Tracks In The Dust

24 Apr 2014

Defining Your Life Expectancy

We all have one life, with a beginning and an end. We can do what we can to manage our “Life Expectancy”. Take care of our health, be sure we eat correctly, get proper exercise. Make safe decisions in life and don’t put ourselves in the path of danger. We live in a time when people are living longer than ever.

But perhaps life expectancy should be more about what you “expect” out of life.

Why is it that we have so many expectations in our lives? Expectations of others, expectations of the people we love and the people we work with. When those people and things around us don’t meet our expectations, we can often let that change the complexion of our lives. We become angry, disappointed, disenchanted . Sad to say that we are sometimes our own worse enemy.

So when one life expectancy meets our lives expectations we need to be sure we understand. Time is precious, and our expectations need to be precious too. We can try to pin them on anyone and anything in the world around us, but in the end they are ours.

How long in our lives do we have to achieve those things we expect? God knows.

What do you accept and what are the things that will be meaningful to you?(

(Perhaps that is truly your life expectancy)

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, Anger, Changes, choices, Death, Definitions, expectations, Happiness, Life, Postive Thinking, Self worth, Self-Awareness, Truth

21 Apr 2014

Decisions Made, Lessons Learned

It has been a time for reflection for me this past week. Taking a moment and looking back I realize that time is unchangeable. What has happened before is there behind us, behind me. There isn’t anyway to erase it.

Wishing that we could go back and have a “redo” – make some major corrections to the past aren’t going to happen, Love those time travel movies that always seem to find a way to go back and make changes or correct things.

Fiction I know but still fun to watch I guess.

Question: So what would you go back and change. If there were one decision, one thing you said you could take back- what would it be?

I know that what happens in the future is a continuation of what happened in the past, and as long as we are alive we can do everything we can to learn from what we’ve done. We can take those lessons and apply them. Make them work to change the future (since in all reality the past is unchangeable).

Question: So what is one thing you have learned from the past that you would pass on to your loved ones in hope that they can also benefit from your wisdom?

All decisions lead to today, all lessons learned can be used for tomorrow.

I am looking for answers…. I wonder what you think?

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Acceptance, Bad Decisions, Change, choices, Learning Lessons, life is precious, Memories, mental-health, Postive Thinking, Reality Check

16 Apr 2014

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Compassion for All of Those Around Us

Lately I have been reviewing those things that are important in life. Stopping to look at what is at the center of things. That brings me back to something that seems to me to be missing a lot more these days. Compassion. A tolerance that we are all imperfect and our faults are bound to the fact that we are human. All of us.

I have always believed that one of the most valuable things you can posses in life is compassion. It is what heals. We all need some.

What comes of a compassionate heart is the Spirit that is “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

Here is one of my life’s songs.I am sharing again from a post years back.

Compassion (Todd Rundgren)

You want more, and still more,
Until you get more than you ever bargained for.
Now its plain, clear as rain,
I’ve seen your symptoms many times before.

Lying on your bed of pain
What will you have now?

What are riches untold in a life without compassion?
For there’s no winter as cold
as a life without compassion.
There’s no prescription that’s sold
that can heal you like compassion.

Well you tried and you cried,
And let your disappointment make you hard inside.
You have doubt, you reach out,
Still you’re the only one you care about.

Hiding in your sack of woe
What do you need now?

For there is nothing so sad
as a life without compassion.
And even love has turned bad,
it was love without compassion.
And you don’t need what you had
‘Cause you did not have compassion.

Dying on your bed of pain
What will you have now?

You’ll get no judgment from me,
I can only feel compassion.
And if that’s what you need,
I will give you my compassion.
Just don’t forget about me
‘Cause we all need some compassion.

Open up your heart
so you can start to feel compassion.
Get down on your knees,
pray to heaven for compassion.
Everybody needs compassion.
If you want to be healed
then you know you got to feel compassion

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Compassion, Hope, Joy, Love, peace, tollerance

11 Apr 2014

In A New York Minute

In a split second, in the matter of a moment, a second, a minute or a day things can change.

It amazes me that in life’s adventure, during our mission here on Earth we are able to experience things in real time and see so many changes around us. I know some people resist change, and others welcome it. I can say that I expect it.

Sometimes the changes are long-coming, but more often it can be one shift in the status-quo for your life to take another direction. Some times it can be predicted, but we choose to ignore it. Other times it is just a total shift in things.

My wife and I are going to get a chance to meet my grandson, someone we have never met during his seven years on this Earth. Due to a long story of events our oldest son has been out of our lives for over eleven years. Now, in a New York minute – we are planning their visit to our home.

There is a story of the prodigal son in the Bible that rings true, but there are so many twists in our story. We are good with things really, it is good to have the opportunity to meet him. We don’t have any way to explain to him the time lost, or to have him understand the life we had with his father until he left home at age 18.

So we shall let things run the course they are headed. Change is good overall. It was quite a change back on the day our son left home. It will be another when we meet up with him and his son these many years later.

Comes to mind the Don Henley song. Here is a great cover of it. Life is short. Believe.