Hopes and Dreams

It Is Within Your Ability

/ James Browning

solitude_sunset-wide

Today brings a morning where my intention is to leave a beautiful image or two here along with a piece of inspiration. And that I will, but am hesitant to not fill the space with more words. But instead of using language to hide my intent, I will instead let go and let what my instinct had me put here be enough.

You are equal to all others.
Some may have greater talents and power
where you are lacking
but you are greater in areas
where they cannot go.
Do not stop your own growth and progression
by trying to emulate… or follow… anyone.
Step out with courage,
develop all that you are meant to be.
Look for new experiences….
Meet new people,
learn to add all new dimensions,
to your present and future.
You are one of a kind….
equal to every other person.
Accept that fact;
live it… use it… stand tall
in belief of who you are.
Reach for the highest accomplishment;
touch it… grasp it…
Know it is within your ability!
Live to win in life
and you will.
Diane Westlake

7073625621_d59fc99cd4_zI am grateful to be reminded of what I know but don’t practice well all the time: the perfect imperfection I am and all that makes me capable of. With beautiful images and a comforting thoughts in my mind I am off into my day a happy man.  I hope the hours between now and my next post bring you all you hope for and need… and more.

Far away there in the sunshine
are my highest aspirations.
I may not reach them,
but I can look up
and see their beauty,
believe in them,
and try to follow where they lead.
Louisa May Alcott

When You Wish Upon a Star

/ James Browning

Glow-in-the-Dark-Stars-1 copyLeft over from my past is a little white plastic star, the sort that absorbs light and then glows in the dark. It’s about an inch across and about a year ago I stuck it on my ceiling right above where I sleep in my bed. Some years ago I had a whole package of about 50 stars from big to small that filled the “sky” over my bed. Only by accident do I still have the one little star that remains and resides on my ceiling.

Many may think it foolish for a fully grown man to lie in bed approaching sleep looking up at a plastic star above. But I don’t care! It works for me. Even the one remaining star glowing in the night brings me comfort. It awakens a touch of a childlike feeling that anything is possible.

The little star glowing a soft green in the night has been the focal point for my imagination to wander about looking for something to take into my dreams that night. It has given me comfort to look up and find it there night after night; an unchanging constant. The wonder of a child often falls into my psyche laying there near slumber remembering good parts of my childhood with my brother. The future I hope for seems a little more possible when I am there comfortably looking up in the dark.

Wishing upon a star comes from Roman legend. The planet Venus is named for the Roman goddess of love and is always the brightest point in the sky. The Romans built temples to Venus, and since it was the first “star” that could be seen in the sky for much of the year, and always the brightest whether seen in the morning or the evening, it was an easy way to remember it as a prayer point. What is the #1 thing that people prayed to Venus for? Love, of course. The prayer evolved into a wish as people forgot the Goddess of Love and her origins, and the wish expanded into realms well outside the beginning point.

Indirectly my little glow in the dark star is shining with the same light those in the night sky radiate. The sun gave its energy to whatever is expended to make the electricity to light the lamp in my bedroom from where the little star gets its temporary glow. So the plastic star is my little slice of heaven to sleep beneath each night. For something so simple, I gain much. I am grateful for every piece of hope, fantasy and dream I have wished upon it.

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you.
If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do.
Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing.
Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true.
From Disney’s “Pinocchio”
written by Leight Harline and Ned Washington

Long Dreamed Dreams

/ James Browning

____by_mindshelves-d5cdm9vAs long as I live, my life is filled with great possibility. I began saying that with regularity about a decade ago. It was around the time my standard response to someone asking “how are you” became “Every day is a good day. Some are just better than others”.

Over time as I repeated both personal clichés more and more their meaning grew to where the two thoughts combined into a strong fiber running through me. Such thinking is a key ingredient in my conviction that the best of my life is still in front of me. Certainly there is fear and apprehension, but my hope and belief in myself is far stronger. I am braver than I have ever been and the best prepared to take on the greatest adventures of my life. No longer do I fear getting older and the slow march forward toward old age. Now I see that advancement as just part of my adventure.

Most dreams die at dawn

When I began writing GoodMorningGratitude.com each day near two years ago, I settled into a routine of writing about a page and a half most days. Occasionally images would motivate me to fill the space with them. Once in a while I would be either focused on a brief pointed thought to post or else just did not have a lot to say on a particular day. From now on I’m not going to feel compelled to fill any particular amount of space. While I am certain my habit will keep the majority of what I leave here to be near the average length I began with, on more days I plan to intentionally be short and/or to post images.

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Long dreamed dreams are in my path. It’s as certain as the sunrise this morning. My heart will chart the course. My spirit will light the way. I am convinced all my previous life was simply to prepare me for the days ahead. What I have dreamed of has already begun to unfold.

i-Ching-Chaos

Before the beginning of great brilliance,
there must be chaos.
Before a brilliant person begins something great,
they must look foolish in the crowd.
From the I Ching

My Treasury of Time

/ James Browning

hourglass EDITEverything is always changing no matter how much we wish for it not to. It is the way of the world. Nothing is permanent. At birth each life starts evaporating, accelerating more rapidly all the time. Even with a loving life made with another a day will come when they will likely depart this Earth one at a time. And likewise go friends, family and everyone we know. Everything is just for its time, and no more. My accumulation of years is not such that all in Saxe’s poem below belongs to me. However, a good bit of it does. Even more I can feel and see it on the horizon.

My days pass pleasantly away;
My nights are blest with sweetest sleep;
I feel no symptoms of decay;
I have no cause to mourn nor weep;
My foes are impotent and shy;
My friends are neither false nor cold,
And yet, of late, I often sigh–
I am growing old!

My growing talk of olden times,
My growing thirst for early news,
My growing apathy to rhymes,
My growing love of easy shoes,
My growing hate of crowds and noise,
My growing fear of taking cold,
All whisper, in the plainest voice,
I’m growing old!

I’m growing fonder of my staff;
I’m growing dimmer in the eyes;
I’m growing fainter in my laugh;
I’m growing deeper in my sighs;
I’m growing careless of my dress;
I’m growing frugal of my gold;
I’m growing wise; I’m growing–yes–
I’m growing old!

I see it in my changing taste;
I see it in my changing hair;
I see it in my growing waist;
I see it in my growing heir;
A thousand signs proclaim the truth,
As plain as truth was ever told,
That, even in my vaunted youth,
I’m growing old!

Ah me!–my very laurels breathe
The tale in my reluctant ears,
And every boon the Hours bequeath
But makes me debtor to the Years!
Even flattery’s honeyed words declare
The secret she would fain withhold,
And tells me in “How young you are!”
I’m growing old!

Thanks for the years!–whose rapid flight
My somber Muse too sadly sings;
Thanks for the gleams of golden light
That tint the darkness of their wings;
The light that beams from out the sky,
Those heavenly mansions to unfold
Where all are blest, and none may sigh,
“I’m growing old!”
By John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

Gratitude thrives in me for every hour lived and resounds even more strongly for each one remaining. Today I strive to make better choices more true to the hopes and dreams I hold. With my treasury of time dropping like sand through an hour-glass I have little to spend on anything except being true to what contributes to happiness.

Real generosity towards the future
lies in giving all to the present.
Albert Camus

Hope For It All

/ James Browning

StonePathLight-629x340(11:10pm) It’s been a good while since good morning gratitude became good evening gratitude, but that is my circumstance tonight. To not break my steady string of 621 daily posts, I have about an hour and a half till midnight.

Without even having to think, it’s the combination of being alive and life having great possibility that I am grateful for near the end of this day. As long as I live any and all of my dreams may yet come true. All of them won’t, but many of them will.

I’m grateful:
For the impossible that becomes possible,
For the unlikely that presents itself again,
For what’s lost that gets found,
For dreams that don’t die,
For imaginings that come true,
For hope in what could be,
For faith beyond what I can prove,
For the good remembered,
For the bad forgotten,
For every forgiveness received,
For all pardon given,
For belief in my worth,
For knowing I deserve happiness,
For the trust I have in myself,
For principles I believe in,
For ideas that come true,
For the insights that teach me,
For rare chances at being happy,
For the inspiration I’m blessed with,
For the revelations that come quickly,
For the wisdom that comes slowly,
For grief that gives value to sorrow,
For all joy received and yet to be,
For a heart that sings its song boldly,
For my soul that sings harmony,
For old love that is lasting,
For new love that comes to stay,
For all the love I have ever received,
For all the love still to come to me,
For all the love I have given,
For all the love I still have to give.
Reach for the sky.
Dream bold dreams.
Risk everything.
Expect nothing.
And hope for it all.

Here you find only the late day ramblings of a tired man whose soul feels rich, whose heart is full, whose mind believes and whose spirit basks in gratitude.

We have to be fearless.
We have to take chances.
We can’t live life just
being afraid of what comes next.
That’s not what living is about.
Unknown

To Know Without Knowing How

/ James Browning

Country Valley with Storm CloudsWhile uncertain where the knowing comes from, my intuition is convinced 2013 will be a highly meaningful and eventful year for me; one filled with change, dreams moving closer and hopes coming true. One day in retrospect I will look back on this new year and realize what a pivotal time will have been.

How do I know that? Call it gut, hunch, sixth sense or whatever, I just know! After I faced the majority of my “childhood monsters” and gained dominion over them, I began with greater certainty to randomly know without knowing how I knew. This instinct is completely unpredictable and can’t be applied to any just subject or at any particular time. I have no control over the insights. They come when they come.

Being stubborn and bull-headed as I can be, simply believing my intuitive feelings was a struggle at first (and often still is). My mind will begin trying to figure out what it perceives my gut is telling me. Then my brain wants to think it has control of everything and puffs my ego up to try to take credit for what insight I am feeling. When logic makes no sense out of one of my “feelings” my mind then tries to label a hunch as fictional bull crap. Next comes denial that any sort of real intuition really exists. Then the sparring between thought and soul based feelings begins in earnest.

I have learned to tell my mind to “shut up” and it actually does what I ask sometimes. Once the noise in my head settles down a bit I can then begin to take in more clearly the intuitive feeling I am having. Personally I have discovered most of the time I am naturally pulled toward what I should do and repelled by what I shouldn’t do. All I have to do is get still enough to notice it.

It is my opinion we all have a sixth sense of sorts and if you ask me to explain it I can’t. Yet, my certainty is not harmed in the least by not knowing how it works. Science has no idea exactly how my brain really works either, but I know it exists. The same is true for the “knowings” that come to me.

The principle of my sixth sense was illustrated to me many times before I really began to believe in it. Hundreds of times I have gone to leave the house, picked something up to take with me and then put it down then repeated the up/down indecision several times. On occasions when I gave in to the hunch what I grabbed turned out to come in very useful. And when I refused to give in, often later I discovered why I should have brought it with me. And even when it didn’t, I have been left on frequently with the feeling that those few seconds of indecision may have kept me from a car accident or something of the sort.

Do I believe that everything is preordained destiny? No, I don’t. While at birth my path is set in motion to a degree by who my parents are, my physical attributes, nationality, level of intelligence and so on, my path is in majority that of my own choice. My belief is the moments of knowing without knowing spring up to help me make good choices and help me along the life as I choose it. Call it instinctive creativity, if you will, that can be applied to what I do and how I live. It’s no more mysterious than a moment of brilliance an artist has about the next piece of art they are going to create. Such impetus comes from the same inspirational well as my intuition.

Round and around in six paragraphs I have attempted to explain the inexplicable. To tell you how I know 2013 will personally be a remarkable year is beyond me, but my belief is unwavering. How in April 2011 I woke up to the certain knowing to begin and write this daily blog I can’t explain. To think I could be consistent enough to post every day for almost two years I would have argued to exhaustion was beyond me, but I have. From the same source comes my certainty about the coming year.

Sitting and waiting for things to happen is not how life works and certainly not how my intuition works. I have to do the work and heavy lifting. Choices must be made and decisions decided upon. Deep down I have a compass of guidance beyond rational thought. I won’t even bother to try to explain any further what I know with certainty. My gratitude overflows in knowing 2013 will be one of the best lived years of my life filled with abundant change, profound experiences and significant fulfillment beyond my current perceptions to grasp.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes
the whole world around you
because the greatest secrets are always hidden
in the most unlikely places.
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.
Roald Dahl

22 Years Later

/ James Browning

LOVE-LETTER-large570

Beautiful love stories still happen. This is from Huffington Post:

Cathy Knorr and Trevor Webb tied the knot, their relationship came full circle — and they had a middle school love letter to prove it.

At their October wedding, the couple, who met during sixth grade in 1990, displayed a letter Webb wrote to Knorr in middle school urging her to go out with him. Photographer Aislinn Kate Rehwinkel snapped a photo of the letter and it was posted on Reddit on Tuesday.

“Dear Cathy, I still like you and I still want you to go with me. I know Brad likes you. Please decide who you’re going to go with. Think hard and let me know your decision. I’ll be standing at the end of this hall and the beginning of the other hall. Meet me there as soon as school’s out and you can tell me. Sincerely, Trevor,” the letter reads.

“DON’T LET ANYONE SEE THIS,” it says at the top.

Knorr told HuffPost Weddings that she did meet Webb at the end of the hall and they dated for two weeks. But Knorr dumped Webb for another boy.

“He playfully reminds me from time to time, ‘You broke my heart and dumped me for Alex Norris!'” Knorr said.

Knorr and Webb eventually rebuilt their friendship, and remained best friends despite living in different cities after high school. They both returned to their hometown of Pensacola, Florida, in 2006, and Webb broke up with the girl he’d been dating shortly after that.

“Several weeks later we shared an unexpected and fateful kiss on the beach, having never blurred the lines of friendship. I thought to myself, ‘Well, that’s what I’ve been missing all these years!'” Knorr told HuffPost. “Since that day we have been inseparable.”

Webb proposed to Knorr at an ice skating rink where he had given her a ring in middle school (this time, he gave her a diamond). Knorr had kept Webb’s middle school love letter in a shoebox in her closet and displayed it at their wedding.

“Trevor is a bit embarrassed of how insistent it sounded, but we sure did get a kick out of reading it and sharing it with others. I’m lucky to have found such a beautiful love in a best friend,” Knorr said. “I wish I had come to my senses sooner!”http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/30/love-letter_n_2214622.html

So much is said and written today about relationships that don’t work or don’t work well. It warms my heart to know there are still real life “Cinderella and the handsome prince” stories. I am grateful for the reminder that good love between a man and woman is not as rare as I sometimes think it is.

I could not tell you if I loved you the first moment I saw you,
or if it was the second or third or fourth.
But I remember the first moment I looked at you
walking toward me and realized that somehow
the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you.
Cassandra Clare

Grateful In Greater Measure

/ James Browning

This Thanksgiving morning I have spent about an hour reading email, sending holiday wishes and looking at the news of the day on-line while dimly in the back of my mind thinking about writing here. For this blog focused on gratitude, I first thought I wanted to leave some intricately bold and meaningful statement about the meaning of Thanksgiving. Instead the main theme my mind settled on is neither complicated or long. It’s only sixteen words:

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was,
“thank you,” that would suffice.
Meister Eckhart

Better than I have done on any previous Thanksgiving, my intention is to spend this day wrapped in a glow of sincere gratitude while asking for guidance in becoming an ever improving version of ‘me’.

There’s no record to be found for the original source or who wrote the piece just below. The words speak to the core of my being and state clearly my aspirations for living life well. I give humble thanks to the anonymous writer whose work so accurately reflects the philosophy of life I have adopted.

    • This is your life!
    • Do what you love. And do it often.
    • If you don’t like something, change it.
    • If you don’t like your job, quit. Now!
    • If you don’t have enough time, stop watching TV.
    • If you are looking for the love of your life, stop. It will be waiting for you when you start doing thing you love to do.
    • Stop over analyzing, life is so simple.
    • All emotions are beautiful.
    • When you eat, appreciate every last bite.
    • Open you mind, heart and spirit to new things and to new people. We are united in our differences.
    • Ask the next person what you see what their passion is and share your inspiring dream with them.
    • Travel often.
    • Some opportunities only come once. Seize them.
    • Getting lost will help you find your self.
    • Life is about the people you meet and the things you create with them. So go out and start creating with them.
    • Life is short. Live your dream and share your passion.

My short prayer for today:
Maker of all things and higher power that guides me from the inside out;
May I learn to be grateful in greater measure for all that comes to me;
May I more clearly see that pain is necessary for a balanced life;
May I learn the lessons being taught to me with less resistance;
May all those I love know the depth of feeling in my heart for them;
And May I fear death less and embrace life more.
Amen.

Like Smoke Through a Keyhole

/ James Browning

Last night I watched the movie “The Bucket List” again with someone who had never seen it. On the big screen in 2007 the film touched me, but this time it meant even more. First time around I laughed until my ribs hurt and found tears in my eyes several times. Last night this was true to an even greater degree. Five years of life have passed in a hurry since I saw “The Bucket List’ originally. Thoughts of retiring are kicking around strong in my head. My mortality is both more real and better accepted than ever before.

There are a several pieces of dialogue from the movie I find especially meaningful. One is when Morgan Freeman’s character says “Forty-five years goes by pretty fast”. The response from Jack Nicholson is “Like smoke through a keyhole”. Never have heard a more accurate description of how life speeds by so quickly.

Watching Freeman and Nicholson acting last evening confirmed even more pointedly to me I need to let go of work while there is enough of me left to enjoy what’s on my bucket list. My thinking is moving to align more with Masanobu Fukuoka who was a Japanese farmer and philosopher. He wrote several books including “The One-Straw Revolution” where the following comes from.

I do not particularly like the word ‘work.’ Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is. It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time.

I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life. For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities. In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.

No longer do I have this burning need to succeed and make money. After a point success frequently leaves one empty and is often its own undoing. Succeeding leaves most with a yearning for more. Likewise with money. After one’s needs are met and a comfortable life is possible, money can be a person’s downfall. Or more accurately, the relentless pursuit of more does the harm and eventually brings disillusionment. Yearning brings only more yearning.

When I combine what life has taught me, the encouragement of friends and those who care about me along with inspiration that comes from a power beyond me the need to change direction is obvious. The future’s not clearly in focus beyond a few steps, but the joy and excitement in my heart and soul tells me I am moving in the correct direction. I am grateful for such clarity.

God gave us the gift of life;
it is up to us to give ourselves
the gift of living well.
Voltaire

Peace Within the Riddle

/ James Browning

What do you want? Or is what you want always just something you don’t have.

Those spoken words actually came falling out of my mouth this morning from a source I am unsure of. Since I live alone, saying such a thing aloud actually caught me by surprise. Only after speaking them did I start to wonder where they came from. Nothing specific happened. No particular thought was bouncing in my head.

All I did was go stand on my porch for about a minute taking in the cooler weather. Enjoying the view of the big cyprus tree out front decked out in its rich fall brown I watched the needed autumn rain drizzle down. Listening to the soft splatters on my driveway and the gentle ringing of drops falling in the gutters, I felt contented in the moment. Then as I came back in my home and was walking down the entry hall, those words arrived for me to say aloud to no one except myself: What do you want… or is what you want always just something you don’t have?

Neil Gaiman wrote, I don’t want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn’t mean anything? What then? So does that mean I will always be malcontented and never at peace with where I am and what I have? I hope not. Such a cyclical truth going round and a round in my brain would be maddening like a dog chasing, but never catching, his tail!

A lot of people get so hung up on what they can’t have that they don’t think for a second about whether they really want it, was Lionel Shriver’s view of things. In that case I’d like NOT to be in the group he called “a lot of people…” and believe I have escaped the usual simply by asking my question; What do you want… or is what you want always just something you don’t have?

Thinking redemption and happiness can never be found in “what is” and instead only achieved within “what might be” is the near raving of a lunatic. In his novel “Lullaby” Chuck Palahnuik stated his version of this thought when he wrote, Are these things really better than the things I already have? Or am I just trained to be dissatisfied with what I have now?

Possibly the continual search for more, different and new is a natural insanity that is innate with being human. Dan Millman wrote in “Way of the Peaceful Warrior…”  If you don’t get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don’t want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can’t hold on to it forever. That brings me back at my original quandary: What do you want… or is what you want always just something you don’t have?

I found an explanation that sets my mind at ease to some degree in an article written in Psychology Today by Alex Lickerman, M.D., a practicing Buddhist for over twenty years. He wrote: Research suggests that our conscious minds aren’t so much in charge of the decisions we make as they are great rationalizers of them. Which means they often collude with our unconscious minds to craft stories about why we do things and even why we feel things that are just blatantly untrue. We often have far more invested in seeing ourselves as virtuous, noble, fair-minded, and good than we do in recognizing the truth: that we often want things and therefore do things that make us base, selfish, self-righteous, and unjust. All of which is to say that sometimes we may not actually know what we want. Or, even more commonly, we may not know why we want it.

What do you want… or is what you want always just something you don’t have? That thought I spoke aloud this morning has no precise answer, except to find peace within the riddle through accepting what is and trying to keep hope for a future with no specific definition. For the calming effect of the experience of writing this, I am humbly grateful.

As soon as you stop wanting something,
you get it.
Andy Warhol