Positive attitude a must…

I have really been feeling down this past while. I have always worked at, struggled to maintain a positive attitude. Attitude carries you a long way in this world and helps make the journey a lot easier even more enjoyable while it is carrying you along.

I find if I can come up with a physical comparable it helps me to understand it. Now I certainly am not trying to compare myself to an Olympic athlete but maybe it illustrates my point.  An athlete trains preparing him/herself to peak physically and emotionally be in their zone at the time of the games. The date of the games arrives and they are ready only to be told, the games have been postponed, for an uncertain amount of time, but that they should keep themselves peeked indefinitely. How long would they be able to do that? I know a silly comparable.

I like being in “the zone”, it is peaceful, relaxed and I am content. Outside influences roll by me, off me like water off a ducks back, just not being important. I am just easy going, relaxed and go with the flow. Maybe, with years more work I could reach the point where nothing is important to me and so nothing would get to me. Obviously I am not there yet. There are things that are important to me!! Healthy boundaries are important. Easy going and relaxed does not translate to door mat.

I think it all started really back in May or June. That is when the 4 contractors disagreed about my upcoming treatment. Two favoring immediate business close down, two favoring doing nothing at all. That dragged on for 3 or 4 months. The not knowing what to be prepared for was for me difficult as there were and are serious consequences either way.

I think I was stressing over that when a couple of issues over the summer knocked me right out of the zone. I need to get off my butt and go something about it. Here I am still alive with my business doing fairly good

Stress…

Yesterday I started to write my thoughts on the Serenity Prayer. What it means to me. This prayer is important to me as I do try to use it in my daily life. If you really think about it, it contains such a wonderful message, is a wonderful prayer.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Yesterday, I wrote about the first sentence. Accepting what you cannot change. When we get right down to it, there is very little if anything in this world we can really change, except ourselves. The prayer is like a call to action, to bring about change within myself one way or the other.

Internal serenity, being completely at peace with the world, is something I strive for, I pray for. I am sure it is something all would want. How do we achieve it? For me, stress is the worst enemy of my internal serenity. I have a bad heart and with that comes the knowing that stress can and will kill me. Guess what, it will do the same to you. It is just a matter of time or timing. This whole dying business has brought about a huge change in me. I am much more accepting than I was in the past. Things that would have had me all fired up now about 90% if time doesn’t even register on my internal radar. Most things just aren’t worth the bother of paying any attention to. I have come to realize most things in our daily lives just aren’t that important. If something is important to me, I am not that complacent and I think that is how it should be.

The second sentence contains, “change the things you can”. This is where we have to take a hard, honest look at our lives. Serenity is my goal has stress be gone from my life. I need to work on myself. I need to work on myself to learn why I still allow certain issues to push my buttons, so to speak. Sometimes the answer will be that the circumstance or whatever it I am dealing with is just plain unacceptable and not within my tolerance zone. What am I to do then?

This for me is the difficult part. Having the “wisdom to know the difference part”. If I have done an honest internal review and have found there are some external factors in my life that are just not acceptable, stress causing. It is time to make external changes in the world around me. We all have people, events in our lives that cause us stress. We see them there, we feel the stress. Do we have the “courage to change the things we can’? Internally and externally?

De-Stressing our lives

I have been thinking about stress in our lives. It seems almost everything I read about stress, I see that it can be a contributing factor to or at least aggravate most illnesses and diseases. We know how detrimental it is to our health, to our lives yet how many of us actually do make a real effort to reduce that stress level. We just accept it as something that is there, a normal part of life.

Now a certain amount of stress does come with life and is good for us. It can be a great motivator prompting us or even forcing us to act on certain issues, get them done and that stress is gone. Everyone is going to face stress in their lives. We have responsibilities we must honor in raising our families, working at our jobs in just living our lives.

I often think of life as being like a highway. My highway of life is the trip I take while in this physical world. Each of us travel down our own “highways” on this journey. The ultimate destination for us all is the same the Gates of Heaven. As with any highway the road is not always that smooth. Sometimes we hit bumps, pot holes, construction areas or even detours that take us off of our planned route. Such is with any highway, such is with life.

While driving on a regular highway and we run into a construction site, what do we do? Well stress goes up at least a little, we slow down, see that the path in front of us is more difficult than we had been expecting and we drive more carefully as continue on, knowing we will get through it.

Now if we look at the “highway of life”. A bump in the road would be comparable to a little issue of some sort but we quickly pass it and it is gone. The size of the bump would correlate to the significance we place on the issue, but irregardless it is quickly passed over. A construction site could relate over to being like a major issue in our lives and these do happen to everyone. Something comes along that hits us hard and usually unexpectedly. Now at these times if we could but remember the highway, we slow down, drive more cautiously and we get through it. If I think back over my life, I can remember times when it seemed I ran face first into a “calamity” and I forgot the just keep going and you will get through this, I know this to be a fact yet when in the midst of this “calamity”, I suppose because I am human I can tend to let emotions run wild and stress sets in. If somehow I could just keep in mind the fact that God has a plan for me and he will get me through this.

This is what I am trying to work on, de-stressing my life. Now it is true I do look at things differently since this business began. It is just with the human world around you it is so easy it seems to back slide. Why is it seems, negative influences can drag you down a lot faster than positive can up lift you.

Stress will kill me, it will kill you. Look at your life. I am sure you will find stressors that don’t really need to be there, so why are you hanging on to them?

I read this somewhere, “If people treat you right, hold them close to your heart. If they don’t treat you right, just let them go.”

Be yourself…

I am the master of my own fate, the captain of my own destiny. I heard that somewhere and really like it, the more I think on it the more and more I like it. What does it mean to me? I am an adult and as such am in charge of my life. I and I alone am responsible for my own actions and reactions. I am the one that is control of my life, it is mine to live. When you really think about it what else do we have that is exclusively ours. This person known as Miqdad will in fact be the only person with the real me throughout my entire life. Oh, for sure others will come and play parts in our lives some bigger parts some smaller or shorter parts. Some play more important parts, some less so. But, no one will be with me constantly 24/7 other than this character the world sees as Miqdad. Am I making sense here?

The face we put on for the world to see will differ at different times depending on the situation. I have to ask, how often does that face we put on for the world to see, match the true me? I think I am on some sort of spiritual quest or something. I am struggling to do away with all the false faces. I am Me and that is it, nothing more nothing less.

Lost Peace and Serenity

I hope and pray 2011 is a wonderful year for all. I hope and pray for all that it is the very best year of your life so far and that each coming year after shall continue to just get better and better.

I am not making any New Year’s resolutions but I am approaching the new year with more resolve, a greater determination to work on myself physically, spiritually and emotionally. In the last day or so I responded to a comment in which I stated I am prepared for what lies ahead. I realize that has become like just a pat, routine answer. Something made me stop and really think about it. I realize that yes, there was indeed a time when I was prepared both emotionally and spiritually, prepared to go home whenever the Father called me. I feel I have let that state of preparedness slide. I am not sure becoming complacent or something. Maybe, it is I am not as prepared as I once was or as I would always like to be. Dying is kind of a big deal for all of us!!! If you know it is coming wouldn’t you want to be as prepared as you can. Well guess what? I know I am dying but I also know you are dying, timing is the only difference. I may be on a bit more of an accelerated plan but really how do you even know that.

Ok, I was prepared, but for reasons known only to him, the Good Lord seemed to be not ready to call me. Time kept rolling by and I am still here plugging away. Somehow through this my feelings of not seeing my next birthday was replaced with a feeling of I have another 10 or 15 years left in my yet. I even survived another birthday. I became cocky, complacent. My daily prayers and meditation began to slip until here I am now.

I am not sure why but over the past 4 or 5 months that cocky feeling of I have a good 10 or 15 years left in my has gone. I am feeling uncertain about this year. I need to get back my sense of being prepared the peace and serenity that comes with it.

I found this blog helped me gain those feelings in the past and I am hoping it will do it for me again. I have to go back to the beginning. But I will get there.

Cherish today

Each of us individually is only allowed so many days on this earth. Knowing that it is up to each of us to determine how to best spend those days. Particularly when you are young and healthy it is so very easy to put off any such thoughts as make the most of each day, or enjoy each day. We just “know” we have lots of days left ahead of us and we an always get around to what ever it may be tomorrow or next week. I know it is to easy to fall into that pattern of thinking, I did it for years. It is always tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. While it may not seem like it in individual situations, one of the truly amazing things in life is how fast time slips past. Here I am 21 years old, I almost have to pinch myself to make sure I am not just dreaming that. How can so much time have gone by so quickly????? It seems like just yesterday that I thought when someone was 21 they were old already. For the record 21 is not old, 50 is old.I would imagine if you asked someone who was 100 years old, they would likely be even more amazed than I am at how fast time passes you by. No matter your age or state of health, enjoy today make the most of this day for what it is, a Gift from God.

If you think about it, what more precious gift could we be given each day? The gift of being alive, the gift of getting to spend one more day on this earth. In this life we take so very much for granted, the biggest of all being our tomorrows. I watched a TV show last night. It was one of those real life police documentary programs. You know the type of show I mean they take a real life crime or accident, describe the event and then interview witnesses/family members who ever. In this particular case it was about a young man riding a motorcycle and killed in a traffic accident. It was truly heart breaking as the young man’s father was interviewed. That last morning he had been arguing with his son, he was still yelling at his son as the son took off on his motorcycle. How he wishes he could change what would prove to be his last moments with his son. That is the whole point. When they woke up that morning neither father nor son had any idea of how the day would unfold. Neither had any idea this angry exchange would prove to be their last. Had they but known, how different do you think their farewell may have been.

My point is cherish today.

Happy New Year

I hope and pray all my dear blogging friends and any and all that may experience nothing but good health, happiness and love through out the up coming New Year.

Fort any that may be celebrating this evening, have fun but be safe. Don’t drink and drive..

As I wrote that line I got a little chuckle thinking of some, maybe most  of the New Year’s Eve celebrations in my past. Now this does go back a few years but I may have been known to celebrate just a little too hard. Just maybe, consuming a few more “beverages” than I maybe should have. Hey, that was when I was young and foolish not as I am now. LOL. Now we really are talking years ago, but there may have been times when, yes, I drove home, ever watchful for and fearful of being stopped by the police. REALLY REALLY STUPID I know and please don’t d it.

These days least here in Winnipeg. The police have extra check stops set up at various spots though the city specifically looking for drunk drivers. If you are stopped and are sober they give you a special ticket. A ticket you can use to enter a draw to win various prizes. Hey, now when I want to get stopped for one of those special tickets. Geesh, do you think you can find a police stop when you want one. LOL

Reflective Mood…

I think I am turning into a bit of a moody Grinch or something. By the time we actually do get to Christmas, I have been hearing them for so long, it just seems they no longer have that “magical effect” on me. Does that make any kind of sense at all?

It seems I have been in a very reflective mood of late. I am not sure why this seems to happen to me each year as we near the end of the calendar year. I don’t really understand the timing of this as really what is January 1st.  Well, obviously it marks the beginning of a New Calendar Year. Really though January 1st. is in fact no different than December 31st as that each day as they arrive is the first day of the rest of our lives. Just as today is the first day of the rest of my life. Often it seems we come up with resolutions for changes we want to make in our lives and so often it seems the beginning of a calendar New Year is the date we often chose to bring those changes into effect. That is great, it seems we often need a target date to get us started, fair enough. I think I have found for me though, I have often used the excuse, I will start it in the new year, to procrastinate, put off things I know I should do now but really don’t want to or am just too lazy to do now.

I don’t make resolutions any more. Maybe it is doing put off until tomorrow what I know I need to do today.

Hey I have my business anniversary coming up in a few days. For any that may have been following the blog for a while, well you know what is coming. I am going to be asking each reader of the blog for an anniversary gift. Can you guess what it may be? lol. I will have my request up tomorrow.

Small wonders in life…

It is almost hard to belief how winter has hit us with such a sudden bang. It was only about 2 weeks ago that we had no cold and now we have an amount equal to about 2/3 of our entire winter coldness last year. It is beautiful when the winters first arrive. It is suddenly so much brighter outside as the winter reflects the light of the street lights in the nights. Now I have lived through enough winters that it shouldn’t surprise me yet every year it seem to do just that.

I have noticed that somehow I have changed over the past while. I do seem to notice and appreciate those small wonders. Our street is lined with beautiful old elm trees. I have always thought that was nice, a street lined with a bunch of trees is beautiful. I still see that but I see each individual tree as its own unique, beautiful and living self. OK, an elm tree is an elm tree but put a long row of them together and if you really look you can see the uniqueness of each; I suppose the individuality of each. Does that make sense?

Over the past month or so I have started about a dozen different posts but life seems to keep getting in the way of me finishing them. A couple I am struggling with as they have deep and special meaning to me, messages I do want to share. I am going to try to be more diligent in getting them done and post more often.

Faith/Religion Merely a Crutch Used by the Weak???

I was looking through some of my old saved draft posts and came across this one. I think I almost have a bit of a memory of starting but can’t be sure. Anyway, this is what I had written.

I came across a comment the other day that must have been written by someone with a very scientific mindset. It was worded something to the effect:

“Faith/Religion is a crutch leaned on by those that are too weak to face their lives on their own. Science is slowly explaining all and with time and further advancement will be able to explain away all. Belief in an afterlife gives those without the strength to accept the finality of their death merely an element of hope”

OK, that is as far has I had written at that time. Anyone that knows me will know I have my strong beliefs in this regard. I will try to get a post up in the next few days explaining all as I see it.

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this.