M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 18

How Do Your Choices and Decisions Make You, You?

Why are choices and decisions so powerful?Photo by Minha Baek on Unsplash

You’re bombarded with frequent, loud, often overwhelming messages about conformity. Do this, be that, follow the herd, or get voted off this island Earth. Contribute as expected or be judged as lacking, wanting, and less-than.

Formal schooling is all about learning how to learn for the first 6 years or so. Then you start applying that to the actual gaining of knowledge but to a lesser degree. Facts, figures, and things necessary to pass standardized tests tend to be the focus. You’re taught history, social studies, math, and sciences at the most basic of levels.

What you’re never taught in school is how to be yourself. You’re taught to read, write, communicate with others, and be part of the machine of your given society. You’re never taught how to know yourself, basic psychology is only covered when you reach college (only if you bother with college and take any path along that line), and self-learning is not something you’re taught. Hence, many people consider their formal education complete when High School is over.

The truth of this life is that you are not just a cog in the machine. Rather, you’re a human, being. You’re capable of some pretty amazing things.

First, however, you need to address the messages of society at large, the collective consciousness, and how that impacts your life.

The automation of living subconsciously

Most of the leaders of the world – whether they’re in business, religion, or politics – prefer you and me on autopilot. Live by rote, routine, and habit, subconsciously. Be part of the accepted “norm” and maintain the status quo.

Then, to make maximum profit, they convince you to only color within the lines, fit yourself into the boxes, and be a round peg for a round hole. Don’t deviate, and your reward for the monotony is a steady paycheck and occasional perks like the newest iPhone, a vacation to somewhere exotic for a week, and of course retirement. Remember that the way it is is how it’s always been.

It doesn’t take much to recognize how much bullshit that entails. The gurus, demagogues, and supposedly elite of society aren’t better than you and me. They are not more worthy and deserving. They’ve just broken away from the herd, tasted power, and decided to hoard it for themselves and treat the rest of us like sheep. They’ve done what they tell you can’t and shouldn’t be done so that they can maintain the false control and power they perceive themselves as having.

Recognizing that you have the same power is imperative. Accessing it is easier than you realize. It’s simply a matter of employing active conscious awareness and making choices and decisions.

This is where mindfulness comes in.

Photo by Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu on UnsplashMindfulness is all about choices and decisions

Leaving the rote, routine, and subconscious living behind can be done by working with active conscious awareness.

To use active conscious awareness to make choices and decisions is a matter of mindfulness. To begin practicing mindfulness, you just need to be present, here and now. Then ask yourself what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, what direction – positive or negative – your approach is, and then take action from there.

Action often implies the physical. The truth is, it’s not literally what you do as much as it’s choices and decisions that you make.

If you’ve not been a regular maker of choices and decisions, you’d be amazed at how often you have opportunities you don’t consider. Even the most minor choices and decisions build strength to make larger and more impressive/more important things in your life. For example, how often do you really think about what you choose to wear, when and how you choose to get out of bed, what you eat, who and what you give your attention to, and other seemingly mundane matters? Odds are it’s less often than you can.

Actively choosing and deciding is how you can gain what little control over your life experience is available to you. Yet that seemingly little control is the key to being who, what, where, how, and why you desire to be.

Choices and decisions empower you

Most of the “power” claimed by leaders, gurus, demagogues, and the like is utterly false. Look at how many emphasize lack of this, scarcity of that, and insufficiency overall to create fear and drive people like a shepherd or pied piper to do their will. It’s frankly astonishing how regularly this occurs and how people just accept it as what it is.

The first step in taking the wheel to drive your life and choose your path is to exercise choices and decisions. Turn off the autopilot, and don’t let yourself follow rote and routine and habit. Instead, choose and decide things. Actively and consciously apply mindfulness to make more choices and decisions.

This is the most empowering thing you can do for yourself. You are the only you that is, and you are not just here to exist and survive this life. You’re here to experience, explore, grow, evolve, and thrive.

That’s not necessarily a grandiose notion. You don’t need to find your calling, meet your twin flame, or any other romanticized ideal for perfection. It’s simply a matter of being aware – actively consciously aware – here and now. That empowers mindfulness and grants you the control you have every right to.

This is, however, for you and you alone. You can’t do jack shit about anyone or anything else. It’s not selfish to claim a life that lights you up and gives you contentment, satisfaction, and even joy.

Choices and decisions are how you gain control on any level. You, and I mean you, are worthy and deserving of this.

So, what choices and decisions will you make today?

This is the six-hundred and forty-second (642) 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 How Do Your Choices and Decisions Make You, You? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

What’s So Positive About Getting Shit Done?

Getting shit done feels good.Photo by Alessandro Erbetta on Unsplash

When you’ve given something you’re doing a ton of focus and energy, and then finish, how does that make you feel? Have you ever put a great deal of effort into a project, and after it was done, felt a sense of elation, relief, and/or completeness?

There’s something to be said for the power of getting shit done. Yet it’s all too easy to get so caught up in the various acts of doing that getting done takes an unexpected back seat.

Yet most projects you do are going to have a beginning, middle, and an intended end. Society, unfortunately, gets hyper-focused on doing, constantly being busy, and automated work. Getting shit done? Who gets shit done when there’s always shit to do?

Yet getting shit done is hugely positive. That’s because the power of completion compels you on every level – mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically.

What’s the big deal?

All too often, the focus is on doing. The problem is, this is not directed or intentional. Instead, it’s about looking and being busy.

How many people work in an office where they’re expected to appear for at least 8 hours a day? Consider this – how much genuine time is spent working for most? How often do you look busy so the boss will leave you be?

I’ve done this. I worked at a job where, for the most part, actual work took me maybe 2 hours a day. For the other 6, however? Not so much. I needed to do busy work so that I appeared busier than I was. Additionally, I once had a job where I had to bill out at least 35 hours a week. Although some weeks this was fully legit, on others it was making up busywork.

Pretending to work is not positive. In fact, for me, it feels the opposite. I’d rather not invent time spent working because that feels like cheating or otherwise abusing my time.

This is part of why doing something and getting it done – getting shit done – is positive. Because it isn’t just about busy work, but actual work and the literal and figurative accomplishment resulting from getting it done.

It’s also super easy to make excuses for not getting shit done. While there are always one or two legit reasons not to complete something, mostly it tends to be about excuses. Also, the quest for “perfection” will frequently prevent getting shit done.

Done, however, is better than perfect. Thus, getting done and generating positivity from this is massively empowering.

Photo by Brett Jordan on UnsplashGetting shit done is empowering

When you’re getting shit done, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Possibly achievement. It feels good to say now you got that thing done.

What the thing is doesn’t matter. The act of completing work is empowering. Why? Because you did it.

The world has far too many ways to disempower you. There are so many messages of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency targeted to keep you disempowered, feeling wanting and insignificant. These are also selling you notions that your worth is less than that of someone else.

Yet you’re capable of amazing things. Hence why getting shit done is proof positive. You feel accomplished, empowered, and good. That, in turn, can lead you to seeking and finding more empowerment by getting more shit done.

You’re worthy and deserving

No matter the messages to the contrary, you are worthy and deserving of being, doing, having, and all other desires for your life experience. One way this is proven is that you have gotten shit done before, so you can do it again.

Think back on how it felt to get that thing done. You deserve that feeling and overall sense of wellbeing again. What’s more, you need not be better, happier, or whatever else. You are, and that alone makes you worthy and deserving.

What’s more, the degree of difficulty involved in what you get done is not important. Just getting out of bed in the morning totally counts, for example. That’s because you, and you alone, can do this.

Truth is, everything you can do is part of your story and what makes you, you. You’re worthy of that. You’re deserving of it, too. Kick ass, take names, and be the best you that you can be, and revel in getting shit done when you do.

Recognizing what’s positive about getting shit done 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 it feels good and creates a sense of wellbeing in you to get shit done, you can put the necessary focus and energy into any and all projects you’re working on to get them done. Knowing that this positive sense from getting shit done creates is something positive that you’re worthy and deserving of, you can use this as leverage to improve your life experience and get more things done.

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 more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can 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 in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred and thirty-first (531) 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 What’s So Positive About Getting Shit Done? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

You Might Get Broken, But You Won’t be Beaten

Not unless you give up or choose to give in to suffering.Photo by Tom Claes on Unsplash

Life is unpredictable in so many ways. One moment, everything can be dark, distressing, and deeply unpleasant. Then, the next moment, it can be brilliant, exciting, and deeply joyful. Most of the time life falls somewhere between these extremes.

The modern world is obsessed with extremes. So many things are viewed as either/or, rather than the far vaster middle between them. It’s all black or white, never mind the shades of grey and myriad of colors between the opposite poles. Most people live somewhere between the poles, no matter what opposites you’re looking at.

One Size Fits All never fits all. Yet you’re constantly bombarded by messages to conform, to find your accepted place in society, and to be a cog in the machine.

When I began to develop my Pathwalking philosophy, it was because I have never been a good cog in the machine. Corporate America and I rarely have seen eye to eye. Once, when I was told that management wanted the input of us common workers, I gave it. That did not go well, and it made me suspect and a nonconformist in the eyes of management. It was no surprise to me when I was increasingly scrutinized, written up for ridiculous infractions, and summarily fired.

Though it wasn’t literal, I was broken by this. Not badly, not permanently. Yet getting fired is akin to getting broken.

I was not, however, beaten. This would lead me to learn and grow beyond what I thought possible before.

The hits just keep on coming

In my 20s and 30s, I went through a lot of wobbly, sometimes outright fucked-up relationships. While one or two were mostly about the women I dated, the majority of the troubles were of my making.

I suffered what you might call “The Grass is Always Greener” syndrome. Or, arguably, the more current take on this notion is FOMO. What if, while I’m with her, a better her comes along? What if by being committed to this one, that one presents herself and I miss out on her? How can I close myself off to what might be, and might be better?

Yeah, it was far uglier than that. Frankly, it’s a wonder to me I’m on as good terms as I am with many of my exes. Though you might argue that I was doing the breaking, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t being broken along the way.

Yet despite this, I was never beaten. In time, I learned from my mistakes (admittedly, sometimes after making them a half-dozen times or so) and began having better relationships. Now, I’m married, and we have phenomenal communication and agree to be genuine and honest about our needs. That’s part of why we’re polyamorous.

Then there was my career path. That, in my 20s and 30s, was possibly as messy as my relationships were. My college degree didn’t pave the way for my career, as getting work in theatre and radio became unappealing and overly challenging. So I didn’t pursue either. Between graduating college and turning 40, I held at least 10 different jobs. Some I quit, while I was also laid off and fired along the way.

Getting fired and laid off is a form of getting broken. Was I beaten? No.

You might get broken, but you won’t be beaten, unless…

When it comes to your mental, emotional, and spiritual health, wellness, and wellbeing, lots of things might break you along the way.

It’s easy to focus on and pay attention to getting broken physically. However, since that’s only a quarter of your whole, holistic being, it gets far more attention than it’s due.

This is a large part of why the nation, if not the world, is in the middle of a rather massive mental health crisis. Much energy and attention is given to the physical body, but the mental, emotional, and spiritual? They’re left to fend for themselves.

You’re taught throughout your youth to care for your body in numerous ways. Diet, exercise, dental care, hair and skin care, all of these get tons of focus and you’re taught to mind them. This is not true of your intangible, other elements of your being, however.

Thus, stress, fear, anxiety, depression, and uncertainty are invisible illnesses that silently attack the physical via the mental, emotional, and spiritual. This can become quickly overwhelming, especially if you fall for the messages of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency, then turn outwards to solve these matters.

However, the first step to any healing when you’re broken starts within. Physically, you stop doing that thing that’s causing you pain, call the doctor, visit the urgent care, and so on. What can you do mentally, emotionally, and spiritually? Mindful conscious awareness is the key.

You might be broken mentally, emotionally, spiritually, or even physically; but you won’t be beaten unless you allow yourself to be. That might be harsh, but it’s the truth. You can apply mindfulness to start anew, learn new things, grow, and change. Or not, and be beaten and resigned to whatever.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on UnsplashIt’s all about mindfulness and choice

You have more power than you probably realize.

When you get broken physically, fixing the damage is usually direct. Bandages, casts, surgeries, and other familiar modes are used to repair the damage.

Mental, emotional, and spiritual damage is another matter. There is no One True Way for everyone, with one exception. Active conscious awareness, i.e., mindfulness.

Mindfulness practice of this sort begins with becoming consciously aware of what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, the positivity or negativity of your life approach, and what you are or aren’t doing. In this way, you can become fully consciously aware of who, what, where, how, and why you are.

Thus, you gain insight into the intangible elements of your health, wellness, and wellbeing. When these are broken, mindfulness is where you learn what damage has been done and what you need to do to fix it.

So, you might (and let’s face it, most probably will) get broken in one or more of the elements of your health, wellness, and wellbeing along the way. However, you won’t be beaten unless you allow yourself to be.

Broken but not beaten is a choice

Some challenges will feel insurmountable in this life. Shit happens outside of your control that is painful, hurts, and might feel unending. Due to the inevitability of the only constant in the universe – change – this is unavoidable.

So long as you are here, drawing breath, and capable of independent thought, feeling, action, and intention, you won’t be beaten. Unless you allow yourself to be.

Beaten means giving up, giving in, and losing faith in yourself. You’re beaten when you decide you’ve had enough, lose your desire to keep on keeping on, and stop trying.

This is NOT, for the record, the same as consciously choosing to quit something and move on. Nor is it surrendering to being unable to do something without learning a thing you don’t know yet. Being beaten is deciding you have no power, are too broken to move on, and that life sucks and nothing can bring you joy.

Everyone gets broken along the way. That’s the nature of the human condition. So long as you live, you can recover. It might not be total. Who, what, where, how, and even why you are might be very different on the other side. Yet, you are not beaten when you’re broken – unless you let yourself be beaten.

There are always resources to help you heal. No matter how you’re broken – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually – something is available to you to aid your recovery. It might be a matter of physical therapy, psychotherapy, pharmacology, meditation, twelve-step programs, conversation, journaling, or a combination of some or all of the above – and other helpful options. You are not beaten unless you choose to be, and you can get help and healing from without to repair what’s broken within.

You are unconditionally worthy and deserving

Please recognize that you are unconditionally worthy and deserving. You, me, that asshole running for office, those idiots on the road, and everyone is a human that’s being, living in a crazy world. You are not them, they are not you, and you need not be anyone or anything more than you are to be worthy and deserving of going on.

When you get broken you are not beaten unless you allow yourself to be. Unconditionally, you are worthy and deserving of making choices and decisions to heal on any and all levels necessary. You don’t need to lose 20 pounds, buy the iPhone, learn a new language, or any other conditions to be worthy of being a human being.

Recognizing this, you’ll see how when you’re broken, you’re not beaten. It might be challenging, it might take time and effort. Yet you deserve to recover from it and are worthy of healing, whatever that requires.

Do you see how you might get broken, but aren’t beaten unless you choose to be?

This is the six-hundred and forty-first (641) 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 You Might Get Broken, But You Won’t be Beaten appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Can Negativity Possibly Be Empowering?

Negativity is an unexpected teacher.Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

Positivity, the opposite of negativity, is empowering. In a fear-based society, overloaded with fake lack, scarcity, and insufficiency, positivity is necessary. There is, however, a catch. You can’t have positivity without negativity.

The mistake that toxic positivity makes is its utter denial of negativity. Toxic positivity tells you to blot out negativity, ignore it, put blinders on to it, avoid it, and disregard it. That is, however, impossible. Shit happens. No matter who you are, you’ll experience loss, grief, pain, suffering, and all the negatives you can conceive of.

Genuine positivity recognizes the need for negativity. Yes, you read that correctly – positivity needs negativity. You and I live in a universe of paradoxes, opposites, and nuances where you can never eliminate any one thing for another. Thus, positivity does, in fact, need negativity.

This is because positivity is a creator to negativities destroyer. It’s about high and low frequencies, which all energies vibrate at. There will always be a range of frequencies from low to high and everywhere in between.

The black and white of extremes and opposites gets most of the focus in our society. They are, however, extremes and opposites. They don’t exist directly apart from one another. There’s a wide range of greys and colors between any extremes.

Black and white aren’t the only colors. Light and dark aren’t the only illumination options. Up and down has much between them. Pick any opposite extremes, there’s something between them.

What’s more, they’re seldom stable. Yesterday’s good is tomorrow’s bad. For example, JK Rowling. When she came onto the scene with books getting tons more kids reading, she was good. Now, identified as a TERF and probable antisemite, she’s bad.

Hence, negativity isn’t always bad or disempowering.

Are you confused?

I write here about positivity every week. In these essays, I’m espousing the power of positivity for empowerment and how much the world needs more.

Isn’t the idea that negativity isn’t always bad or disempowering contradictory? This is a question of context.

The unavoidable reality of life is that bad things can, will, and do happen. Some are, relatively speaking, minor. Overcrowded airplanes, car accidents, getting something other than what you ordered, and the like. Others are not so minor, not so major, like getting fired, getting dumped, losing friends, and the like. Then you get the major bad things, like death, disfiguration, serious injury, and so forth.

When it comes to how you react to negative events, there’s no One Size Fits All measure. A car accident might traumatize one person the same way the death of a pet or other loved one traumatizes another. This is not as important as recognizing the overall reality of negativity, and that it can, will, and does occur.

Toxic positivity tells you that negativity in all forms is bad and should be ignored or avoided. Genuine positivity, however, recognizes and acknowledges reality, and that bad/negative things are part of life for everyone.

Initially, bad/negative things suck. They’re unpleasant, disempowering in the moment of their happening (and for a variable time after), and are unwanted. There’s nothing good about bad/negative things when they occur.

It’s how long you allow them to impact you where the trouble lies, or empowerment begins.

How can negativity possibly be empowering?

At the time of the bad or negative thing that occurs, no matter the scale, you’re utterly present and in the moment. You inadvertently find yourself in the now, which just so happens to be the only time that’s really, truly, real.

When you learn of or witness a death, get dumped, experience a car accident, or whatever, the moment it occurs you’re wholly present. The thoughts, feelings, and emotions of that moment are mindful, although they might be unintentional (thus, not entirely consciously aware. Akin to all the elements that go into driving a car).

Immediately after the bad/negative thing, chances are you will stay in a negative place. You feel bad, angry, sad, hurt, frightened, distressed, lost, confused, and/or other negative emotions or combinations of them. At the time of the bad/negative thing and for an immediate time after it, you’ll find yourself immersed in negativity.

However, you can choose not to stay there. This might take hours, days, weeks, even months and years before you’re willing and able to choose. However, you can choose.

Some people disbelieve that. Shit happened, life sucks, it’ll suck forever, fuck it all. You might have done this before. Yet you can always choose to leave the victim/wounded mentality at any time.

Whatever happened, happened. However long it sucks, it sucks. Yet you have the power to learn from the negativity. You can take what happened and make something new from it.

Thus, instead of being wounded or victimized by the bad/negative thing that happened, you can use it as the impetus for growth and change.

So long as you are drawing breath and alive, you’re capable of choosing new paths, making changes, and taking lessons from negative happenings to empower yourself to change things.

Photo by Juan Jose on UnsplashYou empower you

Empowerment is not something that comes from without. It begins inside of you. Being empowered is a product of active conscious awareness. You know, mindfulness.

This is accomplished by being present, here and now, and consciously aware of what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, if your approach to things is from a place of positivity or negativity, your intentions, and what actions you do or don’t take. Practicing mindfulness uses these elements of your inner mindset/headspace/psyche self to analyze both your present surroundings (inside and outside of yourself) and your subconscious beliefs, values, and habits.

From there, you can make choices and directions to take the wheel and assume control of your life experience.

Contrary to politicians, business leaders, religious leaders, and some teachers and gurus, nobody can make choices and decisions for you and your life. You empower you. When negative/bad things happen, and you find yourself in a place of negativity, you can choose to change that.

Thus, when shit happens and you’ve had that bad/negative experience, you’re empowered, ultimately, to learn from it. Then, you can seek to grow, change, and evolve from it. Or not. The choice is, after all, yours.

Finally, you are worthy and deserving of this. You’re not merely here to survive but to thrive and experience all the potential and possibilities that life has to offer. This is an abundant universe you live in, despite the many messages of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency. Truly, all the intangibles are abundant beyond your imagination, and any tangibles can be replaced or substituted for in some way.

Understanding how negativity can be empowering 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 shit happens, and negative/bad things are unavoidable, you can position yourself to allow yourself to feel bad, while also learning from the negative/bad experience after it’s happened. Knowing that you can learn something from anything that happens, good, bad, or otherwise, you can see how you’re better able to deal with the unexpected and find lessons you can learn to grow and evolve.

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 more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can 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 in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred and thirtieth (530) 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 How Can Negativity Possibly Be Empowering? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Does Everything Come With A Lesson?

Learning is essential to your life experience.Photo by Soundtrap on Unsplash

Everything you do, everything that just happens, every experience you have, anyone you meet, anywhere you go, will teach you a lesson. Some lessons don’t manifest immediately, others are instantaneous, and still others appear one way but turn out to be another.

Even the greatest minds to ever live, the smartest, wisest, and most educated on the planet today, and those who are yet to come can’t and don’t know everything. Nobody can know everything.

You are always learning, actively or passively. Many people choose not to be conscious of this and prefer to hold onto a specific set of data points and nothing else. That’s how you get bias, prejudice, stereotypes, racism, sexism, and outright hatred for the “other”, the unknown, and uncertainty.

Formal education is broken into two distinct parts. The first, earliest in your life, teaches you how to gather information and how to learn. Reading, writing, basic math, and listening skills are all taught to schoolchildren around the globe. This is the learning how to learn phase.

The second part, starting around middle school, is learning practical things about history, sciences, sociology, social studies, advanced math, and other similar specific notions and concepts. You start to use the first-part skills to genuinely learn specific, targeted things.

Unfortunately, you are never taught how to self-analyze. No formal education I’m familiar with ever goes into individual understanding of the self. Frankly, so much of it is groupthink and normalization of living to meet societal expectations, that it’s less surprising people fall for demagogues, false prophets, snake-oil salesmen, and lying faux-billionaires spewing bullshit than it should be.

Beyond formal education, however, you’re still learning, consciously or subconsciously. The lessons, however, aren’t always obvious.

Living on autopilot still involves learning

If you look at the messages of world leaders and the like, you should keep your head down, working for someone “better, smarter, and/or richer” than you, accepting you get only weekends off, and happiness in small doses at best. If you’re lucky, you can retire at 60. Sorry, 65. Nope, belay that, 70. Or should that be 75?

The ever-insistent “they” of society prefers you on autopilot. Get swept up not in the current of The Void or The Flow State, but instead in the rote, routine, and habitual. Take your place as a cog in the machine.

Living on autopilot as “they” prefer, you’re still learning. However, the lessons you learn are less obvious and more indirect. That’s because living by rote, routine, habit, and via autopilot are subconscious acts.

Everyone has three minds. Unconscious, subconscious, and conscious.

The unconscious mind is how your neurons fire to make your muscles do things, your heart beat, your lungs breathe, digestive system process food, and so on. You have zero control over this, save altering the depth of your breathing and slowing or speeding up your heart.

The subconscious mind is where your memories, values, beliefs, and habits live. You can access them at will, but that requires a conscious act. Similarly, you can act to change anything in your subconscious mind, but that’s where you get to the conscious mind.

The conscious mind is your inner mindset/headspace/psyche self, as you perceive it here and now. Via the conscious mind, you can access the subconscious to make changes, create new habits, review old memories, and so on.

Lessons learned while subconscious tend to have a delayed impact when something unintended activates your conscious mind. Unless YOU activate it.

Learning any lesson consciously

When you are actively consciously aware, working from your conscious mind, you’re in control. It’s you who chooses what to focus on, what you’re doing, and who, what, where, how, and why you are overall.

Pathwalking is all about being in the here and now, consciously aware, and using mindfulness to choose your life path. It involves breaking away from groupthink, societal expectations, and doing what “they” prefer you do.

That’s not to say that you must reject these ideas. They might, in fact, be perfect for you. The real issue isn’t rejecting norms as much as it is choosing them for yourself. Actively, consciously, with analysis and consideration.

You always have a choice. Allow yourself to be on autopilot and live subconsciously – or – take the wheel and drive/fly your life per your choices and decisions.

Because you’re human, you will shift between conscious and subconscious living. There are times when your mind needs to revert to rote, routine, and habit to process things like loss, sudden change, chaos, and uncertainty. The trouble with this is allowing it to be your normal, regular, unchecked way of being.

Realistically, practicing mindfulness and choosing to learn lessons consciously is how you’re empowered to be your most genuine, best, truest self. A large part of this involves accepting this truth: The one and only constant in the Universe is change. It can, will, and does occur no matter what you desire. Recognizing and acknowledging this is important to choosing the impact any given change will have on you.

You’ll note that I’ve yet to answer the question posed at the start of this article. Why does everything come with a lesson? Now you have the background necessary to take in the answer.

Photo by Julie Romaniuk on UnsplashWhy does everything come with a lesson?

If, as I postulate, the Meaning of Life is TO LIVE, then you must define what it means TO LIVE. This is conceptually simple: TO LIVE is to have experiences, do things, try things, make things, explore things, and seek out potential and possibilities to grow and expand. Or, in the simplest of terms, learn things.

Thus, everything comes with a lesson because that’s what life is all about. When all is said and done you grow, evolve, and learn throughout your life. Who you were and what you knew as a child, through various life experiences and lessons learned isn’t who you are or what you know today. Likewise, who you are and what you know today will be alien to who you will be and what you’ll know a decade from now.

Everything comes with a lesson, whether absorbed subconsciously or sought out consciously, because that’s life. New things are learned from experiences, reading, watching, doing, absorbing, and all sorts of similar concepts.

You live, you learn, and there are always lessons occurring. Some are small, subtle, and barely noticed. Others are ginormous, and deeply painful or incredibly enlightening. Everything you experience comes with a lesson.

Why? So that you can grow, evolve, change, and experience. This can be consciously chosen or subconsciously absorbed. The choice, however, is yours.

Formal schooling is never the end

Experiencing life is one big lesson. You’re here, in your body, to do just that. You’re here now, amid this amazing technology and a world with potential and possibilities for more people than ever before.

Unfortunately, many people believe learning stops when formal education does. You know all you need, and you only “learn” things utterly relevant to work, family, and the like. You’re done, someone else will guide you.

This false belief keeps people accepting that they have a specific lot in life. You have a singular destiny to accept, someone else will be your guide – a person, a business, a government, or even a God – and you must accept that.

If that’s true, explain to me any successful entrepreneur without a college degree? What about the person who was raised without privilege that becomes a success? How about anyone who chooses the arts? You’re not less than anyone who has chosen to break from the expected, the norm, and such.

That’s because you’re always learning, every day. The difference between those who achieve and those who simply exist is mindfully choosing conscious awareness over subconscious autopilot. One way to do that is to recognize that formal schooling isn’t the end of learning lessons by any stretch of the imagination.

You’re forever capable of growth, evolution, and change. Everything comes with a lesson to show you this (or, not to put too fine a point on it, teach you this). You can embrace this truth and seek learning or reject it and let the autopilot drive your life. Here and now, you can choose.

What lesson do you desire to learn today?

This is the six-hundred and fortieth (640) 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 Does Everything Come With A Lesson? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Can Anger Generate Positivity and Empowerment?

Recognize, acknowledge, choose, and do.Photo by Rachel Ellis on Unsplash

Despite the many flaws and awful dialogue in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Yoda utters one extremely deep and useful nugget of wisdom.

“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”

Just about everything you do is inadvertently checked by our fear-based society. The bombardment of messages telling you to fear this, fear that, be afraid of them, and on and on, quickly overwhelms you. Much of that fear targets your sense of lack, scarcity, insufficiency, and suffering as a result.

A frequent path many find themselves on as a result of this is to anger. It’s very easy to get angry about real and perceived problems, slights, challenges, and so on. Anger can be a dangerous thing when it leads to violence, destruction, and the like. If anger leads to hate, as Yoda warns, suffering is sure to follow.

Anger is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. The trouble with anger is, unrecognized and unacknowledged, the most typical course can be anger to hate to suffering. That’s because most fear is not about a given thing you’re afraid of.

For example, a fear of falling has nothing to do with the fall itself. The fear of falling is the suffering that will result from the fall. Injuries, broken bones, and death are some heavy suffering, and that’s what you fear. Likewise, fear of spiders isn’t about the arachnids themselves, but how they might bite you, harm you, and cause pain and suffering.

Even intangibles aren’t the fear itself, but the fear of suffering. Fear of failure and success both tend to be suffering involving abandonment, loss, and loneliness.

When fear leads to anger, what comes next is a matter of choice.

Anger as a motivator

Anger can be a truly wondrous motivator. It can open your eyes to inadequacies in yourself and outside of yourself, spur you into action, and get your creative juices flowing.

Everyone does this subconsciously from time to time. You’ve done it. Someone told you a thing couldn’t be done, you lacked a talent, there wasn’t enough of something, or some other statement was made that you reacted to with anger, but that anger was the spark that got you moving.

Fear leads to anger, and that’s the truth. However, where it leads is a choice you get to make. Does anger lead you to hate and suffering, or motivate you to action and accomplishment?

That’s the choice you face when fear turns to anger. Motivate and do something with it or let it make you hateful?

This is the first part of turning anger into positivity. Anger as a motivator is an act of active conscious awareness. Yes, I’m talking about mindfulness, of course.

Mindfulness is being aware of who, what, where, how, and why you are, here and now. In this present moment, you take responsibility for accountability and focus on being aware. Aware specifically of what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what you intend, if your approach is positive or negative, and the actions you take.

Anger can be a motivator to lead to action and accomplishment. That’s done via 4 simple steps.

Recognize, acknowledge, choose, and do

Applying these steps is a matter of mindfulness. This can be done only in the present, and it is empowering and powerful.

It begins when you recognize anger. Active conscious awareness analyzes thoughts and feelings, telling you, “I’m angry.” Anger can be mistaken for other things, that’s why the first step to converting anger to positivity is recognition.

Next, acknowledge that you’re angry. All too often, you’ve been told anger is bad and should be avoided. But avoiding anger doesn’t make it go away. In truth, avoiding it often makes it grow bigger, more negative, and ultimately leads to hate. Hence, it’s not enough to recognize, but you need to acknowledge anger. “I’m angry, and I can’t/won’t deny it.”

Now comes the part where you break from Yoda’s cycle. Anger leads to hate when it remains negative, unrecognized, and unacknowledged. However, that hate might be directed inwards as much as outwards. It can take the form of low-level seething to outright destructive tendencies. Why do you think politicians love weaponizing hate? They know how to manipulate your fear of suffering.

It need not be that way. You can choose to use anger for motivation. Don’t allow it to lead to hate, instead, choose to use the energy of your anger to motivate change. “I’m angry, and I can’t/won’t deny it. I choose to use that to motivate making change.”

Once you’ve recognized, acknowledged, and chosen to use anger to motivate you to action, do it. Intentionally take action to use the energy to do something positive to create change.

Important caveat: This can be applied to you, and you alone, Yes, it can impact the greater good or the world at large. However, it can only be about changing your being/doing and the like.

Empowerment for change

The final statement from the application of the above, and using anger to motivate change, generate positivity, and empower you is “I’m angry, and I can’t/won’t deny it. I choose to use that to motivate making change. I’m doing it here and now.”

Photo by Ty Williams on Unsplash

You can fall down the path to the dark side by allowing, subconsciously, your fear to turn to anger, then lead to hate and result in suffering.

– OR –

You can consciously recognize fear turning to anger, acknowledge it, and then choose to act for your own good with the motivation of anger to do something that leads to an accomplishment/achievement.

Anger can be destructive, but it can also be a powerful tool of empowerment. You, and you alone, have the ability to use it for your own good. That can further lead to doing more for the greater good. Why? Because empowered people become beacons of light in the dark of this fear-based society. Inspiration inspires. Empowerment empowers.

You will get angry. It’s inevitable. However, it’s not so black and white as the path to the dark side. Not when you choose to apply it to motivate your actions.

Using anger to generate positivity 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 fear has led you to anger, you can choose to continue towards hate and suffering or instead recognize it, acknowledge it, choose to do something, and then take action to accomplish/achieve something positive. Knowing that you have the power to choose if anger will be negative or positive, you can use anger to motivate change and make improvements to 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 more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can 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 in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred and twenty-ninth (529) 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 How Can Anger Generate Positivity and Empowerment? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Nobody Starts at the Top of Their Game

Everybody starts as a beginner.Photo by IIONA VIRGIN on Unsplash

Every great began as a beginner. Whether they were a leader, writer, painter, artist, athlete, or whatever, they started as a beginner.

Nobody enters any given field as an expert. Nobody.

Yes, some people advance quicker than others. This is dependent on inherent skill and/or talent, how they learn, how fast they learn, natural ability, and all sorts of other factors along the way.

Still, even those who have the most gifts and innate proficiencies begin as beginners. Nobody starts at the top of their game.

Unfortunately, there’s a loud false narrative about the latently able starting at the top. Star athletes who appear to have arrived at their peak, the incredibly rare first-time writer creating a best-seller, the artist painting a masterpiece on the first go, and the like. These wunderkinds are held in high regard and even the expected standard all others must meet.

Yet even they started as a beginner. That part just gets ignored, glossed over, and disregarded for the present amazingness presented.

It’s okay when you don’t get it right at the start

There are, of course, numerous stories of people making lots and lots and lots of attempts before succeeding. The painter creating dozens of unnoticed works before being discovered and celebrated. The actor taking bit part after commercial after bit part before the breakout role making them a household name. The author writing for magazines, writing stories no publisher with touch, over and over before producing that best-seller.

All of them have the same thing in common. Each and every one of them begins as a beginner. Nobody starts at the top of their game.

Some of the most successful people in history endured tons of failures, false starts, and other challenges on the way to their success. They tried and failed and chose to keep working. They didn’t do the half-assed, half-hearted “try” Yoda warns against in my favorite quote,

“Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”

They do. It’s an attempt, but an action that is doing rather than half-assed trying. They give it their all, and when it fails, they learn what they can from their failure before making the next attempt. Sometimes the failure itself is a lesson that leads to ultimate success.

The process is never the same for any creation, discovery, recognition, or success. The process, however, is similar.

Thought leads to idea à Idea leads to actionable item à Actionable item leads to action à Action leads to learning from success or failure.

All these steps are the same for everyone. It’s how many times you take action that varies. Nobody starts at the top of their game as an expert. Everybody starts as a beginner.

The top of their game isn’t necessarily THE top

Several people in the world are referred to as the GOAT – the Greatest of All Time. They’re held as the top of the top of the game. They’re the Gold Standard for achievement, success, and amazingness.

Yet someday another will claim that title. The GOAT of 2024 can’t hold a candle to the GOAT of 2044. They did something the 2024 greatest could hardly imagine to make them the new Greatest of All Time.

Ergo, the top of their game isn’t THE top. It’s the top of their game in this moment. This moment just happens to be the only time that’s really, truly, genuinely real.

The GOATs all began as beginners. Not a single one of them appeared on the scene fully formed, greater than any other, ever. Holding them up as the pinnacle of achievement is often touted as inspiring. Yet frequently it has the exact opposite effect.

See the Greatest of All Time over there? They’ve done it. They’re the best. You should sit down, give up, and move on because you can’t be them. They’ve done it, they’re at the top, and there’s no room at the top.

This is a lie. The top of anyone’s game isn’t the one and only, singular top of the game. Being a best-selling author doesn’t mean you’re the best writer that there is. It means you’re at the top of your game, which is your genre. What’s more, you’re one of many bestsellers past and present.

The trouble comes when you are convinced that someone else reaching the top of their game – if it’s anything like your game – means you have already lost out. However, that’s simply not true.

Photo by Lê Tân on UnsplashPractice, practice, practice

The classic joke goes like this. “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.”

The truth behind this joke is that to reach the top of your game you need to work your way up from the bottom. However, while there are always roadmaps available, no two people have the same exact journey.

Also, change being the one and only constant in the Universe, the successful trek of yesterday might be quite a bit different today.

For example, I started participating in medieval fencing in 1991. When I began, I was about as athletic as your average inanimate carbon rod, just larger and heavier. Still, I found something I desired to excel at. I practiced, I learned. Along the way, I improved. Then I got hit by a car crossing a street. After a year of recovery, I was back at it fencing. I practiced, I learned. Along the way, I improved.

Around 2006, I reached the top of my game. My game. I received a coveted award in recognition of that. Since then, a new pinnacle, a higher award of recognition has come into being. If I desire to achieve it, I need to reach a new top of my game. That requires practice, more practice, and yet more practice. I also accept that the top of my game isn’t going to be the top of THE game. And that’s utterly okay.

I’ve published a dozen sci-fi and fantasy novels. None have been best-sellers. Yet. More writing is more practice, and when I fail, I strive to learn from that and keep following the actionable lead to take action.

Practice, practice, practice. However, there’s an important factor to address when it comes to going from beginner to the top of the game.

Mindfulness to reach the top of their game

Very seldom, almost impossibly seldom, does someone luck into the top of their game. Unplanned success and achievement at any given thing is almost mythical, like dragons. The actor getting discovered sitting at a lunch counter, the screenwriter’s half-formed and unwritten pitch, or the artist with one random splatter-painted piece selling for millions and becoming an immediate star or sensation are rarer than rare.

Nobody truly starts at the top of their game. They do the work, they attempt and have small successes or failures, and they make new attempts again and again until they succeed. That action isn’t chance or luck or random happenstance. It’s mindfulness.

Active conscious awareness is mindfulness. What that means is you do your work not by rote and routine, but by active, conscious process. You have the idea. You think about how to turn that idea into reality. Then you feel it out and form the process, setting your intention. With a positive approach for achievement, you take action and start to create.

Mindfulness is how anyone and everyone reaches the top of their game. Intentional actions, fueled by thoughts, feelings, and a directed positive approach are how everything is created, tangible or intangible. The actors and singers actively find their voices. Authors and artists find their muses. Scientists pursue their theorems. Random success from zero, starting at the top of their game, isn’t how it happens.

There’s another factor to consider here as well.

Success at the top of their game or your game is variable

Measuring success gets challenging when you’re bombarded by false success. Take, for example, the “billionaire” so many hold up as this amazing success, yet he can’t afford to post a bond or pay for his mounting legal troubles.

Measuring success is a highly individual matter. What’s more, success is different for every individual.

As a writer, yes, I’d love to be a best-seller. That isn’t, however, the success I strive for, first and foremost. Success begins when I finish a book. It continues when I publish a book. Then success is the sales of that book.

This is the last part of the myth is that people can start at the top of their game. Truly, they don’t, because everyone starts as a beginner. Ergo, everyone grows, learns, evolves, and improves their craft via practice and mindful work.

Maybe you’re a beginner, maybe in the middle, or maybe at the top of your game. Wherever you are, mindfulness is the key to getting where you desire to go.

Do you see why nobody starts at the top of their game?

This is the six-hundred and thirty-ninth (639) 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 Starts at the Top of Their Game appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Is Genuine Gratitude Always Positive?

Tangible or intangible, big or small, gratitude is always empowering.Photo by Mark Casey on Unsplash

There is no such thing as negative gratitude. Sure, there’s false gratitude, but that’s not gratitude. Genuine, true, real gratitude is always positive.  

Genuine gratitude is an expression of appreciation. Appreciation is a direct pathway to kindness, compassion, and empathy. Everyone, everywhere, desires kindness, compassion, and empathy (sometimes inappropriately jealously, which is how we get so many who want it but refuse to give it. But I digress).

Kindness, compassion, and empathy are strengths, not weaknesses. Contrary to the narrative of certain demagogues, kindness, compassion, and empathy build strength, connectivity, and make us all better, not weaker. They are also in abundant supply, with more than enough to go around for everyone, everywhere, and more.

Saying thank you, giving thanks, and offering gratitude are all positive, empowering acts. What’s more, they are just as powerful when given as when received.

Gratitude can do no harm in and of itself. It’s only harmful when people demand or expect it, abuse those who give it, or it’s not genuine gratitude.

The reason why genuine gratitude is always positive is because it’s so intimately connected with all things positive, no matter their size, shape, construction, type, tangibility, or intangibility.

Why does gratitude being positive matter?

The short answer is that we live in a fear-based society. The long answer is that our fear-based society is just the tip of the iceberg.

Because ours is a consumer-driven, capitalistic society, a major driving force of that is the creation of artificial lack, scarcity, and insufficiency. Brand “X” tells you their product is in limited supply. If you don’t rush to the store RIGHT THE HELL NOW and buy it, you won’t get it. When you don’t get the product, you will suffer, be lacking, humiliated, and shamed. Also, you not getting the product will make you less than your next-door neighbor, less than the rich guy who owns the brand, and worst of all, less than the “other” who will not only show off the product you didn’t get, they will keep you from ever getting it or any other. Are you suffering yet or are you on your way to the store to buy it now?!?

Does this look familiar? Brand “X” and their product might be Apple and the iPhone, DeBeers and diamonds, Exxon and gasoline, or the like. All are sold as being can’t-live-without products, tangibles that will make your life better somehow.

Meeting tangible desires is all well and good and can be worthwhile. However, they’re not our true desire. Sure, we might believe that having a 64” OLED TV and a big house to put it in will make us feel good. Yet realistically, any such feeling they produce is fleeting.

That’s because it’s really all about the intangibles. Modern consumerism prefers us all too distracted to give proper due. That’s what frequently trips us up, and why applied gratitude being a source of positivity matters. We have an infinite number of intangibles we can be genuinely grateful for.

Tangibles versus intangibles

Are kindness, compassion, and empathy tangibles? No. Neither are any other thoughts, feelings, emotions, or other internal processes tied to our mental, emotional, and/or spiritual selves.

What most people desire, more than things, is experiences. We desire to create memories, have inspiring thoughts, and good feelings. That’s why we buy tangible things that we think will lead to that.

Everyone does have basic needs. We all need food, clothing, shelter, and connection. In this modern world, we also need running water, electricity, a means of connectivity, transportation, and currency to pay for everything.

There are other things that we like to have. Sometimes, the basic food, shelter, and clothing are too basic. Given the choice between a mobile phone that can only make calls versus a phone that can call and text versus a smartphone, most people now opt for the latter.

The tangibles are sold to us as being the creators of our joy, peace, prosperity, contentment, and so on. Hence, they’ll sell you on the iPhone making you more content and happier than the Samsung phone. Ah, but which carrier? And how bad will you miss out and feel shame if you choose wrong?

The above, however, emphasizes how the intangibles matter more than the tangibles. That’s because the tangibles are manifestations or reflections of the intangibles that we truly desire.

Photo by frank mckenna on UnsplashThe beyond-abundant intangibles

Our truest desires are for intangibles like joy, contentment, excitement, happiness, and other positive sensations. This is why every guru, self-help aficionado, and therapist tells us that gratitude for what we have is the key to getting more. This, however, doesn’t need to be about tangibles or even big things.

You have, right where you are, all kinds of things for which you can be genuinely grateful. Right now. Most are completely intangible, or if not, are often taken for granted,

What am I writing about? Here are examples of all kinds of things you can be grateful for, right now.

Your beating heartBreathingThe eyes to read these wordsCloudsSunlightMoonlightRainThe smell of freshly baked cookiesThe purr of a catThe unrestrained laughter of a child

This should give you a pretty good idea of how inexhaustible the things for which we can be grateful are. They are everywhere, unbelievably abundant, and thoroughly empowering.

Everything you can be grateful for, tangible and/or intangible, empowers you. Both giving and receiving gratitude is an act of empowerment. The more you’re empowered, the more control you have over your life experience.

How can you recognize this? Via active conscious awareness, i.e., mindfulness.

Mindfulness and gratitude

How can you recognize and apply genuine gratitude? By using mindfulness.

This form of mindfulness is active conscious awareness. It’s not recognizing the world without via your six senses, though that is a factor. It’s more about knowing your inner being. This is about connecting, here and now, to your mindset/psyche/headspace inner being. Your self.

To do that requires active conscious awareness. This is a matter of recognizing, here and now, in the present, what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intent is, if your approach is one of positivity or negativity, and what your actions are or aren’t.

When you are present and actively consciously aware, you recognize who, what, where, how, and why you are. That in turn lets you see genuine gratitude, which you can further recognize as the empowering force that it is.

When you’re feeling empowered, you can give more back. Empowered people recognize the almost incalculable value of kindness, compassion, and empathy (as well as how they make you stronger, not weaker).

More people empowered and in control means more people who can break the cycle and start to shift ours from being a fear-based society to a reason-based society. It starts small, it starts with each of us. We can flex this muscle, give more gratitude, and do our part to improve and change the world for the better of all.

Tangible or intangible, big or small, gratitude is always empowering and always positive.

That written, I am truly grateful for you. Thank you for reading. Thank you for being.

Knowing that genuine gratitude is always positive 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 get what you give to the world, you can choose via active conscious awareness to give more genuine gratitude for things both tangible and intangible. Knowing that gratitude is always positive, you can put more into the world to feel better, stronger, wiser, and to spread more kindness, compassion, and empathy.

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 more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can 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 in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred and twenty-eighth (528) 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 Why Is Genuine Gratitude Always Positive? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

The Question Is, How Will This Impact Me, If At All?

Before you get swept up in the happenings of the world, ask this question.Photo by Jordan McDonald on Unsplash

It’s super easy to get caught up in the happenings of the world around us.

If you spend even the slightest amount of time on social media, you’ll be drawn into the world outside, beyond your life. Sometimes you’re only drawn as far as the circumstances and drama of your friends, family, coworkers, and other connections. Other times, you are drawn further out, into national and international events and happenings. Furthest out of all, there are times you get drawn into concerns over climate change, resources drying up, and the like.

These can all seem immense, surreal, and hugely impactful to and for you and your life. However, more often than not, they aren’t. That’s because most of the above things have little to nothing to do with you.

Hence the question. How will this impact me, if at all? The thing we all too easily forget is that what we truly control in our lives is exclusively within us.

All those happenings we experience, both near and far, are not within us. Hence, their impact is often going to be a lot less than we imagine it will be.

How does that even work?

Outside focus is mostly a distraction

Nobody lives in a vacuum. Even the most introverted among us are still among us. You have connections, contacts, affiliations, and the like, outside of yourself. That’s utterly natural, as human beings are social creatures, after all.

The drama of the outside world, however, isn’t yours. It often feels like it is. But it’s not.

The world around us is made of distractions beyond anything any prior generations experienced. Currently, our fear-based society is in the middle of a tumultuous shift. The “norm”, as established only about 100 years ago, is not the status quo, or the norm anymore.

Factory workers are not the majority of employed people in the United States. Even the stereotypical office worker has shifted in lots of ways. Mom is no longer holding down the fort and playing homemaker while Dad is working. One salary is not enough to pay rent or mortgage plus other bills. This reality is no more.

Most people have difficulties with change. Our society is in love with stability, comfort zones, and the status quo. Hence, when a false “norm” such as the above erodes, some people become reactionary and lash out in all sorts of nasty ways.

Most people, however, allow themselves to get distracted away from their fear of change. Those distractions used to be books, newspapers, radio, movies, then TV. Now they have added the internet, social media, smartphones, VR/AR goggles, and other increasingly available, distracting technologies.

Before long, all the distractions, coupled with weaponized fears of change, pull us almost exclusively outside of ourselves.

Without even knowing it, you’ve been distracted by something shiny. What can we do to counteract this?

Ask how will this impact me, if at all?

The easiest thing to ask this of is the matters of the world furthest outside of yourself. Take climate change. Yes, it will impact you. Immediately? Only in choices you make regarding water usage, recycling, if you drive a gas guzzler, and the like. Apart from the choices you make day to day, in the moment, overall climate change is beyond your control.

Now let’s apply this to the next level moving closer to ourselves. National and international events and happenings. By and large, these are utterly not in your control. Will they impact you? Mostly, no. Certainly not right now. They might lead to future changes in things available to purchase or other issues that are hard to foresee. Here and now, however, this likely won’t impact you at all.

Bringing this in another level closer, what about the circumstances and drama of our friends, family, coworkers, and other connections? Some of this will impact us because it will have a positive or negative impact on our relations. Challenging coworkers can make our jobs harder to do. Crazed family can cause hurt feelings. Problems with and among friends can impact who we spend time with and hang out with.

This is the one level where there’s likely to be an impact on you. However, you can choose how deep that impact is. How far under your skin do you allow someone to get? How much emotional intelligence do you invest in outside people, places, and things? When you ask the question – how this will impact me if at all? – these questions provide part of the answer.

The rest of the answer, however, is wholly within you.

Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on UnsplashMindfulness and what you control

The one thing over which you have total and complete control is your inner mindset/headspace/psyche self. Distractions and subconscious living will make this appear to be untrue. Yet it is the truth.

Active conscious awareness is mindfulness. You achieve it by being present, here and now (the only time that’s truly real), and ask questions of yourself like,

What am I thinking?What am I feeling?How am I feeling?What is my intent?What am I acting on or not?Is my approach from a place of positivity or negativity?

This makes you present, consciously aware, and thus mindful. From this place of mindfulness, you are empowered to make choices and decisions about how you allow this, that, or the other thing to impact you. Or not.

From this place, the question – how will this impact me, if at all? – becomes wholly genuine in that you can see if it will impact your life superficially or deeply. Will it be an issue that only impacts you because of your associations – or – will there be an impact on who, what, how, where, and why you are?

This can make a big difference in choosing your life experience as you traverse any paths. Especially those that take you away from variations on “the norm”.

Will this impact me, if at all?

While on the surface conflict with friends, family, coworkers, and other people in your immediate vicinity looks impactful, it might only be superficial. Why? Because you can only live for you, yourself, and your life.

The distractions we have often create a few pernicious false narratives. The first, and most weaponized and abused, is a false narrative about lack, scarcity, and insufficiency. It’s especially ugly when that’s applied to intangibles like love, peace, joy, and so on.

The second is the false narrative of selfishness. Self-care in the form of saying no to the drama of others, setting boundaries, and the like, is not selfish. True selfishness is a matter of malice of forethought.

The third false narrative is that kindness, compassion, empathy, and being “woke” make you weak. Nothing could be further from the truth. Do you know anyone, yourself included, who doesn’t desire kindness, compassion, and empathy? Unless you know a sociopath, I’m going to guess no.

Recognizing these false narratives allows you to apply the question of impact to you. Will whatever this is shift my life and how I’m striving to live it in an undesirable way? If it impacts me at all, is it a genuine impact or a more superficial one?

By being mindful and present in the here and now, the question of impact on you becomes utterly clear. From there, you can make choices and decisions about your life, and if you need to make take the wheel and make any changes.

When you’re facing uncertainty, do you see why asking, “How will this impact me, if at all?” is so important to your day-to-day life experiences?

This is the six-hundred and thirty-eighth (638) 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.

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Why Should You Treat People How You Desire to Be Treated?

You get back whatever you put out to the world.Photo by Jacob Granneman on Unsplash

When did it become acceptable to simply be rude to people?

Seriously, when did it become acceptable to treat people with such disrespect? For example, it wasn’t all that long ago that when the President gave the State of the Union address, the other side got a rebuttal after it. Outright heckling? What are you, undisciplined grade school children?

Name-calling, inappropriate gestures, and other disturbing behaviors have become increasingly normalized in the last decade or so. This is a direct reflection of a growing lack of kindness, compassion, and empathy coupled with increasing cynicism, skepticism, greed, and fearmongering.

The narrative, both benign and malicious, tends to be about lack, scarcity, insufficiency, and taking what’s “rightfully” yours. We live in a world where we’re frequently presented with limited slices of pizza and pie where, in truth, there are no limits at all.

Then, when people who have treated others poorly receive poor treatment, they get all indignant. Anyone who complains about anything or any time and attention focused on women, blacks, other people of color, the LGBTQA+ community, or any other marginalized group has no understanding of privilege. FYI, it has far less to do with income than most realize.

The reality is that when you treat people poorly, you get what you give. Thus, when you don’t give kindness, compassion, or empathy, you don’t get them, either.

Let’s address one of the most important elements of this.

There is more than enough of the good stuff to go around

The vast majority, if not all, of the things we’re told are lacking, scarce, or otherwise insufficient, aren’t. Most of that is a false narrative designed to create reactions in markets, induce people to vote against their own best interest, take specific action, form mobs, and the like. It creates fear that you will not get yours, will miss out, won’t have this, that, or the other thing.

Sure, some resources are rarer than others. However, the things we all genuinely desire – peace, prosperity, comfort, care, kindness, compassion, empathy, and the like – are abundant beyond your wildest imagination. There is more than enough of the good stuff to go around.

Love? It’s pretty much infinite. Joy? There’s joy in incredible abundance for all. Happiness? Available to everyone, everywhere, but also often overhyped and tied to tangibles. Happiness, unlike joy, peace, or love, is usually a brief feeling tied to achievement, victory, and accomplishment. Joy, peace, and love and far broader, more readily found, and can just be, with zero conditions, prerequisites, and whatever.

Kindness, compassion, and empathy are something everyone desires. When you treat people how you desire to be treated, you open the channel to receive the same. Also, when you get what you desire that doesn’t take it away from anyone else.

This is not limited, like slices of pizza or pie. It’s infinite. Truly, there’s more than enough of the good stuff to go around.

Let’s address another important element.

When you treat people well you are not exhibiting weakness

There is a wide swath of the American people., right now, who are being constantly told that being kind, compassionate, or empathetic is a sign of weakness. They’ve taken this and weaponized it by referring to laws, acts of kindness, organizations, movements, and anything that’s about consideration for marginalized groups, “woke”.

Does that make any sense to you? How does being awake, i.e., “woke”, present itself as a bad thing? Would you rather be asleep, under the sway of the masses, and not in control? Because that’s the reality of this idea.

This is an incredible, dangerous lie. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kindness, compassion, empathy, and anything that’s an act of treating people well is not weakness. Not even a little bit. The truth is that it makes you stronger.

As I stated at the beginning of this essay, you get back whatever you put out to the world. Put out fear, anger, and hatred, don’t be surprised that’s what you get in return. When you are kind, compassionate, and empathetic towards others, that’s what you get in return.

Do you desire to be treated with kindness, compassion, and empathy? I’m going to hazard a guess and say yes, you do. Listen to the people who are constantly screaming about their “rights” being trampled upon such as American Christians, white men, the uber-rich, and the like. They expect kindness, compassion, and empathy – but aren’t giving it because of entitlement and privilege they’re blind to. Curious, no?

Since we can’t change anyone else, we must begin with ourselves.

Photo by Jovan Vasiljević on UnsplashConsider your actions

I’m in no way, shape, or form suggesting you be a good-natured doormat. Neither am I suggesting that you accept poor treatment, false narratives, or the disempowering actions of leaders, government, business, and so on.

This is not about the big, generalized, out-in-the-world people and organizations. This is specific to the people you encounter day to day.

Are you treating people with kindness, compassion, and empathy? This is a choice you get to make all the time. In every encounter with everyone in your life, mindfulness is your superpower. Via mindfulness, you have active conscious awareness to decide your thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, and approach toward positivity or negativity. From there, you’re empowered to choose your interactions as such.

When you’re faced directly with the unkind, uncompassionate, and unempathetic, if you can’t actively give them kindness, compassion, and empathy, choose to walk away. Disengage from them. If it feels right to do so, tell them why, and that because you would rather be kind than unkind, you need to walk away.

Your actions, along with the rest of your active conscious awareness, are yours to control. When you desire to be treated well, you must give that treatment to others to get it. That’s why you should treat people how you desire to be treated.

When we put more kindness, compassion, and empathy into the world, we’re adding value that can help so, so many people. The false narratives might be prevalent, but the reality is different. This ties directly into that.

You are empowered to do wonders with how you treat other people. One last caveat – don’t neglect how you treat yourself, too. Treat yourself how you desire to be treated by others, too. Treat yourself as well as others how you desire to be treated.

Knowing why you should treat people how you desire to be treated 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 get what you give to the world, you can choose via active conscious awareness to treat people how you desire to be treated. Knowing that you desire to be treated with kindness, compassion, empathy, and other positivity, you can use mindfulness practices to give more to the world at large and help build the abundance to overwhelm and overcome the false narratives of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency.

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 more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can 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 in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.

Thank you for coming along on this journey.

This is the five-hundred and twenty-seventh (527) 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.

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