wisdom

Evaporates With Breakneck Speed

/ James Browning

GW-in-my-hear EIDTI will find a way in my everyday life to slow the world down and take away some of the pressures – moments when the demands of making a living take too much away from making a life. I will give myself time to smile and relax. To show how much I care. To share my love. To say what’s in my heart and on my mind. To stop and reflect on my goals.

Don’t run through life so fast
that you forget not only where you’ve been
but also where you’re going.
Life is not a race,
but a journey to be savored
each step of the way
Nancye Sims

sands-of-timeToday’s finds me with gratitude for the little reminders life brings into my path. All I have to do is pay attention. The two reminders above come from a cool book (“Promises to Myself”) that came to me used complete with notes by the original owner that make it more meaningful. Eddie Cantor’s thought below popped up in an email sent by a friend.

I am grateful for the gentle prompts this morning to remember to live each day, even each moment, as completely as I possibly can. Life evaporates with breakneck speed.

Slow down and enjoy life.
It’s not only the scenery
you miss by going too fast –
you also miss the sense
of where you are going and why.
Eddie Cantor

Kissed My Comfort Zone Goodbye

/ James Browning

comfort zone2Over 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!

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 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

Deep-Burning and Unquenchable

/ James Browning

GriderEngagement005Many events of my life, both good and bad, have faded over time. There are exceptions such as the emotions of a particular time twenty-five years ago that have remained vividly alive. Emotionally it felt like being stretched and pulled apart between two horses. I’ve carried the self-inflicted wound, inside and unseen, long enough. Telling buried secrets stop them from poisoning the soul, so here goes…

My Father left my Mother, Brother and I shortly after my 7th birthday for another woman who was pregnant with his child. The devastation and bewilderment caused me to make a little boy promise to myself: someday if I had children I would never leave them like my Father left me.

Fast forward to 1987; I’m 35, have been married twelve years and have a beautiful young son who is five years old. A restless feeling about the marriage won’t leave me alone and slowly is getting worse. The birth of my boy soothed that away for a time, but by his fifth year feeling I wanted more had returned. The Mother of my son is a caring and good person who I learned a lot about the love of family from. I will always be grateful to her and her parents who accepted me openly and gave me a sense of belonging never experienced before. There was a problem though, I was no longer “in love” with her by the mid 80s when she unexpectedly became pregnant.

The first amends necessary is to B., my first wife. I should have been a man, stood strong and expressed my feelings. The high road would have been to do what was necessary to save the marriage or move on. But I didn’t. Until a few years ago I always put the reason for my weakness and lack of action on my childhood promise to never desert a child of mine. I know even today that was a good portion of my motivation then (or lack of it), but nowhere near the complete explanation.

In my desire not to hurt anyone, I have done nothing far too often. Saying goodbye to a lover has always been very, very difficult for me. Crippled by inaction I accomplished the opposite of my intentions repeatedly in romantic love relationships. I left a path of hurt and pain, not the least of which was to me.

There is no further explanation needed to explain I was ripe to fall in love with another woman in 1987. I met her on a business trip and she was so many things women I had been romantically involved with before were not. Including the woman I was married to, my tendency had been to gravitate to dependent women. K. was instead a breath-taking beauty who was strong, self-sufficient and successful. She had no need for a caretaker but now in her late 20s was ready to make a commitment and settle down. We fell head over heals in love, but did not find a happy ending.

Time has a way of creating rearward facing clarity. The late 80’s were when the spiral into my dysfunctions began in earnest. I became far too good at deception (although years later I learned not nearly as good as I thought at the time), but I sure did deceive myself and hurt a lot of people in the process.

Absolutely and without doubt I loved K. and to this day believe she loved me. In the early months she and I shared it was my sincere intention to get a divorce so we could be together. For a year and a half we shared long weekends every month or so and even managed to pull off a week-long vacation once that contained some of the most beautiful moments I’ve known. K. and I were well matched from intellect to emotion to politics and food. For a time there was no doubt in either of us that we’d be together the rest of our lives.

Ultimately I did not have the courage to do what was necessary. I never could find the strength to ask my first wife for a divorce. About a year and a half into our relationship K. did the right thing, ended our relationship and moved on with her life. We stayed in touch casually once in a while for another ten years until I began a serious relationship that became my second marriage. A good bit of the mementos of K. and I went up in smoke from my fireplace then. The most treasured keepsakes I sent to her with a note saying I could not longer have contact with her which she honored.

I have written all this to cast four admissions into the world on K.’s behalf: 1) The love I expressed to her was true and real 2) There is a part of my heart that will always belong to her 3) I will always be grateful she loved me,  and,  4) I have carried profound regret for hurting you hidden inside me now for 25 years. I am so very, very sorry. I am grateful for the relief admitting the truth just brought me.

Love is like a friendship caught on fire.
In the beginning a flame, very pretty,
often hot and fierce,
but still only light and flickering.
As love grows older,
our hearts mature
and our love becomes as coals,
deep-burning and unquenchable.
Bruce Lee

No Money and No Home

/ James Browning

11Being the fifth car back from the traffic light I could not see her once my car came to a stop. But as I was pulling up into my position to wait for red to become green on the traffic light the woman’s handmade sign was easy to read except the bottom portion her hands holding it obscured: “Homeless Family, needs money for gas…”

I feel for such people who have swallowed their pride to become beggars on a street corner, but have conflicting thoughts about how legitimate their need is and how they will use the money. After all I have read and heard, I am always suspicious.

In the past I have responded to a signs like “No Money, Need Food” by offering to take a beggar to a restaurant and buy them a meal, but I have never had any takers. They simply wanted money and nothing else. It’s estimated the average sign bearer working a busy intersection takes in $100 to $300 per day if they are dedicated. Pan-handling this way five weekdays out of ten and taking in $100 per day would net $13,000 tax-free per year. Working the same amount and getting $300 a day would equal three times that or $39,000. Treated like a real “job” where every other week was not taken “off” these amounts would double.

On-line there are numerous pages of panhandling hints like this:

1- Swallow your pride. You’re going to have to suck it up and be humble.
2- Remember what you’re offering. People give you money because it makes them feel good.
3- Clean up. Before you begin, make an effort to look presentable.
4- Make a sign. A simple sign tells your story—it’s advertising, plain and simple.
5- Find a suitable location. The more traffic you can get, the better.
6- Smile and greet people courteously. You’d be surprised how far a smile will go.
7- Ask for money directly and softly.
8- Remember the regulars. Remember people who give you money regularly.
9- Thank everybody. If someone gives you money, show your appreciation.
10- Offer a small token of thanks. Something cheap and easy, even a painted bottle cap will do.

Yesterday, just before the light changed, the woman holding the “Homeless Family…” sign came into view as she walked to an older SUV parked nearby and spoke to a child in the passenger front seat. The boy looked to be 10 or 12 and I could not help but wonder what he was learning from watching his Mother beg for money. Will the experience entice him to do the same thing and believe he can live without working? Or will it give him strength and determination to try and never be in the same situation.

Red became green and as I passed by the corner the woman was just arriving back at her corner position from talking to her son. The woman and boy remained in my thoughts on and off through out the day with me wondering what their real situation was and what sort of Christmas they might have. In my youth I was never homeless and hungry only because friends took me in for a few weeks while I got back on my feet. I am grateful to them to this day for their help and for what I was taught by having no money and no home.

These are people who never, ever would have
imagined themselves being homeless. Ever!
If you really talk to a large cross-section of people,
you realize that they’re not that different
from us or our uncles or our aunts.
It’s like we know these people.
Linda Murphy

This Is Your Life

/ James Browning

this is your lifeFrom the holstee.com website: In the heat of the recession in May 2009, brothers Mike and Dave and their partner, Fabian started Holstee. Having just quit our jobs without a plan or idea of how we would spend our days, we were filled with a ton of raw energy, emotion, and ideas – a feeling that we never wanted to forget. So the first thing Holstee’s three founders did was sit together on the steps of Union Square and write down exactly what was on their minds and the tips of their tongues. It was a reminder of what we live for. The result became known as the “Holstee Manifesto”. A message that has since been shared over 500,000 times and viewed over 60 million times online. http://shop.holstee.com/pages/about#the-manifesto

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As I have spent almost two years now surfing the ‘Net looking for thought-starters for G.M.G., I have come to realize the large number of people who have posted material on-line that is truly inspiration. Case in point, “The Holstee Manifesto” that I have seen before but never stopped to take in and ‘taste each word’ until this morning. I am grateful the thoughts just above came across my path as part of the start of my first day of a “stay-cation” this week!

It is good to love many things,
for therein lies the true strength,
and whosoever loves much performs much,
and can accomplish much,
and what is done in love is well done.
Vincent van Gogh

Six Hundred and One

/ James Browning

gratitudeYesterday was my 600th day in a row to post a blog on goodmorninggratitude.com. In celebration, I have essentially taken the day off. However, I don’t want to break my string of consecutive posts and offer four quotes about gratitude that are personally meaningful to me.

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not. Roman Stoic philosopher, Seneca

The greatest wisdom is in simplicity. Love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It’s not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It’s encoded in your DNA. All you need is within you. Great teachers have said that from the beginning. Find your heart, and you will find your way. Myan elder, Carlos Barrios

When you express gratitude for the blessings that come into your life, it not only encourages the universe to send you more, it also sees to it that those blessings remain. Self-help author, Stephen Richards

Dear God,
I just want to say thank you for waking me up this Saturday morning. You did not have too but, you did. I am grateful. I know you saw I have been through a lot in the past few weeks and helped me through it. Thank you for being there for me.
James

Be thankful for your allotment
in an imperfect world.
Though better circumstances
can be imagined,
far worse are nearer misses
than you probably care to realize.
Richelle E. Boodrich

An Entirely Different View

/ James Browning

bottom-of-a-wellIt has been my personal discovery that letting go of outcome has a tendency to make things actually turn out better than they would have otherwise. Planning and hope along with an optimistic attitude and good effort are all I have to do to allow life to unfold as it best can. To attempt to steer what unfolds beyond those things is setting myself up for disappointment. It is impossible to see all of what might happen, not matter how hard I try. Too much focus on a single spot causes a look too close to see things in a broad sense. One explanation of this principle is found in the book “The Other Way: Meditation Experiences Based on the I Ching” by Carol K. Anthony:

I saw myself facing a tall stone wall and understood it to be a wall of obstruction. Wondering about the meaning, I suddenly noticed the outline of a camouflaged doorway in the wall; I realized that I could have passed by it many times without noticing it.

Pondering the presence of this hidden doorway, I realized that our way of viewing things is so habitually logical that we fail to see the principle of the hidden door.

I saw that in looking at those around me, I have judged this person as “habitually improvident (lacking foresight)”, that person as “having a blind spot,” another as “too involved in seeing negatives,” another as “too parsimonious (excessively frugal),” and another as “too set in his ways to ever change,” and so on. What I fail to do in all this activity is to see the operation of the hidden door, the one factor that often makes a thing possible that otherwise seems unlikely.

The principle of the hidden door is constantly in operation, upsetting our best assessments and preparations. We think we have everything mapped out, and well-planned, while in fact, the unexpected controls everything. Good sense and hard work can succeed, but there is not guarantee of this. The most unlikely people turn out to be successful in their work, and people to whom we attached great expectation often fail.

All things being put together correctly, the chances are good for success, but the chances are greatly enhanced if the person putting them together is consistently open-minded about the possibilities of the unlikely. Such as attitude is in harmony with events, for there is always a hidden doorway through difficult situations. Looking for this hidden doorway is like looking at a picture that has another picture hidden within it. The harder we try, the more difficult it is to see it.

The reason things sometimes do not work out as we expect is that we have stopped the hidden door principle by presuming that because some particular outcome is unlikely, it won’t happen. It is easy to assume that a 10% likelihood, for example is really a 0% likelihood. An unassuming attitude, however makes it possible for things to work out, in spite of appearances to the contrary. Our attitude creates the possibility, for Fate mocks our attitude. The surest way to guarantee ourselves failure is to have the Titanic Complex: to be firmly confident that we have figured out, and accounted for, everything.

Opening my mind beyond its tendencies is not easy, but I am discovering the rewards are rich and meaningful. Any time I am absolutely certain of something is when I am absolutely certain to be wrong. There are always more possibilities, reasons and ways of things that I will ever be able to see in advance. With an open mind and grateful heart I accept this and endeavor to broaden my openness to the unexpected.

We think too small,
like the frog at the bottom of the well.
He thinks the sky is only
as big as the top of the well.
If he surfaced,
he would have an entirely different view.
Mao Zedong

Three Blinks and a Sneeze

/ James Browning

old-lady-driverr612x344Her expression was that of a frightened seven-year old girl as she sat there in the front seat of the car. The look was one you’d expect to see on a youngster’s face who was sitting outside the principle’s office. Starring forward she never moved her head as I passed. The police car behind with its lights on signaled all was not well.

When first I saw the police car and the vehicle in front of it, I was nearing the intersection of two four-lane city streets. At the traffic light there was a long left hand turn lane that could probably hold a dozen cars with a concrete barrier around it about ten inches high. Just before it was another similar, but smaller, turn lane for the same direction that might hold two cars before they turned into a business parking lot. This too had concrete separating it from the other lanes.

At first glance the car with the “frightened girl” in it looked to be okay, but as I came beside it I saw a blown out tire and a broken front wheel bent sideways. The entire vehicle, with the exception of the passenger side back wheel, was up on top of the concrete barrier. The driver was barely tall enough to see over the driver’s wheel and I suspect she mistook the first small turn lane to be the beginning of the larger one. She had run smack dab into concrete barrier and her car bounced to be almost completely on top of it.

The person driving the car was not actually a seven-year old girl, but an elderly woman I suspect had entered a portion of her second childhood sometime back, or at the very least had failing eyesight.

What touched me about the scene that was in my view for no more than seconds was the thought that came to mind: “I bet this is the day she loses her driver’s license”. Make no mistake; I am all for getting people off the highway who can no longer operate a vehicle safely. It was my empathy for her and the realization that one day it might be me who loses his right to drive that etched the moment in my psyche. Assuming it is my good fortune to make it to an advanced age, it will still be twenty-five years or more before age-wise I catch up with the elderly woman.

Life has taught me that two decades and a half can pass in what feels little more than three blinks and a sneeze. Twenty five years ago I was thirty-four years old and it feels like that should be only six or eight years ago. But it is not so.

If the old lady driving the car is an unsafe driver she should lose her license. Yet, I can empathize with her as age has already taken some things from me like the inability to read without glasses or being as physically resilient and capable as I once was. It is not lamenting the older portion of life that is before me that caused this subject to be top of mind this morning. Rather, being exposed to the little old lady’s accident served as a wake up call to appreciate every day and all that is within each one.

Aging as an adult either makes you humble or pisses you off. Sometimes it does both. For me being upset is usually momentary and the humility that follows rings true and lasting. There is where my gratitude is rooted; a strong base of humility that grows richer with time.

For all I have been and all I will be; for every experience encountered and each one that is my destiny to yet go through, I am thankful. Gratefulness is to life what fertilizer is to a plant; it enables stronger and more resilient growth.

When I can look Life in the eyes,
Grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth,
And taken in exchange – my youth.
Sara Teasdale

To Better Practice What I Already Know

/ James Browning

RealityCheck_display_image“Twenty Six Ways To Love Life” by Tess Marshall – Part One

1. Be positive. The moment you open your eyes each morning think of something positive. One positive thought leads to another. Before falling asleep each night think positive thoughts. Positive thoughts lead to a well lived life.

2. Accept yourself. Be kind to yourself and love yourself. Never make excuses for who you are. Don’t compare yourself to others. There will never be another you.

3. Be Yourself. You are unique. We live in a copy-cat materialistic world. You don’t have to look or act like a Hollywood star. Don’t change who you are in different situations. You have a right to be different, think differently and do things differently than others. You only have to be you!

4. Choose your friends wisely. Choose friends who accept and respect you. Choose friends who support you. Friends either bring you up or down. Release anyone who isn’t going in your direction.

5. Practice gratitude. It’s the fastest way to put yourself in a positive emotional state. Keep your focus on what you have and more will come to you.

6. Help others. Never pass up an opportunity to help someone. Small deeds count. Big deeds count. Share with others. You can’t out give God. You will feel good about yourself and your life.

7. Apologize. Make this a habit. Tell others you are sorry. Ask what you can do to make up for your actions. Then make the changes needed in your behavior.

8. Forgive. Forgive yourself and others. Holding grudges steals your emotional and physical energy. It’s like carrying a ball and chain around your ankle.

9. Find a hobbie. Discover what you love to do. Acting, dancing, photography or painting are all better than another television show or computer game. Step out of your comfort zone and enjoy life.

10. Live without debt. Don’t spend more than you make. Create a budget and stick with it. Money is one of the top two reasons for a divorce. Debt ruins relationships and lives.

11. Laugh often. You can determine the health of a family or workplace by the amount of laughter that takes place. It has been proven that laughter heals. Read comics, joke books and watch comedy.

12. Exercise. Stay active. Move your body. Find exercise that you love and do it regularly. Volleyball, running, baseball, swimming and tennis can be exercise and fun. Find what fits you and get going.

13. Eat healthy. Choose fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts and grains. Avoid red meat.

It’s good for me to come across lists for better living like this one Tess Marshall created. Rarely do I find anything new. It is being reminded to better practice what I already know that I am grateful for.

By Tess Marshall http://theboldlife.com/2009/01/26-ways-to-love-life/
Tomorrow Part Two of Ms. Marshall’s “Twenty Six Ways To Love Life”

All the art of living lies
in a fine mingling
of letting go and holding on.
Henry Ellis

The Remains of a Life Lived Well

/ James Browning

Estate salePurely on a whim during my drive to work Friday I stopped at a house where an estate sale was going on. It was the 25% off on the direction signs that caught my eye. I did find a few treasures: two books, an unused light dimmer, an old sepia-tone photograph and a comforter with a musical notes motif I plan to give a musician friend for Christmas.

One-quarter off meant the estate sale was winding down by my visit and what remained was largely the “left overs”. With much gone from the home, it was easy to notice the house had not been updated for decades. Seeing a 40th high school class reunion program from 1983 told me at least one of the previous occupants of the house would likely be near 90 years old if they were still living.

Maybe it was the was the wallpaper that was starting to come unglued at the seams and tired look of the home interior. Maybe it was the long out-of-style women’s clothing in a very small size marked cheaply for sale. Or, possibly it was the fact that someone’s evidence of life was being sold and spread to the wind. But whatever it was, I was emotionally affected.

…Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word it always was. Let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. Rosamunde Pilcher

Walking through the estate sale house, most of all I felt was reverence for a life lived. What was still for sale in the kitchen told me who ever had lived there liked to entertain. A Dutch book in English about the art featured in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam indicates the previous occupants liked to travel. A box of a large quantity of oil paint-stained art brushes of all sizes indicated someone not only like to view art, but also make it them self. This helped create an image to me of a real person who lived a real life.

Many African societies divide humans into three categories: those still alive on the earth, the sasha, and the zamani. The recently departed whose time on earth overlapped with people still here are the sasha, the living-dead. They are not wholly dead, for they still live in the memories of the living, who can call them to mind, create their likeness in art, and bring them to life in anecdote. When the last person to know an ancestor dies, that ancestor leaves the sasha for the zamani, the dead. As generalized ancestors, the zamani are not forgotten but revered. Many … can be recalled by name. But they are not the living-dead. There is a difference.” James w. Loewen.

I left the estate sale yesterday feeling sad for someone’s death, but came around today to believing I visited the remains of  life lived well. One of the treasures I purchased for seventy-five cents was an old sepia-toned photograph from a box of random black and white’s of various sizes. The image is at the top of this blog; an attractive woman in her early twenties in clothing that suggests her time was early in the twentieth century.

The woman in the photograph looks out through time and makes eye contact with me as I write. I am grateful to her for helping me humanize my estate sale experience yesterday and allowing me to bear witness she once lived.

We all leave traces of ourselves behind. I hope someday strangers will find the bits and pieces I have strewn about to be meaningful like the leave behinds I discovered yesterday.

Life is pleasant.
Death is peaceful.
It’s the transition that’s troublesome.
Isaac Asimov