Tag Archives: Jonathan

22

Looking for You

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Do you Let Your True Self Shine?

Do You Know?
Do You Know?

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?
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

cover upOver 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

wake upI 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

“Be fearlessly authentic.” Anonymous

“Authenticity is magnetic.” Anonymous

 

22

Things I learned From Meat Loaf

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Things I Learned Listening to Meat Loaf

meat loaf
This sage has taught many valuable life lessons

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
two out of three aint bad
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.

THANK YOU, MEAT LOAF

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?

21

There’s A Light

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When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in?

light in the darkness jonathan hilton
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

walking into the darkness
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

walking in the light
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.

Into the light

 

21

Grateful

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What are you most grateful for?

gratitude 111It 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

gratitude-quotes-16I 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

GratefulIn 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 deepakthe 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.

What are you most grateful for?

 

 

21

Carpe Diem

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At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive?

Carpe Diem Jonathan Hilton
Today is the day.

I have felt most passionate and alive right now, and there is nothing that could top this moment in time until tomorrow!

Many people will look far into the distant past for this answer or maybe dream of a day in the future that might be more perfect, but to me, right here and right now is the place where I feel most passionate and alive.

Get More Passionate Right Now

There is really no other way to be, is there? If you are not passionate and alive today, then it is time to make some changes and get more passionate about the life you are living.  As I am right now looking out the window and seeing the bright light of the early morning start to defeat the darkness of the night, I can only think about the

need a change jonathan hilton
Sometimes we all do!

possibilities that today contains in it.

I can’t wait to find out what is coming.  Is it good? Is it bad? We will see, but the experience of today has never happened before, ever!

It is amazing how many people can just let an opportunity to enjoy life slip past them and treat today like a carbon copy of Tuesday of last week when there is absolutely no such thing.

Enjoying the difference is what allows your life to grow and change in big ways.

Someday never Comes

I think it is a huge mistake to think that it is OK to suffer and be a little unhappy today because tomorrow will be better and bring me what I want, need, or desire.

Tomorrow may never come, and once you start making excuses about chasing your passion, you may do it for the rest of your life, living for the hope that tomorrow you will have the courage to change.

I know that there is no better opportunity than today.  What makes you feel alive is the belief and ability to live your life with the hope that you will achieve your goal and take one small action step that will lead to you finding it.

Choose to Live With Passion

Feeling alive should be a part of every morning because if you aren’t feeling this way or

feeling passionate and alive jonathan hilton
Be like Nike

you find life too much of a drag, and it saps you of the positive feelings life gives you.

If you don’t like how you feel about things, then it is time to stop doing them. Choose to do something else that feels better to you.

This sounds really simplistic, but honestly, ask yourself how often you have chosen to be unhappy, chosen to be dissatisfied, chosen to be afraid, chosen to go with the flow.

Find your passion and choose to follow it, and each day will allow you to feel the most passionate and alive than you have felt in your life.

I know for sure that I have this moment in life to make the best of that I can, whatever that may involve, and that is all I can really be concerned with, yesterday is gone, and I can’t get it back tomorrow may never come.

See a Little Light

 

 

21

Anger

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For those who like spelling!
For those who like spelling!

I was faced with today’s question of whether or not anger is a bad thing or a good thing. I believe that anger is one of the emotions that you should avoid because it is one of the emotions that stem from fear.  However, being the open-minded person that I am, I am willing to look at the emotion of anger from a neutral standpoint and decide once and for all if it is desirable to be angry or not.

Anger is just Anger

I am the first to admit that anger in and of itself is not a bad thing or a good thing. It is just a thing.  We all experience the emotion of anger because we are human. But, it is how we deal with that emotion that I think is important.  So, where your anger takes you in your thoughts, words and actions will determine whether that experience is productive or not.  This determines if it is good or bad for you.

Is anger Good?

Happiness is better than anger.
Happiness is better than anger.

There are some good things to anger.  The emotion itself exists to let us know when someone or something is hurting us or our needs are just not being met. It acts much like a smoke detector, warning of potential danger.   The positive possibilities exist when you look at the anger and understand why you feel this way.  Dealing with these emotions positively and discussing them with the people close to you allows you to work on that warning sign, and the next time it will bother you less.

Anger Problems

It’s not the anger that is the problem. Poor management of anger is the problem. If you are prone to angry outbursts, then you know that anger is more often than not going to entice you to say or do something that you will be apologizing later for.

Anger causes you to react from emotion and act quickly, without really thinking, and those results are usually bad.  But more importantly, I believe it is important to recognize where that anger is taking you.  If, for example, anger makes you physically violent, then that is wrong, and it is always wrong.  That is the most dramatic case, and most people would agree that it is never OK to commit physical violence no matter what someone does to make you mad.

tumblr_mdfkwiHmPt1rzcaajo1_500Everyone knows someone who has an anger management problem, and they are not pleasant people to be around.  You live your life walking on the edge of a volcano, with no idea when it might explode, spewing hot lava all over you.  I have also been fortunate enough to interact with people who use their anger as a push to understand themselves.

We should apply the same filter to other reactions which result from anger.  Much like the action to hit, push or slap a problem away from you because it hurt you, a person can react just as thoughtlessly by adding hate, revenge, or jealousy to the problem.  This would be a great example of how to turn the emotion of anger into something terrible.

Anger leads to Revenge, hatred, and jealousy, to name a few.

Negative thoughts that we entertain are going to affect our lives negatively.  Whether you believe in karma, quantum physics, or Christianity, hate is not an acceptable thought or behavior, and nothing good ever came from revenge, hatred, or jealousy.  They are nothing more than a person’s effort to “payback” someone or something that hurt them or didn’t fulfill a need.  So allowing this anger to churn inside you and spin out these other negative thoughts and actions will harm your existence.

Hating someone because of something they did to you or someone else is the same thing as hating yourself. We all have the ability to commit great evil and to show tremendous love.  How can you hate someone else for acting exactly like you are capable of?  You never have to like what they do or accept it.  Deplore the act, but forgive the person responsible because it is only through forgiveness that you can find peace.

Revenge will Get You Nowhere.

The same can be said for revenge. When someone hurts you, the most natural response is to want to hurt them back in any way you can.  Through name-calling, disparaging comments, or actions that you know will cause pain.  You can find revenge, but it will not make you a better person.  Anger is the hot rock that burns the one that holds it.  To hold a grudge, or obsess about paying someone back, is only going to stop you from moving forward.  The past

All emotions are ok, it is our reaction to them that causes problems.
All emotions are ok; it is our reaction to them that causes problems.

It is gone, it is over, and no matter how much punishment your hurt feelings get you to implement, you can’t change the act that hurt you.  This thought pattern will stop you from letting it go and move forward.

Jealousy is a Monster

Anger often is turned into jealousy about careers, love, or even possessions.  There is nothing positive about this emotion.  Jealousy is selfish and can turn one of the best experiences in life, love and turn it into a controlling, manipulative relationship.  Most of this comes from anger that you either ignore and are a slave to in your reaction to it.

These are just three negative emotions that stem from not positively handling your anger.  My experience with each of these has been inclusively negative in every way imaginable.  Jealousy stems from anger fed by insecurity. Revenge is a reaction to make someone else recognize and understand the hurt you are feeling, and hate is an emotion that has no positive aspect to it at all.

Forgiveness is Final

There is no reason to beat yourself up or think you are a bad person if you experience anger because we are all humans, and we all experience anger.  Gandhi experienced anger, but he didn’t let it consume him. He believed you had to forgive those who wronged you or the things that happened to you.  Once you let them go, they no longer have any power over you, and you can freely move on with your life.  Much like a giant burden is taken off of your back.

In conclusion, Anger is an emotion that is neither good nor bad; it is an inevitable piece of being a human being, stemming from being hurt or not having your needs met.  How you deal with anger and what you let it manifest into in your thoughts, words and deeds are where we can recognize anger as either positive or negative.

 

21

Thoughts

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Trapped by a thought!
Trapped by a thought!

How is it possible that a phrase can get stuck in your head? Like a song that you wish you could stop singing in your head. The phrase is there banging to the beat of its own honesty.  All you can do is think it over and over again until it inevitably expresses itself in words.

The phrase in my head I read in a glimpse, as I was watching a video on YouTube of all places. It was a  fantastic video, and the message was I Am, and who hasn’t contemplated what finite groups of messy things compile themselves to create their existence.  I do it all the time. So why did this phrase jump out at me? Why won’t it leave my head?

The phrase is: I am trapped in a brothel of clowns and loneliness.

Now on first observation, the fact that it mentions clowns will grab my attention because I really have an uncomfortable feeling around clowns.  They are just creepy to me, and they must be hiding something behind that mask of paint.  I, for one, do not want to know what it is. But, on the other hand, I don’t want them anyway around me.

 

Stupid Clowns Always Bothering Me!

Stay away from me clown!
Stay away from me, clown!

Clowns have bothered me since I was a child, and I went to the circus with my family. These clowns were wandering through the stands doing “clowny” things, joking with the people who laughed along, encouraging him.  I was a timid kid, and this clown started asking me questions, like where was I from, so he could yell,  “Anybody else here from your town.”  I had seen him do it and was absolutely petrified to talk to him, he kept picking on me, and I eventually gave up my town name. Afterward, the clown said, “There, was that so bad?”

In my mind, I answered, “Yes, it was.”  for these reasons.

-I was scared to tell him where I live because he might come to find me.

-I thought it was a waste of time because I came from a small town, and even at a circus, I would know if someone was there I knew.  

– I believe that clowns are like ghosts, wearing perpetual smiles that mask a desire to do great harm. These apparitions would appear from nowhere to haunt me.

That phobia by itself was enough to bring this phrase life of its own in the movie in my mind. But that was only a part of it.

Emptiness In the End

Good Question
Good Question

Now back to the phrase, it also describes the way I have felt about much of my life. Even though you don’t feel or look lonely on the surface when you look beneath, into the depths, there is a truth that reveals itself when you are honest.  All of these people around me everywhere, yet they are all just players.

As Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”

I have often wondered about how the play of my life would look, incredible highs, unbelievably devastating lows, some boring times you would gloss over, and I think the bulk of the show would be my incredible experiences with love.  I was in love three times in my life, encompassed years, and each I guard because should anyone know the depths I was willing to feel, they might only show me pity because each was irrevocably destroyed and disregarded. So all that is left is the empty spaces of the places they once possessed in your soul.

At the end of such things, there is a feeling of loneliness that can’t be compared to anything else, and although we are playing our part with others.  As you wait around in the bar of life waiting for that next love to come along, that feeling of emptiness subsists at least quietly in the background, like the music setting the mood.

So here I am thinking, “I am trapped in a brothel of clowns and emptiness.”  Reliving those emotions of what I was irrationally afraid of and having the realization once again that what is gone will never be replaced.

21

Duplicitous

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It has been an observation that all people are duplicitous, always have been, and always will be.  Some have more separation between their two sides, but we all have them.  This image of the apple makes me think of this.  Billy Joel expressed it very well,

“Well, we all have a face
That we hide away forever
And we take them out and
Show ourselves
When everyone has gone
Some are satin, and some are steel
Some are silk, and some are leather
They’re the faces of the stranger
But we love to try them on.”

What you show the world

I don’t think that anyone can argue with the premise because we don’t go around showing the world everything about ourselves. We show them what we want them to see or are comfortable with them seeing.  This apple is like that because you will see something undesirable if you look at the bottom, and it looks like it is no good.  However, if you look at the top, the apple still looks healthy and normal.  If the apple

hiding feelings
Be Careful What the World Sees

could choose to show you only its healthy-looking side; you would assume it was a normal and healthy apple without knowing the hidden damage underneath.  All people are this way to some degree.

Hide Your Damage

People hide their damage from the world for a couple of reasons.  First of all, nobody wants to be judged on the things that have happened and hurt them.  Nobody knows how much someone has been hurt or why. It seems a narrow thought process to label someone for one small part of their life.  Most often, judgments come from selfishness to point out someone else’s pain to hide our own. Or deflect attention from the very same issues in one’s own life.

masks
Are all outward appearances just carefully conceived masks?

Another reason people practice this separation is that if people knew their true feelings on things and issues, they would reject them, and they would lose acceptance in society.  This fear keeps many wearing their masks for their entire life, showing what they know will be accepted and hiding their different faces, regardless of the honesty behind them.

Why Be Shady?

It seems that people would be a lot happier if they could be who they are, think what they want, and be allowed to heal their damage. This is the way of the human condition, and we will continue to exist like the apple showing what we believe to be our shiny side to the world while we hurt underneath.

It makes you wonder if everything you see from people is just a mask or if they are trusting you enough to show you what they really think.  That is why people like dogs because you always know exactly where you stand with them. I have met people I thought I knew well, who proved over time to be hiding their true self behind a veil of lies and misinformation.  I can’t judge too harshly.

Keep To Yourself

How much of myself do I keep to myself? Just because I don’t want to put myself in front of the speeding train of judgment.  Much like all of our superheroes, Superman, Spiderman, Batman, and the like, they maintain a “secret” identity to protect a part of themselves.  I think it is to give them a safe space to live, outside of the public pressure of being Superman.  I think there is a bit of that in all of us.

Regardless of where you stand personally on the subject of duplicity, I will know that you, as well as everyone else, have a duplicitous identity. I guess the trick is to see which side of themselves any person is choosing to show you at any one time.

21

Now or Never

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If not now, then when?

if not now then when jonathan hilton
The question that can launch a thousand ships

 

There is often something that we have meant to do in life we continually put off until tomorrow because of the potential consequences. Perhaps we are too busy, or maybe we are afraid of the price we pay, to do this thing. The fact that there is change involved and change is a scary thing because nobody really can guarantee you that whatever you are looking to do will, in fact, make your life experience all that much better.

This fear is enough to stop many adventurous people from pursuing a new adventure, but should it? Isn’t the point of life to stretch ourselves and create all that we are capable of?  Or is it just a game of accumulation, the one with the most possessions at the end wins?

The short answer, I believe,  is life is about growth, because you can have everything in the world and not achieve happiness, you can know that you are producing something unique, in a voice that no one else has, be totally broke and still be happy.  So if you look to stretch yourself, you have to ask yourself, if not now, then when?

All Great Things

Most of the great things that man has ever accomplished were created by taking a chance and changing the status quo.  In fact, there is really no place in your life that you can look

changes jonathan hilton
All change can be scary

that life hadn’t changed radically from their existence even fifty years ago.

Socially there was still legal segregation in the United States, and it was considered bad by the establishment to listen to Elvis. What would they think of Jay-Z or Katy Perry or the fact that the current president of the US is African-American?

Now with Technology

This is what a phone should look like!
This is what a phone should look like!

Technologically we have gone from the television being a new thing, with three channels, to a massive entertainment source that you can watch on your phone.  Speaking of phones, if you had told me that I would have my own Star Trek communicator that I carried around with me all the time, I would never have believed it.

The phone was attached to the wall, and you had to be home to use it.  Our current phones would really be science fiction.  What if Steve Jobs had said, “Not today world, we don’t need a cool hand-held phone that talks to you.” We would be lost completely.

These things never existed and never would have existed if it wasn’t for the fact that someone thought, if not now, then when?

Are You Living in the Moment?

So when it comes to your personal life, if not now, when? When you look at your life, and you see or even more significantly feel that something needs to change, it can be difficult to take the plunge.

live-in-the-moment-for-the-sheer-joy-ofMaybe you are hoping that things will change on their own, or you will feel differently tomorrow.  However, if you are always looking to tomorrow for things to get better or improve, you may be missing out on something, a great opportunity for happiness today.

 

Putting off your own happiness is not a good thing because you were not put on the Earth to be miserable with life.  Saying I will start being happy when the kids are grown, or after the autumnal equinox or when my next birthday comes, or some other random event you are resigning yourself to wait for.

This is a prime example of not living in the moment because I have said many times. There is no guarantee that you will be around until the next autumnal equinox or even until tomorrow, for that matter.  Today is all that there is, and now is the only time you are sure to have.  If you wait, it may well be too late.  It is OK to be afraid; everyone is afraid, but those who find success learn to deal with the fear and move forward anyway.

There will come the point in your life when you have to cross your Rubicon and challenge what you need to challenge, change what you need to change, or create what you need to create.  Then and only then will you be in control of your life and your decisions.

So if not now, when?

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