Opinion | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the tag “Opinion”

02 Aug 2012

Starting Is Essential to Winning

As I watch the Olympics this week, and see how many young athletes are working so hard to win, I cannot think about how hard they worked in the process of preparing to win. They had a goal, and they were focused on working for it.

All around me I see people who seem to be waiting. They are wishing to win, waiting for it to arrive . LIke it is luck that is going to knock at their door and come in and say “hi, I am here”…. like it will arrive at your doorstep like a guest long over due.

But that is not how most of the successful people have gotten where they are. Yes they are expecting to win…but through their lives they have been investing in the success. They aren’t shy. They have been willing to compete. Which means they have been equally willing to lose and personally own the loss. They do not blame others for the position they are in, they accept the consequences and make course adjustments to assure that the next time makes a difference.

I have had friends that are always expecting to win… but some of then act like they are looking for divine justice, like there is someone waiting there who is going to hand it to them because ultimately they think they deserve it.

In the end, the true winners seem to know how to be celebrating the win. They are not wallowing in it. They are soaking-in the win and moving on to more, they are not staying in place and seeking constant approval and adoration. They are finding the next step on the path to winning.

Sure, winning isn’t everything – but it isn’t a bad place to be. Feels good.

You have to admire the people who make it all the way to the Olympics. For the most part, who ever makes it deserves it, They worked hard and stayed focused, they earned it. How hard was it to earn the privilege to compete in the Olympics. In some way they have fought to be there. Much like in professional sports, so very few make it to the pinnacle of the sport to be called out to represent the excellence that the sport of choice represents.

So for most of us, individually we win in life when we reach a goal and find ourselves in a position to win. We look for confirmation, and we acknowledge that we are made with the desire to win and succeed. Some times it is our own personal success, and others may not even know we made it so.

In the end you can’t win if you don’t play. I always used to say, “if you want to win the lottery you have to play, if you want to win the race you have to line up for the start.”

How many of us end up wishing we could win, wishing we could succeed in something but really don’t choose to even start to play? Dont wait. Start now. The race is long and success is in your grasp. You have to start to begin.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, Celebrating success, choices, course adjustments, Definitions, Emotion, Fear, Olympic Games, Opinion, Postive Thinking, Self-Awareness, Sprituality, true winners, winning

18 Jul 2012

4 Comments

The Music and the Album Experience

I have always loved music. From as far back as I can remember I had something in my life that would play music. A portable radio (they called them “transistor” radios for a while), a record player, a boombox, a Walkman, a CD Walkman, an I Pod and a smartphone. I always loved my stereo system ( because at one time they had mono systems I guess). There was always music playing around me. In the background, in the foreground 🙂 in the car, at the beach near our house, at friends houses, parties, late night on the back porch.

There was one thing that really changed how I listened to music and made the difference on what I listen to today. I will show my age by saying this but for a while in time the “record album” was part of a renaissance of modern music that made listening to an artist or group different from before. It wasn’t just about one song (although that may be one of the reasons to listen to the album), it was about the complete experience of understanding the artists and their music and the atmosphere it brought when you would play several songs in a row by the same artists. Sort of why they called it an “LP” – long play record.

Since it was hard to skip through/scan through songs on a record without picking up the needle (amazing a sharp little thing that scraped along a groove in plastic), it was easier just to let the “side” play. One half of the album would play out its 4 or 5 selections and you would listen. And somewhere along that time you would get to know the artist better, and actually appreciate the songs that weren’t likely the hit-single playing on the radio. In some cases they all folded together into something that felt more like a drawing or painting of a mood.

And even now, as I scan through songs on the Internet or program selections or shuffle a playlist I still stop to wonder about those “other” songs. The one or two I missed because they were part of a more complete picture in sound. I could even get nostalgic about how the album cover and art were part of the experience. Don’t get me started about those albums that would include the words to the songs, or “liner” notes from fellow musicians who wanted to speak to the listener about their heroes and peers.

I am too much in a hurry now to sit through a whole album (or at least one side). Sometimes when a song doesn’t grab me in the first 10 seconds I hit the forward button and go on. Letting songs pass by without a passing thought.

Don’t get me wrong. Theres something to be said for technology allowing us to experience new and different artists online, streaming or downloading musicians you may never have heard before – when record companies had to pick and choose for you. But that album from the artist that fought their way to the label had character as a “physical thing” to be collected, and replayed and shared with friends as an experience.

Posted in Before and After Things Change, Life's Sound Track (Music) and tagged Change, LP Record, Memories, moments, Music, Opinion, Record Albums, Rock music, tracks in the dust, Vinyl Records

09 Jul 2012

The Passion of Polarity and Meeting in the Middle

Words like “any or all” seem to be used with a lot of freedom these days. They are used with passionate polarity to help place people in their respective ends of an argument or position on a topic. It is frightening to hear people say that “all” of one religion or race are considered to be good or evil. I cringe when a see a person who believes something in particular is wrong because the only right way of thinking is what they believe- statements that hover around the idea that “any one who has an opposite opinion is clearly wrong”

In the fast paced information age of the Internet we reward passion about subjects, then others who feel the same way help send it out in emails or websites to be soaked up and waved around like a flag. It could be passion about conservative views or liberal views, about organized religion or someone elses misdirected religious beliefs. There are so many topics that contain polarity that seem to tear a great number of people apart.

Polarity often is dangerous and can be the very thing that separates brother from brother, creates wars and crime, it can destroy beauty and delay progress. It becomes the fuel for fear, and the fuel for hate. It can tear apart marriages.

Polarity has its places in making our world a better world. Good vs Evil seems to make sense. One God. Sometimes there is only one choice, other times there are no choices- it is a fact of nature itself (which so often has its own polarity). We are all made up of many particles that need to have a positive and negative. But in the center is the core.

So there is something to consider. Polarity can be used to discover the middle or center, for without 2 ends or opposites there is no middle. When two people are so far away from each other… the path to the middle is the hardest path, but is the action that can bring the compromise is a needed which can be part of life itself.

Perhaps polarity is the starting point to a path to compromise, it allows us to be passionate and it can allow us to come together somewhere in the middle and better embrace the outcome. Sure, we can pull hard in the opposite direction, like a tug-of-war. Then watch all the cheers and jeers by supporters and detractors around us, because people are interested in that diversity. Sort of like watching a train wreck or traffic accident. People don’t want to see it but can’t take their eyes off it. So many wallow in the struggle of polarity, like two teams fighting against each other. Not sure when the game should end. But the reality of it all it may appear, is that compromise, the middle – is not very exciting, not very “defining” and desirable. So we just aren’t interested.

Maybe we all desire this polar opposition, we look for the places to stand on it and don’t see the middle as a place to be. We may selfishly want the attention, or are blind to the opportunity, but we work toward being somewhere in the middle. Be keeping your eye out for middle. It’s not that bad. It can be that good. But then I am guessing you may disagree? Hmmmmmm.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life, Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Change, Compassion, Definitions, Grace, Opinion, Politics, Reality Check, religion, Self-Awareness

22 Jun 2012

2 Comments

Being Authentic

I have always hoped that my kids would grow up understanding the importance of being “authentic”. I think that is a word that may have many meanings to depending on your perspective; genuine, not fake or false, an original/not a copy, something has significance perhaps. Authentic shouldn’t be confused with “original” though, since we all are original, no two exactly alike. We are all God’s people because of that difference.

But to me, people who are authentic have conviction to be who they are because they are aware of themselves. Sure, over the years of growing up and even in adulthood we continue to try to emulate others; like our heroes, our parents, our mentors in living and faith, even our closest and dearest friends and lovers. And we should. Like I said in a previous post, I think we are a mosaic of all the people we have had contact with that have influenced us (good or bad). But we get to decide in the final pass what that means. It is our internal psyche that is going to accept or deny the picture of who we are.

But really didn’t want to take scientific route, I am just expecting my children to continue to be authentic. Be aware of others around them, who they are and what might have brought those people to that moment in time to intersect with our lives. But be genuine then. Be right with yourself. I laugh as I remember when they were growing up how they would desperately need to wear clothes and have their hair like their favorite rock stars. They would wear the latest anti-fashions, say words they could only have heard from other places. They would call others “posers”, when in fact they were themselves. But as they got older things changed outwardly, and hair and clothes changed with them. But always as parents we always asked them to remain true to themselves.

So I keep thinking “be authentic”. Start by being real, start by not lying to yourself about things in your life and how you treat others. Start by depending on your spiritual compass to make positive decisions. Kind of like the accountability scale I posted a while back, you have to be able to admit your mistakes, own your own situation. Then treat others that way. The adage “do onto others…” I think means being genuine to yourself first, and then to the people around you. No matter if those people are only a moment in your life as you travel through it, or family, or intended to be a lifelong dear friends… treat them authentically.

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life, Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Change, Definitions, friends and lovers, life is precious, Opinion, Reality Check, relationships, Religion and Spirituality, Self-Awareness, Truth, Who Are You

01 Jun 2012

Applying Labels

I suppose there is a basic human need for people to want to identify things with a label.

Some people use those little label making machines and label everything in their office or home so there is a sense of organization, others at the grocery store examine labels for contents to be sure they understand what they are eating, while others desperately work to label the identity of the people around them.

Labeling people seems to be a very challenging exercise, sometimes using only one label when another may be just as applicable. Just trying to find a single label that can apply is very dangerous, with it comes all the assumptions of what that label can mean because of personal prejudice or society’s definition.

Labels may be a political one, or about your religion or choice of partners. But there are labels everywhere. It’s not like labeling the container in your kitchen “sugar” when there is sugar in it. Pretty easy, because you can be pretty sure that is what it is when you see it and taste it. Labeling people is so much more difficult to do. With those labels also come some preconceived notions of what that means about the person.

There is a great sense of order by grouping things that seem to be alike under one label. For many of us it is a need. Coming out of that, there is a sense of leaving less to the unknown by having labels assigned. Labels seem to provide peace-of-mind that we know about our world around us. It confirms that we are in control.

Without labels we can lack the idea of being aware of our world, often it may threaten our perceptions of things. How can something be good and bad at the same time? Where are the lines that define the shades of grey? Who decides? It can be defined by opinion or a vote… but who’s opinion and what vote?

So today I am struck by the casual and frequent comments I hear all around me about people and their labels for someone else, and how often that leads to misunderstanding, hatred, prejudice and the lack of willingness to know any more once the label is “assigned”. It can cause a lot of conflict that makes relationships disintegrate, make friends move on, and choices for the future be skewed.

Of course we all have our own personal labels, those that identify us. We create those as we live our lives and make our choices. We often may be proud of that definition. We should. We may not share that with everyone else, because that alone could lead to a label that others may choose not to understand.