posted: 2006 January 25th
As a society we have a deep aversion to pain. Most medicines these days seem
to focus on the relief of pain. Those who tout the benefits of "Medical Marijuana"
talk of pain relief for the deathly ill and those suffering from chronic pain. Rush
Limbaugh was addicted to prescription pain killers that he had been on after a
back operation. When my wife, Suzie, was pregnant, her doctor offered her a
medicine for nausea, and during labor, they offered her an epidural. Quite
recently, Oregon doctor assisted suicide law was upheld by the Supreme Court
There is no need to argue for and against pain relief as it pertains to medicine.
Immaterial of medicine, as a society we seek the path of least resistance, stick to
what is known, look for "secure" jobs, and relationships, and wives, and children,
ad infinitum. Security has been exchanged for personal freedom. What is known
embraced at the expense of rather extraordinary possibilities.
It has been painful for myself and my family to explore the possibility of a career
change. Changing my occupation one month before I was to be married did not in
anyway contribute to connubial bliss. To make matters more interesting, there
were many weeks, where my total income from my new job totalled $75 before
taxes. Looking back, I am glad that I made the sacrifices and took the risks that
have brought me to this present position. A personal value of never finding a
place of comfort, keeps me always seeking out a bigger challenge than the last
one. I admit, risk and mistakes can indeed be exhausting, even bringing death to
your soul. I know a man who has failed for the last time; he simply cannot allow
another mistake in his life, because he never healed from the pain of the
bankruptcy, or the shame of the failed business, or the suffering of his family
when the police were looking to arrest him. He simply can't stray from the
comfortable or the safe any longer. The lesson learned, "Business is risky." Is
that the right lesson? Why did he fail? Because business is risky or is the
something within how he ran his business, that caused it's fall and in turn his pain
and suffering?
What happens if, rather than running from the pain, we were able to embrace it, to
learn from the message that the pain is trying to tell us. When a person is
emotionally down or depressed, he or she has the choice of burying themselves in
movies, or food, or whatever the vice may be. Our society allows us to virtually
remain numbed to life, until we reach a point of climactic pain.
Rather than popping the emotional Tylenol, figure out what it is that is causing the
pain, and deal with it. Embrace your mistakes and learn from them, rather than
blaming and running from the responsibility.
The choice is yours, how real will you live your life, and how big will your life be. It
is a matter of how big a mistake you are willing to risk.
Posers
posted: 2006 January 9th
Did you ever notice this world is full of people who say they are what they are not?
That got me thinking, perhaps we must first be on the inside what we lack on the
outside. Sort of a fake it until you make it. A visionary sees things before they
are ever realized in the tangible world.
I would dare say that in order to become something great or out of the ordinary,
we must first become visionaries of what is not yet in our lives, and then find the
way to become what in reality we are not. Yet.
There is of course the other kind. Spending money they don't have to buy things
they can't afford, to proverbially please a bunch of people that simply do not care.
It is a matter of inner substances and motivation. I have challenged myself with
the question of how to tell one from the other.
I have decided that perhaps more than a good business card to identify myself to
others, I need to search out, refine and clarify the essence of who I am today and
who I am destined to be in my future. I may not be a successful business man
today, but I am studying to become one and I am beginning to see myself as one.
My standards and dreams are both deep and wide, beyond what I have witnessed
or currently feel is possible and it is absolutely necessary for me to continually
stretch the size of what believe is possible. As I am enlarged, so is my vision, so I
find myself constantly stretched and enlarged as I seek to make things which
SEEM impossible, possible. We must always take things to the next level and
never draw comfort from being where we are right now. In this way we will never
stop growing and perhaps we also become on the outside, who we have been for
so long, on the inside
What We Leave Behind
posted: 2006 January 7th
Thoughts on leaving a legacy and our search for meaning in life. Is this all there
is to our lives or can we leave behind more than footprints in the sand?
Duration: 19:10
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Learning to See
Posted: 2005 August 15th
Did you ever pass up an opportunity in your life, simply because you could not
see it. We really do it all the time, never realizing that opportunities to make
friends, change lives, and be successful exist all around us, all the time.
Duration: 2:03
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