When I awoke this morning, I felt like today was going to be different. I am off today and I had to put my car in the shop. It barely stays cranked when it's in drive and it sounds like a truck. I was debating whether to have it toad or try to drive it to the shop. The shop is about 1.5 miles from my home. Well, after carefully thinking this through I decided to just drive it and see if I can make it. I had to maneuver a little bit but I made it. I dropped the car off and never once thought about how I was going to get back home. I walked over to Chik-Fil-A and had breakfast. While I was eating breakfast, I thought to myself, "I can just walk back home." There was no need to try and call someone and then have to wait on them to get there. Even though there was only one person I could have called that was in the area. So I began to walk. The road that leads to my home that I was walking on doesn't have a sidewalk on either side of it. As I am walking all types of vehicles pass me. There was an 18 wheeler, a dump truck and a crazy teenager that was swerving. In order for me to avoid being hit, i had to walk in the bushes. You know that little crevice that you see when there is no sidewalk on the side of the road. The place that holds all of the trash that people throw out of their windows while driving.
While I was on my journey I begin to thinking about life (as I always do). I started thinking about how we forget where we come from once we reach a certain level in life. The average person wouldn't have walked back home. They would have found a ride before they left to drop the car off. Then I began to think about my legs and my brain. I started thinking that God gave me these utensils and they work just fine so I need to use them to the best of my ability. I used my brain to think about what made sense and what was best for me and my situation. Then after I came up with a plan, I used my legs to make this plan happen.
God gives us everything we need to make it in life. He doesn't hold us back from obtaining any goal that we have, we hold ourselves back. It's like we have forgotten how to make it in life. Effort is not work when there is a goal to be reached. We have to put forth some effort if we want to reach any goal that we have set. And not only do we need to put forth the effort, but we need to think outside the box and create a plan that fits our life, not someone else life. You have to do whats best for you because whats best for someone else, will not be the best thing for you. I use to always ask myself that if I were to become wealthy would I still be the same person on the inside that I am today. If I drove a 7 series BMW and the dealership was 1.5 miles from my home, would I ask them to take me back home or would I walk? I asked myself this question over ten years ago when I was in college riding a bike to and from work and now I have a car and I still walked...I guess I would be...what about you, would you still walk?
No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich (Chinese proverb)....this is my favorite quote!!!!!
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
The Revitalization of my Life-Day 69
Today has probably been the most revealing part of this revitalization of my life. I spoke to a friend of mine whom is a psychologist. We sat down to just discuss what was going on my life since I had gotten married. I told him that it was fine but it was work. I began to tell him about the issues that I was having with my wife. I then began to tell him all that I was doing to make everything right with us. I told him about the gift giving and all of the extra things I would do to let her know that I was trying to make this the best marriage possible. my friend did nothing but listen to me talk for about 2 hours. I also told him that I thought I was the best man there was. I told him that no man could compare to me when it came to the way I treated my wife. Then after listening all this time he asked me one question. He said, "DO you think your wife is completely happy?" I told him that she wasn't. Then he asked another question. He asked, "If you are such the good man that you think you are or say that you are, then why is she not happy?" I sat back in my seat and then began to think for a second and then I proceeded to answer by saying that it wasn't me it was her. She is the one that doesn't understand. I told him that she doesn't understand a good thing when she sees it. He then made a small statement. He said, "If you are so good and you are doing everything you think is right, it might not be her, it just might be you." I looked at him as if he were crazy. How could it be me when i was the one doing everything right? He said nothing else to me and that was the end of our conversation.
Then I started thinking. I started thinking about everything that he had said. But I just couldn't wrap it around my mind to think that it was me. I then started looking back on things that had happened between us. I started looking at the conversations and the arguments and everything that I thought was wrong. I thought about the answers I gave and the statements I made. I thought about the tones that I used and the times that I talked about things that I thought were wrong. I even thought about the number of times I brought of things that I thought were wrong. When I finally finished evaluating this, I realized that my friend was right, it wasn't her, IT WAS ME! I was the won adding fuel to the fire. I made little arguments bigger that what they were. The tone that I was using was as if I were talking to a child, scolding them about something they had done wrong. At least 3 time out of the week, I was coming home discussing something that I thought was wrong. I thought to myself WOW! I realized that I was driving my wife crazy with all of this. The whole time I was thinking it was her when all along it was me. Here she was, this great woman who made life simple for me. Hot meals everyday when I got home. She was concerned about my well being because she always wanted to know what was going on in my life. She was understanding because she never complained about the time I spent working on my writing career. And what was I doing? Ignoring the beauty that she was bestowing upon me by being there for me. When I was sick, she made sure that i had everything that I needed. If she needed to take off work, she would have. Here is the beautiful woman that I couldn't see for my own faults. I had hidden issues that I didn't realize.
Once I broke all of this down I realized that I am a conceited, shallow, always have to be right, bitter, boring person that held everything bad that happened inside and let it out whenever something bad happened, even if it was small. If she did something as simple as misplace something of mine that I was working on, I would bring it up and then change the subject and flip it to where we were discussing something that she had done that was really bad. I would always make it seem as if she was the bad guy and I was always the good guy. I always looked at her flaws and never her good qualities.
So today, I am changing my life. I make a vow to never make my wife seem like the bad guy. I vow to look at the good things about her and not her flaws. I vow to take the time and discuss things with her instead of treating her as if she is a child. I vow to show her more love by just being there for her. Yes, I was doing all the good things that a good man should do, but I was also doing things that a good man shouldn't do and you can't expect for someone to appreciate you when your doing good and bad things all at once. Doing this causes a balance and when you're in love, there is no balance. There is no balance because at any given moment the tables can turn and either one you can be responsible for the entire relationship. If we depended on balance, then when the tables turn, we would be screwed. I love my wife with all my heart and I have recognized my faults and flaws and I am willing to change them to make things right between us. Now I have to tell her this in order to make things right....wish me luck!
"Pride is a word that can be left alone, but not forgotten about"-K.J Swint
Then I started thinking. I started thinking about everything that he had said. But I just couldn't wrap it around my mind to think that it was me. I then started looking back on things that had happened between us. I started looking at the conversations and the arguments and everything that I thought was wrong. I thought about the answers I gave and the statements I made. I thought about the tones that I used and the times that I talked about things that I thought were wrong. I even thought about the number of times I brought of things that I thought were wrong. When I finally finished evaluating this, I realized that my friend was right, it wasn't her, IT WAS ME! I was the won adding fuel to the fire. I made little arguments bigger that what they were. The tone that I was using was as if I were talking to a child, scolding them about something they had done wrong. At least 3 time out of the week, I was coming home discussing something that I thought was wrong. I thought to myself WOW! I realized that I was driving my wife crazy with all of this. The whole time I was thinking it was her when all along it was me. Here she was, this great woman who made life simple for me. Hot meals everyday when I got home. She was concerned about my well being because she always wanted to know what was going on in my life. She was understanding because she never complained about the time I spent working on my writing career. And what was I doing? Ignoring the beauty that she was bestowing upon me by being there for me. When I was sick, she made sure that i had everything that I needed. If she needed to take off work, she would have. Here is the beautiful woman that I couldn't see for my own faults. I had hidden issues that I didn't realize.
Once I broke all of this down I realized that I am a conceited, shallow, always have to be right, bitter, boring person that held everything bad that happened inside and let it out whenever something bad happened, even if it was small. If she did something as simple as misplace something of mine that I was working on, I would bring it up and then change the subject and flip it to where we were discussing something that she had done that was really bad. I would always make it seem as if she was the bad guy and I was always the good guy. I always looked at her flaws and never her good qualities.
So today, I am changing my life. I make a vow to never make my wife seem like the bad guy. I vow to look at the good things about her and not her flaws. I vow to take the time and discuss things with her instead of treating her as if she is a child. I vow to show her more love by just being there for her. Yes, I was doing all the good things that a good man should do, but I was also doing things that a good man shouldn't do and you can't expect for someone to appreciate you when your doing good and bad things all at once. Doing this causes a balance and when you're in love, there is no balance. There is no balance because at any given moment the tables can turn and either one you can be responsible for the entire relationship. If we depended on balance, then when the tables turn, we would be screwed. I love my wife with all my heart and I have recognized my faults and flaws and I am willing to change them to make things right between us. Now I have to tell her this in order to make things right....wish me luck!
"Pride is a word that can be left alone, but not forgotten about"-K.J Swint
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
The Revitalization of my Life-Day 68
Well, its been a couple of days since I made a post and it's for a good reason. I have been working late and my wife has started grad school. I know you are wondering what does my wife starting grad school have to do with me posting to my blog. Well, let me explain. When anyone starts something that they are not use to, it usually makes there life a little hectic. I know my life gets like that. Well, I want to make her life a little easier so I decided to get her clothes ready for the next week so that it's one less thing she has to worry about. Then I rearranged her closet so that she would be able to find things like her shoes and accessories. So now my wife has a neat closet, her wardrobe for the next week and a husband who is happy. What more can you ask for? Everyday I am learning more and more that it's not about you but about someone else, her! When things occur, I don't ever think about myself, I always think about her first and then the dog, and then me!
Where would this world be if we only thought about our self? You can't expect to be completely happy without making someone else happy first. I was talking to a co-worker of mine yesterday and she made a good point. She told me that you must first love God and then your wife and then everything else will fall into place. She said that God will take care of you, all you have to do is love him first. God designed us to love others and not our self. He wants us to love him and he will take care of us. Then once he sends love our way, he wants us to love them as Christ love the church. All in all, just love someone else besides yourself and life will be better I guarantee! And don't do it to get something in return, do it just because you want to and it's the right thing to do. Just think, what if no one did anything for you, how would you feel and where would you be in life?
"Just do something for someone today. It can be as small as a smile-they tend to go further than you think!"-K.J Swint
Where would this world be if we only thought about our self? You can't expect to be completely happy without making someone else happy first. I was talking to a co-worker of mine yesterday and she made a good point. She told me that you must first love God and then your wife and then everything else will fall into place. She said that God will take care of you, all you have to do is love him first. God designed us to love others and not our self. He wants us to love him and he will take care of us. Then once he sends love our way, he wants us to love them as Christ love the church. All in all, just love someone else besides yourself and life will be better I guarantee! And don't do it to get something in return, do it just because you want to and it's the right thing to do. Just think, what if no one did anything for you, how would you feel and where would you be in life?
"Just do something for someone today. It can be as small as a smile-they tend to go further than you think!"-K.J Swint
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
The Revitalization of my Life-Day 67
I must say that I am a happy man right now. I woke up this morning feeling good just because. I got up early so that I could spend more time writing at Starbucks. I got in the shower and the shower is where I do my praying. I know it's weird, but that's just the way it is. As I begin to pray, I stopped and thought for a second. I thought about all of the things that we pray for when we pray. I then thought about the people that we pray for. Then it hit me. We are always praying to God asking him for something or to bless someone, well today is going to be different. Today, I decided to just thank him. I thanked him just for the small things in life life the ability to breathe on my own. I thanked him for having a job. I thanked him for having food in my house. I even thanked him for giving me the ability to get up and go to Starbucks when I could easily be laying down getting extra sleep. Then after I thanked him for all that he has done for me, I then started thanking him for the people that are in my life. I thanked him for my wife, my uncle, my aunts, my friends, my enemies and also people that are only in my life for a short period of time. I am talking about people who you meet for only a few minutes out of the day. I just wanted to thank him because I felt that he was tired of me praying to him asking for things when he has given me so much. I know he probably doesn't think this way, but it didn't hurt to do. It made me think about how when we pray to God and ask him for certain things, we tend to forget about what we have because we are so focused on being in another place. We ask God to bless us and when he does, it goes unnoticed because it wasn't the blessing we had in mind. We ask God to bless us with a nice home. He gives us an apartment and we are still praying for a house instead of just thanking him for providing us with a roof over our head.
We have to appreciate what we have in order to get what God really has in store for us. I read the book The Secretand it's main focus is the law of attraction. This is when whatever you focus on, comes t you. For example, if you're at a job that you don't like and you continue to say, "I hate this job" you won't ever be able to leave because you are more focused on the negative than the positive. It states that you have to own the job you hate and find something good about it. Once you do this, you will be able to move on to the next level and get another job. This is oh so true because I tried it. In 2008, I lost my job due to me not passing a test, the Series 7 exam. I missed it by two points. I was crushed. They let me go the next day. I was out of work for about 8 months. Then things started to turn around. I had an interview with Walmart for a supervisor position. At this point, I just wanted to get a pay check because my bills were piling up. During the interview, they offered me the job and told me what the pay was. When I saw the pay, I was shocked. It was not what I expected and I almost got up and walked out because I knew that I could make more. But then I gathered myself and said, "something is better than nothing." When I got the job they told me that I would just be supervising the guys unloading the truck. This didn't seem so bad. They stressed to me that I would NOT have to unload NOT one box off the truck. Now mind you, I had never worked a laboring job in my life. I have always been a shirt and tie guy. Well, this only lasted one day. After the first day on the job, I was unloading the truck. I couldn't believe it. They told me this to get me in. I hated the job. I went to work everyday miserable. I didn't see no way out. The managers there didn't have any professionalism about them at all. I was frustrated because they would tell me to do one thing and then right me up when I did it. I knew I was going to lose my mind if I didn't get out of there, but no one was hiring. This is when I found the book The Secret. I use to read it n my breaks and during lunch. After I read it, I realized that I had to accept the job and love it even when I knew that I didn't. I started going to work with joy in my heart. I use to sing while I unload the truck and I made sure that I was energized the whole time I was there. After this happened, one of the mangers walked up to me one day and told me that I was a good worker and that she felt like there were other managers that wee trying to get me fired. She then proceeded to offer me the opportunity to move to any other department in the store that had an opening. I couldn't believe it. I accepted he offer and moved to TLE (Tire Lube Express). Now comes the funny part. Here is a guy that has NEVER picked up a tool (outside of a screw driver) to fix anything, headed to change oil and tires. But that's not the funny part. The funny part was seeing me in the uniform. I was the neatest and cleanest oil changer you ever seen. My shirt was always tucked in and my uniformed was pressed. Everyday I went to work, somebody laughed at me. Hell, I even laughed at myself from time to time.
Now things had changed but not all for the better. I had to take a pay cut, but I got better hours. The working environment was dirty and cold during the winter months. It was like it got better and then worse again. But I just took what I had received and ran with it. I owned it just like I owned the other position. I got grimmie and dirty and I was even singing while I was changing oil. I had finally told myself that I was just going to enjoy the journey that I was on. I had only been in TLE for a few months and then I got a phone call. It was a friend of mine who I had worked with at my previous employer, Regions. He asked me if I was interested in coming to work for him. All I could say at that moment, was thank you God.
You have to be thankful for what you have and realize your blessings and enjoy what God has given you even when it only seems like a little. In order for him to take you to the next level you have to pass the test of the level that you are on. Passing that test my require you just to embrace what you have and enjoy it to the fullest. If you don't believe me, try it and if it doesn't work I will give you $100. But you have to embrace it, you have to own it, you have to enjoy what you don't like.
"Good givers are great getters"-Russell Simmons
We have to appreciate what we have in order to get what God really has in store for us. I read the book The Secretand it's main focus is the law of attraction. This is when whatever you focus on, comes t you. For example, if you're at a job that you don't like and you continue to say, "I hate this job" you won't ever be able to leave because you are more focused on the negative than the positive. It states that you have to own the job you hate and find something good about it. Once you do this, you will be able to move on to the next level and get another job. This is oh so true because I tried it. In 2008, I lost my job due to me not passing a test, the Series 7 exam. I missed it by two points. I was crushed. They let me go the next day. I was out of work for about 8 months. Then things started to turn around. I had an interview with Walmart for a supervisor position. At this point, I just wanted to get a pay check because my bills were piling up. During the interview, they offered me the job and told me what the pay was. When I saw the pay, I was shocked. It was not what I expected and I almost got up and walked out because I knew that I could make more. But then I gathered myself and said, "something is better than nothing." When I got the job they told me that I would just be supervising the guys unloading the truck. This didn't seem so bad. They stressed to me that I would NOT have to unload NOT one box off the truck. Now mind you, I had never worked a laboring job in my life. I have always been a shirt and tie guy. Well, this only lasted one day. After the first day on the job, I was unloading the truck. I couldn't believe it. They told me this to get me in. I hated the job. I went to work everyday miserable. I didn't see no way out. The managers there didn't have any professionalism about them at all. I was frustrated because they would tell me to do one thing and then right me up when I did it. I knew I was going to lose my mind if I didn't get out of there, but no one was hiring. This is when I found the book The Secret. I use to read it n my breaks and during lunch. After I read it, I realized that I had to accept the job and love it even when I knew that I didn't. I started going to work with joy in my heart. I use to sing while I unload the truck and I made sure that I was energized the whole time I was there. After this happened, one of the mangers walked up to me one day and told me that I was a good worker and that she felt like there were other managers that wee trying to get me fired. She then proceeded to offer me the opportunity to move to any other department in the store that had an opening. I couldn't believe it. I accepted he offer and moved to TLE (Tire Lube Express). Now comes the funny part. Here is a guy that has NEVER picked up a tool (outside of a screw driver) to fix anything, headed to change oil and tires. But that's not the funny part. The funny part was seeing me in the uniform. I was the neatest and cleanest oil changer you ever seen. My shirt was always tucked in and my uniformed was pressed. Everyday I went to work, somebody laughed at me. Hell, I even laughed at myself from time to time.
Now things had changed but not all for the better. I had to take a pay cut, but I got better hours. The working environment was dirty and cold during the winter months. It was like it got better and then worse again. But I just took what I had received and ran with it. I owned it just like I owned the other position. I got grimmie and dirty and I was even singing while I was changing oil. I had finally told myself that I was just going to enjoy the journey that I was on. I had only been in TLE for a few months and then I got a phone call. It was a friend of mine who I had worked with at my previous employer, Regions. He asked me if I was interested in coming to work for him. All I could say at that moment, was thank you God.
You have to be thankful for what you have and realize your blessings and enjoy what God has given you even when it only seems like a little. In order for him to take you to the next level you have to pass the test of the level that you are on. Passing that test my require you just to embrace what you have and enjoy it to the fullest. If you don't believe me, try it and if it doesn't work I will give you $100. But you have to embrace it, you have to own it, you have to enjoy what you don't like.
"Good givers are great getters"-Russell Simmons
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