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Just Another Day

How many days do we spend doing the same things over and over? Are we trapped in a monotonous existence, doing the same things expecting different results?

Insanity.

As humans, we are dynamic creatures that need to grow and expand.  We are wired to live a progressing life, growing both spiritually and mentally. Yet, we continually find our lives trapped in a never-ending cycle of routine. 

Are you stuck in the mud with your wheels spinning? All you are doing is making a muddy mess and unable to make it to the store for Tide.

The first step is to recognize the problem. Admit that your life is stuck in a vicious cycle – a “groundhog day” if you will. Problems can not be solved overnight, as much as we would like it to be. I challenge you to break the cycle and give yourself a nudge every day.

Change your way of thought. Throw off the mundane and explore the possibilities that are out there. Your soul craves adventure, even in the smallest amounts. It could be taking a hike, calling an old friend, or even mending a burnt bridge. It is never too late to heal, and healing can be an adventure of its own. We need to stretch and test ourselves and our limits to grow as individuals.

We are not and never will be at our full potential. Not even close. Humans are imperfect with a desire to be perfect. A successful life is always making steps forward.

Stop spinning the wheels, and don’t make today just another day.

The difference between being ordinary and extraordinary is doing the right thing while nobody is watching. -Jim Rohn

Running on Empty

How many out there feel like they are out of gas? Do you? We need to keep moving forward but are running on the fumes left over from the empty gas in the tank. The human condition constantly takes a toll on us, draining our tank, while life’s road offers very few stations to refuel.

In ’69 I was 21 and called the road my own.

This song by Jackson Brown always resonates with me (even though I wasn’t even alive in 1969) every time I hear it played. When we are young, there is a fire within us. We drive full speed ahead, and we can do no wrong. Entering adulthood, we have all the answers and doubts are suppressed. For those of you who have teenagers and young adults for children, you can understand. They think they have the world figured out and will refuse to listen to reason. They are right and everybody else is wrong.

I don’t know when that road turned into the road I’m on.

Once the world smacks us in the face with a bucket of ice, cold water and our bubble bursts, we are lost. We thought we knew everything that there was to know. Confidence is shattered, and we are left with a pile of questions that have broken answers. Many times, we stop and think, “How did I get here. Where did it go wrong?”

Just like the song, we find ourselves on an unknown road and have no idea how we got there.

I don’t know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels

When faced with life, we face decision after decision, and all of these decisions impact the road we choose to travel. Even small, seemingly insignificant choices can alter the direction we are heading. Most of the time we are oblivious to this due to the chaos of existing; another symptom of this human condition. It also comes back to conformity. There is so much happening, that people find it easier to lay back and “go with the flow.”

You may suddenly come to this realization that you are lost and have no idea what road you have driven onto nor how to get back on the road you were on. Don’t run blind and hope you will eventually find your way back. Stop for a moment and realign your soul.

All is not lost, and it is never too late.

Dive deep into yourself and seek what is good and right. Follow those even if the people you are sharing the road that you are on disagree. Be an individual, for we are all unique. Life is not about getting every person to all think the same and agree. It is about the individual discovering a life of meaning- a life of good that pushes back against evil or the immoral.

Look around at the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through. Looking into their eyes, I see them running too…

We all have the ability to rise above this condition. It is a condition that we all share.

You know, I don’t even know what I’m hoping to find.

This reflects how many people feel, rushing down a road with an unknown destination. What are you hoping to find?

Chaos or Peace? Good or Evil?

The Power of Curiosity: Embracing the Unknown

What is it that attracts us to the unknown? There is this lure and longing in people to embrace the unknown and seek to discover the undiscovered. You see a closed box and it has a sign on it that reads “do not open”. What is your first instinct? Immediately, you want to know what is in the box. Who placed the box there? Most importantly, why do they not want the box opened? It becomes a game that can make our brain hurt, since we let ourselves become distracted by such an item.

It says that it should not be opened, but every fiber in our being wants to know why.

“Curiosity killed the cat.” Luckily, he has nine lives unless eight have already been used, so then he is flat out of luck.

We are curious creatures by nature, desiring to know everything. Life is spent constantly searching for answers. This is both in a physical and mental sense. People want to know what the purpose of life is, and, at the same time, what is at the bottom of the deepest ocean. This curiosity is what drives us forward, and it is healthy! Humankind should be in a constant mindset of asking questions and searching for answers.

When a person loses this desire to discover or explore, life can become depressing and unfulfilling. The fatalist will say that there is no point in searching for answers because they will never be found, nor do they exist. Why waste the time and the effort on a pointless exercise? This is a person who has lost all hope. They no longer care as they muddle through a meaningless existence.

Don’t let yourself fall into pit of apathy and give up on hope. We need it. We must have it, or we will wither and die like a plant without water and sunlight. If there is no purpose to living this life, why is there a deep seeded drive born within each person to be significant? People strive to have an impact on humanity, achieving great things. We all start with dreams as children of becoming a superhero, a doctor, musician or an astronaut. Those who no longer dream have given up hope and resigned themselves to a life of insignificance. Yet, there is a life of significance for everyone to be had!

Fear of the future will destroy us. We need to look at each day as a chance to foster and grow hope. Embrace the unknown and find satisfaction in discovering new truths or affirming those you have already discovered. Never snuff or suppress curiosity, for it is in your nature. Part of the human condition is this; the need to seek.

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back.

I Am a Rock, I Am an Island

“If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”

These words are a reminder to me that a life of compromise and indecision will lead to life of misery. There is no satisfaction in being a gullible person who rides wagon after wagon, never finding a stable foundation. Without a foundation, a building will not stand long, eventually it will crumble. So is the same as our soul. We need foundation, because without it, there will be no peace or purpose in our lives.

Yet, once this foundation is established, and we refuse to conform to the whims of society, should we separate ourselves and become the island that decides that being alone is better? It does seem that it would be easier to live a non-compromising, moral life if we shut people and their opinions out of our lives. Become a mountain man who lives off the land, chopping wood as the sun rises in the east. I know that I have thought about that life many days when this world is getting the better of me.

Unfortunately, we are wired as social creatures. A healthy, productive human existence requires relationships with other individuals. Author, Erwin McManus, makes a case that humans are designed and wired to love and desire to be loved. Without this need filled, we began to fall apart at the seams and lose ourselves in the process. Community is important. we must find that balance to maintain integrity/morality and stand in the midst of society. This is a tremendous challenge that an individual must face on a daily basis.

One of the largest obstacles that comes from being a part of society is becoming part of an institution. The institution develops from the need to keep people “in line.” It wants to hold them to a standard and a specific set of behaviors, coercing those people to act a certain way. The government pushes very hard to institutionalize us, and we may fall prey to this, becoming robots and “yes” men. Even religion tries to institutionalize us and often with great success. They emphasize the “rules” we are required to follow, which results in people behaving and acting out of fear. Fear becomes their strongest tool, and many religions will exploit and judge the people based on how well they follow these rules.

To reach a higher moral standard, our mindset cannot be based on fear. It is not just about right or wrong, good or evil, lawful or unlawful. Our internal compass needs to be tuned towards what is good. We must desire to be moral and allow it to drive us forward. A heart truly focused on love will lead us to what is morally good and right. It also means that we stand up and resist when we are being forced in the wrong direction. Do not be fearful of doing wrong. A person must resist the immorality surrounding them.

Don’t run towards the mountains and become a hermit. Live within this world and resist fueling the fires of moral compromise. Hold firm as a rock to the moral good. Align yourself with others that have a burning passion for what is good and right. Find community and love with those that share your values and demonstrate to others who do not that a righteous life is worth living. It is worth standing against immorality to achieve life’s greatest happiness.

You do not have to accept society’s “standards” to live in it.

Instead of an island, be a beacon of light that shines bright upon a hill in the center of town.

Into A New Year

We close another year and begin what has been labeled as the year 2025. Resolutions will be made and may last to February. We will promise to lose weight and be a “better” person. All of us start with strong resolve, but it almost always seems to fade.

Many years ago, I gave up on making the New Year resolution. It seemed an exercise in futility, because shortly after they failed (as they always did), the feeling of regret and disappointment took over the remainder of the year. Change can be so stressful, difficult, and nearly impossible. Why is this?

The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word, “institution”, as a custom, practice, or behavioral pattern of importance in the life of a community or society.

Make note of the term, “behavioral pattern.” Society has institutionalized the people to fall into a certain behavior pattern. From birth, people are conditioned to act a certain way. They let this institution mindset bleed into every aspect of life, and it makes a person resistant to change. We are conditioned to conform and set ourselves into a pattern or cycle that is extremely difficult to break. Have you learned to conform and just accept things in your life as they are? Do you find yourself wanting to break out and change everything but feel trapped or ill equipped to accomplish it?

Resolutions to change should not be made at the beginning of a new year. These should be made every day. Make small steps to break free from destructive cycles every day of your life, slowly chip away at the wall of the prison that has you trapped. Over time, you can begin to drop the bad and replace it with the good, getting one step closer to reaching the higher morality.

I have decided to change my cycle and make a resolution for 2025. I know that I just contradicted myself, but for me this is a break from my usual cycle of refusing to make resolutions. Flawed logic? Wouldn’t be my first time. I am going to spend my 2025 year focused on pushing to break from the institutions that trap humanity and control its way of life.

I hope you continue to follow me on this journey. My hope is that you will continue to stretch your mind, question everything, and be a force of change. I am not asking you to agree with everything I write, but I am asking you to a least listen and consider; constantly challenge and explore all options.

That is how we grow. That is how we change.

This is man’s search for meaning.

Merry Christmas!!

I hope that everyone is having a wonderful Holiday season. This time of year is not about unwrapping gifts and a mad rush to after Christmas sales. It is about family and taking these days to reflect and be thankful for those people who we travel through life with us. The bond of family and friendship can be strong, and each of us needs to continue to strengthen and build those relationships. No person can walk this path alone.

We also celebrate our relationship with God during this time and reflect on what He has blessed in our lives. He has given us a powerful free will, the ability to reason and think, to value life, and the gift of salvation from a world that humanity has corrupted.

We also have been given hope.

Cherish these days with your family. Even if they are far away, reach out and foster the love and strengthen that relationship. Do not become lost in the shuffle of daily life, trying to keep your head above the water or fly under the radar, hiding from the chaos around us.

As it has been said, “there is strength in numbers.” As we travel into this New Year, hold fast to your convictions and keep your friend and your family close to heart. Lean on them and be a grounded post for them to lean on also.

Let’s make 2025 a year of change and family values. Be the insurrection!

Misinformation Train

Daily, individuals are bombarded by all kinds of information about people, events, and theories. Currently in the news, there is talk of car-sized drones above New Jersey, a murder/assassination of a healthcare CEO, and the constant fear of what could potentially be called Word War Three. These are just a few examples. This is the age of unlimited communication with the internet and dozens of news stations bombarding us with both useful and, more often, useless information.

How many really care how Snoop Dog cooks his bacon?

Trying to sift through all the pointless articles to find real news can be a challenge. Even when we find “legitimate” news, we are left with conflicting or bias explanations, distorting the facts. The truth is always elusive. CNN focuses on attacking the conservative minded people while Fox News bashes the liberal audiences. It is a media war that continues to rage and become more volatile on a daily basis.

Dispelling misinformation can be a nearly impossible task. Humanity needs to accept that there are always agendas being played out, conspiracies in the works, brutal fights for power and really bad boxing matches on Netflix. Truth is the hardest thing to see through the thick fog of misinformation. Yet it is there!

One must ask themselves, what is good? What is positive? What benefits humanity the greatest?

There are so many distractions that pull us from the truth. Unfortunately, I am not even sure Occam’s razor can cut away all of the garbage that encloses the truth. So why is it so hidden? Humanity wants to shield itself from accountability and conviction. Hide the truth, then make your own morals that benefits you, the individual, not humanity as a whole.

Wokeness thrives on hiding and distorting the truth in order to move its own agenda of denying accountability. Even if you take God out of the equation (theoretically), humanity cannot survive without a moral structure. For example, there are people who want pedophilia to be a “sexual orientation”. Unbelievable. This act is detrimental to children and emotionally damages them for the remainder of their lives. Nobody would benefit from this behavior if it was accepted. Instead, it drives humanity down a road of self-destruction.

I understand this is an extreme and disturbing example, but the same case is truth for rape, murder, enslavement, theft, genocide, etc. These acts push society closer to chaos and has no benefits to humanity as a whole. Within the philosophical ideal of utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill puts forward the “Greatest Happiness Principle.” In this, actions are “right” in proportion as they tend to promote happiness and “wrong” as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.

This “happiness” is not based on the individual, but rather on humanity. Moral actions will benefit all people while immoral actions are the ones that hurt people, even if the person or persons acting benefit from it.

Our goal should be to strive to reach the higher “good” for the human race as a whole. The less suffering, the more we will find happiness in living. The “anything goes” attitude will lead to the destruction of civilized society. Cut through the garbage that the misinformation train dumps on your doorstep.

Be the insurrection.

Confronting the Fears

What is your greatest fear? All of us, even the bravest of persons, have fears we face and struggle against frequently in life. Fear is a natural emotion that humans experience, especially fear of the unknown. The future can always be unnerving as we plan and adjust our lives in the attempt to have a better outcome. If only there was a magic ball that we could gaze into and see the events and outcomes that are awaiting us.

How different would life be in the here and now if a person knew the future. If a person knew what was ahead and it was something horrible, would they not try to make changes to gain a better the outcome? Yet, to change the outcome and alter the future, what you knew would become invalid…. a philosophical paradox. Alas, could it be true that everything is preset and no matter what a person would do, the outcome would be the same….

Sorry, I am sure your brain hurts now. I know mine does when I flip this question over and over in my mind.

I feel that fear of the “unknown” is essentially the greatest fear a person can experience. We toil and struggle with the uncertainty of our future as we see wars, violence, divided politics, lawlessness, inflation, hostages, human trafficking, and on and on. Turn on the nightly news and there is always something new going on that makes the future look dim and sometimes hopeless. Does humanity have a chance to survive in this treacherous storm that engulfs its existence?

Our world has abandoned its morality and embraced a reckless philosophy devoid of basic principles and structure. It has let itself dive into an environment of hate, depression, hedonism, and the lack of any accountability. Morality cannot exist without accountability, otherwise we are in chaos, and, unfortunately, this world is churning in this chaos now more than ever.

So here we find ourselves with a bleak future as we let the principalities of this world rule our lives, suppressing our ability to embrace higher principles that supersede humankind.

You should be afraid of the future.

Ignoring this chaos or hiding in a hole will only end in disaster. Being brave does not mean that you are not afraid. It means you face the challenge in spite of the fear. It will take many of us to rise up and stand for what is good and trust that we can in a way “change the future.” It begins with an insurrection against the immorality that the world continues to worship.

What will you do? Embrace the fear or let the fear destroy you?

Isn’t It Time?

Too often, we wait on the currents of life to push us down the river. Occasionally, we dip our paddles in the water to make a slight change of direction, but eventually, we fall back into the original current. What if we are being led to a plummeting waterfall?

Is it fear? Is it apathy? Laziness?

How do we not see the drop-off ahead of us?

Many take no effort to guide their course. We don’t challenge the river in order to find a better path towards a fulfilled life, instead we hope the river will lead us to the ideal life. Unfortunately, letting the world determine your morals and ethics leads to a waterfall where we are crushed by the rocks below. It is an emanate disaster.

It is very easy to rely on the current to move you along, and it is also easy to sit back and do nothing to control it. Living a good and moral life is not an easy path to travel. It is going to take a lot of paddling and steering to stay on that current. It does require choices made and actions taken. A person cannot hope to quickly find this higher moral stream and glide down it in their sunglasses and pina colada in hand, forgetting their worries. One must constantly be striving to find the “right” way to live; a moral path that can bring us happiness, hope and satisfaction. It is not a path easily attained.

The first step is to break away from the world’s mindset. Morality is not a democracy! We cannot let a “majority rules” determine our ethics. There are principles that supersede the faulty, corrupt nature of human beings. learn to read the waters and make the adjustments to bring yourself in line. Humans are unique in that we have a very assertive conscience unlike other living creatures and have an inherent knowledge that there is right and wrong. We may not know exactly what is right and wrong, but we know that these measures exist. Somewhere deep inside everyone there is a moral compass.

It is time to take action! Dig the compass out of your pocket and put those paddles in the water. Take charge and fight the current.

Voting Power

Ah, yes, another presidential election year. Tensions run high, mud slinging continues, and we wait in long lines to cast our ballot.

I am not blogging to tell you who to vote for in this intense election year. Remember,  we will never have a perfect candidate in the running, so we must choose our votes carefully to align with the candidates who uphold the most important issues we feel will benefit our values. Focus your moral compass towards those who most closely stand for what is good and morally right.

The politicians can not and will not repair our corrupted and divided society. We as people are the ones who achieve at repairing our society. We do this by holding firm in our convictions and beliefs. There is too much compromising, leading to resentment, which progresses to hatred. In the end, we live in misery.

Let me close with a line from a powerful song first recorded in 1975:

Wake up, everybody, no more sleepin’ in bed. No more backward thinkin’, time for thinkin’ ahead.

Vote as your convictions lead you to vote. Learn from the past and the mistakes, but focus on our future. Don’t lose this chance!

(Wake Up Everybody, originally recorded by  Harokd Melvin and his Blue Notes, 1975)