Author: James Browning

Life: One, Two, Three, Four

/ James Browning

puzzled dollarOne for the money:

Making money isn’t hard in itself… What’s hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one’s life to. Carlos Ruiz Zafon

 ~2 Sad-MasksTwo for the show:

Please do not break your heart over the withering of a dream you once held, that never became yours! After all, the shattered dream could have very well been a nightmare and not a dream at all, you wouldn’t really know because you didn’t have it yet! Let the sparks fade, let the flame dim and die, you’ll never know it wasn’t poison. C. Joybell C.

~3 artworks-000010979347-wx4usy-originalThree to make ready:

I eventually came to understand that in harboring the anger, the bitterness and resentment towards those that had hurt me, I was giving the reins of control over to them. Forgiving was not about accepting their words and deeds. Forgiving was about letting go and moving on with my life. In doing so, I had finally set myself free. Isabel Lopez

~4 Join+Lets+go EDITAnd four to go:

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could. Louise Erdrich

Accumulated wisdom is plentiful and easy to find. I am grateful for the reminder to not assume I know how to use it from simply reading the words. Only when I take the time to soak up what is said can wisdom offered by others become a help to me. Thank you to all who are and have come before who share their thoughts which help me live better each day. I am grateful for your gifts.

A State of Beingness

/ James Browning

infinity-signAcceptance of how much influence I actually have over the quality of my life is frightening. Grasping that I, more than any other factor, am what shapes the quality of my existence takes a bit of courage. When I used to blame and point fingers at people and circumstances for my lack of contentment and happiness, I felt confidently miserable. There is no courageousness in that, nor anything else that lends itself toward a good life.

That’s the thing about unhappiness. I realize in my past feeling certain why I was unhappy became the little island in the big scary ocean I hung on to. I felt dejected, but certain of why and that was my answer for things. Life sucked because it sucked. That’s pretty silly when I actually type the words.

Time and effort brought the lesson that in total, I usually cannot put a finger on exactly why I am feeling good; why happiness has invaded the space gloom used to occupy. Of course I can identify some of the causes, but far from all of it. What matters is that I live fully in my contented times and not try to mentally research the source. I need to “just be” as the phrase goes.

The same is true of my down times. Trying to sort out all the reasons “why” is impossible and makes the murkiness last longer. It is far better to simply bear well the gloomy moments and let them pass. Analyzing such times ALWAYS makes them last longer.

Do not waste the precious moments of this, your present reality, seeking to unveil all of life’s secrets. Those secrets are a secret for a reason. Use your NOW moment for the Highest Purpose- the creation and the expression of WHO YOU REALLY ARE. Decide who you are- who you want to be-and then do everything in your power to be that.

It is not nearly so important how well a message is received as how well it is sent. You cannot take responsibility for how well another accepts your truth; you can only ensure how well it is communicated. And by how well, I don’t mean merely how clearly; I mean how lovingly, how compassionately, how sensitively, how courageously, and how completely.

If you think your life is about DOINGNESS, you do not understand what you are about. Your soul doesn’t care what you do for a living-and when your life is over, neither will you. Your soul cares only about what you’re BEING while you’re doing whatever you’re doing.  Neal Donald Walsh

And so I enter into my day, self-reminded of how I to use well the gift of the next fourteen hours or so of consciousness. I will do my best to not waste too much applying logic and analysis to life. Instead, with gratefulness I will endeavor to embrace the time being as truly “myself” as I possibly can.

The reason people find it so hard to be happy
is that they always see the past better than it was,
the present worse than it is,
and the future less resolved than it will be.
Marcel Pagnol

The Bad Seems So Much Smaller Now

/ James Browning

poverty-is-1 filteredWhile the resolution of the image above is weak, the message it carries is strong. Many children not having enough to eat is a common reality. And it’s not only in some foreign country. Statistics say around 1 in 5 kids in the United States don’t get enough to eat each day. I hate to see adults suffer, but little children doing without food tears at all my emotions from sadness to anger. Have we accepted children going hungry as a fact of life? I can’t and I won’t!

Every day, children in every county in the United States wake up hungry. They go to school hungry. They turn out the lights at night hungry. In high school, Katherine Foronda trained herself not to feel hungry until after the school day had ended. She wasn’t watching her weight or worrying about boys seeing her eat. She just didn’t have any food to eat or any money to buy it. “I thought, if I wasn’t hungry during class I’d be able to actually focus on what we were learning,” said Foronda, now 19.

Early on in high school, with her hunger distracting her from her studies, she failed an English class. Rather than repeating the class, she was given the option of taking an afterschool life skills course, which offered meals to attendees each day and sent them home with food supplies each weekend. She also gained new insight into the possibilities for her own future, learning from a mentor that college was within her reach, despite her family’s economic circumstances.

With food to eat and not just a little bit of hope, she started performing better in classes, and founded a program that offered food support to the student body in her high school. She won a scholarship to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she is now a sophomore. http://abcnews.go.com/US/hunger_at_home/hunger-home-american-children-malnourished/story?id=14367230

That’s one of the unfortunate beginnings that now appears to be headed toward a good life story. For many that is not the tale their life will write.

Growing up was not an easy time for my brother and me. Yet comparing our experience to what some go through, we were lucky. The poverty and mental, physical and emotional abuse we grew up in left its scars on us. However, we never lacked for clean clothes to wear, even if unfashionable and ill-fitting; a dry and safe place to sleep, no matter how humble it was; and enough food to eat, even if just basic and cheap sustenance. We were encouraged, even threatened sometimes, to do well in school. All in all the childhood my brother and I experienced made us far ‘richer’ than what many children are going through today.

This will sound a little strange to some, but I am grateful for my childhood. I am mature enough now to see the negative parts and not let them over-shadow the benefits I had. My start may have been rough by some standards, but the essentials for life were there that enabled me to grow into a functional adult who contributes positively to society. The bad seems so much smaller now and the good so much larger.

Hunger of choice is a painful luxury;
hunger of necessity is terrifying torture.
Mike Mullin

Modesty In Spirit

/ James Browning

RITZ 32772e4e0d0e13d02ac85fca964d0864Plain and simple, I admire humility. A little thing that happened years ago while checking into a hotel jumps to mind. The lodging was one of those five-star types (Ritz Carlton) where my company meeting was being held and not the type I’d personally pay the price for. Being second in line I was just behind a couple in their late 70s or early 80s. Both were dressed nicely: her with well done hair wearing a simple, but lovely, well fitted dress; him in khaki pants, golf shirt and a navy blue blazer. Their luggage looked well used and was a common brand like American Tourister on Samsonite; not pricey designer bags.

As the old couple checked in I admired how sweet and kind they were to each other. Eye contact seemed to result each time into smiles. They were cordial to the counter staff and understanding when told their accommodations were not ready. They said they’d have drinks in the bar while they waited and asked if someone could let them know when their room was ready.

Two things added up in a flash: it was seeing the man reach to sign with his left hand revealing a watch I know cost tens of thousands soon after the desk clerk had said it was the “Presidential Suite” that was not ready. Then noticing the diamonds around the lady’s neck I easily concluded these were wealthy people, but not just any sort of the very well off. They were the rare “humble and happy” kind of rich folks who still loved life and most everyone in it.

It was the humbleness of the couple I admired then and still do today. When their ‘suite’ was not ready I didn’t hear “do you know who I am?” or “let me see the manager” or something of the sort. I am certain they could have “thrown their weight” and gotten plenty of attention had they desired to. Instead the older man and woman were understanding and like “nice normal folks” might be.

Humility has nothing to do with depreciating ourselves and our gifts in ways we know to be untrue. Even “humble” attitudes can be masks of pride. Humility is that freedom from our self which enables us to be in positions in which we have neither recognition nor importance, neither power nor visibility, and even experience deprivation, and yet have joy and delight. It is the freedom of knowing that we are not in the center of the universe, not even in the center of our own private universe. David F. Wells

The couple I encountered at the hotel check-in desk long ago defined the word “humble” just as I found its meaning in the dictionary: modesty in spirit, behavior and attitude; not arrogant or prideful; unpretentious. To me humility is one of the most endearing qualities a person can have. I am grateful for the example of the “humble rich couple” that today still lives vividly in my memory.

A great man is always willing to be little.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

What I Think, I Become

/ James Browning

Sun_after_rain_by_Ritsuka_kawaiMy life is living proof that changing the focus of thoughts can change a life. Worry and compulsion used to be stirred into my thinking most of the time which kept me constantly dealing with a brooding outlook on life. While not immune to feeling such things today, my ‘habit’, even addiction if you will, to negative thinking is no longer.

Buddha said it succinctly, “The mind is everything. What you think you become”.

For me it is all about what I pay attention to. If I keep “pulling the scabs” off the past, wounds never heal. If I spend too much time lamenting about how the future will turn out, what I hope for never arrives because my thinking crowds out its possibility.

Controlling my thoughts fully is impossible. Certainly I slip into old ways of thinking regularly, but usually catch myself before being there for long. At first, breaking my habit/addiction to negative thinking was damned hard; I was hooked on feeling bad. Success at reflecting away some of my thoughts would come for only a short while before slipping back into thoughts of fear, doom and gloom. I kept trying and slowly my success grew at not getting stuck.

If we tune-in on thoughts of failure, illness, discouragement, despair and hate, the charts of our lives will take a sharp downward course.

If we tune-in on thoughts of victory, love, hope and faith, our lives will become larger, finer, more worth while.

If we tune-in on the surface things that break like bubbles and leave us nothing, our lives will be shallow and empty.

If we tune-in on the deeper things, eternal principles of plain living and high thinking, the riches which men have put into immortal literature, art and music, then entire personalities will grow and expand.

If we permit ourselves to become selfish and cold toward others, the springs of love and sentiment will dry up leaving us but the husks of life.

If, on the other hand, we are kind and thoughtful and considerate of others; if we strive always to pluck a thorn and plant a flower wherever we think a flower will grow, riches more valuable than much fine gold will enter our lives.

Saint and sinner, prince and pauper, the things men tune-in on become a part of them and make them what they are. By Lilly Ames-Light

Ups and downs are just as much a part of my life as for anyone else, but my mood swings don’t tear me down anymore. Just like rain only lasts for a time, dark days and dark thoughts pass away as well. When comparing life to 15 years ago, I have friends who refer to me as the “old one” and the “new one”. My evolution has been that pronounced. I am grateful!

Rules for Self Discovery:
1. What we want most;
2. What we think about most;
3. How we use our money;
4. What we do with our leisure time;
5. The company we enjoy;
6. Who and what we admire;
7. What we laugh at.
A.W. Tozer

This Is All There Is

/ James Browning

P1090385 copyEach person is unique; a completely original work crafted by intention, deeds, heredity, family, choices, fate and forces beyond understanding. And the path we each choose is one of a kind. There are commonalities, but no exact matches. That is as life as always been.

Another’s way of being is perceived through the unique filters my emotional, physical and spiritual experience has given me. While I may assume my perception of someone else is correct, in actuality my views are simply “my vantage point”. No one else seeing another will assess them exactly as I will.

The issue is compounded with the realization no one will ever accurately see me as I inwardly believe myself to be. Without meaning to my actions are seen as a combination of reality and fabrication; truth and untruth; as I am and as I am not.

I may forget an important date, but not its importance.
I may be with one person, wishing I was with another.
I may be one place, wishing I was somewhere else.
I may tell the truth when another is not ready for it.
I may say I don’t care about what matters greatly.
I may let go when all I want to do is hold on tight.
I may tell you one thing while meaning otherwise.
I may do wrong things with the best of intentions.
I may do something when I did not want to do it.
I may go one way yet wish I was going another.
I may see things incorrectly but still see them.
I may be proud of another but unable to say it.
I may say I don’t care, when it matters to me.
I may hurt another although it hurts me more.
I may speak angrily and not be angry at you.
I may not tell you I love you, yet always will.
I may tell a lie to keep from hurting another.
I may hear incorrectly without being wrong.
I may be afraid and not admit it to anyone.
I may do stupid things and not be stupid.
I may wonder and yet have little doubt.
I may act happy when I am really sad.
I may lose my way and not be lost…
Day appearing like night;
Black looking white,
Up appearing down,
“Yes” appearing “No”…
Such are the conflicting opposites of the human experience.
James Browning

I will not meddle when I ask a person “how are you” and they respond “fine” even though I know they are far from being okay. Instead I will cast a one or two sentence silent prayer of hope that spiritual and emotion symmetry comes to that person. No matter how rude, unkind, angry, annoyed, bad-mannered, mad, irate, offensive or vulgar I will do my best to send sincere wishes the offender finds peace and understanding.

I am far from virtuous enough to always send good wishes to a person provoking me based purely on the benefit to another. When I can see no other way I cast my positive thoughts for someone for selfish reasons knowing that whatever I put into the world comes back to me multiplied. If I am understanding, I will be understood. If I am compassionate, others will be for me and so on. I am grateful for my thoughts this morning that will, at least for a time, make my deeds a little closer match for my intentions.

Live with intention. Walk to the edge.
Listen Hard. Practice wellness.
Play with abandon. Laugh.
Choose with no regret.
Appreciate your friends.
Continue to learn.
Do what you love.
Live as if this is all there is.
Mary Anne Radmacher

Because I Will Make It So

/ James Browning

488273_471885792884874_632342651_nThere is a vitality,
a life force,
a quickening
that is translated through you into action,
and there is only one of you in all time,
this expression is unique,
and if you block it,
it will never exist through any other medium;
and be lost. The world will not have it.
It is not your business to determine how good it is,
not how it compares with other expression.
is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly,
to keep the channel open.
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.
You have to keep open and aware directly
to the urges that motivate you.
Keep the channel open.
No artist is pleased.
There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.
There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction,
a blessed unrest that keeps us marching
and makes us more alive than the others.
Martha Graham

Another new day; another gift I will not take for granted. Whatever there is for me to paint and sculpt out of this little piece of the hard rock of life, I will be grateful for it all. Every breath will have a silver lining of joy. Why? Because I will make it so.

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger,
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.
C.S. Lewis

Snips and Snails and Puppy-Dog Tails

/ James Browning

77f3My boyhood memories that are predominately good are those from before the age of seven. Then life was filled with awe, joy and wonder. The painful realities from the adult world had not touched my little brother and me yet.

Clearly I recall a yellowed newspaper clipping my Mother kept with other keepsakes in a little cedar box up high on her chest-of-drawers. Enough times to imprint it on my brain she got it out and read it when I was little (more than once due to my insistence). I mentally filed the memory away titled “What are little boys made of…” although poem talked about girls and others.

In years since, frequently I am come across bits and pieces of the poem and searched without luck for a full version. Purely by chance this morning I stumbled across what appears to be the poem in complete form. I became so happy and excited, I just had to share it here.

What are little babies made of, made of?
What are little babies made of?
Diapers and crumbs and sucking their thumbs;
That’s what little babies are made of?

What are little boys made of, made of?
What are little boys made of?
Snips and snails and puppy-dog tails;
That’s what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of, made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and everything nice;
That’s what little girls are made of.

What are young men made of, made of?
What are young men made of?
Sighs and leers and crocodile tears;
That’s what young men are made of.

What are young women made of, made of?
What are young women made of?
Rings and jings and other fine things;
That’s what young women are made of.

What are our sailors made of, made of?
What are our sailors made of?
Pitch and tar, pig-tail and scar;
That’s what our sailors are made of.

What are our soldiers made of, made of?
What are our soldiers made of?
Pipe clay and drill, the foeman to kill;
That’s what our soldiers are made of.

What are our nurses made of, made of?
What are our nurses made of?
Bushes and thorns and old cow’s horns;
That’s what our nurses are made of.

What are our fathers made of, made of?
What are our fathers made of?
Pipes and smoke and collars choke;
That’s what our fathers are made of.

What are our mothers made of, made of?
What are our mothers made of?
Ribbons and laces and sweet pretty faces;
That’s what our mothers are made of.

What are old men made of, made of?
What are old men made of?
Slippers that flop and a bald-headed top;
That’s what old men are made of.

What are old women made of, made of?
What are old women made of?
Reels, and jeels, and old spinning wheels;
That’s what old women are made of.

What are all folks made of, made of?
What are all folks made of?
Fighting a spot and loving a lot,
That’s what all folks are made of.

Attributed to Robert Southey (1774-1843): Southey, English poet and historian.
In familiar folk tradition, the popular ditty inevitably acquired additional verses,
written by authors unknown, until it became a ballad of some length.
Composited by Gloria T. Delamar in “Mother Goose: From Nursery to Literature”

I am beaming with gratitude this morning for a “golden oldie” memory from my childhood freshly awakened.

Memories of childhood
were the dreams that stayed
with you after you woke.
Julian Barnes

My Imperfect Seeking

/ James Browning

shellResponse to the post here yesterday, “Stuck In the Labyrinth“, was much stronger than usual. Thank you for reading and for your re-posts! I suppose it is a commonality we all have: too much time spent thinking about the past and future when being well footed in the present would be a far better use of our energy. Just about all of us know that, but at least for me, practicing it is, at best, a highly inconsistent endeavor.  But earnest trying improves my life experience a lot.

Mostly as a reminder to myself to keep the “now” in as clear of a focus as I can, below are some leftovers from yesterday’s research.

We are living in a culture
entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time,
in which the so-called present moment
is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline
between an all-powerfully causative past
and an absorbingly important future.
We have no present.
Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied
with memory and expectation.
We do not realize that there never was,
is, nor will be any other experience than present experience.
We are therefore out of touch with reality.
We confuse the world as talked about,
described, and measured
with the world which actually is.
We are sick with a fascination
for the useful tools of names and numbers,
of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.
Alan Watts

When you understand… that what you’re telling is just a story… It isn’t happening anymore. When you realize the story you’re telling is just words, when you can just crumble up and throw your past in the trashcan… then we’ll figure out who you’re going to be. From “Invisible Monsters” Chuck Palahniuk

And, so I go into my day reminded again of the important of being firmly rooted in the “now”. To a level of 100% that is an impossible aspiration, yet it is my imperfect seeking that gives me more and more of the present to live in and be grateful for.

Gratitude looks to the Past
and love to the Present;
fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.
C.S. Lewis

 

Stuck In the Labyrinth

/ James Browning

pfYou realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past…
From “Survivor” by Chuck Palahniuk

Who am I now?

Who have I been?

Who will I become?

Those “who” questions rattle around my psyche on a regular basis although life experience has taught me it is the first one that matters most. “Who I have been” is a far distant second and the future (“Who will I become?”) is way, way, way back in third place. If I do the “now” part well the past relatively quickly begins to be something I am mostly satisfied with and my future unfolds primarily in a manner I can be content with. While who I am “now” rests on a foundation of my past, the present is all I have any control over.

Life has a way of going in circles. Ideally, it would be a straight path forward––we’d always know where we were going, we’d always be able to move on and leave everything else behind. There would be nothing but the present and the future. Instead, we always find ourselves where we started. When we try to move ahead, we end up taking a step back. We carry everything with us, the weight exhausting us until we want to collapse and give up.

We forget things we try to remember. We remember things we’d rather forget. The most frightening thing about memory is that it leaves no choice. It has mastered an incomprehensible art of forgetting. It erases, it smudges, it fills in blank spaces with details that don’t exist.

But however we remember it––or choose to remember it––the past is the foundation that holds our lives in place. Without its support, we’d have nothing for guidance. We spend so much time focused on what lies ahead, when what has fallen behind is just as important. What defines us isn’t where we’re going, but where we’ve been. Although there are places and people we will never see again, and although we move on and let them go, they remain a part of who we are.

There are things that will never change, things we will carry along with us always. But as we venture into the murky future, we must find our strength by learning to leave things behind. Brigid Gorry-Hines

Being in the “now” is a process of on-going wrestling I have to still do mentally; always will. However, the more I work at it the more successful I become at winning each bout. That sure beats how I once spent most of my life as John Green described it in “Looking For Alaska”; You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking how you’ll escape one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.

Most of the time I like living in the present and have been amazed how much better the future turns out when I do. I am grateful to understand my life tomorrow is being built by what I think and do today!

The past is a ghost,
the future a dream
and all we ever have is now.
Bill Cosby