being remembered | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the tag “being remembered”

20 Feb 2014

Two Year Anniversary for “Tracks In the Dust”

Okay so now I am 2 years on with my blog Tracks In The Dust. My 2nd anniversary. Hundreds of posts, multiple hundreds of followers and thousands of visits later, I think I am still doing what I intended to do.

√ Wanted to make sure to record my thoughts for my children. Perhaps later they can “remember what dad said” and take some of it to heart. Maybe someday there will be another generation of my family that can also hear a few words from their grandparents. They don’t seem to have listened as well when they were younger, perhaps as they grow older they will grab on to something ( not holding my breath).

√ Keep things in perspective: that music, art, words, are all expressions of life. Enjoy them.

√ And along the way I get to share out these things on the “Internet” of the world-wide web. And maybe it just sticks for someone, or we agree (or disagree) on some things. Maybe it confirms that all people all around the world actually see things very much the same. Perhaps human-kind isn’t that hopeless anyway. Or at least part of it.

I have had the pleasure of following several great bloggers. I have exchanged comments and ideas with people on the other side of the hemisphere from my world. I have seen pictures of wonder. Laughed at the situations we all seem to get in. Cry in sadness for those who struggle with cancer (like I do) and other illnesses. Struggle with personal injustice and fear.

In the end we are all out there. Living our lives the best way we can on this journey. On this mission of life while we are here on earth… forging “tracks in the dust.” Eventually that dust will blow away and our tracks will be gone. But we can make it more permanent. Sharing grace in everything we do. Making something worthwhile from the smallest things could change a life – yours or someone else’s forever.

We all pass through life “kind of fast” (as the theme song says)- considering the span of time in the world. We must make of it what we can, while we can. Thanks for dropping by!

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged being remembered, Hope, Messages on WordPress, Milestones, Postive Thinking, Thank You for Reading, tracks in the dust, Who Are You, Wordpress Anniversary

27 Jan 2014

Passing On Stories Worth Remembering

Since I can remember I have always been interested in “stories”. I think it is fundamentally something that must be in our DNA from our ancestors. Years before there was a way to communicate in written form, wise men from tribes would pass down to the younger members the most important stories about their history, about lessons learned.

We all have personal stories we want to pass on to others. It is the life blood of social networks and certainly of this wonderful WordPress blogging forum. So much to tell. We all want stories in our lives that are meaningful. Sometimes they are and other times they may be less than profound. It may be that they are meaningful only because of the very perspective you have at the time, the personal eye in which events happened.

Other times they are lessons learned that we need to pass on, if only to provide others the opportunity to know about the past, or to find their own way, or to make sure they miss some of the perils that lie ahead for their own lives. So that was my intention; to tell my kids everything I can about the things that could be important to them. To make them realize that they don’t have to make the “exact” same mistakes I did (even though they will ironically do it anyway).

So years from now, when I have succumbed to the end that faces us all, I hope and wish that my children will have stories for their children and the people around them. They will marvel that many of them were stories that had roots from their father, or that in retrospect were those things they had so passively listened to and filed away and finally they could apply.

Hopefully some of those stories stick, like one of those richly good novels that are fondly recalled. Perhaps like the story that made time stand still for even a seconds pause to be embraced by the generation ahead.

What are your stories? What are the things that you want to pass on that are worth remembering?

A song about “remembering” 🙂

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged Acceptance, being remembered, choices, Faith, Grace, Harry Nilsson, Postive Thinking, Remembering the past, Self-Awareness, Sprituality, Telling Stories, tracks in the dust

01 Jan 2014

Just Too Much Noise

Its true. People want to be heard.

There are a lot of ways to get attention, but in the end everyone wants to be heard somehow. Perhaps its the need to want to share a message (these blogs have evidence to that). Perhaps there is more self-serving reasons. Perhaps it is to share in the greatest story ever told.

But everywhere there seems to be a lot of noise drowning out the messages. Noise from the Internet. Noise from the media. Blinding the true messages, being louder than another message can make for a dominant message whether it is true or not.

It seems to be like everyone is trying to say.. “listen to me!” Here’s my opinion. – Then in-turn they receive comments on opinions. leading to even more and more opinions.

Noise.

What is the real message at during the holidays and as we move to 2014 and the new year?

The Good News that there is faith in something bigger. There is a way to make the world better with grace in motion. Find the way to make the message come through.

What do we all need to do to be sure we are heard? Filter out the noise. Recognize it as something that will always be there, but if you are up to it, – you can make the difference.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, Advice, being remembered, Change, Good News, Message, Noise Pollution, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, Religion and Spirituality, Truth

25 Dec 2013

2 Comments

Good Parent/Bad Parent

Easy to read all of the comments these days about how parents are treating their kids.

The Internet and media are full of news about parents who have done “bad” things to their kids. Some of them life threatening, some of them much more subtle but damaging. As a parent the obvious conclusion is to compare and be sure that you are not one of those parents who damaged their kids futures from some sort of neglect. Who put them through hell during their childhood so that they would never be good kids or worse yet good adults when they grew up?

Always seems like someone has the best idea: ” Spare the rod spoil the child.” “Teach the kids to be independent.” “Tell them how it really is.” “Make sure they understand that everything has consequences.” Or maybe for some they teach them ” there is always a way to get out of something.”

With so many influences outside a parents control- getting that fundamental core values have to be taught earlier and earlier. There is no shelter from the influences that are available today for kids in every age level.

So what are my wife and I ? Good parents? Bad ones?

I know I have my days where I guess I am pretty good. My kids have their own problems… did I dump them on them or did they collect their situations and predicaments all by them selves?

There are regrets as a parent, but overall you have to make the best of it. Some parents have much more success, while others seem to be constantly frustrated by their children- and cannot see why they had anything to do with it.

So I am guessing that is the fate of parents in general. They didn’t come with an owners manual when they arrived. Other than medical or convictions as reasons that they may not come to be; there are very few rules stopping someone from having one, even if they have very little experience or life lessons to reflect upon. Yup, no license to be a parent, no manuals, no permissions to be obtained. We parents have a lot of responsibility, but that is seldom accounted for as much until the day they are born… handed to you and you become a “parent” …. then the debate begins.

I love my kids (all 4 of them) and hope that they don’t blame us too much for the way they turned out. When they are doing good, we think that we did pretty good raising them; they think they did it all themselves. When they are doing poorly, we think it must have been some other reason than us; they think that it’s all their parents fault.

Either way – most of us do the best we can it seems.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Acceptance, being a parent, being remembered, Children, Doubt, Family, Grace, Happiness, Memories, Opinion, Postive Thinking, Raising Children, Reality Check, relationships

20 Nov 2013

2 Comments

What Is Your Message?

There are always things we learn in life that change us forever.

They can be subtle things that we don’t even notice when they happen or they can be things that mark a turning point in our lives that we know have made a difference.

Sometimes they are obvious, you know that the things you are doing in your life are full of impact to how you see it from that point forward. Other times they are only easy to see when you look backward and notice that “if it wasn’t for that person, place or thing in your life” you wouldn’t have been where you are today.

So someone asked me the other day: If you could leave a three word message for your former self, if you could go back in time and leave a morsel of advice to your self in the past – what would you tell yourself? What would that life changing message be? Would you even notice? Would you know what it meant?

What are the 3 words you would leave?