A World Made Up Of Choices

“When you wake up every day, you have two choices. You can either be positive or negative; an optimist or a pessimist. I choose to be an optimist. It’s all a matter of perspective.”~ Harvey Mackay

As of lately, I have been noticing something that is beginning to not only be trending (for lack of a better term) but alarming.

Social media websites are being used time and time and time again for PSA purposes.

Many people have taken to the pulpit now to spread whatever message they desire.

With it being politics time again in the United States of America, there is an unspoken promise that there will be individuals who express themselves through their political beliefs. It happens every time an election is upcoming.

Some people will cheer, others will jeer.

But I’m not here to talk about politics. I’m not about to unravel about how you have the choice to talk about politics because we already know that you do. Some just act upon them.

I’ve noticed that people that I know on social media have been giving out these very long and lengthy, paragraph-like statuses to explain to their “friends” that they’ve come to a decision and have made one and why they have made that decision.

The choice is within all of us, we make decisions based on what we prefer to choose every day.

However, why are we spreading the news about WHY we made that choice??

This is the issue I am speaking of here.

For whatever reason, I am continually CHOOSING to press the “Unfollow” button on Facebook on so many people because of their incessant need to explain themselves for whatever they have recently said or have done.

In recent times, I was at an event and I was explaining that I had gone somewhere out of town and came back within 24 hours. The person that I was talking to repeatedly kept asking me why I did what I did and said what I said.

My final response to why was “Because I could.” And I gave no further answer, rhyme, reason, or explanation.

I didn’t really have to.

And that’s the point. There’s been this unnecessary “need” to explain everything and anything. Why is that, though???

I woke up this morning and got dressed, putting on a t-shirt I collected at SXSW Music Festival 2015. Why? There is no why. I just did it.

We as human beings have our boundaries. We have our reasons and rhymes. But as of lately a lot of these human beings have either forgotten or failed to see that we are allowed to have them and we do not live in any society on the planet where we are bound by laws, to HAVE to explain ourselves.

Our boundaries are our boundaries. I do not want to do that – because I do not want to do that. And that’s all anyone else needs to know.

I feel that we need to do better taking care of ourselves in that respect. Some have, others fail.

But with anything, practice makes perfect. If we just tried. We wouldn’t HAVE to make these weird announcements for our lives. We would not HAVE to get on the pulpit and preach our decisions to …. basically, a world of people who don’t give a damn to begin with. (With some exceptions. Some will care.)

Then again it is OUR choice to decide whether or not we wish to tell those who care the reason or rhyme behind our decision.

So I’m standing up against the awful cliché that we HAVE TO EXPLAIN OURSELVES. Because we don’t.

Let’s better ourselves.

A Risk In The Balance

“At a time when we’re having to take such difficult decisions about how to cut back without damaging the things that matter the most, we should strain every sinew to cut error, waste and fraud.”~ David Cameron

My heart and prayers go out to those people effected by the events that transpired in Boston, Massachusetts today.

I sit here this evening with four days left before the birthday bash for Chuck Williams of SIX MINUTE CENTURY. I have yet to even buy my bus ticket and usually I would have had that done by now.

But about a week ago, I became sick. And its a long and gruesome process to feeling better. I have to take things day by day.

Sufficed to say that Saturday and Sunday were very good days where there was not a lot to contend with. Today however just wasn’t up to par with the past weekend. And I still have that decision to make whether or not to go to Houston this Friday evening.

The thing about Friday night shows is that it always comes up so quick. And I cannot explain it but Saturday shows they just arrive.

I know that I won’t be 100% by Friday. That’s a given. But I keep thinking that in the back of my head that IF this Friday could be like this past weekend then I won’t have much of a problem. However I am not assured of that to happen.

I could medicate the hell out of myself with medicine, but I won’t be as clear and “all there” so to speak. But if I pass on this weekend, it will be the second time I have missed the birthday celebration for lead singer Chuck Williams.

Last year was just a tragic time as I had lost my brother-in-law. I think a better way to define it was bad timing. It just wasn’t something that I had any control over.

But will my going to Houston this weekend cause me to pay a price that I truly am not able to afford? Had I been asked this question either last Saturday or Sunday, I would have told you that I had NO problems whatsoever.

I also don’t have the plans for a possible option B in place as far as traveling back home as I was offered a ride from one of my colleagues. I’m just not feeling 100% on that either. Perhaps I need more faith.

It just really stinks because over the past couple of years I have become really good friends with Chuck Williams. His birthday celebration is actually ON his birthday. How cool is that?!??

Not to mention that I will get some face time with Dr. & Mrs. Froth which always something that I look forward to. And there will be others there that I enjoy hanging out with. Including someone that I just met last month at the WELL OF SOULS show that I actually have some kind of curiosity and interest in getting to know better… without saying where its going to go from here.

I hate the feeling of not going because of my illness because it does in fact feel like I am letting people down. Even though I am aware that isn’t the truth. Disappointed people? Sure. We are all human.

So I ponder the implications of going while trying to recover. Whether to go and heavily medicate myself to a point where I can manage pain. And whether or not that will bite me in the butt in the end.

I am sure that the Centurion family would tell me that if I am just not feeling up to it, then not to worry. But I worry still regardless. The least I can do for my friends is to show up. But there would be some who could argue that if I am not 100% … then I am useless to my friends.

As I said, today was so very difficult for some reason. But I still have just a small window to figure it out.

 

When Split Seconds Turn Into A Lifetime

“Every choice you make has an end result.”~ Zig Ziglar

There I sat by myself this afternoon. Rubbing my forehead and wondering what just happened.

Flustered, attempting to recall everything in my head to play it all back. Failing miserably for at least twenty minutes. Then minutes turned into hours of obsession.

Such a red flag as most of the day was wasted while attempting to make sense of things.

I was standing in line at a store and a young attractive woman caught my eye.

I observed in silence for a while. No wedding ring, no clingy 6’8” boyfriend around her neck, no children nagging for her to buy something.

As I moved forward with each patron ahead of me checking out, I keep as much of a visual as possible. And then it was soon my turn.

When I had purchased all of my items, I swiftly put away my wallet and suddenly saw the woman making a move for the front door.

I shot off like a rocket. Running over the toes of no less than two people that were within proximity of me and slamming into unoccupied chairs and tables just to reach the front door before she could.

She and I both would end up in the doorway with the door being held open by the both of us before I even realized it. It was a battle between whether or not I was being chivalrous to hold the door open for a woman or if she was being caring to hold a door open for a person in a wheelchair.

I motioned for her to go first as I pushed the door open with all of my strength, ready to catch it as it sprung back at me from its hinges. She thanked me and walked out and disappeared within five seconds. Meanwhile, I NEVER said a single word. I didn’t even get a “hello” out or formulated the thought to extend to her a compliment. I was left there with just a simple grin on my face as she pulled her sunglasses over her eyes and walked away.

A split second after that, I never saw her again.

Who knows what would or would not happen had I actually spoken to her.

In daily life, we all come across the point where we make split decisions. But usually, they are not so complex as the situation that I found myself obsessing about for hours.

If we are running late for work, do we still stop for coffee or do we press on without it? If we find ourselves in an emergency, who do we call for help first?

Simple examples, but important ones all the same. And it only takes a split second to make a choice in these matters. If we don’t get coffee, some of us end up being a real pain towards others at the office. If we don’t call the right people in an emergency, well as they say “seconds matter” and its true.

I keep getting reminded of the episode of “The Big Bang Theory” where Howard Wolowitz is on a train and he’s spotted a celebrity and he’s obsessing with trying to come up with the BEST opening “line” that he can think of. Meanwhile, his friends are just able to walk up to the celebrity and talk.

That’s the thing with taking risks. You never know if it will work out in your favor or become dangerous.

But then there’s also the other side of the process where I continually think about what could have been. And eventually some kind of thought attempts to relieve my poor brain with the idea that it was okay not to have said a single word to her because you never know what she could have done.

And its usually negative to the point where I think that I am much better off having not said anything because, she could’ve been crazy. She could’ve been dangerous.

Just at a point where I have thought that I was getting better at dealing with the idea of doing nothing and losing out on the possibility of everything.

I would say that in the last two years, maybe three, that I have taken a lot more chances and risks than I ever had in my entire adult life.

And as much as I really am tired of being disappointed or even getting to the point of devastated by people in one way or another, I know that the old saying about dusting yourself off and getting back on the horse just rings true.

There was an example of me chatting with a young woman who lived three hours from me. And within three days, I had taken a risk and made the suggestion on her traveling to where I live and go out. No promises, no expectations.

Hell, even me asking a woman out on a simple date has never been easy for me.

But she agreed, and the night that she was to arrive from out of town, she kept getting lost and the hour was getting later and later and later. Almost late enough to where it wouldn’t have done any good to have gone out on the date because I was aware that she had a three hour drive back home.

Still, I pressed on and had someone drive me to meet her at a central location.

What do I say to her? If anything at all?

The date was nothing short of a dud. Boring and nothing really fun to do because by then just about everything was closed for the night. Ultimately deciding to go to a beer bar to drink and talk.

It would take less than an hour to figure out that this roommate she kept talking about was really her boyfriend. And even at the end of the night as she dropped me off at home I didn’t waste a whole lot of time. I jumped out of the chair, shouted inside my gratitude for the evening and slammed the door shut and kept moving.

Making that split second decision to end the night as I did was probably the smartest thing I had done all night. Considering that later on, I would find out that she would travel about a half an hour away to meet with another man with whom she slept with and didn’t get back to her own home until noon the next day. Then that following evening, she was pulled over by a police officer because she was going in and out of traffic lanes due to her exhaustion from the hours before and it led to a search of her vehicle. And during that search, her trunk was found full of illegal drugs.

Those drugs were inside her vehicle during the time that I was with her. And that was something scary to think about.

It would lead the affirmation that when involving yourself with the possibility of meeting someone from the Internet, you DON’T make plans that fast. Its safer and smarter to take the time to get to know the other person for a long extended period of time before even considering that face-to-face meeting.

But this is only an example of where the decision of taking a risk COULD have led to a really big disaster. Not all risks that I have taken in the past couple of years have been so tragic.

When I have asked other people around me what they think about split second decisions, they always think about situations such as the “fight or flight” scenario. Those of you who have read this blog from near the beginning know that I have had a lot of those situations arise in the past few years.

It has been two years now since I was in that very moment where a split decision had to be made. Something that one could either call life saving or life defending. I defended and thus I survived.

The choices I made led to the decision of me starting this blog. And from it, I have gained a lot of what I would consider good. People that I probably would have never known to exist are now in some small way, a part of my social circles in my own personal social life. I find it hard to think about today what I would do without them.

And as I catch myself rambling, I realize that Zig Ziglar was right. There’s always an end result to each and every choice that we make in life.

We’ll make choices in our lives that are important and some will be less important than others. But they all tie up into a nice little road that we travel down the path of life.

I only wish that for myself that I would stop obsessing with these cognitive distortions whenever it comes to the situation of whether or not to chat up a woman that has caught my eye. Certainly, I cannot be the only one out there in this great big world that does that! Right? Although I would dare to say that I am one of few people that realize that what I am experiencing is a cognitive distortion. Others would dare to think that the other person having them are just whacko!

So yesterday is gone and it will not come back. There’s no way to wind the clock and actually pry my mouth open to say something to the woman that I held the door open for. I must take my medicine for it though. Hopefully I will also turn this experience to something that I will learn from. And I can acknowledge when I should speak up more and when I should back off. There’s always an unbalanced line when it comes to that because everyone is different. Things that are okay with some, won’t be okay for everyone. So we take the hits and learn the boundaries. Learn our lessons, and go on.

 

Sheeple

 

“And the rest of you, who are standing there like Shropshire sheep!” -The Music Man

Okay ladies and gentlemen, I am far behind on this one. But many thanks to the most awesome VoM for bringing this terminology to my attention and knowledge. Because I had never heard of this word before.

Sheeple (a word combined of the two words “sheep” and “people”) is a term of disparagement in which people are likened to sheep. The term is used to describe those who voluntarily acquiesce to a suggestion without thinking for themselves  to make up their own mind about something.

A lot of these kinds of people are often found on the Internet. Allowing themselves to believe whatever someone else is believing, whether wrong or right.

It is sad to know that there are more people out there in this world who play “follow the leader” when they do not even understand or know who their leader is or what their leader is leading them towards. As long as they do not have to make any personal decisions for themselves, then they are fine by what others are telling them to do or believe.

Time and time again, I’ve stated that humans are full of faults. But this one really burns me to the point where I have rolled my eyes so far in the back of my head that I know what the inside of my occipital bone looks like. And that is BAD.

I hope that people will once again learn to think for themselves. I hope that they will do whatever it is that they want and not bother with the agendas of other people.

Sadly, when sheeple end up taking a bad direction they point the blame at someone else. The blame actually lies upon their own shoulders for allowing themselves to have given up the responsibility of thought and decision making.

There are so many examples out there on this term. But I will not go into a lengthy and boring process of doing so because the fact of the matter is that chances are you either know people who are like that or you are one. When I was researching examples, it had a lot to do with politics. And I will NOT get into that. Especially now.

But I will hold on to hope that people will come to realize that they need to make up their own minds and make up their own decisions when it comes to where to go in life.

 

The Relationship Jigsaw Puzzle

“Trust takes years to build and only a second to shatter.”~ Unknown. 

Reader’s Request Blog Post.

Awesome! I love it when I hear from people and they request for me to talk about a certain subject. I’m always open to those kinds of ideas.

Over the course of two and a half days, I listened to someone talk about realtionships and their life. All of them. From romantic to friendships, both past and present.

I gave him the analogy of the jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes we never know what is truly there behind someone until we began to put the pieces together.

Much like trust, relationships fall under the same guidelines as to what will make or break them.

Sometimes, relationships end when one thing tragically strikes. Which was the case for this person that I spoke to. He said that he was completely crushed when he found out that someone who he had considered as a friend, was probably not at friend at all. He was also crushed at the fact when he admitted to seeing the signs, but chose to either make excuses for them or chose to ignore them.

But I think that it is true. We never really know who people are, especially on the inside until we’ve taken the long road to get to know them. And in most cases, it does take years to understand who they are, what they are like, and whether or not they are someone that we would prefer to keep in our lives. Each day brings another piece to the puzzle. This person said that he thought he saw a beautiful picture forming in this jigsaw puzzle that was his friendship with this other person, but as days and weeks and even a few years went on… he realized that there was more to the picture of the jigsaw puzzle and it was NOT something that he liked. So now he’s feeling stuck because of the fact that he had invested so much of his life with them and now finds himself in a position where he doesn’t like where things are going.

I believe that in one way or another, we all go through the same thing in life. We begin a common bond with someone based on what we see at the surface. But as things progress and we get to know one another, we get to a point where we have to make a decision of whether or not we want to continue on with that relationship. Especially when things become very unstable or rocky. And they almost always will at some point.

The only thing that I could advise him on, was either stay with it or walk away and never look back. Relationships are never perfect. We have to understand that. There’s just going to be those times in which those people will do or say something that displeases us. Then the choice is either walk away from them, or forgive them and either way you go the point is to be able to carry on…. with or without them.

It wasn’t easy for him to hear me tell him this at all. He’s afraid that if he continues on with the relationship, that he’ll just find more and more negativity about them and it would make him miserable. But on the other hand, he feels that if he walks away that his time with them was worthless and wasted. On top of the feelings of guilt and being alone because he made the choice to walk away and that they are no longer a consistent fixture in his life.

Indifference and inaction isn’t the answer either. It just causes more heartache.

People come into our lives. Sometimes people leave our lives. But they ARE there for a reason. If they are not meant to be there for a lifetime, then they won’t be. And no matter how hard we fight to keep them there, it only causes things to get worse.

I feel really bad for him because I’ve been in his shoes so many stinkin’ times in my own life. Sometimes I think about how I miss those who are no longer in my life. But I have to also remember that there is a reason for that. And usually for me, that keeps my sanity at a certain balance to remember the reasons WHY they are no longer there.

The dismissal and disconnect of a relationship is never easy. But once we purge ourselves of the things that are “bad” for us, the sooner we can live a healthier life.

As social I am, I really know how much it stinks to either lose someone or let someone go. But there’s really nothing more that I can do in some situations. I can either hang on to the relationship that has soured, and stew in the painfulness and HOPE for the best, OR I can let go.. experience the pain at the beginning, and then heal and move on.

Each person is different. Sometimes it doesn’t take a lot of time for a person to realize what the jigsaw puzzle is turning out to be. And for others, it sometimes takes the entire jigsaw puzzle to be put together and stand back and see what they have before they realize what it is.

I couldn’t tell this guy “You need to leave, then it will be better”, and neither could I say, “Hang in there, it will get better” because I honestly don’t know for him what is right and what it is he is willing to put up with and just deal with certain situations. And I couldn’t say where he’s going to go. I just hope and wish for him the best.

But what I can say for those who read this, is that we must do what is BEST for us. We have to survive in life and do what we need to, in order to continue on in this lifetime. Yes, a lot of times we come across situations where its not easy to make a decision but ultimately there will come a time where we will need to make one before we can move on in our lives. Whether right or wrong.

We are strong though. We’ll make it through.

 

Stick in the Mud

Stick in the mud!

“I’m a perfect example of the grumpy, old man. I’m really good at it.”~Ned Beatty

Can it for a second there, Ned!!

There is a really big problem in the world that there are those kinds of people that just cannot seem to have any joy and peace in their lives. And not only that, but they just cannot allow anyone ELSE to be happy either.

I live around many of those such people.

Today I was finally, finally, FINALLY able to make some progress in planning that trip to Houston at the end of this month. I think that I will make it, although it might not be as fun as the trip that I took in April. At least on the personal side of the trip, by that time I am going to be broke as a joke like a poke with no smoke.

Still though, I can do my best and make what I can of it. The whole idea that I now can see the light at the end of the tunnel after fighting and battling for two long months over this, just overwhelms me with happiness.

When that realization struck me, I exploded with joy! And I ran out into the 102°F heat and decided to tell anyone that would listen. But of course, there’s always gotta be some stupid jerk-off that lives a miserable life and has for many years, and just won’t let anyone else around them do as much as crack a smile around them. Why they are so bitter, I do not know!

I wasn’t even talking to these people directly in the first place. I was talking with someone and telling them of my excitement, and then these “gems of glory” chime in with their down-putting and negativity.

Geez!! I probably could ask the rhetorical question of whatever did I do to them, but I know for a fact that I have done nothing to them. Lousy, stinking, no fun-having neighbors I live with, I swear.

But you know what??? NO!! They are not going to do this. Not to me, not this time. I don’t care what they’ve said about Houston and their poor experiences back when they were a toddler, I am going to go. I have to go, I need to go. The business side of this trip is very much depending on me to show up.

And I WILL have my fun. As much as I can. And nothing that these people can or will say is going to stop me from doing it.

There’s a lot of people in our lives who are just terrible at being a big stick in the mud. They don’t ever wanna bend from their ways and they don’t even want you to be who you are, because you are the one that is bending- living your life the way you want to, and not the way that they want you to.

People need to stop bowing to the wills of those people who are simply out to stop others from being happy. We need to quit allowing others to run over our lives. And yet we need to learn how to live for ourselves, and not always for others. Compromise is one thing, slavery is another.

If we make the wrong choices in life, we’ll pay for it. Not them. They are not going to be the ones taking the hit. We are. And if we make the right choices in life, then we’re going to be so much happier that we did it in the first place.

Our lives… our decisions… our consequences.

But there’s one thing that is for sure. I know for a fact that I have scores of people who will be happy for me that I am going back to Houston. Some to the point of extreme happiness that they are losing their minds just thinking about it. Yep, I’m serious. Total loss of self-control over an extreme sense of jubilation.

For the rest of them, they will simply be happy because “I” am happy. Those scores of people are the TRUE friends. And you can bet your last dollar that they are the ones that are going to be there if I get pushed over and fall. They are the ones that are going to catch me and help me stand up again and always watch over me so I will not slip again.

These people who are relentless to be the stereotypical stick in the mud, have nobody. And they always fall. So in the end, whom do you think is going to be happier??

Look out, Houston. Here I come!!!

Write or Die

“She was amazed at his body. His muscles were well defined and smooth that she couldn’t help but want to run her fingers up and down each curve of his body. She gazed at his well endowed manhood and became uneasy. She was a virgin; she did not really know what to do.”

A week or so ago, I was cleaning out my computer of old and useless files. Then I stumbled across a document that apparently was an erotic story about vampires that I had started many, many years ago.

It was incomplete but I looked it over anyways. As I was doing so, I was reflecting in my mind about how this project came to be in the first place and how it ended solely in my lap.

Back then, a former colleague of mine had begun writing this dark story and wanted me to look it over and give it my critique. I agreed and the file document was sent to me almost immediately. When I had opened it to read, the entire manuscript was just filled with errors to the point where it had become a distraction. Later that evening, I took it upon myself to make corrections to it. Once I was finished with that, I sent it back to the original writer and asked her what she thought of it. I did include one filling scene in the story to flesh it out some more so it wasn’t so quick for the main characters to be introduced, then suddenly the male vampire was doing his thing.

The following morning, I received an e-mail from her with nothing praise and excitement that I had made the story “better”. She then asked if I would collaborate with her on the writing of the story. Again, I agreed to help out.

But I ended up being more of a ghost writer than anything. With each part that I had written to add to the story, I would send for her approval. I should have seen it coming, but she never had any debate on what I had done with it and how the story was coming along. With each time I passed the updated document to her came more and more praise. But never any further input on how she wanted to write the story. After a few days that I spent writing, she would eventually give me complete creative control over the story. I still though, would share with her each new piece that I had written to it.

Eventually, the original author and I would have a falling out. It led to us going our separate ways. I was the one stuck with the story that was unfinished and had no further direction.

So then fast forward to about a week ago, this story emerges. I do no think that it is a bad story. Nor do I think that it is a literary gold mine. Its violent and bloody. As well as steamy and erotic. I’ve always tend to try and blend those in whenever I am composing a new story.

There are a few things that I think could be listed into the cons in writing anything further. The mixture between how a man writes and how a woman writes erotic content varies greatly in my opinion. Also, the main characters were given the awful, stereotypical names for both males and females. How I think its so cliché now-a-days to have a male vampire named “Lestat” and have a female named “Scarlet”.

Nothing more original was thought of in the development of these characters. I simply wrote more to what I already had. Even then, I felt the names of the main characters were actually quite lame. And this was something that happened over five years ago.

By now, the former collab partner has probably all but forgotten about this story and most likely doesn’t remember that it exists. And I am stuck with trying to make the decision of whether or not to complete it to the very end, or simply discard it. Knowing that I have already put in 49 unformatted document pages and over 21,000 words makes it difficult to just press DELETE.

Have you ever started a project and then suddenly forgot about it, only to have it resurface again still incomplete? What did you do about it? Did you finish it or did you trash it??

I am curious to know what others might think. Let me know.