Doing Things That Will Change Your Life | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the category “Doing Things That Will Change Your Life”

08 Jul 2013

A “Dog Person” or a “Cat Person”

Having become a new owner of a dog for the first time ever in my life, I imagine there are a lot of people who will say “what took you so long?”

For most of my life from early on there were cats in my home. My mother was a “cat person” and we had several cats over my childhood, mostly they were my mom’s (one in particular was certainly hers alone) but I liked them (except for that “one”). It was something I became accustomed to. My dad hated them really. He saw no use for a cat. Once he figured out that one of the cats we had didn’t like the sound of the food blender, he spent a period of time with the base of it plugged in next to his favorite chair, and if the cat came near he would switch it on.

After my wife and I got married, we lived in small apartments where a dog was not very practical. At one point when we finally decided on a cat, we found out that it was not allowed in our apartment area and it factored into a decision to move.

So then…many cats later (and 4 kids)…my wife finally got her dog (did I mention she grew up with dogs?). So she became a dog-owner several years ago, and the dog was perfect for her. Just what she’d always wanted, but for some reason or another we never had gotten to having a dog in our family before.

The last cat I had was a big grey Russian-Blue type of cat, with a bit of tabby in him I am sure. What some may have called a “barn cat” I suppose. He would greet me at the door, follow me around, come hop up on my lap at the end of the day and sit next to my chair when I would be working at the computer. He will always be “my cat.”

Now a DOG. Just a mutt. But a dog that I will call mine. It’s part Border Collie/part Australian Shepard, part goofy. I am told that a mutt owner needs to know the suspected “parts”. I know I am not prepared for the higher maintenance of a dog but everyone says you get used to it. The walking, the cleaning up afterward. He was adopted from a dog pound. Saved one from the possible sad early ending of so many dogs that get neglected or rejected in their lives and end up there.

I know… I know…. There are “cat people” and there are “dog people”. I am trying to convert. Hoping he can teach me ( the old dog) some new tricks. A dog person. Yup. Working on it. Likely a life changer right?

Dog Person or a Cat Person: What Are You? (business2community.com)

24 Jun 2013

“Mad” or “Sad”?

I was in a grocery store over the weekend and I heard a lady exclaim to her husband how “really mad” she was about the fact that a cracker company had discontinued her preferred sized box.

I had to laugh a bit because I couldn’t think of a situation such as that where it would make me be “really” mad. I always thought that “mad” was reserved for horrific things that happened to people or circumstances that became unable to control or ultimately did not turn out the way we expected. Even then there is a fine line I think between mad and sad (or disappointed I suppose).

It seems like more and more people are “mad” at things that really stretch the idea of or being angry. There is room for anger in our lives; applied to those things that may some how stimulate us to a better life, to be more conscientious or be stronger for someone or some cause.

It seems the “madness” I see stems from something else. Perhaps the frustration of the moment or the feeling of helplessness. More than ever before, there seem to be a lot of people who are more angry over things that they cannot change. That is likely because in this “information age” of constant incoming data we are increasingly more exposed to things we can get mad at.

Maybe that is the idea of what someone means when they refer to the past as “simpler times”? Maybe because of ignorance (which I have heard is bliss) or maybe though intentional avoidance, some people just didn’t have to deal with being angry in those simpler times. As time has changed, and war, poverty, hate, disease and the like have come 24/7 into our lives, maybe we have become an angrier society?

Whatever the path, seems like something to be sad about. Perhaps mad; but likely sad…because the ability to turn off that 24/7 input has passed many people by. Unless we ourselves make a choice.

Be mad if you need to, but remember to be sad when you can. Either way you have to find a place where you can move on…. make a difference, change what’s happening, or focus on something else that you can effect. Getting “stuck” in mad is maddening enough.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, Anger, Compassion, Emotion, Grace, Happiness, Hope, Joy, Kindness, mental-health, Sadness, Self-Awareness

18 Jun 2013

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Be Thankful

So there are so many ways to say “thank you”. For some it may be a sincere hug. Are you a hugging person? Maybe not as personal for some, but perhaps a genuine handshake or some other physical way.

There are people who show their appreciation with special words of thanks, pointing out very directly how they feel. They may go out of their way to reach out and be sure someone knows what it means. There are others who send cards or notes, communication to make sure to be specific about what they felt and why they want to say thanks.

But there are some people I have met that seem to have lost the art of saying thank you. They may nod or say “thank you” and smile, but they believe that are just trying to be polite. They really expect things to come to them, to be provided to them because they deserve it. Perhaps they think “after all” they have struggled to get where they are, they may have even worked hard to be who they are. But really, it may not be sincere, it may be lost in the point of view.

My kids are adults now. And I hope that I have taught my kids what it means to be thankful. What it means when someone else does something for them. What it means to do things for others as well. Is it an art? Is there a science to it? Not sure that there is, it is just something that has to be recognized. It is a way of life that allows you to recall and remember what others lives are like around you. It’s not a sign of weakness, it is not a sign of submission. It is the proof that you are in the place you need to be in humankind.

You can be the ingredient of the essence that is grace in action.

So simple and so complex at the same time. Thank you.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, choices, Compassion, culture, Grace, Kindness, Love, Opinion, Self-Awareness, Sprituality, Thankful

16 Jun 2013

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Turning Back to History

Often these days it seems many of us have been turning our backs on history.

The Ipswitch Milestone

Somehow it seems to me, that many of the people I know have turned their backs on history. I mean we all understand that there were many things that have happened before us. There are so many centuries before today, before this minute in modern history, and so many more thousands of years of ancient history, and before that the millions of years that make up time before it was recorded by man.

During even the most recent times, history is has influenced how things are shaped today. We don’t recognize it, but everything is linked to most everything before it. As my kids get older, I fear they may not recognize or appreciate what came before. The importance of history seems to have become lost for the most part. Other than a few movies about time travel, or an occasional documentaries or film stories that hover around history (much of it in some fictional account), I am not sure that they genuinely would know about much of history. That scares me some. History has meaning in our life, it is the essence of what we are and how we should look at the circumstances of today. .

Both of my children s grandfathers fought in World War 2. They are not alive anymore to share what they had to do, and why they had to do it (they both weren’t always interested in sharing the horror of it). It would have been great for my children to hear what the fabric of their lives were made of.

During our lifetime there are history-making events happening… how will we recognize the important milestones among them in the future? How would we see them linked to the past? – Or would anyone see the link at all?

So many significant things in history are at risk to be forgotten by most of us. Perhaps just remembered as some image on a webpage that will endlessly get lost in the mounds of URLs that make up the throw away websites on the world-wide web….

It is important that we pass on some of it if we can. Like those tribes of years ago, who spent time sharing and repeating the history of the people before them. We need to share it. To let our children know why things happened in history, and what it meant then and what it means now.

Related Posts.

From No Blog Intended.A great post about Blind Spots In History . It is inspirational that someone wants to pay attention and understand that there is so much more.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged being remembered, choices, grandfathers, History, Life, Remembering the past, Self-Awareness, significant things, Time travel, tracks in the dust, world war 2, World War II

14 Jun 2013

Organized Chaos

I have noticed that I spend a lot of time and effort trying to be organized. Maybe you do too?

Perhaps it’s because structure, for many people is a coping mechanism that helps us deal with the chaos and complexity of daily life in a way that we understand.

I feel it everyday, like so many around me, often avoiding chaos and uncertainty like the plague. Amazing as it may seem I think that history has proven over and over that all of our biggest opportunities for creating, for innovating, for “changing the paradigm” or whatever you want to call it… they have all come from that which scares us the most – chaos.

Not that I would welcome it of course, but in the scheme of things when I ponder how to avoid it… I can get darn creative. Sometimes it just becomes an inspiration. Sometimes it is a response to something unexpected. I look around the house some days and see how cluttered daily life has left things. Running from one errand to another, heading off to work or school and then getting caught up in that complex maze of things.

So there it is- those mazes that can make life complex, that chaos that can surround you and make you pause to think “I need more structure, need more control” and not let this get the best of me. Then… I creatively find ways to relax… maybe even get distracted… it will be okay. It will pass. Of course I can always make a list of everything I need to do. I can sort through and see what I can accomplish quickly (quickly- like the list I am making ha-ha).

Finally in the scheme of things I realize that even with all that chaos, that I had another day to cherish the life I have and make the best of it. God has blessed me. And that is on the TOP of my list. How about yours?

List Making (Photo credit: Bunches and Bits {Karina})