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

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

04 Jun 2012

Talk Yourself Into It

As it has been said, your thoughts determine your feelings and your feelings determine your actions. If you want to change your life, you have to control the way you think. Sadly I see so many of my friends and co-workers who seem to be talking themselves into being negative about themselves and others.

Science says that you’re constantly talking to yourself — all the time. Your mind is talking to you! I bet you are talking to yourself right now. Research shows that most people speak at a rate of 150 to 200 words per minute, but your mind can listen to about 500 to 600 words a minute. That’s why you can listen to one person while planning what you are doing tonight at the same time.

It’s been measured that the conversation we have with ourselves — is at a rate of 1,300 words per minute. Because your mind sees in pictures, and you can see a thought in a nanosecond.

So your personal conversation may be saying, in effect, “Everything I say puts me down.” Like most of us, you are your own worst critic. Seems like we’re always putting ourselves down. We walk into a room, smiling, but inside we’re thinking, “I don’t look right. I don’t fit in. I may not be able to talk well with strangers. I’m sure they will think I am boring.”

God wants us to stop putting ourselves down. When you put yourself down, who are you really putting down? When you say these bad things you’re really pointing to God, who made you. When you say, “God, I’m worthless. I’m no good. I can’t do anything,” you’re saying, “God, you blew it with me.” That’s why God says it’s wrong to put yourself down.

“Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right … Think about all you can thank God for and be glad about” (Philippians 4:8 LB).

So, don’t think about all those weaknesses in your life. There isn’t a better thing you can do to raise your confidence level than to start believing that you should fix your thoughts on what is true, good and right. You are valuable; you are significant; you have the ability; you are more than capable.”

Ref: Inspired by Rick Warren.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Acceptance, Book of Proverbs, Change, Fear, Happiness, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, Self-Awareness, Sprituality

29 May 2012

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Some Days are Movies, Some Days are Books

Some days are movies, some days are books.

There are those days that seem really fluid, like some sort of compact movie with a plot that has a beginning in something simple and builds to an ending all balled up in 2 hours. It is like some director is moving the characters in and out of the scenes ( of which you all seem to be in). Or you are hearing the storyline unfold through a strange set of circumstances. Things are registering, things are happening, but in some way you are still connected in a distant way. There is a soundtrack complete with meaningful and selected subject matter intended to shape the mood. A lot of background is out of focus, but you don’t mind. You are seeing it as a sweeping story of your life.

Yet, there are other days that seem like a book. Each and every detail is carefully drawn out to get you to turn the page. The details are descriptive, intense and in some crazy way going in slower motion than you would expect. There is dialog that is meaningful, there are surroundings that have significance. But the whole thing feels like an author ( you actually) is building the plot like some final distant conclusion on a page near the back cover. And the characters are deep and move in and out of the pages like a rhythm that is comfortable, with room enough for several sub-plots.

So I know that I don’t always get to choose. It can be a surprise that can somehow be pleasant, or cause a lot of frustration. It’s like that feeling of being distracted when watching a movie with a lot of dialog, or looking up from a page in a novel and having to go back and read it again- just to keep the story in context.

Today was a movie. And now that it is nearly the end of the day and the credits will be rolling, thinking about tomorrow…well who knows? Kind of okay with that, brings itself some adventures that will always be adding to the plotline, always be making a new soundtrack or revealing a new twist in the characters with in.

Either way, I can make it work.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Acceptance, Books, Change, coping, life is precious, Memories, Movies, Slow Down, Who Are You

26 May 2012

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Summer Begins

In the US this weekend is special, it is Memorial Day weekend. On Monday we are to observe a holiday that is dedicated to pausing to recall our veterans of the military who have fought for our freedom. It is one of the most important holidays we have as as a federal holiday, as there are so many fallen men and women who have blazed the trail for our country. They should not be forgotten.

It is also the unofficial beginning of summer. Even though summer solstice isn’t until June – this holiday weekend seems to be the launch of summer, and for all things that it means. My memories of this Memorial Day weekend have always been steeped in tradition and anticipation. Over the years it came to signify the end of the school season and the beginning of some serious length of days off. Of course once you are out of school it’s different. But the ghost of that feeling is still there.

Other summer memories of smells, sound and sun kick in as well. Barbeque on the grill meant that smell of lighter fluid and briquets that had a pungent petroleum smell that always ended up in good eats! The sun-tan lotion that smelled like coconut. The cold brew taste of beer and the music that was pure-pop, originally on some little tinny radio on AM but later blasting thru the latest size of boombox. The Beach Boys begat the psychedelic pop of the late sixties, that brought on the dancing music of the seventies and the punk of the eighties and grunge rock of the nineties, but there was always something that would wrap the sounds of the summer in a package.

So for me the summer begins, not so idyllic as it once was, but summer none the less. Some promise of some “summer vacation” where there could be some “summer fun” (cue the Grease song). Some days when it will be too hot to go out but we will anyway to take in the summer. Nites on the patio with a cold sweating drink, time around the pools or at the beach. Perhaps some time onboard a boat on the cool water of the ocean or lake of your choice. What ever it is, summer is here.

The bookend to that will be that weekend at the end of summer. The unofficial end on Labor Day weekend in the US when we all begin our journey to the fall season. Bring out the warmer clothes in anticipation of those crisp autumn days where we can enjoy trees changing colors and fire pits with a warm glow. But until then, it is time to soak up the sun. May it be a wonderful summer.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged Joy, life is precious, Memorial Day, Memories, Music, Slow Down, Summer

25 May 2012

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The Touch of Grace In Living

Just the other day someone who I hadn’t seen or talked to in ages happened to communicate with me online. I thought again how much the Internet has changed everyone’s lives in the “Information Age“. As part of our communication it was apparent that somewhere along our past journey I had said something that “stuck” with him and became part of his philosophy in life from that point on.

I didn’t recall saying anything to him that would be that profound, and frankly what I said must have been part of a conversation that I don’t recall now. What it was isn’t even that important to this posting. It did make me think again how much we are all interconnected by everything we do and say every day. Sometimes it may be with a stranger at the checkout line, or someone you meet on your walk with the dog. Other times it could be with those friendships and relationships you have with friends and relatives that pass through your timeline of life (I shudder when I look at my life as a “timeline”- thanks Facebook). It is more than the impact of reading a book, or watching a film, or listening to a song… it is human interaction.

But no matter how we intersect and no matter whether it is brief or an extended amount of time, there is always this chance that you or the other person may be changed by it. If even just in the smallest of ways; or sometimes in the most profoundly huge ways. It is part of God’s wish that we treat everyone that way and it is not always going to work because we often find ourselves centered on our selves. But even then, it can happen. That brush with action or words that can change everything after it.

There is a fictional TV show on US television these days called “Touch” that addresses the idea that much of our world and its actions are interconnected mathematically. There is even going to be a web-based online series based on it called “Daybreak2012”. I think people are guinely curious about their effect on others. Heck, that is likely at the core of many of the blog-sites we are all visiting online today.

Perhaps that is the hidden equation, perhaps it is more on a spiritual level – something that we all possess but often do not acknowledge or recognize we have.

At the end of our lives we may have touched so many people we didn’t ever realize we had. We may had said something or done something that made such a difference but we will never know because that person’s path will never cross ours again.

“There by the grace of God go I” to make my way into the world and leave something behind that is not just “tracks in the dust” that eventually fade away. Instead it is a chain reaction of things that I will not know during my lifetime. But I am excited to know in the next world.

Do you share in the excitement? Can you share in the grace of life?

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life, Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged being remembered, choices, Grace, Information Age, moments, People, Philosophy, Reality Check, religion, Self-Awareness, Sprituality, tracks in the dust

23 May 2012

Kindness

Another one of my life’s songs along with my previous post “Compassion” is this one from my favorite artist Todd Rundgren. It is called “Kindness”. It is an attitude and characteristic that seems so lost these days in some circles. There are people who show you kindness, and you have to remember what that feels like and share it back.

So much more anger and frustration these days leads to violence and uncaring attitudes. We all need to take the lessons of kindness and pass them on.

I don’t mean to keep posting music (let alone my fave artist) – but it hit me again how fortunate it is to give and receive kindness in our lives, and how often it may be missing on our mission here on Earth.

Kindness by Todd Rundgren

The one that showed me kindness
Was the one that taught me kindness
Though I did not recognize it
Still I might have died without it
And when I awakened
It was too late to thank her
If I live someday I’ll make repayment
And show someone the kindness she showed me

When my voice grows strident
When I feel important
I’m reminded of that kindness
And where I’d be without it
I’m learning my lessons
It may take me a lifetime
Give me strength to justify my being
And show someone the kindness shown to me