Tracks In The Dust

A Father's Advice About Learning the Mission of Life

Archive for the tag “mental-health”

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

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.

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Acceptance, Change, Change is good, choices, Don Henley, Fear, Forgiveness, Life, mental-health, moments, Music, Opinion, Self-Awareness, The Eagles

01 Apr 2014

April Fools

We all get fooled some of the time. Some people make a living every day trying to convince you of things that aren’t true.

Sometimes I think we Laughing Walrus want to believe what we hear, we want to see something on the Internet and immediate accept it. Not everything is true, some times things are partly true, and some other times many things may be entirely false. We have to be ready to understand that I guess, but how we weigh it out may not always be totally true at all.

If it fits in our sensibilities, it could be more than enough to allow us to fit it into our truth. So when the day comes for “April Fools” day on the first of April, everyone is a bit more suspicious when they hear something they think may possibly not be true. Its like on the next day April 2nd that is all back to normal. Of course then it wouldn’t be as funny, “just kidding”.

Unfortunately I think we are all suspect of telling things that aren’t entirely true to help make things fit in our lives. We send out twitter messages, point blame because we want to believe something, we pass along gossip or make up things to cover our tracks or guilt.

So for here in the US, April 1st means happy April Fool’s day. Perhaps we all need to be a bit more careful every day…

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Advice, April Fools, Change, choices, mental-health, moments, Opinion, Philosophy, Reality Check, Self-Awareness

28 Mar 2014

1 Comment

Embrace the Day

A smell, the weather, a certain sound, a book, a song, a painting, a color, a texture.

So many things capture memories, trigger the recall of things that have been- things that are. The best ones are those you don’t seek I think. The memories you don’t conjure up. They just appear, they just show up in a dream, on a walk, sitting with your friend, your lover.

They take you through time and capture something that was hidden in your brain, a feeling, a thought, a place you’d forgotten, a person who has long since not been part of your life. That is the building blocks of who you are. Those are the things that preserve the fabric of your being.

Yet, some other days seem void of things, almost like they come and go so quickly that they blend in with each other. That is when we need to remember what is really important.

Don’t run away from it, don’t force it or be angry because that day has come and gone with what seems like no purpose. Just embrace the passage of time and be aware of every small victory, every simple opportunity to provide grace to those around us. It only makes those empty days full.

Sometimes its worth saying it again.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, Advice, choices, Finding Confidence, Joy, Lack of Confidence, Life, life is precious, Memories, mental-health, Self-Awareness, Slow Down, Sprituality

25 Mar 2014

Perfection

Easily it can be said that we will never achieve perfection. As humans it is not in our DNA. Nor should it be.

We will strive for it.

We will find ourselves constantly falling short.

We will measure ourselves by what someone else may expect us to be. Or perhaps we may measure ourselves on our own perspectives of what we think we should be.

But in the end- we will fall short.

It is what you do with that will become part of your self-realization, It will be the context in which you are able to live your life. You can choose to measure yourself to perfection, and in some ways that is a good thing. It is the motivator by which we can create our standards to live by. But if we are delusional in using that to apply to the adage that “winning is everything” we may find ourselves in a place that is hard to maintain.

We are rewarded often in our lives for working hard to strive for things. We want to avoid failure, We do not want to be seen as weak or unable to perform to the standards in which we are expected. In our families, in school, at work in our relationships we are always trying to measure up. Accepting that perfection will not happen does not make you mediocre. It makes you human.

We know that we were made imperfect. As humans God has made us that way to allow us to be – well – human. Perfection would be reserved for only one, and He left this earth centuries ago.

So a first step in making your life happier is to accept imperfection. Be sure that you strive for things, but be honest that things will get in your way and no matter how you work it…. you will fall short.