Think of your words as a drop of water and the world around you as a lake. One single drop will cause ripples for a long way. Many drops can cause a disturbance throughout the lake. The power of our words is absolutely amazing. Our actions also speak loudly but are secondary to our words. There is only positive or negative thought. There are no gray areas to cling to. Which side of the line do you want to work with, positive or negative? One will bring you and others joy. The other will keep others away from you and joy will be but a dream.
You may have heard a child say “sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.” This is a nice thought but so untrue. You can do more damage with your words then you could ever do with sticks and stones! Our words can hurt ourselves as well as others because our words show who we are and what we want. We may also help others as well as ourselves with the proper words. Words are as magnets, held one way and the magnets attract, the other way and they repel. We need to take charge of our words. The first part of this process is to change our mindset. A negative person will always show their anger, grief, and disappointment with their words. On the other hand, a positive person will show joy, accomplishment and leadership with their words.
Why is it that a negative person can never accomplish anything worthwhile and are jealous of the positive person? A positive person has the world by the throat and can accomplish anything they set their minds to. This all starts with a mindset and is shown with the words that are used daily. If you want to be happy and a successful person, you need to learn what it takes. The first step is learning how to express yourself in a positive way and your words are key for this to work.
Here is an example of what I am talking about. If you use alot of curse words, (these words are a very negative type of speech) you will feel dragged down, angry and unsure of yourself. If you use positive words, (these are upbeat words) even when things are troublesome, you will feel a power of accomplishment and the secrets of how to fix said troubles with ease.
The second part to this is your actions. Do you carry yourself in a positive way or are you slumping around looking like the definition of despair? Your body actions tell alot about you. Words and actions work together. It is extremely hard to speak positive and slump around at the same time. It is also very difficult to speak negative and walk with a positive stance. Pay attention to how your body automatically shows whether you are using positive or negative words. It will enlighten you, I promise.
So how do we change the way we speak and make sure we are on the positive side? Firstly, you must think before you speak. There’s a saying that goes, “It is better to be thought of as a fool then to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt”. One translation of this is, if you can’t say something positive, keep quiet. Another translation is, don’t speak of things and other people you know nothing about. Either way, this shows positive and negative thought. This has been a problem that I have fought for many years but if you can put your mind to it, it is very possible and probable you will succeed. We also need something to believe in that helps us stay positive. Most of the time this falls under religious beliefs. If you are following a religion that preaches a positive message about the one you follow, then this is a very good thing to grasp upon. It will help when you have that time where nothing seems to be going right. I believe I have this with being a Christian. You must answer your own questions about your faith.
I wish the best for you and hope you find this useful. Stay positive, hold on to your beliefs and dreams. Remember, we are all in this together.
Growing up and learning from our elders is a hard thing to do. I was not unlike other teenagers. I had a hard time listening to others teaching me how to do things the smart way and not the hard way. My mother was and is still a great inspiration and influence in my life but when I was a teen, she couldn’t teach me anything because I wouldn’t listen. Later in life, the lessons she tried to teach me finally took hold and I was able to use the wisdom she tried to pound into my head earlier in life.
Teenagers are hard to teach
One of the great teachings that this wise woman was always trying to get into my head was how to use common sense when doing anything. “Don’t look at the whole project at once, take it one step at a time”, she would say. The best example I can come up with for this was cleaning my room and mowing the lawn. My room was like any other teenager’s room. It was usually a big mess. When she would tell me to clean it up, my first thought was “There goes my weekend!” My mom would remind me of how she always taught me to clean my room, even when I was much younger. I would hear her voice in the back of my head, “Don’t look at the whole thing, just start with one corner and clean that first.”
This process always worked even though I would never give her credit for it. I wouldn’t look at the whole room, instead I would put my focus solely on one corner. After that corner was clean, I would simply start on the next corner. It was amazing how well this worked out for me and within an hour, my room would be spotless. If I were to focus on the whole room, it would take much longer because of being overwhelmed by all the things that needed to be put back in place. I would be running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off.
This simple rule continued to help me in many things throughout my life. One saying says get the whole picture but using pieces instead, works better for me. Looking at the whole picture not only overwhelms me but creates a confusion that is hard to explain.
One of the places in Missouri that I grew up in was what I considered my childhood home. We lived in many different houses but this was the one that held and still holds my heart. It was in the countryside with a dirt road leading to it. The house my dad and mom had built was in a field that was once an alfalfa pasture sitting between to hillsides. They had decided to have the house built far off the dirt road, which gave us a huge front yard. We had ten acres and the front yard consisted of two of those acres. Guess who had to mow those two acres and the half acre in the back of the house which met up with the rest of the land used as a pasture for our animals? If you guessed me, you hit the nail on the head.
We did have a old riding lawn mower to mow this but it was still a hard job to accomplish. Starting early in the morning, it would take until nightfall to mow this hunk of land if I didn’t take too many breaks that is. This land was so fertil that this project would have to be done every other week except for winter when the snow would give me a break. Of course shoveling the driveway wasn’t fun either. The only way I could accomplish this great mowing job was to use my mom’s idea and take it one section at a time. If I were to look at the whole job all at once, I would’ve probably lost my mind. However, looking at one section at a time made the job alot easier. During the mowing, I could also look at what I had already done and see that I was making progress. The few times I tried to mow the whole thing in one shot seemed like I wasn’t getting anywhere fast. Even though the same amount of grass was being chopped, the difference in how I seen it was amazing.
I continued through life using this simple method and it has helped me get though many things in my life. No matter how big of a project I came upon, I could break it down and make it a simple thing to do. Even when crazy things happened, like a main water line breaking, I didn’t go crazy over the nightmare I was facing. I just broke it down to steps that needed to be taken and then took it one step at a time.
There is a saying that many of you may have heard before. It’s called the ‘K.I.S.S’ method. This is short for “Keep it simple stupid”. Using the break down method my mom taught me or as I like to call it “One nightmare at a time”, seems to work well withthe Kiss method. Any way you look at it, these two work hand in hand. They are both very good lessons to learn and will help you get through tough times as they have with me.
I remember going to boot camp with the Navy and keeping these terms in my mind. They helped me tremendously when it came to doing all that was required from me to make it without going crazy when so much was expected and it had to be exactly right to keep the Company Commander off my back. Even though I had a very smart mouth that caused me to do more push-ups then anybody else, when it came to my bunk and locker, mine was always perfect during inspections.
The ship I was stationed on
Once I graduated from boot camp and was stationed on my ship “USS Charleston LKA 113” I continued to use the lesson I had learned about looking at one piece of a job or problem at a time. Being that I was a Damage Control man on the ship and being trained in many different types of rescue, fire fighting, flood control and other such things, this simple lesson served me well. Even the times that we had actual damage happening, not just training for it, this lesson loomed large in the back of my mind just waiting for its grand appearance once again. It is true that training for such things to happen does help a great deal when the time comes. I just never knew how the training for such disasters actually was started back in my youth long before the dream of being a sailor had even crossed my mind. For those I served with, thank you for your service and thank you for all your help during the “Fork truck rodeo”. To others that were not there during this event, you missed one heck of a ride! I have said before that I would write about that event but the words are not there as of yet. Just to give you a taste of what that event was, it consisted of fire, flooding and loose fork trucks on board our ship during a hurricane all at the same time.
Once leaving the service, I became a over the road truck driver and seen things that screen writers for the movies would have a hard time coming up with. If they did write some of these things down, big movie stars would swear the public would never believe it unless it was written into a science fiction movie that is. To watch fifteen to twenty cars spinning out of control outside of Dallas Texas because someone lost a ladder out of the back of their pickup was absolutely crazy and terrifying, yet I drove through the middle of all them and watched the ladder stand on end next to me until I got passed it, then it went to bouncing around again. The only damage my rig received was a fine line towards the top part of my trailer from where the ladder barely touched it. The damage was almost like someone had taken a #2 pencil and drawn a perfect line down the side. It was so light that it would wipe off with a damp rag. Later that evening I seen a newscast of the big pileup of cars and big trucks alike this single ladder had caused. Once again, my training came back and I dodged one car at a time. Of course God was helping me steer at the time.
240 ton haul truck
A few jobs in between and then my mining job began. Numerous times I thought for sure I would have a major accident driving a large haul truck out of control down a mud slide of a ramp. Time and time again my Mom’s voice would remind me in the back of my mind, “Remember son, one step at a time.” Time moves on but wisdom always wins out. No matter the situation you find yourself in, deal with the now and worry about later when it gets here. Don’t try to start a jigsaw puzzle with the last piece, work your way through the process and the final piece will fit in. Seeing the whole picture doesn’t count if you can’t see it one piece at a time. Thank you mom for sharing your wisdom with me and even when you thought I wasn’t listening, your words were building a picture in my mind. You have saved me from many failures by sharing your wisdom with me.
Remember: one piece at a time
I hope reading this has meant as much to you as writing it has meant to me. God bless and as always; Remember, we are all in this together.
I want to dedicate this post to my Mom. I can’t thank you enough Mom for teaching me and sharing your wisdom with me. I know God will have a mansion waiting for you when you go to your Heavenly home.
I believe the title to this post says it all in a short and sweet manner. I will explain further what this means.
When we are put on this earth, we live by alot of the earth’s rules. One of these rules is we will experience pain in life while we are here. This pain will come in different forms and affect us in different ways. There will be the physical pain which can be as simple as a thorn in a finger or can be as major as losing a leg. Either way, the pain will exist.
We can experience pain mentally from being bullied or a broken heart from losing that person that you love so much. These are examples of the first part of the title. The second part is the most important.
When we experience these so called pains in our lives, how do we react afterwards? Sure stepping on that Lego hurts but did you allow it to destroy the rest of your day? Maybe within a few minutes that pain goes away and you forget it ever happened.
The mental pain is usually the worst kind of pain. Did the love of your life find someone new? Did that bully do something so bad that you are walking in fear? How did you react after these pains? Are you going to allow them to control the rest of your life?
Are you going to allow any kind of pain to turn into misery for you? This is when pain is at its worst but you can decide how far you will allow pain to go. Don’t allow these pains to turn into making you miserable. When it seems like all is falling out of control and you are allowing these pains to turn into misery, just think, there is someone that is going though the same thing as you. There are also others going through worse situations then you are at this point. The difference is how we pick ourselves up, put the pieces together and continue on. This is where the second part of the title falls.
The winners in this are the ones that make up their minds not to allow these pains to manifest themselves into misery. The ones that allow misery to take over are the losers. Do you want to be on the winning or losing side? This is completely up to you.
We all go through pain, both physically and mentally. You are not alone! Sometime, somewhere, there is or has been someone who has had the pain you are experiencing. Some will or have allowed misery to take over, others have refused to let misery in and have made it through with their head held high and much wiser for the experience. Don’t allow misery into your life, it’s a cancer you don’t need and it is up to you to stop it before it takes hold.
As we learn from our mistakes, we can also learn from our pain. Keep misery out of your life and stay on the positive side of things. Take care and Remember, we are all in this together.
Everyone has that moment when they realize that their value system is different from their parents. This is the point when we have entered that grown up phase of our lives. For some it happens in their twenties, for others, it can happen later in life. There are others that may never see the grown up phase enter their lives.
Our parents teach us the best that they know how at the time. All parents make mistakes and they along with the child will learn from those experiences. As we enter the grown up phase and have children of our own, we take what we have learned from our parents and use what we consider to be the best with the knowledge we have at the time. We in turn, will make mistakes that we and our children will learn from. And so the process continues down to our grandchildren and so on.
Nobody has the perfect solution to raising a child. You may believe you do but there will be things that happen that will surpass your knowledge and change the way you see parenting. This will be the time when you discover that you don’t know everything about being a parent and you will gain a knowledge of why all parents make mistakes.
Every young couple that has their first child will think they have everything under control. They will believe that they will be able to raise their child in a better way then their parents raised them. This will last for awhile until the surprise something comes along. Just like when you were a teenager and truly believed that you knew everything, one day you will find out that you actually know very little. This is when you can consider yourself as a grownup.
I am now a grandfather to five grandchildren and I am watching as my children learn that being a parent is the hardest job in the world. One day you believe that you are the perfect parent, just to find out how little you really know.
Don’t worry and knock yourself over the head when this happens. Once you become a grandparent, you will be able to sit back and watch your children learn the same lesson. All parents go through this and it’s not easy to do but it is very rewarding. Once you watch your children with their children using alot of your techniques that you used, then changing somethings they feel you did wrong, just to find out they just created a different set of problems.
To all parents that will pay attention, you will make mistakes but do what you think is right at the time and you will be fine. Parenting is a mathematical equation without a solution. Being a parent is the hardest job you will ever do but it also has the greatest rewards.
Take care all my parenting readers and Remember, we are all in this together.
Age can be a state of mind but it also shows on the body. There are people that age quicker than others. Some of this is due to genetics but most of it can and will show up because of the way we treat the body we are incased in. People that abuse drugs and alcohol are classic cases of showing age at a higher rate than normal. We are blessed with this container and yet we continue to destroy it. We are only going to have these bodies for a few short years so why do we continue to destroy them?
Think of your body as a rental. When your time comes, what kind of shape will your body be in when it is returned to your maker? I myself have abused my body in ways that would make me lose my deposit if I had to return it today. The one thing that is good about our bodies is, for the most part, it can heal itself given enough time. Time though is relative and sometimes we don’t have enough for it to repair the damage that we have done.
So what are we to do? Your body is expected to take some wear and tear along the way. We are responsible to keep the wear and tear to a minimum. Our deposits will be given back as long as we keep up our end and not let our bodies fall completely apart.
Now you know as well as I that we neither rented or put down a deposit for the bodies we are living in. But if we think along these lines of renting, maybe we won’t do quite the damage to them. Feeling good is a great feeling but it takes practice and determination to achieve. Maybe thinking before eating one more donut or drinking one more beer today will make you stop and think before consuming them in the future. Maybe mixing a bunch of chemicals together to put into our bodies for that quick high will no longer feel necessary. Think before you consume.
I am very guilty of many things in my life that has hurt this body of mine but I’m trying to do better. I’m not trying to tell you that what you are doing is wrong. I’m sharing with you in hopes that my downfalls will not fall upon you and others. If it doesn’t feel right before you do it, it’s probably not right.
Keep in mind that if you are one of the few that live to be a hundred, wouldn’t it be nice to have a body that works as though it is in its fifties? It all starts today. We can’t fix yesterday but we can change for tomorrow.
Age in alot of ways is a state of mind. Let’s keep our bodies running along the same lines and live with that good feeling and not that broken down old creaking body that so many of us live with. We can’t help our genetics but we can adjust our abuse.
May the Lord bless you and keep you well. Remember, we are all in this together.
