think of the magic of experiencing a snowfall or a warm summer day with a cool breeze blowing.  Or the fall when the leaves are changing, and the crisp weather is a harbinger of things to come.  The wonderful hope of spring that revives us.

Please pay attention to your life and the people in it.  Spend your time and money accumulating experiences rather than things. Things are finite and provide joy for a short minute.  Experiences lead to growth and sharing and a life to be remembered.

So spend a little time in your day to be a little more conscious of the seasons occurring inevitably on your calendar and life. It all starts where you focus your thoughts and what you appreciate about life in every season—the words you use to express this appreciation to others and the actions which result. So look at your seasons and take a moment to enjoy them all.

“Nature gives to every time and season unique beauty; from morning to night, as  from the cradle to the grave, it’s just a succession of changes so soft and comfortable that we hardly notice the progress.” ~ Charles Dickens

Wherever in the world you may find yourself right now, we are about to enter a new season.

“The beat of drums and the blustering of summer fade away. Everything becomes quiet, more introspective, sad. Autumn always comes with such beauty.” ~ Jaak Drees

 

 

Life Lessons

It’s All About The Music

Leave a comment

Music is a powerful force in life. It has the ability to take you outside of your current experience and transport you to another place, another time and help you to remember another you. Being fortunate enough to grow up when I did, there are literally hundreds of songs and artists that have touched my life.

I have known Mike Marting since we were 5 years old and in kindergarten in Greenville, Maine. We were talking the other day about songs and their connection to our memories and we decided to declare October 2017 as nostalgic music month.  What this means is that we will be choosing artists and songs each day and sharing them, along with the nostalgic connection to the past brought with them.  There are moments that happen to each of us that capture a mood, that we enjoy revisiting like an old friend.

This is our mission and we invite anyone who wants to make a suggestion or add their own nostalgic songs and experiences to send them to me or him through this page, Facebook, email or the post office if anyone remembers how to do that.  Enjoy the day and we will see you in October, Nostalgic Music Month sponsored by Jamos and Breton’s Store.

We will do our best to complete this task each day for ourselves more than anything to connect to those times that are gone but not forgotten of our well spent, and not so well spent younger days.

Life, Philosophy

Autumn’s Song

Leave a comment
Fall really has it all, bright colors over a melancholy heart.
Fall really has it all, bright colors over a melancholy heart.

There are few things that make me feel as great inside and out as the autumn of the year. Living in a legitimate four seasons area, a person is fortunate to see all of the positives and negatives that each time of year provides.  Each has a list of positives and negatives but the one that makes me happiest is fall.

The nostalgia that naturally appears this time of year is so strong and vibrant that you not only think of those times in the past but you can feel them. The weather is cool, but not cold. It is the perfect weather for being outdoors and being outdoors connects you to activities in the past.  Just closing your eyes and feeling the breeze on your face and smelling the air connects you to those times in your past when the

What more do you need?
What more do you need?

same unique and powerful sensation washed over you. It could have been at a football game, a hunting trip, or even a  through an autumnal sea of pumpkins. Whatever activity of fall entertained you in your past, it is back in your mind each and every time the autumnal equinox passes and the days get shorter.

For me there is a unique melancholy in the air that is universally enjoyed by all during this time of year. Each emotion needs to have a season and fall is the season of feeling a bit sad.  I don’t think it is so much a season of endings, but more a season of letting go and moving forward.

Help yourself to a pumpkin. It's fall!
Help yourself to a pumpkin. It’s fall!

The autumn air tempers the pain of some endings and allows for a person to deal with them in unison with the season. No matter how painful something was and the hurt that you feel, fall reminds us all that endings of all kinds are the way of things in life. Each glorious summer will end and all of its possibilities and joyous memories no longer exist in the cool, crisp fall air. They are gone and need to be put away as happy memories.

Yet there is a hope that fall brings in its melancholy. There is an understanding that although one season has ended and another year is approaching and in its ending we are allowed to close the book on it.  Good, bad, indifferent, we are allowed to leave that year behind us and to move forward to new adventures where anything is possible, and another summer of fun awaits us, if we just have a little patience.

Autumn is the natural time of reflection that nature brings to us and allows a time of appreciation and enjoyment. Without endings, there are no new beginnings and fall allows you to remember the past, and the pleasurable experiences of your younger days and allows the ability to carry them into the future and to share these moments with the ones you care about.

As the leaves change color,  contribute a bright message to the world and ultimately fall to their inevitable end, so will autumn and with it a small piece of you knows exactly what that feels like.

Related articles across the web