Reality Check | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the tag “Reality Check”

23 Jan 2014

Why Don’t We Ask More Questions

Advice I give my kids isn’t always followed, but I keep trying. Hoping they keep listening. One advice I have gave them is to “ask questions”.

Today it feels like we are always living with ‘sound bytes’. Short little sentences that say lots but really don’t mean much. Maybe that’s what really motivates a lot of people today when you get in conversations with them. When you ask for information about something, short answers. Sometimes ( maybe often) incomplete. The answer is the answer for your question, it isn’t a lie… but it is missing things. Things they know and you don’t.

Now you can accept the answer, you can decide it is all you are going to get- or it is all you need to know. Many times that’s just fine. I mean if you call an ice cream store and ask them if they have vanilla ice cream, they can answer yes or no (or maybe perhaps). If you are good with that- now you can go to get vanilla.

What they might not tell you is that there is French vanilla, or vanilla with vanilla beans, or vanilla with chocolate sprinkles. Do you care? Perhaps not.

But when there are important decisions to make in your life, things that could improve it, or help avoid otherwise painful situations, or take you on a new direction you may otherwise have not experienced. Then you should be prepared to ask more questions, be more clear about the opportunity or the path ahead.

But ironically, in those situations many times I find myself and those around me asking just the simple questions, getting the sound bite answers, and moving on. Often things that could be meaningful are left unsaid. It’s not that the other people are withholding information, they just aren’t thinking you need to know- or want to know.

So that’s what I have learned in my old age: Follow up questions and answers with more questions. And it pays to LISTEN to the answer. It will provide you the fodder for the next question. Without you may be missing the opportunity, you may be missing a chance to better understand the choices, or better understand your fellow-man.

Simple as that. Yet with short 145 character sensibilities these days, with text message approaches to conversational English and people with so much input that short answers seem desirable- it feels like there is a lot things missing.

Not getting the whole answer feels like it happens a lot more often these days. It isn’t intentional. It is just “fill in the blank approach” to things. So that’s my advice to my family. Ask the questions you need and follow-up with more questions. Be sure you know the course. A lot of times once you do you realize there are people who want to provide more, and make your life better in the cause of it .

I like vanilla ice cream. I like to know all the flavors of vanilla, do they have toppings, can they put it in a cone, can they make it into a shake? Not sure. But always good to know the options. Of course there are more important things than that to know on our journey. Right?

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, asking questions, being ignorant, Change, choices, Definitions, Doubt, knowing more, Looking for answers, mental-health, Postive Thinking, Reality Check

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

21 Nov 2013

1 Comment

Pointing Blame

There are so many diverse things in our lives, lately I have been thinking about the extremes of blame.

Some people get caught up in the idea that it is “All My fault”. The person who seems to be a sponge, take on everything… like always thinking “must have been me” Most times they end up being a victim of life. Looking at others and wondering why they can’t get a break, life is unfair.

There is the other extreme of course. Seems like a bit more of this happens these days… “Not my fault”. People that will actually go out of their way to prove that they are not to blame. Don’t want to take it on ever. Always wanting to point the blame elsewhere, regardless if that is the truth or not.

It is really about accountability… and that is something more elusive these days. You have to own it when you can- but sometimes it is just not going to make a difference. But when you can recognize your mistakes, take them to heart and look for ways to change it – you will live a life that will be full of new things. It will be tough, but it has its benefits- you get to learn more, be better and take new directions you may never have imagined.

Be able to recognize where things stand and then move on, or decide what you want to do to change it- go ahead and make it happen.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged Acceptance, Advice, Blame, choices, life is precious, My fault, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, Self-Awareness, Who Are You, Your fault

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?