Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life | Tracks In The Dust

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

02 Apr 2013

The Yearning for Home

I realized over the weekend that in some ways we are all yearning for a place called “home”.

It feels like for many of us, we continue the journey each day trying to embrace the concept of “home” in our lives. The place that we can feel comfort and safety, surrounded by familiar things. Familiar (root word family) in such a way that it creates an ideal combination of the emotional and spiritual things we desire in our lives.

Some say home is where the heart is. Indeed that is an element. Others get a taste and smell of it with “comfort foods” that can allow them a type of time travel back to a time of feeling safe- perhaps with their parents or a wonderful time with their friends or just alone time. The smells of the food, the texture, the way it tastes triggers the senses and the memories that go with it.

Some of it may be the colors that surround you, the home and hearth of another time and place that can make you change a bad mood to a good one. A comfortable chair perhaps. A warm blanket, a sunny afternoon in the yard, the fireplace, the smell of the ocean. Add the things together like a recipe for home in your head.

And home is not defined by one persons idea of it. It could be the home in the woods, or on top a skyscraper over looking metropolitan landscapes. It could be near water or on top of a mountain. In the end as we travel the journey of our lives, many of us will continue to reach out for that “home-base” in our lives. Just that reality check that we need in some way to make the rest of reality tolerant. It’s wrapped in the senses of our spiritual place and needs our attention.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged choices, Comfort food, Happiness, Home, lifestyle, Reality Check, Search for home, Self-Awareness, Slow Down, Sprituality

07 Mar 2013

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Getting Stuck and UnStuck

I am not sure sometimes how I get into particular situations. There are just those times when “poof” I am there. You ever have that feeling of extreme distress? You can’t believe how you got there. It’s likely that you were thinking of something else, maybe head in the clouds.

There are plenty of times where when you are feeling stuck, it seems insurmountable Panic may ensue, or that feeling that you are never going to get out of the situation you are in. Things get blue or bleak or bad (funny how many words can describe it).

Some of my friends will surround themselves with others who are feeling the same way, so they can feel better that they are not alone in their sinking feeling. Other friends of mine will disappear off the face of the earth it seems for long periods of time. Seems like plenty of people think they have the remedy to help them get out of those feelings of being stuck in the situation they’re in.

But getting un-stuck is a challenge that has to be faced eventually. For most of us there is a time when you just have to admit that there is a way out– a solution. You have to make a decision. It’s funny sometimes that someone can “wallow’ at the bottom of a situation for so long.

We can all break-free of things if we put our minds to it. We have the ability to change things, but there are times that we just don’t. We draw out the inevitable and then later – after we finally look back – we ask ourselves “what took so long?” There has to be someway to recognize that getting un-stuck is a choice we can all make if we want without wallowing in it. Without just standing still and wondering why things don’t change.

Advice to my kids when they feel stuck: Take action and make things change. Sometimes I have to hear my own advice. Then God will provide.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Advice, Change, Emotion, Fear, Feeling, Helplessness, Life, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, Sadness, Slow Down, tracks in the dust

18 Feb 2013

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Okay… New Rule

There was a time when it was easy to know all the rules. There was the golden rule, the simple rules that made up the rules of “etiquette” that Miss Manners would teach us. They were a guide to how to react, how to look at things. How to make sure that others felt comfortable with you and who/what you were.

But these days no rules seem to be the rule. The more you can shock someone, the more you can be out of the normal trend of things – the more people may notice you. And it may not be because you did something good, it may be quite the opposite. Be shocking enough or do something that will make people be “aghast” with the way you did it. In popular culture that means you will get noticed, you will be part of the buzz or covered on TMZ or tabloid shows on television. You will show up on some magazine as the “newest” thing.

In these days it seems that it means it has to be notched up. In order to get attention above the normal for this week, one needs to be out-of-bounds even farther than those before us. Of course to make it all work you have to add the Internet. Just do it on YouTube and have it be viral and you will be a star for next week.

It’s like being “change junkies”, even our youth here in the US are thriving on the difference. That seems to have always been the thing…but the notches have turned up higher than before. The shear out-of-bounds rules of the 50’s when kids came to school with blue-jeans on (dungarees) and people were struggling with hair cuts and music. The rules were also changing then for the youth. Now they have become so much more accelerated don’t you think? How can our youth out-do the popular culture which is coming at us all 24/4 on any URL you wish to Google.

So we end up heading toward the potential for a more complicated life. Like working hard to keep track of the “new-rules.” If we are going to be sure we are aware of them, it could prove to be not so simple. All of the media around us and our children’s peer groups screaming it.

My advice to my kids: Be aware of the new rules, but keep it simple. That is going to be my motto too. Just take it one day at a time, understand that you don’t have to make things be bigger, louder, meaner, faster, or on the fringe. Take care to understand the rules will change, and change is good… but don’t let those rules rule you. You can stay in control of things with the simple rules and let that drive your spirit with the power and grace.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Change, Definitions, Doubt, Golden Rule, Google, Grace, Opinion, Pop Culture, Popular culture, Reality Check, Slow Down, The Golden Rule

17 Feb 2013

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Go Ahead Take The Leap

What are you waiting for? There has to be those times when you make “the leap”.

A leap of faith perhaps or just a leap from one place to another. Getting out the routine, moving to another place, taking a chance when you haven’t in the past.

There is that inner-voice that can tell you to wait…. something else will come along. But then when do you listen and when don’t you? Can you catch the meaning of it? Sure, it is easy to review all of life’s missed opportunities and regrets. Sigh… There are times that I know I wallow in them.

After all, standing still can feel comfortable. Its familiar. It allows you to maintain control. But really it could mean that you aren’t in control. That comfortable spot you are in could be controlling you. Keeping you from making the leap you need to make…embracing the change. It could be that you remember the failure or the hurt. You find yourself playing-back “old tapes” (as it used to be called before the digital age). Those old things can be like an anchor. You have to learn your lesson, you don’t want to repeat things that are destined to happen again. But you have to recognize your opportunity too.

So those times will come… it is important to recognize then – then it’s time to say “go ahead and take a leap”. Make a move and see where goes next. See what happens.

TAKE THE LEAP!

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Advice, Chances, Change, choices, Faith, mental-health, moments, Moving, Opportunity, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, Regrets, Taking Chances, Trust

15 Feb 2013

Not My “Demographic”

Over the years we have all been marketed to. Likely millions of products and services, piles of entertainment choices of music, books and movies. Mining the “popular culture” that has become the goal of companies wanting your attention.

One of the things those marketing strategists focus on is taking a look at is who things appeal to; Like what age bracket, what ethnic group, what income bracket, where you live and work.

Once they have “their demographic” target, they create the plan. The plan to appeal to that target, whether it is a teen, a tween, the young or the senior market among others – there is a place to aim the message or the talent.

Maybe this happens to you: My wife and I will see things on television or in advertising in magazines or the web and wonder “who the heck would ever want that?” Sometimes the media makes it seem that “everyone” is paying attention (but they aren’t) . They make it appear that every one is tuning in to the next “reality” show to see someone win or lose, or tune in to see things like Honey Boo-boo disgust us so we can feel better about our own lives.

As I get older I realize that these things aren’t designed to appeal to me (or my wife or others in my generation). This is not new actually- it has been happening since the dawn of the advertising age. From the earliest days of entertainment, from the beginning of the newspaper or selling soap, from Elvis or the Beatles to Justin Bieber. There is a plan on who will and will not “get it”… it will be something parents shake their head at (Elvis and his pelvis, John & Paul and those haircuts) , or kids wont ever understand about their parents . It just happens.

Are you part of the Generation X, Y or Z? Are you a baby-boomer? In the scheme of things in your busy life it likely doesn’t matter at all to you. But someone is thinking about what you want- so they can be sure to supply it and make their mark on the world by gaining profit or recognition. They are out there.

I remember when I was a kid The Who singing “My Generation” and thinking it spoke for the voice of my peers. Listening to it now, it seems old and archaic – like “either burn out or fade away” of the 60’s… or something.

In the end I have learned, I need to accept change as a challenge of my generation, like with each generation before and after me… all of whom are getting older and looking at those other demographics and wondering in amazement… who on earth would really like these things/why is that so popular? who would every buy that?

Accepting change is always the challenge of a generation- when it is happening so fast, maybe change itself is something the new generations find so appealing now?

So fellow bloggers and Internet surfers, what is that is that for you?

What is it that just is too hard to believe anyone should be interested in but seems so popular What is that makes you ask the question “why” does that exist? (LEAVE A COMMENT)

Who cares? You just don’t get it (maybe it’s not your demographic).