M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 12

What Does Today Mean For You and Your Life Path?

Momentous or just another day, there’s little difference.Photo by Brian Wangenheim on Unsplash

Today is the day after one of the most significant elections in the United States. This has been the cause of a lot of conflict, disagreement, strife, depression, anxiety, and uncertainty for many. One side represents progress. The other, quite possibly, is the end of US democracy.

This is a big deal. It’s not something to be taken lightly. I voted and I hope that you did, too.

As momentous as the outcome will be, there’s little difference between yesterday, today, and tomorrow. At least, here and now, in this moment in time.

Right now, in this moment, today – are you impacted by this situation? Have the results of the election had an impact on your life, today? Probably not. That doesn’t mean that it won’t impact you or people you care about down the line. This is why voting is so important in the first place.

Today, however, along your life path, is simply another day. Today is no different because it’s another day in the great chain of days that make up the sum total of your life.

I’m not downplaying what might be a truly momentous day for the US and the world. However, you and I, living our lives every single day of the week, are still on our given life path no matter how today is different from yesterday.

There are many reasons I am offering this for your consideration today.

What you can’t control

Did you vote in the election? If so, congratulations, you exercised the only control you have in the process.

If you didn’t vote, guess what? You gave away all the control you had in the process and the outcome. Voting is more or less the only thing you can do in an election. Otherwise, you can and will have zero impact.

You cannot control how anyone else votes. Or doesn’t. You have zero control of the electoral college, the people who are hateful and scary, the people who are well-meaning but blatantly ignorant, and anyone else you can think of. None of them are in your control.

Lots and lots of things are out of your control. Like, all the time out of your control. Weather, traffic, how other people behave, trains, mail delivery timing, dogs, cats, and anyone or anything that’s not you.

Does that seem disempowering? Consider this – do you want to be controlled by someone else? Of course not. So why would you want to control anyone else? How does that empower you or them?

What you can’t control is far more things than what you can control. However, when you recognize and acknowledge this, you can do some rather amazing things.

What you can control today

Here’s the thing. Today is the only day you can control anything. Only in the moment, the present, the here and now, can you exert the slightest bit of control.

What does this matter in the face of truly horrifying things happening outside of your control? Energy goes where your attention goes. If you spend all your time focused on what you don’t and can’t control, you will make yourself sick, get depressed, drive yourself mad, or worse. When you are caught in the hype, the fear, the unknown of that which you cannot control, you disempower yourself.

What do you and can you control? All the inner bits of you. Your thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, and approach. You can choose and decide what you are thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, if your approach is positive or negative, and your actions.

That’s more or less it. But that’s not insignificant, it’s a lot. You can use that to do things to impact the world at various levels. It begins with you, and it begins from within.

That can seem impossible. Especially when outside circumstances are causing you to feel fearful, concerned, angry, lost, and every other negative emotion possible. Ultimately, however, this is in your control. Completely and totally.

Photo by Robin Jonathan Deutsch on UnsplashWhat can I do today?

Some days this question is more significant than others. Or rather, it feels that way. After a momentous happening, you might feel empowered or disempowered. Either way, that feeling is wholly external.

And here I digress. Look, I sure as hell didn’t think that Trump could win. He’s a convicted felon, he did a terrible job previously, and he has made a whole lot of very ugly promises about what he’ll do with this power. That people fell for his bullshit is a combination of stunning, upsetting, deeply disappointing, and terrifying. I thought people were, collectively, smarter than this, but the election results say otherwise.

What will happen next? I have no idea. What can I do today? Nothing. I did my part, I voted. In the coming months, I’ll take action where I can, attend protests (again), and continue to write these blogs as I strive to be a voice of reason and a source of light in a crazy, fucked up, often dim and/or darkening world.

I won’t be chased away from my home. My voice will not be silenced by fear. Today, I’m sharing my thoughts with you just like I do every week and have done for almost 13 years. Where I can, I will make my stand to help the people of this world live better, be better, and find their own empowerment.

Today I will process this. I will also maintain my sovereignty, keep my voice, and stand for the things I believe in. I’ll continue to offer my thoughts and ideas for choosing your life path to live as best that you can.

We’re none of us alone

You and I are still here, living and breathing. That means we can still do things to change our inner world. We are not defeated. This isn’t the end. And we are not alone.

Some people will leave. They’ll run somewhere they feel safer. I can’t blame them. You gotta do what you gotta do. Me? I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here to fight the good fight and work to help the people I care about still live as best they can.

Change is the one and only constant in the Universe. Nothing is written in stone. Today is another day and I will live it as best I can. You have the same power that I do, and we are, none of us, alone.

Your feelings are valid. Don’t hide from them. If you feel scared, hurt, or disheartened, that’s normal. I feel that, too.  I know it sucks, and that you might be utterly uncertain about what to do next. Today might be momentous or just another day, but there’s little difference. You are here, you are alive, and you have the power to control your life and your path in it. That might feel like a lie, but it’s not.

You are not alone. Together, we have the power to make the best of anything the Universe hands us. How? I don’t know. But a way exists, even if I don’t know it. Today, I will leave you with the words of Michael Bernard Beckwith:

“You can start with nothing. And out of nothing and out of no way, a way will be made.”

What will you do with your life path today?

This is the six-hundred-seventy-second (672) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.

The post What Does Today Mean For You and Your Life Path? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Do Change and Positivity Go Hand in Hand?

That largely depends on you.Photo by Alex Ware on Unsplash

Although it’s terrifying, there is an unavoidable truth to life, the Universe, and everything. The one and only constant through it all is change,

Change is inevitable. It can, will, and does happen. Change in and of itself is neutral. Its impact on you is going to vary depending on the environment, situation, circumstances, and lots of other factors.

Some change you can and do choose. Much of this might seem minor and insignificant but it’s not. That’s because making active choices and decisions for change is like any muscle. Work it more and it becomes stronger.

That’s how you can do incredible things to and for your life. The empowerment is incredible. This is the key to change and positivity going hand in hand.

You choose your own adventure

There are lots of ways to approach life. Some people see it as a slog and an unending string of happenings out of their control. To some, life might seem like a weird cosmic joke. No matter what you do someone unseen is moving mountains, pulling the strings, and/or laughing at your misfortunes.

Many people simply approach life with no expectations. They go with whatever comes their way, seldom making choices or decisions of any impact or significance. They let life live them but see it as neither positive nor negative, just as being.

Some people choose and decide frequently. They actively work to improve their lives, the lives of those around them, and the world beyond that. They strive to live life the best that they can and they work with change to build bigger and better.

It’s important to recognize here that empowered change is not selfish. The things that people who live in this way recognize that all are one. If you take away the good of another to embolden yourself, you are not a force of positive change. That’s because this form of change is all about abundance, and true selfishness comes from a place of lack and scarcity.

Whatever the case might be, you choose your own adventure in this life. You, and you alone, can choose to approach life from lack, scarcity, and fear – or – utter neutrality and inevitability – or – abundance and possibility.

Because you choose your own adventure you can take control over more change than not. But to truly work this you need to approach it from a place of abundance and positivity.

Photo by Dan Norris on UnsplashHow change and positivity go hand in hand

The first step is to acknowledge that vast swaths of change are outside of your control. You can’t change how anyone else thinks or feels. There is nothing you can do about the environment, weather, traffic, and other happenstances. This is part of the inevitability of change.

What you can control is everything having to do with you. Your internal being, specifically. You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Ergo, you are in control of your thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, and approach to any given situation.

At least in the long run, you are in control. Your immediate reaction to anything that happens – good, bad, or otherwise – is automated. When you are in a car accident or get fired, the anger or fear that occurs in the moment simply is. However, after the initial shock, you can take control.

Now you get to choose and decide what to do next. Thus, you can take control of change for your betterment. Or not.

This is where change and positivity go hand in hand. Working from a positive place you can decide how to approach things and choose what will most light you up.

Life is what you choose and decide for it to be

Henry Ford said a very wise thing:

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.”

This is truer than most people realize. That’s because, by and large, you’ve been conditioned to follow the lead of others. First, it was parents. Then teachers. After that, you were conditioned to join the workforce and follow the lead of others. Though the conditioning is partially well-intentioned, it’s also incredibly limiting.

Society has expectations. To meet them, “they” want you mostly docile. Why? Because when you don’t actively choose and decide for yourself it’s easier to sway you to the opinions of others.

Politicians are experts at this. They love it when you take the bait hook, line, and sinker. Why? Because when they pull the inevitable bait and switch, they can convince you it isn’t them and their actions or inactions.

You are empowered to choose and decide for yourself. But – and this is important – only for yourself. You have no power whatsoever over anyone else’s thoughts, feelings, intentions, and so on.

This is a matter of positivity because when you approach it this way you can use choices and decisions to make your life how you most desire it to be. That’s how and why change and positivity go hand in hand. It all comes down to empowerment, and you are always worthy and deserving of being empowered.

Recognizing how change and positivity go hand in hand isn’t hard

It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.

When you recognize and acknowledge that change is a constant that will happen whether you choose it or not, you can make active choices and decisions from a place of abundance to work with that for your empowerment. Knowing that you can use this to build better, first for you than for others in your life, you can practice making more choices and decisions to use change and positivity hand in hand to do amazing things.

This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.

Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred-and-sixtieth (560) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

The post Do Change and Positivity Go Hand in Hand? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Nobody Is Only One Thing

Everyone is many things.Photo by Isi Parente on Unsplash

How do you identify yourself? This in and of itself is a multi-layered notion.

For example, I identify myself by my name, age, ethnic heritage, height, weight, nation, gender, vocation, hair color, eye color, and that’s just a start. Dig deeper and you’ll find more identifiers you can use.

You likely identify yourself in similar, multiple ways. There are many reasons for this. It can depend on who you are sharing your identity with, why you’re sharing, when you’re sharing, and more.

Some of your identifiers are tangible and material but most are intangible and immaterial. There are some which are temporary or specific to a time and place, a few are even semi-permanent (semi-permanent because change is the only constant in the universe). Hence, most are changeable.

Yet people will hold onto identifiers like life rafts in a stormy sea. They will fight and die, sometimes literally, to maintain an intangible identity.

Nationalism is a prime example of that. You identify so strongly with your nation that you will take up arms to protect its sovereignty. This is neither good nor bad in and of itself. It can become problematic when it forces stagnation over progress and blinds you to other relevant truths. That’s how you get racists, white supremacists, and Trump cultists.

This is why it’s important to recognize that nobody, yourself included, is only one thing.

You are full of multitudes

How many thoughts did you have yesterday? Go ahead and count, I’ll wait. That, however, will take practically forever, as most people have anywhere from 6000 to 70,000 thoughts per day. At either end of the spectrum that’s a lot of thoughts happening.

Fortunately and unfortunately, the majority of these are tied to automation. Habit. That allows you to do necessary things like pour and drink a glass of water, soap yourself in the shower, apply toothpaste to the brush then brush your teeth, and so on. This is fortunate because if you had to give these things constant, frequent attention, how would you be able to think of anything abstract, creative, inventive, or new?

This is also unfortunate because this is how you hold and maintain negative thoughts about yourself on many levels, other people, and life. Unchecked, you can find yourself unhappy, depressed, and disconnected before you know it.

Part of why you create identifiers is to help make sense of it all. Identity connects names to faces, people to events, and great and small experiences. This is utterly harmless in that way.

Where it all goes wrong is when one identity dominates. This can be both personal and impersonal. Hence, if you think of yourself as a fat person, and believe all anyone sees is a fat person, this can do a number on your psyche. That can lead to eating disorders, depression, and other problems in your life.

However, nobody is only one thing. That applies to you, too.

Photo by Caspar Rae on Unsplash Nobody is only one thing

As I noted at the start of this article, I can identify myself by my name, age, ethnic heritage, height, weight, nation, gender, vocation, etcetera. None of these, however, stand-alone. They can tie into one another but also associate with more abstract ideas.

For example, my gender. I identify as male. This is both because I was born with a penis and because that’s how I self-identify. To me, that’s all there is to it.

You, however, might question if my male identity causes me to oversexualize women, act in misogynistic ways, support male dominance over females, and all sorts of other, unsavory ideas tied to the male gender (and others who identify themselves with it). One simple identifier can be associated with a myriad of other abstract ideas.

I’m not just male. What’s more, many of the stereotypes of cis-gendered males are not true for me. I could go into this in some depth but that would be a lengthy, useless digression. The point is that I am not only one thing.

Male, but a strong proponent of gender equality. Straight, but a major supporter of LGBTQA+ rights. That’s just a very small snapshot to show how I am not only one thing.

You know yourself. Thus, you know that you are not only one thing. Recognizing and acknowledging this can go a long way toward embracing the inevitability of change and ideas outside of your own.

Why does this matter? Because some identifiers we hold for others are ugly, and that’s also true of some identifiers we hold for ourselves.

How does being identified as only one thing feel?

Maybe you have an identifier you’re especially proud of. For me, that would be my vocation – writer. You’re reading the proof of that in these words, and I can point to all the books I’ve published over the last few years. That’s one thing, one identifier, I am happy to wear.

You might, however, be identified as something you’re ashamed of. Or disappointed by. In this instance being viewed as only one thing doesn’t feel good. That can lead you to all sorts of bad places and challenges for your health, wellness, and wellbeing.

Sometimes that identifier is negative (racist, sexist, and so on). Other times, it’s neutral but tends to come with negative connotations (fat, unfashionable, and so on). Unaddressed, that one thing can dominate and cause you distress.

Many of the ways you identify people or get identified cause conflict. It might be internal, external, or both. Yet, by and large, being viewed as only one thing is more often a negative than a positive.

You can do nothing about this for anyone else. I can’t make you look at me and not see that I’m heavyset. I can, however, see myself as a work in progress – and extend the same courtesy to you and any identifiers I put on you along the way.

When you recognize and acknowledge that nobody is only one thing – and that applies to you, too – you can more readily understand opposing points of view. That opens you to greater mindfulness and self-awareness, which helps you work on your own identifiers and make desired changes.

Not only is everyone many things, but everyone can be many things.

What can you do with the knowledge that nobody is only one thing?

This is the six-hundred-seventy-first (671) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.

The post Nobody Is Only One Thing appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

They Might Call You Selfish, But Are You?

Genuine selfishness is very specific.Photo by Christian Buehner on Unsplash

When you look in the mirror, who is looking back at you? That would be you. Who is inside your head, heart, and soul with you? Nobody is in the depths of you but you yourself.

You are the only you that there is. Nobody else can be you. There is nobody who can occupy your body, head, heart, or soul, but you. Even when you allow a friend, family member, or loved one to have some access to your heart and soul, they only get what you give them and no more.

Of course, you already know this. Sometimes you might neglect it and pay it little to no attention. But you always know it.

There are several other truths that you know but likely only subconsciously consider.

You alone can decide what you think, what and how you feel, your intentions, the positivity or negativity of your approach, and any actions you do or don’t take.Only you can choose and decide what you do with the above.Nobody else can run your life for you.

This one is distressing but too important to ignore:

You will die someday.

Given all of the above, do you take time for self-care? Do you make time to treat yourself to simple things that allow you to recharge your battery? Will you give kindness and compassion to yourself?

For many people, the answer is seldom. To some degree, this is because modern society expects you to be in a near-constant state of GO GO GO. But to some degree, odds are that you practice insufficient self-care for fear of looking selfish.

Defining selfishness

In a world of too many false equivalencies, selfishness is one of the most overused and abused. This is because people are judgmental. Sometimes this is without malice, other times it’s mean, and still other times it’s merely part of gossip or conversation between people.

So, let’s address the elephant in the room: What is selfishness?

Genuine, authentic, actual factual selfishness is an action you take that you willfully acknowledge will hurt/harm another. (IMPORTANT NOTE: That is not hurt/harm someone’s feelings due to their interpretation of your actions. This is willfully hurt/harm via malice of forethought.)

For example, let’s say there are a dozen cookies. You are one of a dozen people being offered those cookies. Rather than take 1 and leave 1 for everyone else, you take 3. You know full well that you are keeping 2 people from getting a cookie but take 3 for yourself, anyhow. That is genuine, authentic, actual factual selfishness.

See the politicians and business leaders who take and take and give nothing back? That’s selfishness in action.

Now that we’ve defined this, let’s look at the abuse of selfishness.

Photo by Dre Erwin on UnsplashThey might call you selfish, but are you?

Unless you are committing a hurtful/harmful act with malice of forethought, you’re not selfish.

Setting boundaries for your mental, emotional, spiritual, and/or physical health? Not selfish. Saying no to something you don’t want to do? Not selfish. Turning off your phone and taking time to yourself to breathe? Not selfish. Ending a relationship that no longer makes you happy or leaves you feeling content? Not selfish. Quitting a job you don’t like? Not selfish. Choosing to spend time with someone you genuinely desire to spend time with over someone you feel obligated to? Not selfish.

Most of the above, to anyone who’s not you – but might be impacted by those actions – might be called selfish. Know this: THEY ARE NOT SELFISH.

If you do not care for your health – all of your health, including mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual – you’ll get sick. When you are unwell in any of these areas the others are impacted. When you are out of energy, physically or psychologically, not giving yourself the means to recharge will lead to breaking down and becoming unwell.

Hence, all the above notions someone outside of you might call selfish are not. Why? Because you are the only you that there is. You alone can care for yourself, your life, your health, wellness, wellbeing, and so on.

The big hurdle most of us get to face in light of this is guilt and shame.

Feelings of guilt and shame

If you knowingly commit a selfish act, such as taking too many cookies or voting for someone who will hurt people you love, you should feel guilt and shame. Unfortunately, most who commit genuinely selfish acts via malice of forethought don’t feel guilt or shame unless they are called out and/or pay a price for their actions.

When you feel guilt and shame because you set boundaries or practice self-care, this is probably based on how you fear others will perceive you. It’s also an excellent sign that you are not committing a willful, malicious act of genuine selfishness.

You cannot control how others think, feel, intend, approach life, or act. There’s nothing you can do to prove that your acts of self-care aren’t selfish. Any guilt or shame that comes from this is because you have good intentions and don’t desire to cause hurt/harm.

When you find yourself feeling guilt and/or shame, don’t ignore it. Examine it. Analyze it to understand where it comes from. Recognize it, acknowledge it. Does it serve you or get in the way of your health, wellness, and wellbeing? If it serves you, take corrective action. If, however, it’s getting in your way, release it and let it go.

You are never a bad person when you take care of your one and only self. It’s not unreasonable to practice self-care for your overall health, wellness, and wellbeing. They might call you selfish, but are you? Probably not.

Recognizing what is and isn’t genuinely selfish isn’t hard

It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.

When you recognize and acknowledge that acts of self-care others might perceive as you being selfish are not, you can better care for your overall health, wellness, and wellbeing. Knowing that this is a matter of other people’s reactions and is outside of your control, you can do what you need and release the guilt and/or shame that agrees but is incorrect when it comes to judging your supposed selfishness.

This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.

Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred-and-fifty-ninth (559) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

The post They Might Call You Selfish, But Are You? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Is It So Hard to Be in the Present?

Connections to people, places, things, and linear time can disempower you.Photo by Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash

This is true for everyone, everywhere: The only time that is actually, factually real, is the present. Right now. This moment, here and now.

The past has come and gone. What happened before can, will, and does impact your life. However, that impact can vary pretty wildly, especially if you leave it unobserved. More on that ahead.

The future is just that. The future. It hasn’t happened yet. What it will look like you can, will, and do impact. However, vast swaths of it are utterly not in your control. Things occur that can’t be predicted, expected, or otherwise controlled. It is uncertain, and it’s that uncertainty that often draws attention to the future in disempowering ways.

The past cannot be altered, changed, undone, or redone. Yet look at all the people who want to, for example, “Make America Great Again.” The whole concept is built on the notion of bringing the past into the present somehow. A past that, frankly, never truly existed. This is monstrously disempowering to the masses (which, on close examination, you can see is the point of it.)

Likewise, the future cannot be forced, shaped, accurately predicted, or molded into being. It will happen, the future will become the now. But you can’t do a damned thing about the economy, wars on the other side of the planet, the actions of anyone other than you, weather, and other factors.

The truth is that the present, this moment in time, is the only place you have genuine control. However, that, too, is limited.

What do you/can you control?

Externally, you control nothing. Sorry, that’s the truth. This is not about your car, thermostat, TV station, and the like. The outside world itself and the people, places, and things that make it up, you cannot and do not control.

You can’t make anyone, or anything, do something, think something, feel something. Yes, you can impact that, influence it, but you can’t control it. You have zero control over traffic, the weather, the idiotic thing that politician or business mogul said or did, your spouse, your dog, and anything not in your head, heart, and soul. That’s the truth.

What do you/can you control? Your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions. It doesn’t always feel like this is true. Shit happens that makes you think awful things, feel angry or sad, intend to harm via vengeance for a slight or wrong, approach things from a negative place, and act against your best interest.

Initial visceral reactions are not something you control. When you get fired from your job with zero warning, the immediate knee-jerk reaction simply IS. It might be anger, hurt, frustration, fear, uncertainty, and quite possibly a combination of two or more of the above.

However, after the instinctive reaction, you can assert control. How? Active conscious awareness. Mindfulness.

To be mindful and take control over your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions, you need to work in the present. Be here now.

Probably the single largest reason why this is so hard is because nobody teaches you how to be in the present.

Photo by Andre Taissin on UnsplashLearning how to be in the present

Almost every human being on Planet Earth goes to school during their formative years. You learn many things in school, some quite useful like reading, writing, math, and the basics of critical thinking and reasoning. Most also learn about elements of history, sociology, chemistry, biology, and the like.

I’m not knocking these things. Learning about them is important. The problem is that you learn a great deal about the past via history while focusing on future tests, grades, and graduations. The present? That’s accepted as simply existing with zero focus put on it.

Being in the present? In my 12 years of schooling followed by 4 years of college, nobody ever taught me that. My parents didn’t teach me that. To learn how to be in the present I’ve had to research, study, and learn on my own.

For many, many, many people, this is an alien, foreign concept. Many think being “in the present” is hippy-dippy, liberal-snowflakey, New-Agey, “woke” bullshit. Touchy-feely emotional garbage.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Why? Because every single human being has their own unique, individual perspective of reality. The only way to recognize this, to know it and understand it, you must be in the present.

The first step to being in the present is by asking questions of yourself in the here and now. Specific questions like,

What am I thinking?What am I feeling?How am I feeling?What is my intent?Am I approaching this from a positive or negative place?What am I doing?

The answers to all these questions can only be found right here, right now. That’s because only here and now, in the present, can you find the answers to them.

Empowerment is in the present

The mechanisms of modern society tend to disempower. This is how “they” create artificial controls over other people. Look how many companies are moving to force employees – proven more efficient and happy working from home – back to offices. Why? Control. Also, allow me to be cynical here a moment, because they own or rent office spaces that are losing them money right now.

Almost every notion of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency is artificial and designed to disempower. Blaming immigrants, women, liberals, or any other group is a tool of disempowerment. All of these draw your attention outside to the things over which you have ZERO control.

You can take back the focus and be more in control of your life experience via empowerment. To get that empowerment, you must be mindful, which means you must be in the present, here and now. That mindfulness lets you change, alter, and assume control of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions – the only things you truly control.

Empowerment is not for a select few. “They” aren’t somehow more worthy or deserving of it. Empowerment is your birthright. Who is living your life? You. Did you appear on this planet to be a veritable slave to the government, business mogul, or other organization? Of course not.

When you strive to be in the present you become empowered. Being empowered opens the way to making informed choices and decisions for yourself. Those, in turn, can positively impact the world at large.

When more people work to be in the present, the machines of disempowerment start to come apart. Only here and now can genuine change occur.

Recognize that you are worthy and deserving of this empowerment. Pause, reflect, and question – here and now, in the present – everything.

Can you see how connections to people, places, things, and linear time can disempower you?

This is the six-hundred-seventieth (670) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.

The post Why Is It So Hard to Be in the Present? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Desired Change Begins From Within Not Without

Outside influences can impact you, but only if you allow them to.Photo by Pietro Tebaldi on Unsplash

Nothing, and I mean nothing at all, has always been static and unchanged. Nothing. No person, place, or thing. Everything changes.

Sometimes change is so slow and subtle that it makes no noticeable impact for a while. Other times, change is instantaneous, good, bad, and everything in between.

As free-thinking human beings, you and I have the power to choose to change. This can be literal, figurative, metaphorical, or all of the above simultaneously. It can be as small as a different hairstyle, larger like a new job or relationship, or enormous like selling your worldly possessions and going backpacking on the other side of the world indefinitely.

Anytime you choose to change of your own accord, it begins within. However, it’s not just a matter of the idea, but far deeper.

Change begins from within

You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. You, and only you, can think your thoughts, feel your feelings, intend your intentions, determine if your approach is positive or negative, and act to take any given action.

The idea of choosing to change always starts within. It always begins with the thought. Thought is how anything and everything created by the human race has come into being. From the clothes you wear to the device you are reading these words on, a thought, an idea, was its origin.

Thought alone has no power. Plain and simple. Thought is the starting point, but without feeling, intent, approach, and action, you’re turning a key or pulling a lever attached to nothing. It takes more to turn thought into anything.

The next element, thus, is feeling. You have the idea, think about it, then feel it out. What will it feel like to turn the thought into a reality? This is the equivalent of connecting power via battery to the mechanism.

Now comes intent. Why are you turning this idea from thought via feeling into change? That’s where intent comes in. This is the equivalent of making certain the positive and negative sides of the battery are correctly positioned.

Overarching all of this is approach. Did the idea come from a place of negativity or positivity? That’s the approach. Are you turning the idea into a reality (and making a change) to do something good or something bad?

After all these steps comes action. You’ve given the thought energy with feeling, considered the first step via intent, and determined the good or bad of it. Now you act on it and start the ball rolling.

Intentional change always begins thus, from within.

Photo by Zachary Kadolph on UnsplashChange happens without

The world is always changing. People, places, and things change. There is no stopping this, denying this, or genuinely resisting this. Sadly, lots of people are so fearful of change that they will work against their own good and empowerment to keep things how they think they are (despite this often being distorted and in no way the truth).

The world is always changing. For example, the Sahara Desert was an ocean millions of years ago. People change. For example, you are not the same at age 25 as you were at age 5 physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually, Things change. For example, if you’re reading this on a smartphone or tablet, that’s only been an option for less than 20 years. Even the vehicle by which I share this is hardly a couple of decades old.

People, places, and things change. You have almost no control over this whatsoever. Elements of this will change you, but that’s not the same as desired change.

Desired change is change you want to make. It’s losing 20 pounds, changing your hair color, buying a new car, getting into or out of a relationship, and so on. You make choices and decisions that start within you to make change.

Though change can, will, and does happen from without, that is not the same as desired change. Given the little to no control you have over this, you are only as impacted by outside changes as you allow yourself to be.

Control

What do you control? Nothing outside of yourself, save your appearance. You have no control over how other people think of and feel about you, the weather, traffic, and on and on.

Within, you control your thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, and approach. That might not seem like much but it’s quite a lot. Especially when you consider how many people don’t take that control for themselves.

You are empowered to choose what you think, what and how you feel, your intent, your approach, and your actions. All of these are within your control. But you choose and decide to take it or not.

The biggest problem many face is the lack of control. This is almost entirely external. Because you can’t control the world outside of your head, heart, and soul. All of your power is within. That’s why desired change begins from within not without.

Desired change is the will to assert control and actively change your life. It might be big, small, or anywhere in between. You have the power to do this.

Know that this is enormously positive. Why? Because that’s how you take what control you can of your life. Choosing and deciding are hugely powerful acts that can make your life quite the adventure. If the meaning of life is TO LIVE – and I am certain that it is – choosing desirable change is a key part of this.

Recognizing that desired change begins from within isn’t hard

It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.

When you recognize and acknowledge that you are the only one in your head, heart, and soul, and you can control your thoughts, feelings, actions, approach, and intentions, you can choose to make desired change to better your life. Knowing that this control lies within you, and just awaits you exercising it, you can look to do new and amazing things with and for you and your life experience.

This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.

Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred-and-fifty-eighth (558) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

The post Desired Change Begins From Within Not Without appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Well-Meaning Doesn’t Equal Welcome

Thank you for caring but…Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Do you have well-meaning people in your life? Friends, family, coworkers, people who say things to you that they intend to be helpful but, frankly, aren’t?

I do. While I know they are telling me what they do out of a genuine, good intent, they’re often missing the point and having the opposite effect.

My life is mine to live. To many people, that’s the ultimate selfish statement. Yet it’s the unabashed truth. That’s because there is nobody other than me in my head, heart, or soul.

Guess what? This is also the truth for you. You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Even when you love someone and allow them in, they are not, in truth, in your head, heart, or soul. At least not beyond your perception of that.

Well-meaning people often do and say things with what they believe is your best interest at heart. Unfortunately, since they are not and cannot be you, they miss the mark at best and cause you distress at worst.

What’s more, they often share – or spew on the regular – their well-meaning ideas in a way that’s not welcome.

What am I going on about?

A certain well-meaning person in my life loves to tell me how they came across an article, a random person, or something else that made them think of me. Specifically, that person’s perception of my struggles. Maybe, they’ll suggest, you should take a similar path and see how it works for you.

Sometimes I will mention a thing I do that is a sideline along my chosen path. Often, this is attached to my part-time work. Said well-meaning person will then suggest that maybe I should more closely explore that path because it could be a better money-maker than that which I am on.

Said well-meaning person has zero ill intent. But none of this is welcome. What’s more, this is upsetting because it tells me that despite in one breath saying they believe in me and my choices, in the next they’re saying they don’t.

See how that is extremely disheartening?

Photo by Zach Rowlandson on UnsplashWell-meaning doesn’t equal welcome

I’m fully aware that the life path I have chosen is not what society calls “normal”. I am not working a 9-5 job. My pay involves 1099 tax forms rather than W2s. The hours I keep and the way I work is not traditional or common.

Also, I recognize that I am deeply, deeply fortunate, and privileged to be able to do that. Numerous circumstances have allowed me to choose this path, and live non-traditionally, and there aren’t sufficient words I can use to express my intense gratitude for this truth.

That doesn’t change that I am only human. Ergo, it hurts when a well-meaning person says something that amounts to expressing a lack of faith and belief in me. You say one thing but do another, and everyone knows that actions (and inactions) speak louder than words.

While I appreciate your intent, and that you care, I’d really appreciate it if you gave your intent a bit more thought before you shared it with me. Because maybe you will see that your well-meaning ideas are not all that welcome.

Think (and feel) before you speak

I can do nothing to change someone else. All I can do is to ask them to give more mindful consideration to what they do and say.

Beyond that, I can practice what I preach. Thus, I need to think (and feel) things out before I speak or take other actions on my part.

This is where active conscious awareness comes into play. Mindfulness. Via mindfulness, in the here and now, you examine what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, if your approach is positive or negative, and ultimately choose your actions.

With mindfulness, you become both more aware of yourself and the world around you. Self-awareness isn’t selfish. In my experience, self-awareness is a gateway to greater overall awareness.

That’s because when you know what’s in your head, heart, and soul, the clarity expands. It becomes easier to understand the world around and without better.

Thus, you can think and feel before you speak. Is the well-meaning idea/suggestion/thought you might share going to be welcome? Or will it be harmful?

Note – you will get this wrong. There will be times you still offer something well-meaning but unwelcome. However, recognizing this, you can apologize and make amends for it when that occurs.

I can’t show someone well-meaning that their suggestion might be unwelcome, but I can practice that for myself. That ultimately empowers me, and empowerment – like clarity – can expand outwards to build better beyond myself.

Can you recognize where well-meaning might not equal welcome and use that to choose your words and deeds with care?

This is the six-hundred-sixty-ninth (669) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.

The post Well-Meaning Doesn’t Equal Welcome appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Right and Wrong Are Perceptional Constructs

They don’t necessarily mean what you think they mean.Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

One of society’s most fascinating and terrifying truths is that it has an incessant need for over-simplification. Everything is increasingly shunted to one extreme or the other. The truth, however, is that nearly everything genuinely exists in grey and colored areas between any and all given extremes.

Most people live their lives between black and white, fat and thin, wise and foolish, and every other extreme you can name. Even positivity and negativity have a vast, flexible cylinder of sensations/feelings between them.

Oh, and they themselves are not static. Today’s positive is tomorrow’s negative.

This background is important because there is another conceptual notion akin to positivity and negativity with equal flexibility. Right and wrong.

Right and wrong vary wildly, are often entirely in the eye of the beholder, shift positions, and have a vast cylinder of space for other sensations/feelings between them. They are seldom clear and rigidly defined.

Right and wrong are perceptional constructs that we often give far too much power to. They frequently are used and abused to create artificial divisions that do way too much harm.

If you don’t believe me, look at the current presidential election in the US. One side is trying to use hope to build its case while the other uses fear. One side is trying to build new bridges while the other strives to knock them down and set them ablaze. Both sides use and abuse right and wrong to divide us.

This is why it’s important to recognize that right and wrong are perceptional constructs.

What is right and wrong?

Right and wrong are loosely defined. They’re incredibly flexible. And they regularly don’t mean what you think they mean.

Right is equated with good. Positive. Morally correct. True. Facts.

Wrong is equated with bad. Negative. Amoral or immoral. False. Lies.

If only it were that simple. Because it’s not.

Murder is unacceptable because life is precious. Murder in self-defense, however, is less wrong and grey because life is precious. Stealing to increase wealth is unacceptable because it inflicts harm. Stealing to feed a starving child is less unacceptable because you are preventing harm. All are “wrong”, but the degree and perception of wrong are wildly variable.

Right is equally complex. Right is also far more narrowly defined. A job is right for you when it causes no pain and harm. It ceases to be right when it overtaxes you mentally, emotionally, physically, and/or spiritually. A piece of milk chocolate is right until your tastes change and you prefer dark chocolate. Nothing here is absolute.

Just to add another wrinkle, today a person might be right and tomorrow they might be wrong. The definition itself is changed by tons of variables. For example, person “X” who is considered good and right today becomes bad and wrong tomorrow when they hurt or harm another (whether by words, deeds, and/or actions).

Hence, right and wrong are naught but perceptional constructs. Thus, applying them to huge groups and swaths of people makes very little sense. And yet, we do.

Photo by Reinhart Julian on UnsplashRefocus and redirect

The definition of right and wrong is utterly individual. It’s how you perceive your reality. That’s also why the perception of right and wrong often runs afoul of fact.

Flat Earthers are a perfect example of this. We have factual evidence, based in science and reason, photographic proof, and eyewitness accounts from orbit that the Earth is spherical. Still, some people believe it’s not a sphere, but a flat disk. They believe they’re right and the rest of us are wrong.

There is nothing to be done for the beliefs and values of other people. Yet effort is regularly expended to impose and shift these to one way or another. This is frequently how right and wrong get used and abused.

I can’t change your perception of the Life, the Universe, and Everything. Likewise, you can’t change mine. You and I can influence one another, but each of us is the only one who can alter or change anything.

Rather than get hung up on right and wrong, refocus. Turn inwards and apply active conscious awareness, right here and now. That mindfulness empowers you to more easily and honestly choose who, what, where, how, and why you are.

Right and wrong are not as important as people make them out to be. Recognizing this, you can work on yourself by creating and maintaining your own beliefs, values, and habits. That’s where your genuine perception of right and wrong truly exists.

From there, you can make more informed choices and decisions for your life experience. That empowerment opens all sorts of avenues to freedom and less stress, frustration, and fear.

You are worthy and deserving of that.

Recognizing the artifice of right and wrong isn’t hard

It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.

When you recognize and acknowledge that right and wrong are perceptional constructs that are frequently applied without conscious awareness, you can choose and decide to use mindfulness to see what they genuinely mean to and for you. Knowing that right and wrong are artificial, you can turn your focus inwards to recognize for yourself what they might mean and decide how to apply that to your daily life.

This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.

Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred-and-fifty-seventh (557) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

The post Right and Wrong Are Perceptional Constructs appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Must It Be All or Nothing?

That depends on the situation.Photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash

Have you ever noticed that when someone decides to lose weight, start a new hobby, or make a large change in their life, they go all in? They throw their full literal or metaphoric weight into the action in an all-or-nothing shot at achieving some goal.

Why? Society and its many expectations are the likely culprits. Every commercial diet program, from Jenny Craig to Weight Watchers to Atkins tends to be all or nothing. Buy out products and stick to our regime with laser focus or fail.

Another interesting culprit might be the montage in TV and movies. You know what I mean. That stirring, inspirational music as you watch the protagonist train and go from novice to intermediate to expert in an impossibly compressed span of time? In the end, they are leaner and buffer, wiser and stronger, and the like.

All or nothing. You give your all, every iota of your attention and intention, or else you get nothing. But must it be all or nothing?

Everything in moderation

If you go on one of those diets where they “prescribe” your meals, and you follow it closely, you’ll lose the weight. The results are likely to be impressive. However, the moment you stop eating only what they offer, the weight likely will come back.

Why? Because the all-or-nothing approach of that program doesn’t do anything for your habits. You didn’t change the way you really eat, exercise, or whatever. So, in the end, you return to where you began.

In many instances, all-or-nothing skips steps and neglects to alter important elements. You jump in headfirst to get results, but often there are small steps that lead to the big results.

You can take all the dietary supplements and follow all the fads you want to lose weight. But to keep it off, you need to fundamentally change your habits. How, where, when you eat, exercise, and stress management are all factors that protein shakes and pre-prepared meals don’t address. I know, I’ve traversed that path myself multiple times.

Moderation also tends to miss a step. Exploration and examination. You get an idea, see a way to get from here to there, and launch right in – only to realize something is missing. Recognizing and acknowledging this is how you determine what moderation entails.

It’s not a lessening of action as much as it’s a check for balance. Moderation can make the difference between acting on impulse and acting on information. While the former can and does work, the latter is more sustainable and less uncertain.

Photo by J D on UnsplashAll or nothing

You can dive into a pool of water without checking its depth, but you risk seriously injuring yourself that way. Or, you can check the depth first, enter the water with more caution, or take some other step to avoid injury while still getting into that pool of water. That’s what moderation is in the face of all or nothing.

Of course, since one-size-fits-all never fits all, there are times when all or nothing is the approach to take. A perfect example I’ve seen is quitting smoking.

Full disclosure – I was never a smoker. But my wife was. When she decided to quit, she quit cold turkey. She made the choice to stop smoking, decided to not do it anymore, and has been smoke-free ever since.

I have multiple friends I’ve seen attempt to quit smoking by cutting down from “x” number of cigarettes a day to “y”. Using nicotine patches, switching to vaping, and employing other stepping stones to quit. The result? Every single one of these people is still a smoker.

All or nothing seems to be the only way to actually, factually, quit smoking. My wife isn’t the only one I know who this worked for.

So, sometimes all or nothing is the answer. However, you and only you can determine that.

How?

Mindfulness

You’re the only one in your head, heart, and soul. You, and you alone, know what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, if your approach is positive or negative, and what actions you do and don’t take.

Because you are the only one in your head, heart, and soul, you alone can make the choices and decisions to shape your life. Circumstances, environments, other people, places, and random things can and will have an impact on these. But you ultimately choose and decide when all is said and done.

This is active conscious awareness in action. Making choices and decisions is your superpower. That’s mindfulness. You decide and choose who, what, where, how, and why to be.

Sometimes this is easy, other times not so much. Circumstances, life happenings, other people, environments, and many factors you can’t control will impact you. But when it comes to being you, the power to take control via active conscious awareness – mindfulness – belongs to you alone.

Whether you use moderation or an all-or-nothing approach, you can employ mindfulness to alter your life’s trajectory, choose a given path, or take no action at all.

Can you see that it doesn’t always have to be all or nothing?

This is the six-hundred-sixty-eighth (668) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.

The post Must It Be All or Nothing? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

One Size Never Fits All

Who are you doing that for? Whose life is it anyway?Photo by Ummano Dias on Unsplash

The balance between living to work and working to live is precarious. Has it always been this way? No. But “they” want you to believe that it’s always been this way AND you can’t change it.

For example, after COVID lockdowns, work from home became a lot more popular. All the stories that those who work from home are way less productive were utterly disproven. Yet, here we are, major corporations are starting to demand workforces return to the offices. A lot of people are going to increasingly face the live-to-work/work-to-live problem as this continues.

You’ve probably been worn down most of your life. From teachers to parents to friends and even random strangers, you’ve been told how you must do “X”, “Y”, and “Z” to be a good person, contribute to society, meet expectations real and imagined, and the like.

I have a nontraditional job. Between being a writer and working part-time as a virtual assistant/copywriter/website and SEO specialist, I keep busy. For the most part, I’m content with this arrangement. I do what I do because I love to do it.

One size never fits all. I’ve tried to fit the mold. Thus, I’ve held 9-5 jobs of varying stripes, worked in several different industries, and made many an effort to be who and what “they” expected me to be.

This made me miserable.

I recognize that I’m extremely privileged, for multiple reasons, to be able to do what I do. Because of this, I strive to be of service to others and share ideas you can use to live life more on your terms.

One size never fits all

One of the biggest issues with political parties is the overarching idea that everyone falls in line. This was looser, not so long ago, but today it’s all or nothing. This is why partisanship is increasingly gumming up the works, making this rougher for everyone than necessary.

The biggest problem with societal “norms” is that no two people are alike. What makes me happy might make you miserable. I love to write; you might hate to write. Food is a source of memory and comfort for me; it might be naught but necessary sustenance for you. Music that I love might be a horrid assault on the senses for you.

“Normal” is like beauty and perfection – it exists entirely in the eye of the beholder. For example, “normal” for me, as a child, involved living with my mother 90% of the time while traveling to visit my father and/or his relatives for most holidays and school breaks. “Normal” for my wife involved extended family gatherings centered around her parents and their home for holidays, weekends, and the like. She had the same family home for 30+ years; I’ve never lived in the same house for more than 9 years or so.

We both have our definition of “normal” and couldn’t be much further apart than it is. Yet we came together and have an amazing relationship, so what does that say about the impact of “normal” for anyone?

Who are you doing that for? Whose life is it anyway?

It’s so easy to do things out of expectation. How many people live their lives in a hamster wheel? Day in, day out, because that’s what you do, right?

There are an obscene number of obstacles, reasons, excuses, explanations, and rationales for living life the way others want you to. If you don’t do as expected you’ll be shunned, voted off the island, and ultimately suffer as such.

As Paulo Coelho so beautifully states in The Alchemist,

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.”

Just about every fear everyone has is rooted not in the fear itself, but in the expectation of suffering that will occur. If what you fear comes to pass the suffering will be awful. Fear of failure is about suffering ridicule, helplessness, and the like. A fear of spiders is about them making you sick, causing you harm, and somehow hurting you. Fear of abandonment is not about being alone, it’s about the suffering of loneliness and feeling lost, disregarded, and worse.

Suffering. It all comes down to suffering. The greatest irony being that avoiding suffering tends to cause more suffering.

I worked the mind-numbing 9-5 job. Every day, I dreaded what lay ahead. For 10 or so hours of my day, I was discontent. This did a real number on my mental health.

When the opportunity to do something that made me more content came along, I took it. My life is not perfect, but then neither is anyone else’s. But who am I doing it for? Whose life is it anyway? Me and mine.

It looks selfish, right? It’s not. Because I’m the only one living in my head, heart, and soul. Likewise, you alone live in your head, heart, and soul.

Photo by Myznik Egor on UnsplashFind and/or make time for you

To have a home, internet service, food, clothing, and so on, you need to work a job. You might not have a choice but to do something you are not fond of, that grinds you down, that doesn’t satisfy you. One size never fits all. Someone else might love what you do.

The challenge is to find and/or make time for you. Do something different, make time to do something you love, be with people you enjoy spending time with, and so on. Find and/or make time for you to be your most genuine self.

You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. You alone know what makes you happy or not. Know that you are worthy and deserving of taking time to do things for you, for your mental health, for your wellness and wellbeing.

You don’t need to be what anyone else expects you to be. That can be both exciting and terrifying. No matter who you are, where you come from, or what you do, you deserve to find and/or make time for you. Since one size never fits all you deserve to have your needs and desires met.

Find and/or make time for you. One size never fits all. You don’t need to live a life of nothing but suffering, so do something that brings you joy. Inject that positivity and see what that feels like. Kick ass, take names.

Choosing for yourself because one size never fits all isn’t hard

It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.

When you recognize and acknowledge that what you desire for your life isn’t necessarily what anyone else thinks you should, you can make choices and decisions to work with that and have, be, and do more of what lights you up. Knowing that one size never fits all, you can find and/or make time for yourself and anything that brings you joy, infuses positivity into your life, and feels authentic, good, and true for you.

This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.

Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.

Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.

The better aware you are of yourself here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you for their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred-and-fifty-sixth (556) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.

Please visit here to explore all my published works – both fiction and non-fiction.

The post One Size Never Fits All appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.