Author: James Browning

Words of the Unknown Many

/ James Browning

I have feelings.
I overreact.
I underestimate.
I overestimate.
I overthink everything.
I look too deeply into everything’s meaning.
I dream big.
My expectations are high.
So I’m going out there.
And I’m going to do the best I can.
People are going to get in my way.
Things are going to bring me down.
But I’m going to keep going.
I’m going to reach as far as I can,
for everything I’ve ever wanted.
And I’m not giving up.
Because that’s what you do
when your dreams are more important than your fears.
You go out there and ignore the odds.
You focus on one thing:
that your dreams come true.

Today my gratitude is for the words of others. The two anonymous pieces above I selected bits of and knitted together are the words my soul is speaking to me today, but I did not write them. They were written by kindred spirits unknown to me.

I am never completely alone. There are thousands of well-intended souls who, like me, earnestly search for wisdom and work to improve them self. On days when my words do not come or take form as I wish they would, there is inspiration in knowing others walk a similar path. I am grateful for the words of the unknown many that have been cast into the world for me to discover.

The first step towards getting somewhere
is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.
Anonymous

Gratitude is Its Own Reward

/ James Browning

When things get me down or my forward energy runs low, I go for a “gratitude check”. Simply I look around and think “what do I have to be grateful for?” An answer always comes.

Sometimes it is what I see in front of me: the sky, flowers, my hands or a little child. Sometimes it is what I hear: the birds, others talking, or crickets at sundown. Sometimes it is what I feel: the joy beyond the pain, the breeze flowing past or the dirt beneath my feet. Sometimes it is what I smell: fresh popcorn, an apple or the trace of perfume from a woman who passed through the same space a short while before.  When I can get my mind still for just a little bit, and look inwardly, gratitude always rolls down on me.

Life is a gift we’re given each and every day.
Dream about tomorrow, but live for today.
To live a little, you’ve got to love a whole lot.
Love turns the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Life’s a journey always worth taking.
Take time to smell the roses… and tulips…
and daffodils… and lilacs… and sunflowers…
Count blessings like children count stars.
The secret of a happy life isn’t buried in a
treasure chest… it lies within your heart.
It’s the little moments that make life big
Don’t wait. Make memories today.
Celebrate your life!
Unknown

A “gratitude check” is a remedy for what brings me down. When I bring gratitude to the surface, it centers me and brings be back to “now”: this present moment. It is here I find the only time and place I can experience actual happiness:  “NOW”. Problems seem a little smaller and trouble feels more temporary. Gratitude is its own reward!

There is no greater difference between men than between grateful and ungrateful people.
R.H. Blyth

Through It All

/ James Browning

Friends: they come and go.

If you’re lucky, you find a best friend and it works out perfectly, they’re always there for you and your relationship is always smooth.

But most people aren’t that lucky.

You find a best friend and it works out perfectly; for a little while.

And then problems arise, and friendships fall apart.

Sometimes an “I’m sorry” will fix things, but other times, it’s not that easy.

People aren’t perfect, they will get on your nerves, they will break your heart, and they won’t always meet your expectations.

You’ll learn who your true friends are when you’re making a wrong decision, and they don’t yell at you for it; they don’t try to force you to do something different.

They stick by you.

Posted today with abundant gratitude
for my dear friend Mel
and the comradeship we share.

When we first talked to each other
I knew we would always be friends.
Our friendship has kept on growing
And I’ll be here for you to the end.

You listen when I have a problem
And help dry the tears from my face.
You take away my sorrow
And put happiness in its place.

We can’t forget the fun we’ve had
Laughing ’til our faces turn blue.
Talking of things only we find funny
People think we’re insane-If they only knew!

I guess this is my way of saying thanks
For catching me when I fall.
Thanks once again for being such a good friend
And being here with me through it all.
Rachel Ellis

Mirror of the Soul

/ James Browning

I hear everything I think or say. Complete truth or fabrication I absorb every word. That’s why I have to be a little careful about what I say and think. My mind is always listening and always believes me. Like a child, my subconscious gets the literal meaning of it all and more often than not, tries to turn those words into reality.

All my inner dialogue is a stream of affirmations, whether positive or negative. That’s why positive reinforcement of myself works. I used to smirk at the suggestion saying affirmations consistently would, over time, positively affect my life. For some reason there was certainty in me that affirmations would not work. In spite of my disbelief, there was a point I was willing to try anything to get myself out of my deep, dark hole of self loathing. So most days I began reading affirmations softly off a printed page while intermittently watching the sun rise. It took a week or so, but I was shocked when they began to make a difference in my inner thinking.  You can’t imagine how dumbfounded I was to find something I scoffed at really worked. Affirmations are still part of my everyday life today and help me shape myself more positively than I would be without them.

I have pages of affirmation, but often go on-line and search for new ones. Here are a few I came across today and chose to begin my day with:

– Good Morning Life! I am so grateful to be alive today.
– The sun is shining through my window and through my heart.
– Today my world is changing for the better.
– I enter today with an open mind and a calm presence.
– I am okay. I am breathing. I am alive. I am experiencing this moment.
– I release all worry, all thoughts of past and future. I am here, now.
– I am proud of myself.
– I radiate love and joy to all I meet.
– I am whole, complete and perfect just as I am, right where I am at.
– I am more than capable of bringing my dreams to life.
– I love me.
– I choose to be on my side. All of my thoughts are pointed toward positive intentions.
– Today is filled with opportunities. I trust my intuition to follow where the lead.
– I am grateful for today.
– I release all negativity that is blocking the truth of who I am.

Go ahead and make fun of affirmations. Disbelieve as I once did. See affirmations as some kind of new age mumbo jumbo. Miss out on the good they can do. Why shouldn’t you do like I once did? Why shouldn’t you do everything you can to keep your life just as difficult as it is? Why shouldn’t you keep on putting yourself down and not believing in the wonder that is you? You have every right to make your life just as miserable as you want.

My truest wish for you is that there comes a point where you get so sick of the way things are, you’ll decide to try healthy ways to make life better. That’s exactly how I found the power of affirmations and every day of my life I am grateful for that discovery.

Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so he is.
Publilius Syrus

More Imperfect Over Time

/ James Browning

We are all imperfect to begin with at birth and made more so by life.  Each blemish, defect or fault adds to our uniqueness. There is a Japanese tradition called “Wabi-sabi” which is the art of finding beauty in imperfection. The words together are about a way of seeing that deals with three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.

“Wabi-sabi” is typified by a Japanese tea ceremony where the pottery used is intentionally rustic and simple-looking with somewhat irregular shapes, colors and textures. The belief is it is up to the person using the items to discern the hidden signs of a truly excellent design, shape, glaze, etc. The diamond in the rough if you will. Sometimes tea bowls are even deliberately chipped or nicked to keep them from being too “perfect”.

As the Japanese tea pottery is, so am I and so are you. We were created imperfect to become more imperfect over time, so eventually we are perfectly and completely our unique self.

It is in our flaws that the most pronounced beauty of our originality can be found. I am glad to be uniquely original and am grateful to be just the way I am.

Congratulations! You’re not perfect! It’s ridiculous to want to be perfect anyway. But then, everybody’s ridiculous sometimes, except perfect people. You know what perfect is? Perfect is not eating or drinking or talking or moving a muscle or making even the teensiest mistake. Perfect is never doing anything wrong – which means never doing anything at all.
Perfect is boring!
So you’re not perfect!
Wonderful!
Have fun!
Eat things that give you bad breath!
Trip over your own shoelaces!
Laugh!
Let somebody else laugh at you!
Perfect people never do any of those things.
All they do is sit around and sip weak tea and think about how perfect they are. But they’re really not one-hundred-percent perfect anyway. You should see them when they get the hiccups! Phooey! Who needs ’em?
You can drink pickle juice
and imitate gorillas
and do silly dances
and sing stupid songs
and wear funny hats
and be as imperfect as you please
and still be a good person.
Good people are hard to find nowadays.
And they’re a lot more fun than perfect people any day of the week. 
Stephen Manes

The World At My Fingertips

/ James Browning

One third of the year 2012 is already over! Today is May 1st or the 122nd day of the year. There are 244 days remaining until the year is over.

Flowers are blooming, gardens are underway while the trees and grass have adopted their summer green.  Birds have built their nests and mother birds are sitting on the eggs.  Some have already hatched and others will soon. 

It’s a work day in the United States, but for the majority of the world, today is a holiday.  In many countries today is “May Day”, one of the most observed national holidays on the planet. 

Many believe the month of May was named after Maia, who was both a Greek and  Roman goddess.  Her name related to a Latin word that means increase or growth and in both cultures Maia was considered a nurturer of life.

There an old English superstition that calls  for young girls to rush out into the garden first thing in the morning on May 1st.  In an old tale first day in May dew has magic properties and anyone who washed their face with it would have a clear complexion all year. 

What’s above illustrates how in just a few minutes one can peruse the Internet for an almost endless collection of facts on any subject.  The ‘Net” has been a game changer in my everyday life.  I am grateful for this world at the beck and call of my fingertips.  

A little seed, for me to sow…
A little earth to make it grow…
A little hole, a little pat,
A little wish, and that is that.
A little sun, a little shower…
A little while, and then a flower!
“A Little Seed” nursery rhyme by Mabel Watts

Change or Stay the Same

/ James Browning

It’s Monday: the beginning of a new week and the threshold of a new month that begins tomorrow. It’s never too late to start the life you’ve always dreamed of (written as a reminder to myself to settle for no less than living the life I need).

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or
too early to be whoever you want to be.

There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want.

You can change or stay the same,
there are no rules to this thing.

We can make the best or the worst of it.

I hope you make the best of it.

And I hope you see things that startle you.

I hope you feel things you never felt before.

I hope you meet people with a different point of view.

I hope you live a life you’re proud of.

If you find that you’re not,
I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

I am grateful to have stumbled across the F. Scott Fitzgerald quote above years ago and today to find the clipping I saved of it tucked away in a book right where I thought it was. With some regularity it has been revisited when the need was upon me. His words have been be strikingly inspirational to spur me on when I needed a push and pointedly factual when the sharp truth was all that could point me in the right direction.

I wanted to change the world.
But I have found that the only thing
one can be sure of changing is oneself.
Aldous Huxley

Crazy Ones, Misfits, Rebels and Troublemakers

/ James Browning

Whenever I feel like an outcast or my uniqueness is a vulnerability I go read what Steve Jobs said in a PBS interview in 1994. What sometimes feels like a curse of too much individuality feels like a blessing in the context he expressed.

When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is – everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.

I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

Whether Steve Jobs or my neighbor next door, no one is more than I am. Nor is anyone any less.  It has taken decades of living to begin to accept myself as the human being I am. This complete package that is “me” is filled with a way of being that has not been before and will not come again. 

Asset and weakness;
Strength and flaw;
Talent and fault;
Belief and doubt;
Honor and disgrace;
In all ways
I am uniquely myself

Here in my 58th year I am grateful to no longer wish to otherwise than the way I am. Finding a healthy level of self acceptance is one of the most comforting and amazing discoveries of my life.  Vive la différence!

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent.
They imagine.
They heal.
They explore.
They create.
They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
While some see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough
to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
Taken from an Apple, Inc 1997 television commercial

A Rainbow’s End

/ James Browning

A way to bring light to a dark time or to shake myself from sleepwalking while awake is looking outside and beyond myself . When I do sometimes a wider view comes. Other times what I see is narrow, but in noticing even in a small way, the moment I am living in changes.

Almost always opening awareness for what is outside of me brings a sense of relief in knowing I am part of something larger than myself. It’s not only the big things noticed that make a positive difference, but frequently a little casual notice pours goodness into me. Stirring in a bit of gratitude with awareness has allowed a taste of true bliss on occasion. Making difficulty and pain go away is not possible, but by sprinkling such times with awareness my load is lightened.

“Moments of Awareness” by Helen Lowrie Marshall

So much of life we all pass by
With heedless ear, and careless eye,
Bent with our cares we plod along,
Blind to the beauty, deaf to the song.

But moments there are when we pause to rest
And turn our eyes from the goal’s far crest.
We become aware of the wayside flowers,
And sense God’s hand in the world of ours.

We hear a refrain, see a rainbow’s end,
Or we look into the heart of a friend.
We feel at one with mankind. We share
His grief’s and glories, joy and care.

The sun flecks gold through the sheltering trees,
And we should our burdens with twice the ease.
Peace and content and a world that sings
The moment of true awareness brings.

There have been moments of clarity when I was completely aware of the seconds in which my life was being lived. When touched strongly enough to be stunned by beauty, gentleness, joy or caring the clattering of my mind goes quiet; a feeling like none other I’ve experienced.

Examples of when awareness was able to halt my thinking mind were witnessing the birth of my son, the initial moment I laid my eyes on Machu Picchu in fog soon after sunrise, the first time a woman looked into my eyes and said “I love you”, watching a little girl pick dandelions in a park then chasing the floating seeds, or seeing an loving old couple help each other manauver in a restaurant.  There is so much for an eye to see when it opens enough to truly “see”.  

There is deep gratefulness for the discovery of the more I see outside myself, the more truly alive I am.

The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground.
Buddha

A Small Miracle

/ James Browning

A few weeks ago I found out mid one afternoon that a local major cinema complex was showing a restored version of “Casablanca” once at 7pm that evening. Having never seen it on the big screen, I was excited. A half hour before the showing was to begin I walked up to the ticket window and said “one for Casablanca please” to which the teenage girl behind the glass offered a comforting smile and said “I’m sorry sir. It’s sold out”. I am certain she saw the disappointment on my face akin to that of a let down 10-year-old boy.

I did my best to take it in stride and shake off the “downer”.  My self-administered solace? Go home, make popcorn and watch my DVD copy of “Casablanca”. I was proud I didn’t let disappointment linger and turn into a “why me” sort of questioning thrown at the universe. Ten years ago I might have. Today I am wiser.  An improved ability for accepting what “is” has brought refreshing change.

Three days ago I was surprised to see mentioned in the electronic version of the local daily paper that “Casablanca” was being shown again at the same theatre. Like the first time it was pure chance I stumbled across it.  I immediately bought tickets on-line and was at the theatre an hour and a half early last evening. A dear friend met me, we bought popcorn and found good seats before the theatre started to fill up (which it did). We munched and caught up on each other’s ‘news’ while we waited till show time.

Certainly “Casablanca” was not shown again to please me. However, I do like to think of getting to see the movie as a reward for not being bothered too much when I missed out before. Call it serendipitous, coincidence, luck, a twist of fate or what ever you choose.  I am thankful for a second chance to get to see this wonderful old black and white film about love, sacrifice and intrigue. Bogart and Berman “on the big screen” … what a delightful treat!

A coincidence is a small miracle
in which God chooses to remain anonymous.
Unknown