Committing to the Dream

There’s an old cliché that says “Dreams really do come true”. And if you talk to some of the people closest to me, they’ll tell you they hate it when I use clichés and generalities. I understand why they say such things, but in this case the cliché works to touch off a discussion about an issue I have been thinking about for quite some time. My thought is simple: What does it take to make a dream come true? Let me first start off by telling you that I don’t have the definitive answer to that question for you. The details of each dream dictate the course of action necessary for success and if I knew how to make every one come true, I’d be rich, famous, powerful, and living the easy life on a tropical island paradise.

Okay, so I don’t have minute specifics for you but I think I can come up with a few basics. Knowing what you really want, having a plan, a support structure, and effective guidance all sound like good elements to include in your master plan. Sprinkle in determination, persistence, resolve, and of course commitment… Oh that word Commitment. It’s the bane of many a person’s existence; the fear of it, talking about it, actually doing it. It’s enough to make any boyfriend go running for the hills (oops, I’ve fallen into a cliché again). Really though, committing to the dream is at the top of the list of things required to making a dream come true. But why?

I’ll let you in on a little secret of mine. A couple of years back, my brother and I started a very small business. We tried to sell t-shirts with whimsical, funny, and irreverent sayings and designs on them. We lacked practical business experience and knowledge as neither of us studied it in college, but we had a dream. We set out to educate ourselves on all the necessary business aspects needed to make our project a success. I even started this blog to get more attention for our website. To make a long story short, I tried to make the business work, but my effort proved insufficient. I gave it my all and still failed. Or did I give it my all? You see the most valuable lesson I learned about the whole endeavor was about commitment, although I learned the lesson far too late. At the time I didn’t recognize how uncommitted I was to the project. You know how some people live, breath, and eat totally focused on their goals? Well that wasn’t me and it negatively affected my performance in making things successful. So why couldn’t I commit? The short answer is I followed the wrong dream. You see I didn’t really know what I wanted out of my t-shirt company, so it blurred my perspective.

I guess it might be fair to say that if you can’t commit to a dream, really pour your talent, time, energy, and thought into it, that thing probably isn’t really your dream. It’s not a pleasant thing to fail, but in a way all of that might have been necessary. That experience taught me two valuable things. First, I realized I really wanted to commit to writing, something that would fulfill me professionally and creatively. Second, l learned truly committing to something meant that all my actions should reflect my efforts in achieving my goal. To put this into a different perspective, I refer back to the conversation where my brother curtly stated that I was not a writer. And what did I do in response to that statement? I wrote a novel. See that’s commitment. I know, and knew then, writing was part of my identity. I just needed a push (some might say violent shove) to solidify that perspective in my own mind. I’m not a businessman, but I am a writer.

Can you think of anything you want or wanted that ultimately proved out of reach? What kind of commitment did you devote to it? Was it really worth it? I’d say for a dream to be worthy of your total commitment it really must excite your passion, almost to the point of obsession. Don’t go crazy mind you, just let that commitment really fuel your drive for success. So, it comes down to a simple choice: are you willing to commit to your dream?

Thanks for reading.

Questions and comments are welcome. 

Can You Ask For Help If You Need It?

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.  ~AnneFrank

I really hate asking for help. I’ve always been one to figure things out on my own, charge through the glut and muck to come to an understanding. For the most part, that’s the way I learn. Sometimes, I’ll have to go over something a hundred times (like Algebra) before it sinks into my math-averse brain. Applying myself and employing my own brain cells to solve a problem or figure out a process gives me a sense of personal accomplishment that makes me feel capable. However, there are times when it is most advantageous and prudent to ask for help, to request a helping hand to get you through a difficult situation. There’s no shame in that. Sometimes, pride or stubbornness get in the way and just makes things really messy.

There have been times where I didn’t ask for help, initially, and wound up totally stuck. Case in point: One time when I was 17 I was working on my old beat up jalopy of a car. It was an ancient Monte Carlo, a rusted out, oil burning, hideous mess of a car, but it was mine. I tried to install brake pads on the back. And if any of you ever attempted to change old style drum brakes, you know the mess you can get into pretty quick if you don’t know what you’re doing. Anyway, I tried for about two hours to figure it out. Frustration mounted until I felt like my head would explode. I broke down, asked my dad to help, and within ten minutes, the brakes were together and working perfectly.

Now that I’m older, I understand the value of asking questions, and seeking out help when the time calls for it. I still don’t like it, but I’ve put aside my stubbornness and pride. I realized that learning doesn’t have to come just from my own experiences. Learning from others’ experience and life knowledge is an excellent way to increase your own capabilities and understandings. The self-improvement we all need and yearn for (even if we won’t admit it) starts with expanding our minds and opening ourselves up to new possibilities. Anne Frank was right; you don’t have to wait a single moment to make things better, starting with you. No one lives life completely alone, so no one should ever try to learn everything completely alone either.  

Someone out there has experienced something similar to your situation, whatever it is. With seven billion people on the planet, I’m confident in saying that. It is not a waste of time to employ others’ knowledge and experience to make your own a more positive one; it will be an investment. That investment will pay dividends. Ultimately the difference will be a better life. And a better life is what we all should strive for.

Go ahead, ask for help. Trust me, it won’t hurt and you might just learn something.

Thanks for reading. Questions and comments are welcome. 

Thanks for 25,000!

Yesterday, my blog went over 25,000 page views. I just wanted to take a minute out and say Thank You to all of the readers who took the time out of their day to read my blog. Your support is much appreciated.

Thank you for reading.

What Does it Mean to Get Ahead?

“The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves” – William Penn

Life is about quality experiences and honorable achievements you work towards.

Life is not about getting ahead of everyone else. Life is not about accumulating every attention-getting trinket in existence. Life is not about comparing yourself to others as if they are the official measuring stick of accomplishment. Granted, I’m being completely subjective here. I know to others life might very well be solely about acquisition of power, wealth, fame, stuff; who knows. I’m sure having ultimate power might be cool, for a while; being able to buy whatever my heart desires would fulfill my wants, for a while; having people adore me and fawn all over me might be gratifying and feed my ego, for a while. 

But I’ve observed that a lot of times people compare their status with others (usually ones ahead of them) and feel as if they are not as successful or accomplished as they should be; then they lose sight of what they have in favor of what they might be able to attain. So they persist in their drive to acquire more and more, never really appreciating what they have now. This ladies and gentlemen is what is called the rat race.

My suggestion is to never start running that race, because once you do, you immediately lose. Striving to be successful is an admirable goal; one I agree with and continually work for. However, I’ve learned to follow an ideal of what my future successful self looks like, but only compare myself to where I have been and what I have achieved in the past. You see an ideal is just that; an ideal, it is not real and most of the time it’s not attainable in a realistic sense. Think of how you structure your future self’s image. Is it perfect? Maybe not but it’s probably idealistically constructed, meaning ‘if things were perfect’ played a small part in its creation, even if you weren’t consciously aware of it. So striving toward that ideal gives you focus and a goal, which is good. Comparing yourself to the past and what actually was keeps you grounded, examining real world facts.

It is unfortunately very easy to fall into the trap of thinking things like “Everyone has so much more than me,” “I’m never going to have as much as that guy,” or “I’m never going to make it.” That’s jealously talking there. In the grand spectrum of success, there will always be those ahead, and behind you. This is a fact. Worrying so much about what other people have accomplished and comparing yourself only to those that are more successful will ultimately lead to you feeling like a failure. Now it’s okay to model your actions after successful people (they’re a success for a reason); any other comparisons on success is just shortchanging yourself.

I once fell into that trap. I’d look at all the successful authors out there and lament that they succeeded where I still failed. I saw their body of published works and compared that to my unpublished writing. And I was miserable. What I failed to look at was just how much more I wrote in the last two years compared to the eight years preceding them. In the last two years I’ve written a weekly blog entry almost every week, I’ve written a Novel, and two short stories. The previous eight years I wrote only a fraction of that. So in comparison to myself the last two years have been a resounding success. And I gained fulfillment from those valuable and rewarding writing experiences. Sure I’m not published yet, but I’m light years ahead of where I was. The key there is me, not those published authors. My being jealous of them served no purpose except to make me feel like crap. So I changed my perspective. And guess what? I changed my life, yet again.  

You can do it too. I dare you. 

Thanks for reading. Questions and Comments are welcome. 

What Legacy to Leave

No legacy is so rich as honesty. (All’s Well that Ends Well -- Act iii, Sc. 5) William Shakespeare

Have you ever thought about life after your own? I’m not talking about anything supernatural, heaven, or the afterlife. I’m talking about the impression you leave behind after you are gone. It’s an unavoidable truth that one day each of us will draw our last breath and part from this world. In a way it makes all that we do and all that we say that much more poignant and precious, because we only get one chance. Think for a moment of what life would be like without you. All of society will roll on just as it has before you, only now, if you’ve done it right, you’ll have left a mark that is immutable and distinctly you. I think leaving a legacy of good behind is vital.

For argument’s sake let’s say we all have 100 years of earthly life given to us. What will you do with that time? Each life is different and unique and the choices we make mold and shape that life and us into the individuals we all are. Some of those choices are good, some bad. What we do with those lives is entirely up to us. There are those who are self-centered and egotistical, searching only for things that make themselves happy. There are those who strive for altruism and look out for others, doing whatever they can to better the lives of those around them. Many of us fall somewhere in between, which is to say we try to live good lives and occasionally put ourselves first in the pecking order of life. Now that’s not a bad thing because if you can’t take care of yourself you can’t take care of anyone else; it’s the balance between selfishness and givingness that’s the key. We can’t all get everything we’ve ever wanted, that’s just unrealistic and if you devote your life to acquisition, whether it be for fame, fortune or power, you may very well achieve those goals, but when it’s all over, what do you leave behind?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say what you leave behind should be a positive thing. Although, it might be hard to say exactly what counts as valuable in a subjective sense; one person might say a fortune left to heirs is positive, another might say the example of a good life is better. Even others might say the propagation of their religion or ideology is paramount. So what is positive, and what counts as a lasting legacy of good?

My belief is that if you continue to learn and improve on the person you were yesterday, avoid making the same mistakes, keep an open mind, learn from other people the best you can, and never give up to apathy and despair, your life will continue to improve. Striving to an ideal is great so long as you only compare yourself to what you have achieved, not what you think you should be. We all know no one is perfect, but continual self-improvement is an example everyone that knows you can take with them and emulate, as well as pass on to others. 

Over the course of a lifetime, you can make a difference. If you continually fail, try another approach, seek advice, model yourself after those who have succeeded and keep going. If you only have 100 years to make a life worth knowing about, each moment is precious, but they are also opportunities to reassert yourself and move forward. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. Think of it this way, if your life was a book, would anyone want to read about it? I for one want to leave behind a best seller. What about you?

Thanks for reading. Questions and Comments are welcome. 

Knock Knock!

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.  ~Francis Bacon

How often do you create opportunities for success in your life? You might have heard the old saying “Opportunity only knocks once,” or “When opportunity knocks, answer it”. They’re cute little sayings aren’t they? But do you notice something about the way they are structured? I’ll give you a minute to reread them….

Did you see it? Well, if you saw what I saw you’ll recognize that both of those sayings are rather passive in regards to you and what you should do. Think about it. Opportunity knocks, meaning it will come to you. Really? I’ve always had this sort of ridiculous notion that opportunity was like a cloud of positive energy that would one day float by my apartment door and lightly rap upon my door knocker. All I had to do was wait. Now I realize that’s an incredible waste of time.

If we think about what Francis Bacon says about opportunity, we should all be out hunting that misty cloud of energy trying to wring out all the opportunity we can get. And that’s exactly what you should be doing. Getting out there and making things happen is what life should be about. There’s a reason why couch potatoes aren’t wildly successful, except knowing what’s on TV; they aren’t doing anything. You can’t seize the day if you’ve already seized the couch.

Just a few days ago, I once again submitted some of my writings to a publisher. In fact, I submitted another short story and several poems. No one is going to come knocking on my door begging me to submit my stories to their magazine. So I’ve got to make those publishing opportunities happen myself. And I’m going to have to continue to foster those opportunities if I want to be successful. You might not be an aspiring author, but I’m sure there’s something positive you’d love to be doing right now; some dream you always wanted to come true…

The question is, what are you doing to make that dream come true?

Thanks for reading. Questions and comments are welcome.

Life is a Grand Thing!

I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.  ~Agatha Christie

What can we learn from dear Agatha? Well, besides her penchant for solving murders of her own design, she’s letting us know that every day we are alive is a chance to make things anew, to better ourselves and our situations and at the very least, start over.

I would argue that life is a gift. To some that might seem like a trite and superfluous statement. They might say life is just a result of natural forces coming into play. Others might argue that there’s a grand design for my life and it was ‘meant to be.’ Either way, I can’t know the answer for sure why I am alive, but I can tell you since I’m here, I’m going to make damn sure I make my time worth it.

Sometimes it is so very hard to find purpose and meaning in our own personal agonies. ‘Racked with sorrow’ is such a powerful statement. The meaning is clear; sometimes life hurts so much there seems to be nothing we can do to stop the pain. But it reminds me of another quote I once heard:

"We have no right to ask when sorrow comes, why did this happen to me?" unless we ask the same question for every moment of happiness that comes our way."  ~Author Unknown

There is no perfect or normal life, there’s just life. The good and the bad play an intricate part in shaping our lives and our selves. How we define ourselves out of those experiences is what matters. Persevering and overcoming the negative forges determination, but focusing on the positive is what will make you happy. It is not enough to merely survive the rigors of life. Learn from the bad, but relish the good. Choose to see the wonder life has to offer, not the pain it can bring. None of this is easy. But remember, life is a grand thing. You just need to see it that way.

Thanks for reading. Questions and comments are welcome.  

Perseverance vs. Obstinacy

The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.  

~Henry Ward Beecher

What good is a strong will if you are fighting for or against the wrong thing? I wonder that sometimes. Getting caught up in the mechanics of life, I noticed there are times when simply plowing ahead toward a goal becomes counterproductive. At that point, re-evaluation of the method, tactics, and even the very goal need to take place. All the effort in the world fails to help if the goal you work for holds no merit. So, where perseverance assists in forging ahead through the hard times, obstinacy blinds you to wrong, ineffective, and destructive behaviors that hinder success. 

Coming to this realization is difficult and sometimes painful; it can also be very hard. Admitting that you spend all that time and effort on a goal that proved unattainable is heartbreaking. But think about it this way, would you rather admit a change is needed today and start fresh, or soldier on for another month, year, or decade before that epiphany occurs? In ten years’ time you’ll be no better off, and ten years behind. Making the change now can cause grief, pain, sorrow; any number of negative emotions really. However, you might just realize after re-evaluating your current course that a new path will make things better. You might, dare I say, experience relief, joy, or even excitement at the prospect of trying something new. 

Not every problem or situation needs to be attacked with mindless obstinacy. Obstacles in life should be looked at as challenges to overcome and something to learn from, not barriers to destroy or annoyances to avoid. Life takes a lot of work. It reminds me of a very old saying: 

The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. 

~Confucius

Everything worth the effort takes time; just make sure you are putting your energies in the right place.

Thanks for reading. Questions and comments are welcome. 

Take the Day Off!

So yesterday was my birthday. But for some inexplicable reason, I didn't take the day off of work. Why? I guess it's because I got so wrapped up in my day-to-day routine that I didn't stop to think that I should sit back, relax and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. 

I think this happens far too often, not just to me, but to most people, especially the ones that have a full plate of responsibilities. Sometimes, I get so tangled in all of the things I 'have' to do, that I forget to schedule time for the things I 'want' to do, let alone actually doing them. 

Don't let that happen. The work will always be there. It's okay to relax and enjoy yourself. What do you do to relax? Are you going to relax today? Make a list of three things that you find relaxing and try to do at least two of them before you go to bed tonight. I'm betting you'll sleep better. Try it. 

Thanks for reading. Questions and Comments are welcome. 

Today's Blessings

What are five things you are thankful for today?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Can you fill out that list? It shouldn’t be too hard. Give it even a little bit of thought and I’m sure you could extend that list to seven or ten, maybe even twelve or more. I’m sure if you wrote a list like this once in a while it would be easy. But, could you do that list every day and not repeat the same thing two days in a row? Now, could you do that for the entire week? The entire month? How about a whole year?

You see, in my effort to retrain my mind to think more positively, I’ve dedicated myself to doing a list just like this every day for the entire month of May. Sounds silly doesn’t it? Really though, to me, it seems too easy to get caught up in negativity, counterproductive thinking, despair, all the sorts of things that get in the way of us making our lives the way we want them to be. The power of positive thinking might sound super cheesy, but how often do you deliberately think positively to improve your mood or outlook? I know a few people who are quiet adept at doing just that. However, I also know many people, including myself, that get lost in the negativity (at least for just a little bit).

I think the great effort of our lives should be investing in our experiences, our understandings, our knowledge, and our perceptions. It might be really cool to look around our houses or apartments and marvel at all the stuff we’ve accumulated. It might seem pretty neat to take a joy ride in the fancy car we own or spend a night out on the town burning through a few hundred dollars. Yeah, that might all be cool, for a while. But what else is there, if you don’t explore even the smallest of positives in your life? 

Yesterday, my list read that I was thankful for sunshine, peace and quiet, pizza, memories of good times, and friends. The day before that, all five were completely different. Tomorrow, I’ll list five new ones. There is an abundance of positiveness in this world. If you have to deliberately show yourself what that is before you can readily recognize it, so be it. Once you learn to see the good in your life without difficulty, the negative will melt away and you’ll be left with a positive glow. Anything that helps you along in your life's mission is worth it.

What’s your list going to say?

Thanks for reading. Questions and Comments are welcome. 

Is It Just a Building?

Leo Tolstoy said that to have real artistic activity, the production of something new must occur; Clive Bell said that there is a particular kind of emotion that people feel when viewing works of visual art; the structures presented in this montage all contain appreciable levels of newness and provoke emotional responses to varying degrees. Structures, for me, with their grandness, scale, purpose and position in the landscape suggest feelings of power and strength. Many of these structures also suggest longevity and perseverance. 

With each example, they present a newness, whether it be use, style of construction, symbolism, technological advance, or human ideal. The emotional power they provoke has just as much depth as from paintings, sculptures, and musical scores. The grandeur and scale of architecture act as emphatic statements of humanity’s ability to impose its will and upon nature, but also to work in conjunction and unison with it. Though the forces of nature will ultimately prevail over all of man’s efforts, the mark he leaves is not so easily erased. 

The Great Pyramid of Giza (Pyramid of Khufu) ca. 2560 BC

Flavian Amphitheatre – The Colosseum (70AD)

St. Peter’s Basilica (1626) – Donato Bramante

Big Ben and the Palace of Westminster (1834-1864) – Charles 

Barry and Augustus W.N. Pugin

Golden Gate Bridge (1937) – Irwin Morrow

US Capitol Building (1793, expanded 1850) – William Thornton et.al.

Hoover Dam (1936) Six Companies, Inc. (structural), Gordon Kaufmann (exteriors)

Statue of Liberty (1886) Frederic Auguste Bartholdi

Empire State Building (1931)  - William F. Lamb

Kremlin Complex(various construction Dates and designers) 

Do any of these structures inspire you? Motivate you? Are they art? What do you think?

Thanks for reading. Questions and Comments are welcome.