Overcoming Obstacles

The Human Condition

/ James Browning

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Do you have too much love in your life? What about tenderness? Gentleness? Do you live with an excess of joy? Is there a surplus of luck in your life? Do things go your way too often? Are you winning too much? Do you have too much money, time or peace? I doubt it.

Now flipping the subject, are you more lonely than you’d prefer? Is there not as much love in your life as you would prefer? Is there a shortage of tenderness or gentleness? Do you wish there was more joy in you life and that things would go your way more often? Do you wish for money, more time or peace beyond what you have? Don’t worry about saying “yes” to some or all those questions.

It is the human condition. It’s okay to want, need, desire and hope as long as such yearnings do not cause you to make choices untrue to yourself.

I believe in the ability to choose.
I believe this life is made up of our choices
and their consequences— the good and the bad.
I do not believe in letting anything up to fate.
We are the makers of our own destinies,
our own futures, our own paths.
To blindly follow is an insult
to the miracle of being human.
To be human is to make choices;
the moment you allow others
to make decisions for you
is the moment
you do an injustice to
not only mankind but to yourself.
Kelseyleight Reber

Experiencing Without Attachment

/ James Browning

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From tinybuddha.com article someone posted today on Facebook.
Full article here: link

Accept the moment for what it is.

Don’t try to turn it into yesterday; that moment’s gone. Don’t plot about how you can make the moment last forever. Just seep into the moment and enjoy it, because it will eventually pass. Nothing is permanent. Fighting that reality will only cause you pain.

Believe now is enough.

It’s true—tomorrow may not look the same as today, no matter how much you try to control it. A relationship might end. You might have to move. You’ll deal with those moments when they come. All you need right now is to appreciate and enjoy what you have. It’s enough.

Call yourself out.

Learn what it looks like to grasp at people, things, or circumstances so you can redirect your thoughts when they veer toward attachment—when you dwell on keeping, controlling, manipulating, or losing something instead of simply experiencing it.

Define yourself in fluid terms.

We are all constantly evolving and growing. Define yourself in terms that can withstand change. Defining yourself by possessions, roles, and relationships breeds attachment, because loss entails losing not just what you have, but also who you are.

Enjoy now fully.

No matter how much time you have in an experience or with someone you love, it will never feel like enough. So don’t think about it in terms of quantity; aim for quality instead. Attach to the idea of living well from moment to moment. That’s an attachment that can do you no harm.

I have learned that if you must leave a place
that you have lived in and loved
and where all your yesteryears are buried deep,
leave it any way except a slow way,
leave it the fastest way you can.
Never turn back and never believe
that an hour you remember is a better hour
because it is dead.
Beryl Markham

Better To Have Lived in Truth

/ James Browning

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There’s the little empty pain of leaving something behind – graduating, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There’s the big, whirling pain of life upending all of your plans and expectations. There’s the sharp little pains of failure, and the more obscure aches of successes that didn’t give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious, stabbing pains of hopes being torn up. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life as they grow and learn. There’s the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens.

And if you’re very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realized that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or mirth which at the same time cannot possibly last – and yet will remain with you for life.

Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it’s a big part, and sometimes it isn’t, but either way, it’s a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you’re alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another. Jim Butcher

I regret the times I damned my pain or prayed for it to be gone. At that moment I did not realize I was being sculpted by discomfort into a better and wiser man. In hindsight that sort of growth reminds me of being an adolescent boy when I woke with my legs hurting so much from growing overnight that they could barely support me. But once I walked for a few minutes, the aches subsided quickly. I was simply growing.

And so I have gratefully begun to better accept the outcome of pain, although the bearing of it will never be something positively anticipated. It is through allowing grief, sorry and anguish to do their work that I become wiser and through that  wisdom, grow more content. First posted here on October 14, 2003  

We never know when our last day on earth will be.
So, love with full sincerity, believe with true faith,
and hope with all of your might.
Better to have lived in truth and discovered life,
than to have lived half heartedly
and died long before you ever ceased breathing.
Cristina Marrero

 

Thoughts “A through F” and Their Antidotes

/ James Browning

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A – I wish I had not lived so much of my life for what I thought others wanted me to be. I chose mostly wrong and ended up pleasing no one.

B – I regret hurting so many people and know my dysfunctions at the time were no excuse. I’m truly sorry. I was lost within myself.

C – I wish I had not blamed my parents for so long. Even the bad job of parenting they did was the best they knew how.

D – I regret I broke the heart of the woman who within her grief found a way to forgive me and then taught me what love really is. I will never forget the kindness you showed me.

E – I wish I had been a better parent. I was a good one, but would be a great one now.

F – I regret living so much of my life hurrying always towards something uncertain in the future. I missed a lot.

1. Let go of the past. Learn your lessons. . . never forget them, but move on. Learn to forgive others and, (this is a biggie!), learn to forgive yourself. It’s difficult to move forward and take advantage of second chances if you are stuck in the past. Let it go.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt creep in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays. Ralph Waldo Emerson

2. Develop a positive attitude and awareness. Expect the best and look for the good. Become conscious of opportunities and very often you will find them right under your
nose. Second chances can be quiet and disguised — one has to be on the lookout for them. Develop the right attitude for you and see what happens.

Thomas Jefferson said, “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal. Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.”

3. Persevere. Keep on. Figure it out. Press on. If one approach doesn’t work the way you would like it to, then try another. Do what you gotta do.

One of my very favorite quotes is from Ann Landers, who says, “If I were asked to give what I consider the single most important piece of advice for all humanity, it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and when it comes, hold your head high, look it squarely in the eye and say, ‘I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.'”

Let Go + Positive Attitude + Perseverance = Second Chances
by Beth Burns http://www.livinglifefully.com/flo/flosecondchances.htm

I’ve had a great life and so much of it is left to live! I am excited about the future and am truly happy in the present. I am deeply grateful, never more so than at the moment I sit writing this.

Sometimes life gives you a second chance, or even two!
Not always, but sometimes.
It’s what you do with those second chances that counts.
Dave Wilson

One Year Ago Today

/ James Browning

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Kissed My Comfort Zone Goodbye
Originally Posted on December 31, 2012

Over time my comfort zone has become something of a trap; safe and comfortable, but stifling to my growth and realization of my dreams. My ‘rut’ is a sweet pill similar to “Soma” that Aldous Huxley described in “Brave New World”: … a quite impenetrable wall between the actual universe and… mind…

A little rhyme Huxley included about “Soma” is:
Hug me till you drug me, honey;
Kiss me till I’m in a coma;
Hug me, honey, snuggly bunny;
Love’s as good as Soma.

Psychologists have long told us that “man tends toward pleasure and the path of least resistance”. There is some deep down desire to get benefits without any more work or discomfort than absolutely necessary. Given a choice between something that is neutral and something that gives pleasure, humans most often choose the latter.  Today I throw off another layer of the old to embrace the new that comes with a fresh year tomorrow. 2 0 1 3 is going to be a remarkable year! (It was a remarkable year, but 2 0 1 4 is going to be even more so)

I used to have a comfort zone
Where I knew I couldn’t fail.
Same four walls and busy work,
Were really more like jail.

I longed to do the things
I’d never done before,
But I stayed inside my comfort
Zone and paced the same old floor.

I claimed to be so busy with
The things inside my zone,
But deep down inside I longed
For something special of my own,

I took a step with new strength
I’d never felt before.
I kissed my comfort zone good-bye
And closed and locked the door.
Taken from “I Used to Have a Comfort Zone” – Author Unknown

Just because a tendency is “normal” does not mean I must succumb to it. However, it takes a conscious leap of faith to move past my comfort zone. I am ready to make it and grateful that 2013 (2014) will be the year where I take big steps to break free and embrace my dreams.

It does not take a new day
To make a brand new start,
It only takes a deep desire
To try with all our heart.
So never give up in despair
And think that you are through,
For there’s always a tomorrow
And the hope of starting new.
From “Another Chance” by Helen Steiner Rice