Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life

Archive for the category “Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life”

06 Jun 2015

Anticipation

Anticipation. We are all subject to that feeling of anticipation of what comes next in our lives, New family additions, weddings, vacations, promotions at work, a new course in our lives that will change so much of what we already knew.

It can be something special, or something you know is coming and only time will allow it to arrive. I remember in my youth those anxious moments of “going out” with only a night full of adventure ahead. where nothing would seem to get in your way. It would be great to kind of “box that up” and keep it to know that feeling again. I often recollect the phase about how ” youth is wasted on the young”. Not always true, but there were those times when the anticipation was golden.

Still that anxious heart lives in me and I embrace what I can to anticipate things in life even as they are ever-so-simple. It’s not a complicated thing, but it can be elusive when hopelessness and despair are so easily able to make their way into your life.

Even as I fight the fight of my life to beat cancer, I can reach back in my heart and find anticipation in what God will bring me and my family. My children are growing up and experiencing marriage, job promotions, starting new life directions, and getting the dark clouds pushed aware by the reality that they control their own future.

Anticipation of a new day. Anticipation of Eternity. Anticipation is what brings life one of its greatest joys.

I had to include this song. It was on my mind. Carly Simon.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life, The Cancer Letters and tagged Acceptance, anticipation, Cancer, choices, Direction, Faith, Grace, Happiness, life is precious, Love, mental-health, Postive Thinking, Self-Awareness, Who Are You

30 Apr 2015

What is Left Behind

We are all aware of the saying ” you can’t take it with you”. Over a lifetime [short or long as it may be], we can accumulate a lot of possessions. We can collect a lot of things that help to define who we are personally, along with the junk that really is meaningless in the scheme of things.

But these days more than ever, I realize that it’s not about what I own, and certainly what will happen to it when I’m no longer on this earth. It will fall into the path of history, perhaps be landfill, or someone else’s accumulated prize.

Can I worry about the things I have left behind? Perhaps because I don’t want it to burden my loved ones or anyone else. But spending days worrying about it would be worthless worry. So there you have it. Unless you are a hermit, or you purge yourself of everything you own. You’re going to leave things behind for someone else to deal with.

Rather than “things”, I think more about the people that will I will leave behind. They will continue to live their lives to the fullest, God willing. Our kids will continue to grow as adults, to manage through the very same human complications that made up my daily life.. My wife has been my genuine companion and the love of my life for over 35 years, and I have promised to love her always and forever. It is likely that there will come a day that I will not be there for her, yet our lives are from our mutual love and friendship.

Both my wife and I realize we are rich because of the friendships we have in our lives, those we have come to know recently, as well as those we have been fortunate to call friends over the decades, There are so many. And they are there today sending kind words and thoughts, and sharing in prayer.

There is hope for the future. And what left behind is a future of the legacy of the people in your life. It makes life meaningful. It is the paths crossed, the words said, the friendships and relationships that have changed the course of our lives. That is what means the most. The invested time with friends and family will be everyone’s legacy. It will be God’s legacy.

For that I’m grateful and not sad. I am optimistic about the future for me and for everyone else.It is that legacy is what gets all of us through life with meaning, isn’t it? The legacy and the richness of family, friendships and God’s promise of eternity. That will make what ever happens be okay.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Acceptance, being remembered, Change, choices, Doubt, Faith, Grace, life is precious, Memories, moments, Personal Legacy, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, Self-Awareness, Sprituality, Value of Life

23 Mar 2015

Hindsight

It’s pretty much a simple fact: Personal bias can cloud your thinking. Things are complicated and unpredictable, but perhaps more than we wish to admit, we rewrite the past to fit into the script of our lives.

It seems better that way doesn’t it? In our better life viewed in hindsight. We have to be careful though. We should face the future without using our clouded hindsight and make sure we understand what’s in store.

It’s not to say that we shouldn’t apply lessons we have learned. The risk is when we apply the versions of the past that we have come to fashion ourselves. For our own sanity perhaps. Just a way to keep it together.

So as we step forward into tomorrow, I think it is wise that we are clear on how we got to “here” – but be sure we are at the very least honest with ourselves. Our inside reality should be applied.

Kids: Take the time to make good decisions, but base them on what you know to be your own real truth. Don’t use the cloudy script that may help to fit your story. Be sure you can be true to yourself.

Just my advice.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Advice, Definitions, Doubt, Faith, hindsight, making decisions, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, solutions, Truth

19 Feb 2015

Forgotten More than I Remember

It is very easy to say “I have forgotten more things than I remember”

But it is funny how something someone says can trigger a memory, how something you see or a song you hear can unlock something that may be years old in your head. Or maybe a smell. I have heard it say that smells are the strongest sense that connects us to recollection of our past.

Today I opened the back door to let the dogs out in the yard, and got the strong smell of pine trees washing its way back in the door on the cool morning air. Immediately I propelled decades back to a day when my best high school chums and I had gone up in the northern woods to stay at a cabin. We had partied pretty hard ( as we were known to do in those days) and we had all gotten up early for some reason. We were sitting on the deck in front of the cabin and chasing “the hair of the dog” (which we were also known to do in those days).

The morning was glorious, the sun was rising over the pines. There were blue-jays in the trees calling out their sharp retort, and loons on the lake ( if you have never hear laughing loons- it is a treat of nature)l The lake was like a mirror and swirls of fish could be seen all over the lake as they came up to feed. The smell of pine was floating over the lake.

We had music playing in the back ground. It was some sort of jazz music. We were listening to so much stuff back then but it was saxophone ( Turrentine, Washington. or something like that). It was a moment to cherish. It was an idyllic moment that we would let come and go on our youthful travel forward.

Maybe that’s why the memory came back today in the simple opening of a door? This precious moment that in my youth was something nice, but in my older years ( and wiser I hope) it means so much more. It is remembering something that was so rich and full of life. It is good to remember that in my minds-eye. A gift.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged being remembered, Happiness, life is precious, Looking Back, Memories, moments, Music, Reality Check, Sensory Memory, Slow Down

13 Feb 2015

Love Rain

Some of you there is still a few icy months of winter left in the season, while others in distant countries may be in the middle of summer. Either way there is something about rain that I like. Perhaps you do too?

It is the cleansing. the renewal, When the snow is finally gotten so dirty that it is grey and unwelcome, here will come the rain. Not flooding rain but constant rain. There is always something true in the warmth of the days of sunshine.It has its own recharging sense ( like supplying a power pill of Vitamin D). Sun is good- not too much to get sunburned, but the feeling on your face on one of those days that is comfortable enough to let the sun pour over you.

But rain has something for me. The washing off of the dryness of the days before it. The reason to stay protected inside if you can, or to run in it from place to place like it would melt you. But you know better. It is the rain of renewal Some distant thunder would be nice to help complete the picture. No violent crashing lighting exactly, but that thunder that rumbles over the horizon and sounds like it carries for miles across the landscape.

Rain. It is there for the renewal, it is there for the days to paint grey before the color comes. It is rain.

The Beatles: Rain
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