Tracks In The Dust

19 Mar 2013

The World in Your Pocket

Smartphones have changed how we live our lives. I think it is amazing that in my lifetime so many things have changed, but this is a historical time when smartphones/cell phones have really made a permanent impact on my family.

The camera inside alone, sitting in everyone’s pocket allows very little of life’s imperfections to pass by. Now every mistake, every victory, every catastrophe, every violent act, every special moment can be recorded and broadcast out into the world-wide web to be permanently entered in the cyber record. It is “instant”. Since there are so many cameras in so many pockets, and every person can choose where to point it- even the subject matter can be managed by our individual point of view.

Things off the top of mind:

You are never alone (if you chose to be). “Social” has a much different meaning today. Not only text, but real-time pictures and videos change your perception of how you are connected to humans in your family to around the world in places you’d only read about.

You have access to what seems like infinite information. Like I have blogged before the friendly argument on a bar-stool at the local pub has changed forever. Just Google it. Share your opinion, it could be news in an hour.

You have access to hundred of thousands of books (probably millions). It is like having the entire library in your pocket. Summon (and pay for it) and you are ready to read things that may have been lost in the back-stacks at your city library.

You have entertainment where ever you want it; those long waits in line, those down-times when you are just looking for something to keep your mind going. Movies, music, even art are at your finger tips.

There’s a new definition of “getting lost”. It may mean that your Google Maps or navigation application may not be working correctly. Or that your battery has died I suppose. But stop and ask for directions? Hmmm.

That is just a start. I couldn’t have imagined as a child that every one would have their own phone numbers, their own built-in answering machine. That you could make long distance calls with a phone in your pocket without thinking about the “long distance” charges. That you could conference friends and family together and perhaps even see their expressions – from something that you would be holding in your hand. Virtually anywhere.

So I marvel at the idea of where my children will access the world when they are my age.

Decades from now there will be something our children cannot fathom, but I wonder what it is?

Today, they see the technology advances as a matter-of-fact. It will happen and it will evolve. What will be their marvel?

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Acceptance, Cell Phones, Change, gadgets, Google, Memories, Reality Check, Science and Technology, technology, tracks in the dust

15 Mar 2013

Looking for the Rewards Around You

Looking for the reward

Some say rewards are earned, and that is surely the truth in so many circumstances.

Having a heart to heart with my son the other night, we got talking about those things that result in “rewards” in our lives. Those things that can increase the value of what you do and say everyday. He sees it like many others do, that “rewards” are something that will come to you if you deserve them. There could be some element of truth in that, but there are those times when it just happens-like it is planned or expected because you earned them.

So that leaves another thought, the idea that rewards are something you should look for. Of course. Like they are very likely to show up in your life “just because” ( never say never, but when they do I think some call that “luck”)…

Rewards in life can turn to be something we can search for, after all they may not be in plain sight. But it is that adventure of working to uncover them that makes life interesting. You have to define them. Sometimes it is founded on determination, other times on awareness, and yet other times just being in the right place and at the right time to allow the rewards to appear (again some call it “luck”).

After that it is of course also up to your definition of “reward“. I mean cash- money is nice, and so is due recognition for doing things that accomplish life altering efforts- or just getting the individual thank you from someone who makes the work all worthwhile. There are personal victories that end up as our own personal reward. Those can be the most satisfying and long-lasting of any when they meet your goals.

They can sharpen your senses for seeing more in your life, seeing the rewards and the opportunity around you.

Start by defining what the rewards really are.

They start to show up in the most amazing places.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged due recognition, Emotion, Fear, good fortune, Happiness, Luck, personal reward, personal victories, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, Rewards, searching for happiness, Self-Awareness

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

03 Mar 2013

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Friends

To me it seems like friends can be an extension of your life.

It is good to have a mirror of reflection in your life, to compare things with each other. Take time to stop and make things be real in some way. Not that friends have to see everything 100% the same. That would actually be very bland over time. Being friends allows us to validate what emotions are, what seems right and wrong in the world, to laugh and perhaps cry with each other.

Friends can help share your pain, and sometimes cause it- but the are of value in our lives. They are part of the memories of the past and the present, they can be the reason that you greater cherish the future.

Sometimes its hard to find them, often there may be some people in your life that are truly not really interested in being your friend. But when your do find them, or they find you… it can be unique and special.

Thanks to all the friends then.They are walking with you, making those tracks in the dust that will eventually blow away on the spin of the Earth. What they can help you do is make more permanent mark on the lives you touch ahead.

Not the Facebook kind of friends, not the casual people who come and go in your life, but those friends that you know have made your life a better one. To those friends who will be there when you need them if they can, to the friends that make your life more rich. I know it sounds sappy or like something out of a movie or a beer commercial, it is one of those things that can sound like that I suppose.

What is it about friends you have in your life? What makes them special to you?

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, being remembered, cherish, Faith, Friends, Friendship, People, Postive Thinking, relationship, tracks in the dust

01 Mar 2013

Freedom from Fear and Guilt

Can you let go of your fears and guilt?

If you asked your friends or family how they defined “freedom” what would they say? Maybe something like…

“I can do anything I want,say whatever I want to say and no one can tell me what to do.”

Sounds selfish, even if you took it to mean that you would do things that wouldn’t harm or hurt you or other people, there would still be a lot of things that would be difficult to accomplish in reality.

Fear and guilt get in the way of freedom.

We may have guilt about the things we hadn’t done in our lives, or haven’t attended to and should. We can feel guilty about not spending more time with our family, or ourselves. We can feel guilty about what we said to someone, what we meant to say. It could be that the specter of guilt is there about severe things like cheating on your spouse, or short cutting things at work, or thousands of other things that accumulate over time.

Our fears get in the way of freedom. We have so many unspoken ones. Surely we may state that we are fearful of spiders or snakes or bears or sharks or something. We may have a fear of heights or flying. We could fear the dark or the unknown minute yet to come. There are the unspoken fears of emotion and weakness. Those fears that can stop us cold from “getting involved” with a someone, or getting involved with a situation. And then the compound as fears layer on top of fears. And the ultimate fear of death will play its own role.

Fear and guilt are real, and they stop us from that “freedom” we all wish for in many ways.

Can you imagine your life with no guilt, no fear? What would it be like? How would you find it?

Let me end with something that keeps me going; something in the face my life with cancer helps to calm my fears. “…there is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18) “If the Son sets you free, then you will be really free” (John 8:36)