Tag Archives: Life Today

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

No Regrets

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Today Is The Thing

4559365435_16203_gallery_xlargeLife is full of moments, each with its own individual fanfare and trumpets calls.  It is up to us to find the joy to embrace in each of these moments or notice the potential each day brings. Some live their life missing today because there is a constant focus completely on the past. Creating their identity out of the regrets about what happened yesterday, last year, or twenty years ago. Regret gives us a poor present to live today.  Most of what happened is a fantasy anyway. It is proven we don’t remember much of what happened accurately, only through our own perception of events.  Even if you are accurate in your recollections, can you change it? Even a little bit?

Today, this moment is all there is for you, and the more you branch out your attention from that, the less opportunity there is for enjoying the here and now. Keeping your focus on the task that you are working on will allow you to enjoy life.

All That You Do

In everything that you are doing, if it is worthwhile, you should be doing it well.  We should strive to complete everything that we undertake to the absolute best of our abilities.  There are times when our best may not be enough, but more often than not, it will regretbe.  I would only regret something today if I didn’t give it an honest effort and try. If something doesn’t work out how I think it should, then I have an opportunity to learn. It is in those lessons lives are defined, and new efforts can spring.

Regrets come from thinking about what might have been, so the only way I can regret what I am doing is if I could have done it any better.  If I spent time looking backward, I would miss the opportunities for success, enjoyment, and fun existing in this very moment I should be paying attention to.  But instead, I am regretting what I said to someone thirty years ago or how I shouldn’t have done something way back then.  This is a waste of time because you can’t change the past, and if you could have done better at that moment, you certainly would have.  Today I am trying to pay attention to what I am doing so that I won’t regret them later.

 I strive to be focused in all that I do and give my best effort to do it in the best manner I am capable of. Using the lessons I learned from the past and leaving the past where it belongs, far behind me.

To Be or Not to Be

fcd97ac86af9a9d2a31d9bcdc0971a3cThe question of whether our being or existence was worthwhile has been asked throughout time.  Some people have one bad experience taint everything else that comes in their life. It can happen when you are young and becomes the excuse for everything going wrong throughout life.  There is no need to have a childhood or an adult trauma define everything about your current life.  We all have obstacles or insecurities to deal with to see ourselves and our lives clearly.

 Once that trauma drama is overcome, and you see yourself for what you are, a creative, one of a kind, giant capable of doing just about anything, then you will not regret a moment. Each second is driving you toward your best self and what you are capable of.  Who is to say that the bad experience in your life wouldn’t end up being the catalyst for you to spring to greatness.  It is only an anchor if you keep yourself tied to it.  Never regret your being. I know I don’t, and neither should you!

Time to Have it All

What you have is really depending on how you look at life.  Do you regret that you don’t have regretown more possessions to stack up?  I don’t think the number of “things” you possess matters at all.  Although things may provide momentary pleasure, it is just a fleeting moment that passes as quickly as dusk slips into darkness.  Then to feel good, you need to have more stuff.  Stuff is not going to satisfy your soul or lead you to happiness. Only appreciating the moments of life and what they bring right now can do that.

The love of the people in your life will lead you to happiness in the giving and receiving that relationship. Of this substance, I am not sure that you can have too much.  Love is the kindness one shows to another when they are feeling down. Love is the acceptance of a person’s idiosyncrasies and to still claim them as your other half.  Love, caring, and kindness is attributes that make life enjoyable, and these feelings will last inside of you as long as you focus on them.  When the smell of a new car or the shine of the latest technological gadget has long faded, those you love and the feelings of joy will remain with you.

You may be able to trick yourself for a season or two into thinking that stuff will make you happy, but in the end, the emptiness that is inside you can only be filled by the love of people, and it starts by loving yourself. NoRegrets happen when you combine your thoughts of the past with your perceptions of their outcomes.  It would help if you tried something else.  If you only would have gone sooner.  I should have known what would happen.  All of these regretful thoughts do nothing to change the past. They only muddy up the waters of today, making tomorrow more difficult to get to.  Leave regrets in the past, enjoy today, and hope for the best tomorrow possible.

I Regret nothing. I learn, and I live.

“We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it’s like chasing clouds.” – Libba Bray.

“We don’t have to be defined by the things we did or didn’t do in our past. Some people allow themselves to be controlled by regret. Maybe it’s a regret, and maybe it’s not. It’s merely something that happened. Get over it.” – Pittacus Lore.

“If only. Those must be the two saddest words in the world.” – Mercedes Lackey.

 “Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in.” – Katherine Mansfield.

“The only things I regret, and the only things I’ll ever regret, are things I didn’t do. In the end, that’s what we mourn. The paths we didn’t take. The people we didn’t touch.” – Scott Spencer

 “Don’t live your life regretting yesterday. Live your life so tomorrow you won’t regret today.” – Catherine Pulsifer.

I made mistakes but held on to my faith……….No Regrets, No Regrets!!

 

Interests

I Am Addicted to Facebook

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The Addiction of Facebook

Addicted to Facebook
Pretty addicted, How much? Friend me and find out.

About five years ago, I had never heard of Facebook, and I was intimidated by the new technology that was coming out on a seemingly daily basis, but learning to adapt and overcome the hurdles that life has put in front of me, I slowly integrated myself into the world of social media.  I started my Facebook account in 2007 according to my timeline and it has been slowly infiltrating my daily life since.  Now I have to check Facebook to see everything from the latest news, to what music to like and who I should be listening to for fashion tips.  Alright I have never really cared about fashion but you get my point. Facebook has gone from something I have never heard of to the single most dominant form of media in my life today, in about five years and I am not sure if that is good or not.  I do know that is has changed the way I look at the world.

At first I didn’t check it very much, but I found out that you could connect with other people you haven’t seen in a very long time, which was kind of great.  Each connection you made was like a walk through your past, remembering friendships, enemies, good times, bad times, everything out there you can imagine.  For me it was the older connections that really meant and still mean a lot to me, people that I knew when I was young.  There  was a shared experience of youth that provides a common bond between people.  Reconnecting in this way is the strength of this medium for people my age, I think.

So you wanna be friends?

Check to be friends
It used to be this easy to see what someone’s intentions were. Facebook makes it even easier, but I think the note works better.

This is the one of the oldest questions that I remember being in kindergarten and asking this question and there is something very basic and reassuring you get from the answer.  If the answer is no then you know that whomever it was is really a jerk and not someone you can rely on.  Or if the answer is yes, there is a warm feeling inside that someone out there likes me.  Or they really just want to creep around my page and see what I am up to.  I am an optimist so I will stick to the thought that they really like me. It says, “you are ok, you are alright! You have a friend.”  Even if you have a thousand friends, there is always room for one more friend or two, I mean can we really ever have too many friends?   I still love reconnecting with someone after many years and seeing what they look like now, and all of that type of stuff that everybody does but doesn’t admit to.  I think there is a desire in everyone to connect, to revisit those shared experiences.

Technology has Grown My Addiction

Since the cell phone companies have been so creative with their little smart phones, now there is no time of night or day that I can’t just flip on my phone to see what is happening

future facebook addict
Come to think of it, I did write on the wall when I was young.

on Facebook.  Honestly I will check it three or four times an evening, just to make sure that I don’t miss anything.  It has also become my number one news source. There was an earthquake in Maine in October.  I didn’t feel any vibrations, I didn’t see any damage, I only knew it happened because Facebook told me so.  If there is an emergency, Facebook tells me.  Traffic trouble?  Facebook tells me.  Nuclear explosion, Facebook tells me.  Surprisingly, Facebook seems to be significantly faster than and just as accurate as the main stream media and more so if you count FoxNews as a major media source.

So here I am in my mid forties, unable to go longer than an hour without looking at Facebook on my phone because something might happen.  Thank you Mark Zuckerberg for complicating my life.

Facebook Messages Are Like Letters Used To Be, I think.

Messages on Facebook are awesome, I love to get them.  Somebody liked my link? Hell yes

This is what a letter looks like. For those who don’t know this was Facebook before the internet.

they do!  Someone commented on my post? That’s what I am talking about!  When I get a message on Facebook it must be what it was like back when you got letters in the mail.  Someone took the time to think of you, write it down and send it to you.  That is awesome.  Except when someone you work with realizes that the only communication you will consistently check is Facebook and starts sending you messages there that are totally about work stuff.  What a rip-off! I think, “Wow, look at those messages! This is a great day.”  Then I click on it and see what it is……….it is like someone just cancelled the Super Bowl.  Even if it is really vital information that will make someone money and it should be good news, I can’t help but be significantly disappointed in getting work messages on Facebook.

Let’s Ask Facebook

So here it is 2012, I  can’t imagine what kind of technology is coming next, but no matter what it is, you can bet your ass that it will involve an easier way to interact with Facebook.  I am not sure if I am happy or sad about this, I will have to check Facebook and see what it tells me to feel.

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