Tracks In The Dust

A Father's Advice About Learning the Mission of Life

Archive for the tag “Postive Thinking”

23 Sep 2014

What is Your Muse?

Inspiration.

Being inspired to communicate sometimes can be hard. It can stop with the idea that there is absolutely nothing to say.

Funny but most everyone I met these days has something to say. There is always something that can spark the reason to want to express themselves. it could be on this blog-site, it could be at work, on the Internet somewhere, texting, calling, holding a sign, making noise in a crowd, wearing a t-shirt with something on it, or hundreds of other ways.

What provides the inspiration seems like a million times the ways available to communicate it.

For me music, or written word I guess does it. But perhaps sometimes I need a muse.

Profoundly the verb means: to become absorbed in thought; especially : to turn something over in the mind meditatively and often inconclusively

But I am talking about the noun. Founded from mythology of nine sister goddesses in Greek mythology presiding over song and poetry and the arts and sciences

I am looking for the “source of inspiration; especially : a guiding genius” What is your muse?

As usual I find it in my family and in the music of this world which is truly abundant. It is the language of expression that can reach across cultures, like may of the arts. It doesn’t take interpretation classes to understand it, it doesn’t have to have interpreters to help define it. It is what is in your heart. It is the muse of the arts and sciences that make up our everyday meaning.

Sarah Jarosz – A child prodigy at one point and now just a great artist. Perhaps my muse?

21 Aug 2014

The Countdown-Clock

In sports most of the competitive team sports feature some sort of clock. A timed segment in which to complete a game, take a shot, play a play, complete a period or quarter.

In life we have our own count-down clock, but it doesn’t show up on the bottom of any screen or on any scoreboard. It is our clock that only God knows.

There is no visible way for us track things. No way to take for granted that we have enough time to do the things we want, or to manage a disease to its inevitable end. But still many of us worry about how much time we have, what can we do with it before the end arrives.

I guess for me – now more than ever, occupying every hour with the worry of the future is seems way too consuming. It’s a course that leaves more emptiness than fulfillment. It leads to fear and hopelessness ( since we can influence but not control the final outcome).

There are clocks that we will have to measure daily life we cannot ignore, but we need to understand the bigger life’s meaning and understand the personal clocks we live by. Spiritually we are in need of that center.

So my time on that “personal shot clock” is measured by finding ways to enjoy the passage of time, open my heart to the love around me, look for the positive in things ( the negatives seem so much easier to find us regardless of whether we are looking for it or not- doesn’t it?)

Advice to my kids: Learn to know your internal clock and what is truly valuable time

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Acceptance, Anger Management, choices, Doubt, Grace, life is precious, mental-health, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, Religion and Spirituality, Self-Awareness, Sprituality

27 Jun 2014

Relax and Take It In

Just take the time to look around, and see what you have found.

I have to say it is hard to do. To stop and just appreciate the art of relaxation.

But then our lives are going so fast. For many of us meditation of the day is not on the schedule.

In these days of self-diagnosed ADD and ADHD we have come to leave it as an excuse then I suppose.

But there are times when it is just good to relax and take it in. I am going to plan on it.

Turn off your mind relax and float downstream.

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Beatles, Meditate, Memories, moments, Music, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, reflection, Relax, Self-Awareness, Slow Down

20 Jun 2014

Perils

No doubt about it – there are going to be “perils” . That’s the term insurance companies use when they are talking about those “risks” we want to be insured against.

Things like illness, loss of property, accidents and inclement weather and all of those things that have a chance of happening at some point – so insurance companies what us to be “safe”.

But what amazes me most is that we work so hard to attempt to recognize them. But it seems we are always in denial. What ever the perils are we want to know about them, but we don’t want someone to stop us from being in the way of them.

We are good with the idea that today’s industries are polluting the world, but we are not willing to give up their benefits of energy and goods that make our immediate life easier.

There are so many ways we could be safer, could avoid some of life’s perils. But it seems that protection could come with the sacrifice of our freedom to experience them. So experience we do- and then we are amazed when people step into the perils of life and living. It becomes the fodder for Internet news daily.

But doesn’t it seem that we are always in denial of that fact that we could be “next”? Some poor person, group, country has made a blunder beyond belief, but we are always thinking that “that’s not me” and we will be just fine. No perils in our way.

Do you notice that there are always other “do gooders”: that are out there trying to help us avoid these perils? Yet we reject their help in the sacrifice for independence, for freedom. Maybe that is from our childhood? When we were young (and even as we got older) our parents and teachers would warn us of perils – “be careful” – “don’t do that” – but we would not listen. We would want to go ahead anyway.

We would desire our independence and work on our own to just avoid them, but we don’t. We embrace our freedom. Freedom to be stupid on our own perhaps. Freedom to make mistakes, and perhaps- just maybe- freedom to be ignorant of the reality of what is really important.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Acceptance, Being Safe, choices, Danger, Doubt, Fear, Happiness, Joy, life is precious, Perils, Postive Thinking, Recognizing Danger, Risk, Taking Chances, Uncertainty

19 Jun 2014

Attention, Please!

No one these days ever seems to work very hard at paying attention. The desire for attention is so strong among all the noise that today”s modern world can produce. After all we live in an ADD kind of world. It seems like everybody’s got Attention Deficit Disorder because the media, the daily grind and the high-speed technology have left us perpetually distracted. That leaves us with little time to pay genuine attention to the people and the world around us.

Huffington Post

When you walk into a room full of people, at work or at home, how many of them are busy focused on their electronic device, phoning or texting? Seems like most of our eyes are always focused on down, engrossed in a video, the Internet or Facebook, and then on top of that we plug in our earphones and keep from hearing the people around us.

How often are you in a public place like a restaurant or at a party and you (or your friends) are more focused on “friends” on Facebook or Twitter than the live action right in front of us?

We have to look to ourselves to find the lost art of “paying attention”. I have posted before, our capacity to listen is precious. To understand what someone is saying is very precious, and even more than that is the ability to understand its meaning.

We are so ready to respond to what someone is saying, that we are missing what it is they mean. That is if we have listened at all. If we are not distracted by the next text pinging our phones, or the next Twitter that is going to say some profound thing in 145 characters or less. When the person right in front of us is likely saying something more important. Responding can be something more significant if we can just listen and understand the meaning.

So advice to my kids- put it down. Look into someones eyes, be sure you are listening, Comprehend the meaning. Take it in, digest it. No need to respond right away, but be thoughtful and make sure you are paying attention. It is really the “instant message” you need to hear.