being remembered | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the tag “being remembered”

03 Mar 2013

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

28 Feb 2013

Where Do You Draw the Line?

Are you ever finished? Where do you draw the line?

Don’t you think there are times you have to just say “stop” and draw the line?

I mean there are somethings that just have to get unloaded from your life as you continue to progress though it. Friends, family, work, personal commitments to managing your day and your week. You want to “be there” for everyone you can. You want to help them, support them. You want to be able to enjoy their company. Your work may demand a lot of your energy just to stay ahead… making it all that much harder to make it all work.

I have friends who burn-the-candle at both ends. They stay up late, get up early. They spend time moving from place to place and wanting to participate in just about everything. I wonder sometimes how satisfactory that experience really is. They worry if they miss something or if they are not “there” for someone who they will have failed- they struggle to be accepted.

Eventually you see them get discouraged. It’s like the analogy “If you attach one light bulb to a battery, the battery will continue to run for a long time. If you attach a dozen light bulbs to a battery, the battery will die quickly and things will l get dark.”

When you keep adding things to your calendar, piling things on top of your life, it is fairly likely you will get run down and discouraged. You may need to un-plug from things. It can be very hard to do.

A there are so many things that can get in your way and drain the batteries Maybe it’s a relationship, the work you do, a get together with friends or sports league or tending to all of the kid’s activities. ( I have seen parents who have their kids so plugged-in that they are heading for a crash as well).

It’s not necessarily an unwanted thing, many things can be really desirable. A being involved,participating in things can be great, but if you add up all those things in your life, you’re going to collapse because for the lack of time . You may just have to say “no” to somethings.

You cannot fall prey to peer pressure or the need to please someone. But guilt is a very strong thing, especially when you create it on your own. Or perhaps you may be holding on to a happiness or hurt. The reality is that you can never live in the past or the future; you can only live for today. Looking back in the past, or always working for what might happen tomorrow can drag you down.

I have read many blogs, I have written some myself about de-cluttering junk from your life. Maybe this is part of that clean-up, if it isn’t working for you, if it’s dragging you down, perhaps you need to do the hardest thing… you need to let it go.

Negotiating With Yourself

Organization in the Clutter of Life

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, being remembered, Change, cherish, expectations, Happiness, Life, life is precious, mental-health, peer pressure, Reality Check, Slow Down, Time management

25 Feb 2013

2 Comments

Something Left To Give

As we grow older it seems, priorities change don’t they? When I was younger getting through each day meant something quite different from what it does now. In some ways I was always wishing hard for the weekend, where I could more intensely enjoy the company of my friends. Raise the roof and party. I was in a rock band in my early days and there was always something about the weekend. Gigs at local schools and pubs, party’s with long nights of drinking beer and smoking and pretending to be so worldly about our observations of love and the world around us.

But as I grew older giving was more significant than receiving. It became more important to be part of something that would last. It’s not that everything has to be “important”- but somehow I guess having kids will put a whole new perspective on that. As I had written in a previous post a while back, my father-in-law lived to the ripe old age of 90. And though all of his years fortunately old age did not shake is memory or faculties. He was a vibrant person pretty much till the end. One of the most important thing he wanted from life was to “be remembered”.

So now as I gain years and hopefully get wiser with age, I hope that I can have “something left to give” and that all of my children (even the lost one I haven’t seen in 10 years) can gain from the insight of the world around them. They won’t let the world pass by them and not notice the greatness of life, the wonder, grace and compassion. They will find ways to give to life the blessings God has provided, they will be conscious of the opportunity and it will become the reason that generations ahead will benefit from the wisdom they leave behind.

This is a song that always reminds me of that idea. One my children introduced it to me. From The Starting Line. It’s several years old, but I have frequently came back to this song and its words. ♥

Posted in Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged being remembered, choices, Compassion, Faith, Grace, Joy, life is precious, Music, Reality Check, Sprituality, Who Are You

08 Feb 2013

4 Comments

One Year Later, Thank You Followers

So here it is exactly one year later since last February when I started Tracksinthedust.

Like so many others bloggers I have read it was not my intention to collect 1000’s of followers.

Yet it has been fantastic that some of you fellow WordPress bloggers are visiting from time to time, and for my Facebook friends to drop by- it’s always wonderful to get a comment now and then as well.

My hope is that in the course of things my kids catch some of it. They mean the world to me and my wife. Even for my oldest son who left home at 18 and has never looked back.

I will continue to share some of my journey on my fight with cancer on the Cancer Letters – I pray that isn’t a turn off but I wanted to get that down in writing. Probably more therapeutic for me than for those who would read it I guess.

It’s been fun touching on music, and lyrics and poems ( on my new page) Songs and Poems from Another Time

It has been great to make some bloggy friends along the way as well!

Most of all I have learned that no matter where people live in the world there are so many similarities. Worries and loves, hates and frustrations, wonders and kindness, spiritual needs and wanting to know how we all fit in.

They are all there in everyone.

Hope that some of you will continue to drop by and leave a comment when it moves you.

Here’s to another year for all of us!

Mark (Mgert)

Special shout to some of WordPress bloggers from around the world and right here in Texas who have dropped by for comments.

♥ Hope the Happy Hugger for all your wonderful comments and inspriation

Istopforsuffering for your spiritual vision

NoBlogintended for your views on life

Mari for your such beautiful prose

Aix for your insight on living

InWonderland (Audrey) for being such a genuine person

Posted in About mgert123 and tagged being remembered, Blog, Blogger, choices, Faith, Gertenbach, Grace, Lyrics, Music, Poetry, Self-Awareness, Sprituality, tracks in the dust, WordPress

06 Feb 2013

4 Comments

The Lost Art of Listening

In my daily life at work and at home I have noticed a trend about “listening” .

It seems like a lot of people today have lost the art of listening.

Yes, we all listen to things. The TV, the movies, the music we listen to… we listen to our teachers.mentors, bosses, or spiritual guides and take note of their wisdom (many times to our own chagrin as we find it necessary to help pass the course). But listening and hearing things can often be different I think.

The lost art of listening, as I see it, is the motion of listening to what someone says and understanding it. Making sure to understand the meaning and the context in which they say it, and better yet understand their personal reason and viewpoint for saying it in the first place.

These days it seems like we don’t take the time. Perhaps it is because we are in so much of a hurry. We move so quickly through our digital lives to meet the goal of accomplishing it – that we often miss what people are really trying to say… in fact we are so busy trying to think about what we should say next, that we take a sound byte from something to start to respond without really “hearing” what was said. Without acknowledging it.

Perhaps the reason that “texting” has become more of a popular way to communicate. After its a 2 way communication that requires that each actually reads the statement made in the text message. No need to call and have two way communication that may certainly require listening.

Sure, maybe the texts aren’t spelled correctly, perhaps they are sound-bytes themselves, but at least they come over just as planned. Indeed texting doesn’t require actually listening at all. But there is still something lost in the transfer. The persons inflection and the world of meaning that comes with the tone of it. Of course there is time to consider the response, immediate responses come from the volley of discussion. None needed in texting.

Listening has evolved in so many other ways. In this “surround sound” world we are looking for the thrills and impact of the movies we watch. Instead of dialog, we are looking for stunning sound and special effects. Driving the beat instead of the message is nothing new, but so often today the music gets lost as we are looking for. It gets lost in the next pop-star to come along. Those artist & musicians that have survived had something more to say… and for those music greats it is about the “listening”.

So maybe for me, its time to stop and take a listen. To appreciate what people are trying to say with their words. The meaning of it. To take the time to listen to the sounds around me, that surround me in such a much more simple way. How about you?