Living Life

Express gratitude.

When you appreciate what you have, what you have appreciates in value.  Kinda cool right?  So basically, being grateful for the goodness that is already evident in your life will bring you a deeper sense of happiness.  And that’s without having to go out and buy anything.  It makes sense.  We’re gonna have a hard time ever being happy if we aren’t thankful for what we already have.

Cultivate optimism.

Winners have the ability to manufacture their own optimism.  No matter what the situation, the successful diva is the chick who will always find a way to put an optimistic spin on it.  She knows failure only as an opportunity to grow and learn a new lesson from life.  People who think optimistically see the world as a place packed with endless opportunities, especially in trying times.

Avoid over-thinking and social comparison.

Comparing yourself to someone else can be poisonous.  If we’re somehow ‘better’ than the person that we’re comparing ourselves to, it gives us an unhealthy sense of superiority.  Our ego inflates – KABOOM – our inner Kanye West comes out!  If we’re ‘worse’ than the person that we’re comparing ourselves to, we usually discredit the hard work that we’ve done and dismiss all the progress that we’ve made.  What I’ve found is that the majority of the time this type of social comparison doesn’t stem from a healthy place.  If you feel called to compare yourself to something, compare yourself to an earlier version of yourself.

Practice acts of kindness.

Performing an act of kindness releases serotonin in your brain.  (Serotonin is a substance that has TREMENDOUS health benefits, including making us feel more blissful.)  Selflessly helping someone is a super powerful way to feel good inside.  What’s even cooler about this kindness kick is that not only will you feel better, but so will people watching the act of kindness.  How extraordinary is that?  Bystanders will be blessed with a release of serotonin just by watching what’s going on.  A side note is that the job of most anti-depressants is to release more serotonin.  Move over Pfizer, kindness is kicking ass and taking names.

Nurture social relationships.

The happiest people on the planet are the ones who have deep, meaningful relationships.  Did you know studies show that people’s mortality rates are DOUBLED when they’re lonely?  WHOA!  There’s a warm fuzzy feeling that comes from having an active circle of good friends who you can share your experiences with.  We feel connected and a part of something more meaningful than our lonesome existence.

Develop strategies for coping.

How you respond to the ‘craptastic’ moments is what shapes your character.  Sometimes crap happens – it’s inevitable.  Forrest Gump knows the deal.  It can be hard to come up with creative solutions in the moment when manure is making its way up toward the fan.  It helps to have healthy strategies for coping pre-rehearsed, on-call, and in your arsenal at your disposal.

Learn to forgive.

Harboring feelings of hatred is horrible for your well-being.  You see, your mind doesn’t know the difference between past and present emotion.  When you ‘hate’ someone, and you’re continuously thinking about it, those negative emotions are eating away at your immune system.  You put yourself in a state of suckerism (technical term) and it stays with you throughout your day.

Increase flow experiences

Flow is a state in which it feels like time stands still.  It’s when you’re so focused on what you’re doing that you become one with the task.  Action and awareness are merged.  You’re not hungry, sleepy, or emotional.  You’re just completely engaged in the activity that you’re doing.  Nothing is distracting you or competing for your focus.

Savor life’s joys.

Deep happiness cannot exist without slowing down to enjoy the joy.  It’s easy in a world of wild stimuli and omnipresent movement to forget to embrace life’s enjoyable experiences.  When we neglect to appreciate, we rob the moment of its magic.  It’s the simple things in life that can be the most rewarding if we remember to fully experience them.

Commit to your goals.

Being wholeheartedly dedicated to doing something comes fully-equipped with an ineffable force.  Magical things start happening when we commit ourselves to doing whatever it takes to get somewhere.  When you’re fully committed to doing something, you have no choice but to do that thing.  Counter-intuitively, having no option – where you can’t change your mind – subconsciously makes humans happier because they know part of their purpose.

Practice spirituality.

When we practice spirituality, religion, or faith, we recognize that life is bigger than us.  We surrender the silly idea that we are the mightiest thing ever.  It enables us to connect to the source of all creation and embrace a connectedness with everything that exists.  Some of the most accomplished people I know feel that they’re here doing work they’re “called to do.”

Take care of your body.

Taking care of your body is crucial to being the happiest person you can be.  If you don’t have your physical energy in good shape, then your mental energy (your focus), your emotional energy (your feelings), and your spiritual energy (your purpose) will all be negatively affected.  Did you know that studies conducted on people who were clinically depressed showed that consistent exercise raises happiness levels just as much as Zoloft?  Not only that, but here’s the double whammy… Six months later, the people who participated in exercise were less likely to relapse because they had a higher sense of self-accomplishment and self-worth.

A SMALL HORROR STORY

     This day it had light out, mother called me retch "you retch,” she said. I saw in her eyes the anger; I wonder what it is? A retch. 

     This day it had water falling from upstairs. It fell all around. I saw that. The ground of the back I watched from the little window. The ground sucked up the water like it was thirsty. It drank too much and it got sick and runny brown. I didn't like it. This day mother let me off the chain a little so I could look out the little window. That’s how I saw the falling water upstairs.

     This day it had hurt light in the upstairs. As I know when I looked at it my eyes hurt. After I looked at it the downstairs is red. I can see out the little window all I like. In this day when it got dark I eated all my food and some bugs. I hear laughs upstairs. I like to know why there are laughs upstairs for. I tooked the chain from the wall and wrapped it around me. I went up and opened the door. I went in and stood quiet. I walked to the sound and looked through at the people. Mother came out and pushed the door in. it hit me and hurt. I fell back on the smooth floor and my chain made a noise. I cried. She made a noise in her and put her hand over her mouth. Her eyes got big. She looked at me. I heard father call. "What fell?" he called. She said a iron board. Come and help me pick it up she said. He came. He saw me and grew big. The anger came in his eyes. He hit me. Father told me to go back to the cellar. I had to go. The light it hurt some now my eyes. "Oh god," he said "and only eight"

     This day father hit in the chain again before it had light. I have to try to pull it out again. He said I was bad to come upstairs. He said never do it again or he would beat me hard. That hurts. I hurt. I slept the day and rested my head against the cold wall. I thought of upstairs.

     This day I got the chain from the wall. Mother was upstairs. I heard little laughs very high. I looked out the window. I saw all little people like the little mother and little father too. They are pretty. They are like mother and father. One of the little fathers saw me. He pointed at the window. I let go and slid down the wall in the dark. I curled up so they would not see me. I heard their talks by the window and foots running. Upstairs there was a door hitting. I heard the little mother call upstairs. I heard heavy steps. I hurried to my bed place. I hit the chain in the wall and laid down. I heard mother come down. "Have you been at the window?” she said. I heard anger. Stay away from the window. You have pulled out the chain again. She took the stick and hit me with it. I didn't cry. I can't do that. I heard the stick go bounce on the stone floor. She ran upstairs. I slept the day.

     This day it had water again. When mother was upstairs I heard the little mother come slow down the steps. I hided myself in the coal bin for mother would have anger if the little mother saw me. She had a little live thing with her. It walked on arms and had pointy ears. She said things to it. It was alright except the live thing smelled me. It ran up the coal and looked down at me. It jumped on me. I didn't want to hurt it. It bit harder than the rat does. I hurt and the little mother screamed. I grabbed the live thing tight. It made sounds I never heard before. I pushed it all together. It was all lumpy and red on the coal. I hid when mother called. I was afraid of the stick. She left. I creeped over the coal with the thing. I hid it under my pillow and rested on it. I put the chain in the wall again.

     This is another time. Father chained me tight. I hurt because he beat me. This time I hit the stick out of his hands and made noise. He went away and his face was white. He locked the door. I am not so glad. All day it is cold in here. The chain comes slow out of the wall. And I have anger bad with mother and father. I will show them. I will do what I did that once. I will screech and laugh and be loud. I will run on the walls. Last I will hang down by my legs and laugh. Until they are sorry they didn't be nice to me.

     If they try to beat me again I will hurt them.

I will...

BARRIER

Between the plan and the fulfillment lies always the hazard. Heartbeat flutters, knife flashes, horses stumble, cancer grows, more subtle foes invade...

     Then they sit around the fire at the cave mouth and say "what shall we do now that he is no longer here to lead us?" or while the great bell tolls, they gather in the courtyard and say "it should not have happened so. Who will now give us counsel?" or they meet at the street corner and sadly say "why did it have to be this way, there is no other to take his place."

     Through all history it runs the same. "If the young king had not fallen...if the prince had lived...if the general had not so recklessly exposed himself...if the president had not overworked himself..."

     Between the plan and the fulfillment stands always the barrier of a human life.

DISHARMONY

           Some people are incredibly sensitive to sound.  It’s hard to describe how they hear – but they are usually very aware of dissonance, especially and particularly in music.  I’ve seen some literally cringe when someone sings or plays a wrong note.  Disharmony in music grates on them in a way that most other people just don’t get. (A ‘fingernails on a chalkboard’ kind of thing)

So, now that I’ve explained this peculiarity........... Here I am in a new church, with a band and a whole sanctuary full of singers (squawkers, warblers, thunderers, off-beat, out-of-sync, can’t-carry-a-tune, don’t-know-the-words, etc.).......... And now there is a problem.  Try a move to a different area of the sanctuary. Try moving a second time.  Sometimes I’ve even seen them leave during the singing.

But God is so cool!!!  One morning He showed me a picture of each and every singer.  They were in their perfect place, surrounded by voices that were perfectly suited to match and complement and blend with and enhance their own.  Wow, oh wow!!  Every single person fit into this angelic chorus of voices.  Not one was out of tune.  It all fit together so incredibly that I can’t find enough words to describe it.  And God showed me that here on Earth, things are not perfect, and voices are missing, and that is why the chorus doesn’t always sound good to me – because not everyone has “taken their place along the wall”, so-to-speak.  We need to have everyone jointly fitted in.  We need to have the complete choir.

  

Keeping this picture, this concept in mind, you’ll find that you’re not so upset and impatient with that discord you’re hearing. You might even find yourself singing all the more passionately, longing for the time when every voice is surrounded by its perfect complement, mixing in glorious harmonies like nothing else you’ve ever experienced before.

Into Another Place

 When nothing seems to fit

anymore.

When nothing seems to make much sense

either.

When you are constantly feeling

out of place.

And your surrounding seem unfamiliar

though you’ve been there before

many times.

When friends and family seem not to be

family and friends.

When things just don’t feel

right anymore

inside or out.

Maybe it’s God

leading you in His own way

into another place.

Loss of One Half

Loss of One Half

Loss can be the hardest thing to deal with at times, but it is also a teacher that’s one of the most difficult to ignore. Grief can destroy you or it might give focus that you’ve never known before. You can decide that a relationship was all for nothing if it ended with a death, leaving you alone in the world.

Or you can realize that every moment of it had more meaning than you dared to recognize at the time, maybe there was so much meaning that it scared you, so you just lived , just took for granted the love and laughter of each day, and didn’t allow yourself to consider the “sacredness” of it. But when it’s over and you’re alone, you begin to see, to remember that it wasn’t just dinner and a movie together, not just watching sunsets or sunrises together, not just cleaning up together, or worrying about this bill or that bill. It was all of it, the good with the bad; it was the “why” of life, every single event, and precious moment of it.

The answer to this mystery of existence always seems to come down to the love that you have shared, not always perfect, sometimes it might be quite imperfect. But then loss can wake you up to the deeper beauty of it, the depth of the shared love, to the sanctity of it, you might find that you  can’t get off your knees for a long time. You’re driven to your knees not by the weight of the loss but by the intense gratitude for what went before the loss.

The ache is there and it will always be there to some degree, but one day, maybe not in the near future, but definitely sometime in the future, the emptiness will be gone. To nurture the emptiness, to take solace in this emptiness, to feed it, is to disrespect the gift of the life just lived and all that came with it.

Travellers

     Red sand crunched beneath his boots as he limped away from the wreck. In the distance a red-yellow glow filtered skyward from the earth settlement he had seen from the air and it was toward that he headed. Perhaps he would find shelter there, he didn't fool himself though, and rooms would be very hard to come by. According to the few radio reports that had been received on earth, mars was the rat race supreme. People came to mars faster than shelters could be erected. They came in jet controlled sardine cans, packed tight, they came in private spacers and some even made it in small statocruisers converted by various methods into something not quite fit for space travel.

     But most would have made the trip in wooden crates holding their breath all the way if it could be arranged. Even sleeping on frigid Martian sand was said to be better than sleeping on a warmer but somewhat insecure earth. At least on mars you had a chance of being alive in the morning.

     He had walked for almost an hour when the hotel came into sight. It was small and cheap looking. It squatted at the edge of the settlement, and it's plastic exterior was discolored and crumbling. The traveler stepped through the door into the neon lighted lobby.

     Red sand had drifted into the lobby, but the night clerk took no notice. He was looking at nothing, absentmindedly clenching and unclenching a fist as though holding and releasing something.

     The traveler stopped brushing the dust from his clothing and stared at the clerk. After waiting a while he cleared his throat and said quietly

     "I’d like to have a room".

The night clerk started and looked up, "what?"

     "A room?"

     "Oh, yeah, sure" the clerk straightened up and wiped bloodshot eyes with a sleeve, automatically shoving the register forward.

     "Plenty of room" he said tiredly "room for everybody"

The traveler took the pen and scratched his name in the register, "odd." he mused "I heard that all the immigrants trying to get off earth have filled all the hotels and the prices had gone through the roof.

The clerk’s eyes went wide, "I know. Believe me I know. I did it myself, jack up the prices, up till a couple of days ago." his voice turned bitter "then I did it once too often."

     The traveler looked at the red eyes and decided that the man had either been crying or had lost a lot of sleep, maybe both.

     "What happened?" his curiosity aroused.

     "Once in a lifetime it happens" the clerk went on almost as though to himself "once in two thousand years, and more.... And I had to turn them away because they didn't enough money! Because I want to get a few lousy bucks extra for the rooms! Now I’ve got plenty of rooms. Everyone else is in the next town. They’d all be here if I hadn't turned away those two, I could have been famous" his voice rose "famous!"

     The traveler raised his eyebrows. "Sure you could" he said unbelievingly, "you could have been famous."

     "If only I’d known," the night clerk moaned. "If only I’d thought." desperate fingers took the travelers arm "but how was I supposed to know that something like that was going to happen again? I’m no psychic! A guy goes along trying to save a couple of bucks here and there for his family, is that wrong? What else can I do? We been here ten years on this planet, and it's still no place for a family, not with a couple of kids. You got to scrape to get along.

     "It’s not easy" the traveler agreed "but it's a lot healthier than being on earth these days."

     "Yeah" the clerk breathed "but then this happens. If only I’d known...the opportunity! I’d be rich! Famous! I’d be great, have kings in the hotel!"

     "What are you babbling about?"

     The night clerk said, "a man and his wife came to the hotel a couple of days ago. Young but not to young, mature like. And nice looking. They wanted a room. They weren't too well off, probably took most of their money to get here from earth."

     "And you turned them away?"

     "Well how was I to know?" he defensively shot back "lots of women have babies and a guy can't afford to be chicken hearted. Not on mars, I’ve got a wife and a couple of kids to support myself. Sure I had a room. A couple of them. But there's always people who can pay a lot more for them than this guy could."

     "Go on."

     "I told him that there weren't any rooms. '"We’ve searched everywhere"' he told me, and he thanked me anyway. Then he turned and put his arm around his wife and they left. I felt sorry for them. Honest, I did. I wanted to yell out and say "sure I’ve got a room" but I didn't. I wish now that I had, but I didn't because they'd have known that I was lying before. So---" his voice held an infinite regret "so I let them go.

     Distaste showed on the traveler’s face. Even on mars! Even after seeing what a mess greed had caused back on earth.

     "All right, all right" the clerk almost shouted, seeing the others expression. "Don’t rub it in. sure I did wrong. I know that now. It was right in my fingers and I let it slip through. So I’m a fool. But how could I know? How could I know, even remotely?

     "Did they find a room?"

The clerk shook his head. "The baby was born in a barn."

     "A barn!"

     "That’s a laugh isn't it. Born in a barn full of stinking Martian animals because I turned the man away." he laughed sourly "opportunity right in my hands and I let it go."

     The traveler was puzzled. "But..."

     "Go into the next town," the clerk said nodding in the direction of the earth settlement "see for yourself. This was getting to be a filthy rotten place, just like earth. And then this happens. Things are happening down there too, now. Strange things wonderful things, I suppose, I don't really know, I’m all mixed up. When I think of the chance I had..."

     The traveler started to ask some of the questions forming in his mind, but the night clerk was vacantly staring at nothing and muttering to himself.

     The traveler shrugged and went out into the cool Martian night. Stars were out, the twin moons were high and someplace out there was poor troubled earth, far far away. At the horizon a great golden star shone brightly.

     The traveler started suddenly. That was no star, it was earth. She was bursting at the seams, flaming with sudden final brilliance.

     The traveler felt a deep sick sensation crawling within him. And then he thought of what the night clerk had said.

     It was strange.

     Earth exploding, a brilliant star in the sky. An infant born in a barn. Strange and wonderful things happening to people that needed them. Coincidence of course. Pure coincidence

     And yet...........

     Then the traveler started to walk across the Martian soil toward the earth settlement in the distance.

JESUS I LOVE YOU

I wish you could hear you the way that I do when you sing this. I wasn’t just listening to the voices of the people in this room at this time. I was hearing the voices of every person that has ever expressed their belief and the love of/for Jesus Christ or God. Every single person, living or dead. You have no idea how a sound such as this can fill you up, right into the depths of your very soul. Life and death reverberates with this love and nothing nowhere, no how, can or will be able to defeat or change this love. It’s not just the love of the people for God; it’s the love of everything, everywhere (the whole universe) from all time that comes out in this. It’s so overpowering those mere words that might come out of our mouths pale to insignificance in the expression of the whole concept. We are dealing with Holy Love, no other.

          I can still hear the song and the voices going on quietly in the background of my life. What about yours?