The Story of the Weird – Resolution #9
Website design By BotEap.comLet me do it right out there.
Website design By BotEap.comI do not believe in ‘resolutions’. New Year? Old year? Battlefield? Deathbed? Congressional? It doesn’t matter. Resolutions are for suckers.
Website design By BotEap.comWhy the attitude? really simple. I believe that personal change is not only possible, but is perhaps one of the most powerful and meaningful pursuits a human being can undertake. But real personal change is about valuesno laundry lists, good intentions, or verbiage.
Website design By BotEap.comDo you want to change your life? Big. Shut. Stop writing. Avoid the temptation to record motivational quotes on your PC or desktop. Don’t tell your friends about your big plans. Don’t google “self help”. Don’t join a support group. For God’s sake, don’t buy anything shiny at the newsstand that claims to help you figure out how to change. And never, ever ask strangers for advice on internet forums. Unless it’s someplace really special and mystical.
Website design By BotEap.comMy alternate plan?
Website design By BotEap.comThink. Think long and hard. Stay away from places where you currently expend energy (significantly or not). isolate yourself Take a trip somewhere, perhaps nowhere particularly important, where you don’t have anything particularly important to do when you arrive. On the way, think. Think of the brief blink, the blink in human time that you will occupy this world. Think about how you would like to spend that time and whether or not you care what happens during that camera shutter click of life. Ask yourself, is it ‘the moments’ of that journey, or is it a ‘legacy’ you want to leave behind that might require sacrificing the ‘now’ of countless daily moments? Maybe there is a right or wrong answer to that internal debate. I personally don’t think so. It is simply your vision of what matters to you. What kind of trophies do you want on the shelves of your life at the end of your career?
Website design By BotEap.comThen decide.
Website design By BotEap.comWhat does a meaningful life look like to you? Are you living it? If not, what has gotten in the way? Have you committed prioritization crimes, actively messed things up, or simply allowed entropy and passivity to slowly and quietly steal control of your decisions and the direction of your daily life?
Website design By BotEap.comI had to go to West Virginia a while ago. It could have flown, it should have flown, 99 times out of a hundred, it would have flown. But I decided instead to drive. Somewhere in the dark as hell of a freezing cold 6 hour drive through the mountains, I caught a glimpse of the truth. I lost sight of the road in patches of fog that I suddenly found myself driving mindlessly at high speed. It occurred to me that night that this is what I had been doing with my life for about a decade. I didn’t know where the path of my life was taking me, hell, sometimes I couldn’t even see it through the fog, and I hadn’t given much thought to it in a long time. I didn’t stop to enjoy the ride or take in the beauty of life as it passed me by, and I really had no idea if where I was going meant anything to me. that night alone disrupted driving for a few minutes. I thought and then I decided.
Website design By BotEap.comI decided to change my life. I reject cynicism as its proponents will tell you a hundred different ways that ‘people don’t really change’. Shit. Average people don’t change. Frankly, it requires too much work. You may have to swim against the currents of life, or even more difficult, forge a new fork to divert the current that has been foolishly dragging you along for weeks, months, or years. I refuse to be average, and I refuse to be an empty vessel thoughtlessly carried along by a current that is not my choice.
Website design By BotEap.comI am not Gandhi. I am not the Dalai Lama. Hell, I’m not even Dr. Phil or Oprah. I don’t have anything dramatic or mind-altering insightful to say. I will not copyright my mind catchphrase or place it on t-shirts or coffee mugs. But I have learned some important things. I don’t claim to know anything that might be useful to you. Don’t listen to a word I say, I might as well be shit when it comes to your life. I could get you killed or, at the very least, get your knees skinned pretty bad on the bike ride of life. But I’m excited. I have changed my life before. It felt good. Really good. I just started changing mine back. I’m 46 years old, I’ve been mired in an extra-sized pool of life’s muddy crap for a while, and I woke up one morning a month ago and said ‘it’s time to be me again’. Being me is not perfect. I probably wouldn’t even get you into a decent law school. But it’s so much better than the impersonation of me I’ve been doing for a decade.
Website design By BotEap.comIn the Marine Corps, you can solve any dilemma, attack any hill, defeat any enemy, be victorious in any fight with one simple tool: the 5-paragraph order. SMEAC.
Website design By BotEap.comS – Location
M-Mission
E – Execution
A – Administrative and Logistics
C – Command and Control Website design By BotEap.comAsk any Vietnam vet: The most important thing in any endeavor is choosing the right mission. Over the last month, I discovered that I had spent a decade immersed in a hectic, chaotic and motivated daily life. I accepted and renounced my right (duty?) to determine the mission of my life. Oddly enough, when I started to mentally write the 5 paragraph order to claim and fulfill my life’s mission, it turns out that it is the same one that I have had for most of my life. Because I like you a lot, I share with you: Website design By BotEap.comEnjoy life.
farming stuff. Green feels good and producing it has to provide good karma. The world could always use a little more green.
I actively and aggressively love the cute ones around me.
Forgive the nasty, but don’t waste a second more than necessary with them.
Be kind, always, and especially with those who don’t deserve it.
Connect with friends and family and stay connected. matter.
Being physically strong and making getting there a part of my daily life so that I can be strong in other ways when I need to. My body will never be a temple, don’t worry, you can’t have fun in one of those. But at least treat it like a really nice hotel lobby.
Work hard, because that’s who I am and what my father and mother raised me to do.
Remember that, for me anyway, work is not and can never be life.
Worship the great, the immortal Alfred E. who implored the heavens: ‘What, do I worry?’ And try to live those words. Life is too short to worry.
Perhaps most importantly, take to the streets on a weekly basis, look up and listen to the echo of the refrain of limitless stars shouting at us throughout the eons that “very little in your little speck of life matters, so we suggest you Focus on what matters!” Listen to them. Website design By BotEap.comThose are not ‘resolutions’. I have always believed in them. I intended to live them forever, they just lurked me there for a while. Now, the mission is reset. Maybe in a year or two, I’ll give you an after action report. Website design By BotEap.comWish me luck.
M-Mission
E – Execution
A – Administrative and Logistics
C – Command and Control Website design By BotEap.comAsk any Vietnam vet: The most important thing in any endeavor is choosing the right mission. Over the last month, I discovered that I had spent a decade immersed in a hectic, chaotic and motivated daily life. I accepted and renounced my right (duty?) to determine the mission of my life. Oddly enough, when I started to mentally write the 5 paragraph order to claim and fulfill my life’s mission, it turns out that it is the same one that I have had for most of my life. Because I like you a lot, I share with you: Website design By BotEap.comEnjoy life.
farming stuff. Green feels good and producing it has to provide good karma. The world could always use a little more green.
I actively and aggressively love the cute ones around me.
Forgive the nasty, but don’t waste a second more than necessary with them.
Be kind, always, and especially with those who don’t deserve it.
Connect with friends and family and stay connected. matter.
Being physically strong and making getting there a part of my daily life so that I can be strong in other ways when I need to. My body will never be a temple, don’t worry, you can’t have fun in one of those. But at least treat it like a really nice hotel lobby.
Work hard, because that’s who I am and what my father and mother raised me to do.
Remember that, for me anyway, work is not and can never be life.
Worship the great, the immortal Alfred E. who implored the heavens: ‘What, do I worry?’ And try to live those words. Life is too short to worry.
Perhaps most importantly, take to the streets on a weekly basis, look up and listen to the echo of the refrain of limitless stars shouting at us throughout the eons that “very little in your little speck of life matters, so we suggest you Focus on what matters!” Listen to them. Website design By BotEap.comThose are not ‘resolutions’. I have always believed in them. I intended to live them forever, they just lurked me there for a while. Now, the mission is reset. Maybe in a year or two, I’ll give you an after action report. Website design By BotEap.comWish me luck.