Laugh, Explore & Understand
I keep seeing these kinds of lists that Successful people do that most others do not. I hate FB for sharing, because most people will judge and that is not my purpose. I simply want to live my life to the utmost.
Here is one that portrays my daily affirmations.
Things to be thankful for this year.
I woke up this morning and looked down and there was no tag on my toe. I knew it was going to be an incredible day! I love that joke. No matter how many times I use it with people on a daily basis, it always brings a smile to their face.
Things are great! Mary is feeling well, I am safe and well. Those closest to me are safe and well. I have friends and family who are grateful I am here. Life is good. I am grateful.
I spent US Thanksgiving with sister, Molly and her kin – that’s family in North Carolina talk.
I provided some entertainment after dinner.
Life is full of chances. Sometimes we just don’t take enough before it’s too late!
I had the greatest opportunity to have lunch with my Aunt Maude. She is turning 98 on December 29th. When I called my cousin to arrange a visit, I suggested that my sister and I would come to the house to see them. My cousin, Ruth, said oh no, she will want to meet you guys half way at a Cracker Barrel. That meant an hour and a half drive for them and us, each way.
When they arrived, I found out that Maude had fallen some six weeks ago and cracked her pelvis, so she was using a walker. This perfect women had left the hospital and come home for no more than a couple of days before she announced, “That’s enough of that”, and got up to get on with her life. How determined is that? She is such a go-getter and so is her daughter, Ruth. Neither of them can sit still very long.
I noticed that she had a smile on her face and was just happy to be alive and kicking. So many elderly people fall and break something and that is it. They become bedridden and get pneumonia and succumb. My sister says that Maude has always been the happiest person. She has always been my favorite aunt, and I told her so. As we were leaving, she said, I am just so happy you came for a visit. Tears, right?
It reinforces my belief that happiness, genuine happiness that comes from the soul, increases longevity. That is just one of the reasons I look for humor and excitement in everyday events, starting from as soon as I wake up and announce that something really wonderfully exciting is going to happen today. It is then that I expect and find wonderfully exciting things happening all day. It is just a great feeling of accomplishment when I can say about something that turns out to be really exciting, “There, I knew something really wonderfully exciting was going to happen today!
Although I recognize that I come from a long living family stock, most of my relatives have become infirmed and passed away at a much younger age than my Aunt Maude. I want to grow up to be just like her!
Freedom is that part in you that you must confront in yourself that is universally made for you to fail. The question is do you have the honesty and energy to complete the attack on yourself. It is always something you do not want to do.
Abundance comes to me and through me to help others!
Change is the only evidence of life!
Never complain, never explain. Excuses are useless!
What does it avail a man to gain a fortune and lose his soul?
I am becoming, perpetually, rapidly, a radical thinker again in my life. My meaning is, that when I see injustice, I refrain from shirking my responsibility to nature and mankind. I understand why so many men and women have fallen into a melancholy state of existence due to their beliefs that others just do not see nor heed their intellectual warning of future events.
No matter on what level we see our destiny, it occurs to me that what we currently believe, somehow has a greater impact that we can possibly imagine. Lincoln could only extend his inner most philosophical thinking to written page and what would become merely quotes dictated by Wikipedia. Did he know what impact he would have on future generations? Never, in his wildest conceptions, did he know his likeness would foster change in future generations by adorning US currency.
When I read and re-read history, I am more than astounded by how the populous merely accepts daily events as non-repeatable newspaper, Facebook, and Twitter articles. I was once absconded by a Berlin bus rider when he noticed that I was reading “Mein Kampf”, in German. He asked, indignantly, why I was reading that? When I replied, in German, because history repeats itself, except for those who internalize the lessons, he gave me a huge gruff and stormed from the bus.
As Bob Dylan once wrote, “The times, they are a-changing”. I hope so.
When I see an African-American heritage President, declining to preside over the 150 year remembrance of Gettysburg, after passing through Gettysburg on his entering Washington for his inauguration, and standing with his clasps hand across his genitals during a flag salute at Ft. Hood, rather that solute, as Commander-in-Chief, or at least place his hand over his heart, I am drawn to tears at the decay of our heritage.
In today’s colloquial, “What the fuck”. It is enough to draw a patriot to melancholy, without question. Am I at a point of “Give me liberty, or give me death”?
Kids; I have told you that siblings are not chosen by us and more than likely, most people tolerate their siblings more than have them as best friends.
My sister, Molly, and I have always seen more eye to eye than our brothers.
Here is a recording I made of her telling the history of our mother shortly after I moved to Raleigh, NC in Oct 2013
Emotions are part of the human experience. They are not bad nor good, they just are. Laughter can lead to a flow of tears. So can joy, sadness, anger, pain and loss. Real men don’t cry, so my eyes just sweat a lot.
I have always been an emotional guy. Some women take that for sensitivity. Some take it for weakness. Me, I take it for experiencing the most that life has to offer at any given moment.
Often over the years, I have been embarrassed to express feelings to the point of tears. Try as hard as I can, I just cannot turn off that overwhelming feeling that bubbles to the surface like lava from a volcano, under great pressure that cannot withstand being held at bay under any circumstances. I’m not talking about the wetness that turns the eyes red. I’m talking about the wetness that runs down the cheeks and requires a sleeve to sop up the excess.
My tears can come from something as simple and un-daring as singing the national anthem. There are songs that I have learned to sing that took me dozens of rehearsals to eliminate the uncontrolled spilling of emotion. And don’t even try to stop the flow of tears when it comes to talking about family. I’m an emotional guy and still feel the need to apologize for it.
My sister Molly says that when two people tear up, it is the divine in each that is touched and connected. I agree. All I have to do is watch an old Johnny Carson show and watch him laugh to the point of tears over something that his guest would say. There is something that happens at a soul level that brings us all to the same level of humanity.
If anecdotes are the snippets of life that have significant meaning, then I say learn to laugh to the point of tears, as well as wetly express that undulating sob from the bottom of your being when wrought with pain. Your soul needs the release for both.
