Tracks In The Dust

19 Jun 2014

Attention, Please!

No one these days ever seems to work very hard at paying attention. The desire for attention is so strong among all the noise that today”s modern world can produce. After all we live in an ADD kind of world. It seems like everybody’s got Attention Deficit Disorder because the media, the daily grind and the high-speed technology have left us perpetually distracted. That leaves us with little time to pay genuine attention to the people and the world around us.

Huffington Post

When you walk into a room full of people, at work or at home, how many of them are busy focused on their electronic device, phoning or texting? Seems like most of our eyes are always focused on down, engrossed in a video, the Internet or Facebook, and then on top of that we plug in our earphones and keep from hearing the people around us.

How often are you in a public place like a restaurant or at a party and you (or your friends) are more focused on “friends” on Facebook or Twitter than the live action right in front of us?

We have to look to ourselves to find the lost art of “paying attention”. I have posted before, our capacity to listen is precious. To understand what someone is saying is very precious, and even more than that is the ability to understand its meaning.

We are so ready to respond to what someone is saying, that we are missing what it is they mean. That is if we have listened at all. If we are not distracted by the next text pinging our phones, or the next Twitter that is going to say some profound thing in 145 characters or less. When the person right in front of us is likely saying something more important. Responding can be something more significant if we can just listen and understand the meaning.

So advice to my kids- put it down. Look into someones eyes, be sure you are listening, Comprehend the meaning. Take it in, digest it. No need to respond right away, but be thoughtful and make sure you are paying attention. It is really the “instant message” you need to hear.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, Advice, Change, Faith, Grace, Happiness, Memories, moments, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, Self-Awareness, Sprituality, Who Are You

13 Jun 2014

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My Father’s Drill

As a father of four children, I was never truly keen on the meaning of “Fathers Day”. It seemed like one of those days set aside to commemorate something that should be observed every day of the year. But then I recall as a child, I was not the best at reflecting on the genuine care my dad provided to me those days.

The old and the new.

As i got older I had very fond memories to recall. Many of them that I didn’t even realize I had absorbed at the time. But he was indeed the kind of father that I can say now I hope that I have been to my children.

He was in some ways distant like every working father would be from time to time. Busy making a “living” and trying to provide for his family. We had some great and very traditional family vacations, station-wagon packed to the windows and trips to cabins in the woods and relatives near and far. There were some personal times fishing together and spending time in the back yard at the grill.

So the movie of the younger days and “good” times plays back in my head, along with some black and white photos and a few 8 MM films. After I got married and we moved away, we were still close enough to get “visits” from him and my mom. We would visit them too.

They worked hard to have an active retired life, but they were also there when I needed them. It has been over 20 years since he passed from this earth. I still remember all of our times together fondly.

When my wife and I got our first home, he gave me some of his tools ( a new homemaker must have tools!). One of them was a power-drill. Nothing special really, but to this day I have had it in my tool box.

It has his drivers-licence etched into the side, the label (Black and Decker I think) has fallen off. Last time I used it was recently with my son – when we were working on some kitchen cabinets. The drill worked, but it sparks were coming from the body of it. It was still a functional tool, but it had seen generations of better times. Time takes toll on everything and everyone.

So with regret I will likely now retire the drill, most likely bought at the local hardware store in my small home town in Wisconsin. Most likely with dozens upon dozens of projects for the home behind it. It will be replaced by a drill bought from Amazon (not made in the USA I am afraid) and shipped to my door. A concept my dad would have marveled at.

Or maybe I should hand the drill off to my son? Tell him to be careful with the “sparks” inside, but mind the fact that it has worked well for decades of projects meant to build on the future.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Acceptance, Change, choices, Father's Day, Memories, moments, My Dad, Reality Check, Remembering the past, Self-Awareness

12 Jun 2014

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Taking A Chance

A fathers advice ” You can fail at what you don’t really want to do, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”

Very sensible words coming from Jim Carey, a movie comedian with a very silly sense of humor. I think a lot of us “think” this, but how many of us act on those thoughts? Not many I would imagine. It would take us out of the comfort zone that many of us believe we are in. Not that it is truly safe.

But we imagine the brass-ring is out of reach, that there are only “some” people who have the luck or skills to make things be successful in their lives. I think I am in that camp probably most of the time. But every once in a while I have to be reminded that this is an opportunity to do “what you love” .

The reward of helping others, of being part of the solution and providing positive outlook on life can start with just having faith in God. It could be that we just need to take a chance on those things that will make a difference. Hard to know… but the fact is the alternative gets summed up pretty good in 1 minute in this speech made by one comedian who got pretty serious…if even for a moment.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, Chances, Change, choices, doing what you love, Happiness, Jim Carey, life is precious, People, Postive Thinking, Self-Awareness, Sprituality

12 Jun 2014

Take The Weight Off

No, it is not a diet edict. This weight is the weight we all carry, regardless of our physical appearance. It is the weight that becomes a burden that we come to be dependent upon. It is that heaviness that we don’t want, but no change in diet or physical exercise is going to remove it.

It is the weight of information. and we are all subject to that these days. One time stored in encyclopedias, reported in newspapers and magazines and complied in text books – the information for those of us who have access to the Internet seems nearly infinite. Mistaking that for knowledge is another thing. The nearly infinite source does not have a definitive declaration of the truth, but only the versions of the truth we come to find there.

I love the Tom Waits picture below. It is pretty profound. It is the weight of the things in our lives. Here in America we collect things to make us more important. From what I can tell is that way in many other places around the world too. The more we have (information, possessions, money,friends, etc) the more we think we will be happy. Abundance can sometimes seem to translate to safer life, or a better life. But hopefully that is understood. It is not going to ever be enough. And as the adage says “you can’t take it with you”.

Kids, my advice is to understand where you are, and know how you should see it? There is more.

DO you have the weight of the world carting around on your soul? Of have you found that there is much more than that?

Love this quality video from The Band. The Weight.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged Acceptance, Burdens of Life, Change, choices, Faith, Hope, information, Information Age, mental-health, Reality Check, Self-Awareness, The Band, Tom Waits, Too Much Information, What is imporant

09 Jun 2014

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Our 35 Years of Sharing

There is no way to put it into perspective completely. Today my wife and I celebrate 35 years of being married.

It has been a marriage filled with joy and sorrow, adventure and patience, love and anger, some victories and some regrets. The memories are precious, even as some of them are filled with cloudy remembrances, they are part of our love growing together.

We were married as our parents opined “very young” ( my wife was 19 and I was 23). We didn’t go in blindly to the marriage, but I think we were naive about what the journey ahead would be. But headfirst we jumped into life with the promise of a bright future.

Thirty-five years later we have relocated multiple times across the US ( mainly because of job related reasons), we have 4 great children that have supplied ( and continue to supply) a house full of love and family dramas. But over all we have been blessed. Not by wealth, not by possessions, not by health or constant good fortune, but by each other. It has not been perfect.

I want to quote a wise spiritual leader, pastor, author I have had the honor to know, Steve Lucas, who also recently posted some sentiments about his marriage on his site (Yesterday Lucas): These really captured my heart as things that I feel are so true. “Marriage is not about perfection. It’s about two people, stumbling through life together, growing in their relationship with each other and with God. Forgiveness, patience, a bad memory, and extra love are all ingredients that are required to make it in marriage.”

And I agree with that 100%. As he explains also that there are a handful of days that could be good to have called a “do over”. I can think of several in recent memory ( some further back are a bit cloudy, but the remnants are still there ). But as he says, do-over’s would likely be at the expense of the wisdom gained through mistakes. Again I couldn’t agree more. “ Thankfully, in every failure there has been forgiveness; in every trial, we shared them together.”

“I don’t deserve my wife. But then again, neither do I deserve the Grace of God. But I’ll happily accept both.”

I am blessed with the happiness of what is truly the good fortune in my life, to know true love.