LIFE AIN'T EASY! But it Really Can be a Beautiful Ride

“Life is hard. After all it kills you.’ Those were the words of actress Katherine Hepburn. Death may be a fact of life that we must all face but we must not get so focused on death that we forget to live. Wherever we are in life we have differing lengths of time between today and the day we die. If it is today, tomorrow, or fifty years from now, death must not destroy living.

Life ain’t easy. It is full of work, boredom, difficulty, pain, and stress. In the face of this terrible picture, we need to find meaning or purpose in life, to give us a reason to endure through the problems of living. We need something for which to live. Don’t you agree with this conclusion about life?

I believe that one of the real reasons folks never really enjoy living is the fact that they just never move forward and change their thoughts, ideas, and patterns of living. Why don’t they move forward? It is quite simple. There is a great embedded fear that keeps them from moving forward. How sad! What is there to fear? Someone said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Consider the words from “The Rose:” “Its the heart afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance/Its the dream afraid of waking, that never takes the chance/Its the one who won't be taken, the one who can't seem to give/And the soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live.”

The words of that song speak very strongly to the fear that is in so many of us. Think about each line of the song. Something is lost because someone was afraid to make an investment. He never learned to dance, or he never took the chance, or he just couldn’t seem to give, and in the end he never learned to live. Afraid of dying. . .He never lived.

My will to live is very strong. I have family and friends who will miss me if I check out. I am sure I also have some enemies who won’t have anyone to hate if I check out. So, I will not check out on my own. I love living and really believe you can too if you try it. Go back to the words of “The Rose” and reverse everything in the verse we quoted. You can do it.

Gary Allen sings it well, “Hey, life ain't always beautiful, But it's a beautiful ride. What a beautiful ride.”

"PRICE TAG LOVE!"

I can remember when life was quite simple. I spent countless hours on the creek with my dog. That life was adventurous and I had an exciting time. Sometimes a friend or friends joined me for high adventure. There was hardly a place we could not go. We hunted and fished, never endangering any species, animal or bird.

Today, almost everything in life has a price tag. I remember the words of a song entitled Signs that was on the charts numerous times. A glance at the chorus and one of the verses tells us why. The Chorus goes like this.
Sign Sign everywhere a sign
Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind
Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign.

Verse 2: And the sign said anybody caught trespassing would be shot on sight/So I jumped on the fence and yelled at the house, Hey! what gives you the right/To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in/ If God was here, he'd tell you to your face, man you're some kinda sinner. . .

Love does not attach conditions. The fact is, genuine love is always a free gift. It is a commitment to the growth, happiness and fulfillment of the one loved. It could be one’s husband, one’s wife, a child, a friend, etc. Love is a gift that gives itself to the growth, happiness and fulfillment of the one loved.

It is so sad we must live in such a price tag world. You can have my love but there is a price. You must achieve. You must excel. You must perform. You must be perfect. You must be what I want or what I expect. All these appear as signs around the neck of the one demanding impossibilities from those who need just to be loved, and so badly. What a sad world. Perhaps one day a simpler time will return.

Please don’t make those you purport to love suffer from price tag love.

LOVE IS ALWAYS RELIABLE!

I am absolutely in love with life and as I write this today I am thinking of how wonderful it is to be alive. I’ve heard the news. I know the world is in really rotten shape and there are threats of another World War. Despite all the dismal reports, I write more from the thought of the war within so many of us.

Today I just want to say one thing in particular: life can be unpredictable and filled with ups and downs but love is reliable. I am talking about genuine love. You know what I mean: the love which should exist between husband and wife, parents and children, friend and friend, and soul mate and soul mate. You can at least understand where I am coming from today, I believe.

Love is a choice and commitment to others. Love’s concern is the true and lasting happiness of the one loved. It is dedicated to the growth and fulfillment of another. That being true, I cannot place qualifications on my love if I make that commitment of love to you. I cannot say, “I will love you if. . .”

This little blogspot is dedicated to LIFE and LIVING. There is no attempt here to counsel others; the purpose is altogether to encourage folks to live life to its fullest. I have written quite a few articles on suicide and what I see as its senselessness on this site. I invite you to write and tell me what you think. Have a great day!

A NEW BEGINNING MERITS A TITLE CHANGE

It has been a really long time since we have published a message on this blogspot. There was a change in location, the death of loved ones, and the burial of the computer under a half ton of garbage of one kind or the other. We have attempted to dig our way out and get started again because writing gives such great meaning to the one who has a gift for writing.

Now that last statement might just be debatable. I did get some criticism on the former name of the blog. It was quite uniquely titled but when others picked up more or less the same title they suggested I find my own title and suggested I might have some unsuitable material on the blog.

Unless they have reference to responses to the blog I have no idea what they might be suggesting. I am, however, renaming this blog to be more fitting to the subject which involves the love for life and living.

An individual who is not happy with his or her own life is generally suffering from feeling unloved or not getting his or her needs met. It is really just about as simple as that. I recently read of a teen who was in therapy for suicidal ideation. The only reason for the suicidal tendency seemed to be the fact the kid did not get but one designer outfit each month (she wanted three). Well, there just has to be more to life and living than designer fashions.

What do you personally think about making love in it's purest sense a foundational basis for life and living. And, why don't we love instead of only seeking love. That's right; I just mean to love everyone around you. I'm not trying to start a new Hippie Movement or anything like that. Let me share in two articles, things I recently found on love, the first is a poem which inspired the new name for our little blog. Check it out and tell me what you think:

QUINTESSENTIAL LOVE
When there is honesty... When there is understanding...The willingness to sacrifice... When one does not take advantage of the goodnessof the other... In the absence of hate... vengeance... outrage... When there is compassion...When loyalty is free from betrayal...When love transcends material things...Then your love is pure... It is a Quintessential Love!!!

Next week I will share this little article I found that will perhaps define the love I speak of today.

LET'S TALK ABOUT LIVIN'

Sometimes I just like to pick a subject and run with it. Lacking some originality, I often look to other sources. I run all over the www getting quotes to string some thoughts together. I also keep a few quotes I hear from time to time.

Life! Now, there is a huge subject. We think of things that are perhaps bigger than life. Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today. James Dean said that and he did not live very long.

Some folks don’t take the James Dean approach to life. So many people tiptoe through life, so carefully, to arrive, safely, at death. Wikipedia doesn’t know who said that but it is true and I have heard it before.

Here’s one I subscribe to very enthusiastically: Every day is my best day; this is my life. I'm not going to have this moment again (Bernie Siegel). That makes every moment so magnificant. I will just fill them up one-minute at-a-time with living my life to its fullest. That’s what I am doing right now. I love to write.

Hitch appears to be a con but he is a very honest guy afterall. Once he said, Life is not the number of breaths you take but the moments that take your breath away. Awesome! The time we spend with someone we love; the time we spend looking at a beautiful sunset, or a deer in the wild, or a cottontail rabbit.

Just think what it would be if we deliberately chose to take our own lives and missed all that. Your life has no meaning, you say? Remember that is just this minute you feel that way. There are other minutes to be lived. Perhaps you have had many minutes that were wretched and caused you to hate yourself. Come on, there just has to be something to be thankful for. There has to be one tiny thing to get enthusiastic about. There is and you can find it. The man, who in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week. (Voltaire)

Try a little faith: It is time: time to explore a world that needs one’s talents expended rather than one that seems not to care too much one way or the other. It is time: time to seek new adventures where people are willing to go beyond the inevitable and explore the world of the unpredictable, a world that does not hinge on unexplored faith. Faith is adventure in this context. Try something new. Try some new friends. Try something. That’s faith as I see it. You just can’t not try something! (-Me. Revision correction did not like that statement but I will leave it there anyway. What’s so wrong with a double negative?).

Well, I ran out of space. I remember this Oldie But Goodie called Let’s Talk About Livin’. I will date myself if you find it. I really think it might just be too old to be found. Try it and: Let’s do just that: Think and talk about living. Do it today, a minute at a time and remember, Hitch was right.

I CAN'T STOP THE PAIN!

Do you feel this way? Do you know anyone who feels this way? You do know it is a dangerous feeling that can just go on and on. What caused the pain may perhaps be the focus of attention. That is a normal response. It is quite normal to feel pain due to the way you were treated or because you were just ignored or overlooked.

That does not make you a bad person. You had something bad happen to you but you are not bad. Scarcely a single person goes very long without something like this happening. It is not something to be self-destructive over.

We should never argue with a person over his/her feelings. Whether we might think the feelings are not worth getting too upset about, they are upsetting to the individual suffering the emotions. Do something very positive for yourself or your friend: Validate the feelings! That’s right. Recognize the feelings. If it is another person let them know you may not know how they feel but you know their situation must be very painful. You might even say, I am sorry for what happened that caused you so much pain.

It is also alright to be angry because of the circumstances you are enduring or your friend is enduring. I would probably feel the same way given the same set of circumstances.

It is very easy to fall into the trap of grading everything that happens to us. This is just awful. I can’t stand this. I just can’t go on like this. Do you notice the preponderance of the word can’t in all this? The presence of so many cant's suggests a real need for help.

If it is true you can’t stop the pain, it’s probably true you can’t see a future without pain. There may be other cant’s as well e.g., eating, sleeping, etc.

Let’s just take a new approach and see if that will work. Are the feelings within the person with all the cant’s really helping the person in any way? Obviously they are not. How will continuing to feel this way really help any future feelings about oneself?

Take a little different approach. Flip the Script! Just suppose someone put you down, hurt you, or acted ugly to you? Does that really make you such a bad person or does it not really reflect on the bad taste of the person dishing out the garbage.

I really prefer the latter. These things have happened to me. I can remember when they nearly killed me—though I was not suicidal over it. I just did not think I could go on feeling the way I felt. I just Flipped the Script. I turned it around and looked non-judgmentally at the person who I felt wronged me and, all of a sudden I had a complete paradigm shift. A completely new perspective saved the day.

Life is really great after all!!!

"HAVE A NICE DAY!"

By Monday evening I had been chewed out four times by different people (one of them was very indirect and not intented just for me). What a way to begin a workweek. Today I was cursed violently and again royally chewed on for no good reason. We live in a world filled with angry people. I don’t think I should have been chewed out on any of these occasions. But, I am glad the people chose me to chew on because I believe I have learned to handle hostile situations.

I can’t say it was easy coming to a place in my life that I could handle such situations. Formerly I could blow up with the best, or worst of them. I particularly got angry at inanimate objects until I discovered that was the height of immaturity. It was time to grow up!!! I have had an inordinate amount of training by both the Federal Office of the Victims of Crime and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Victim Services. In fact, I am part of one of the off-shoots of the latter. The reason I mention all that is to suggest I have had lots of opportunities to see what anger, especially combined with alcohol and drugs can do to individuals and families.

Life is too short to have all that anger. I like Bon Jovi’s new single, Have a Nice Day! The big line goes like this: When the world gets in my face, I say, Have a nice day. That’s my music philosophical Tip of the Day!

I have learned quite a bit about all this and it has been quite beneficial, not only to my work, but quite frankly, to my life. Lately I have been involved in group activities among the incarcerated dealing with forgiveness and acceptance. I have seen some tempers erupt and burst into intensity when the suggestion of acceptance is applied to forgiveness. Generally it is, I can forgive but I can’t keep from holding a grudge. Is that forgiveness? We have had some really interesting discussions.

Anger and resentment can stop you in your tracts. That’s what I know now. It needs nothing to burn but the air and the life that is swallows and smothers. That was a quote from the narration in a quite interesting move called The Upside of Anger. I would recommend the movie to you but I will tell you no more about it due to the unexpected twist at the end of the story. I won’t ruin it for you.

Anger can cause us to hurt others. Anger can cause us to hurt ourselves. Anger can destroy us. Anger can give the devil a foothold (Eph. 5:27). Remember Dagwood? The salesman was always sticking his foot in the door to take advantage of Dagwood. Poor old Dagwood was usually a victim himself. We are like that when we harbor anger and resentment against any other person. We don’t win; Satan does.

If you need some help with this little problem, give me a holler. I have some great stuff that does help. May you have the greatest of days and a great week as well!