M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 20

When Is It Okay to Say No?

Nobody but you can answer this question.Photo by Jen Theodore on

All around us, there are messages recommending that we say yes. Say yes to new experiences, new people, new opportunities, and on and on. What’s more, “yes” has become associated with positivity and “no” with negativity at the most basic levels.

The result we tend to experience from this is that, often, saying “no” is seen as selfish, undesirable, and utterly negative. When you say “no” you close doors rather than open them. You set yourself and others up for failure and worse. Saying “no” keeps you small, impedes growth, and active change.

Of course, sometimes this is true. However, that’s situational. Depending on where you are, who you’re with, what you’re doing, and other factors, saying “no” does get in your way.

Yet there are also times when saying no is to your benefit. This is particularly pertinent to your health, wellness, and wellbeing,

When “no” is good for you

If there is a toxic person in your life, saying no to them can mean the difference between the suffering of the slow removal of a bandage versus the swiftness of ripping it off.

Often, saying no to someone toxic comes with pain. That pain, however, is a product of that toxic person or someone who believes in that toxic person making you out to be the villain. Saying “no” to them gets you vilified and doesn’t feel good.

Saying “yes” to them, however, is like a slow poison. First, there’s the anticipation of the toxic time you’ll be spending with them because you said yes. The anticipation alone can be mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically painful. Before there is even time spent with that toxic person, you suffer.

Then the time with that person is suffering. Say, for example, the toxic person is a narcissist or a bully. While you’re with them you will be subjected to their narcissism and bullying in full force.

Finally, after you’ve spent that time with that toxic person, you’ll likely need to recover from their toxicity. That time you spent with them might have made you feel angry, frustrated, sad, displeased, and any number of negative emotions. Toxic people can massively impact us.

All that prolonged suffering resulted from not saying “no”. While the pain of saying “no” would suck, it would be one-time, and relatively quick – like ripping off a bandage. Instead, by saying yes, you prolonged the suffering, akin to slowly removing a bandage and painfully pulling at each individual hair below the adhesive.

I think it’s clear that saying “no” to that toxic person would have been good for you.

Who can be the judge of that?

Only you know what’s best for you

There is only one person in your head, heart, and soul. One person alone can think your thoughts, feel your feelings, intend your intentions, and do for you. That would be you, yourself.

Hence, you alone can recognize when saying “no” to a person, place, or thing – tangible or intangible – is to your benefit.

We are encouraged to be mediocre. A great deal of the near-worship of celebrities, athletes, business moguls, politicians, and the like, is focused on making the rest of us accept our mediocrity. Unless you can overcome the odds or work ludicrously hard (or come from faux royalty and/or money), you should just accept that you are, have always been, and will always be mediocre.

Hence, believing in yourself and your empowerment is constantly, frequently discouraged. What is encouraged, meanwhile, is toeing the line, working to fit in to the “norms”, and living subconsciously by rote, routine, and habit.

You can accept this, and it might be perfectly fine for you. I’ve yet to meet anyone from whom that’s the truth, however.

You have the power to make choices and decisions to live the best life you can, for yourself. Hence, you can choose to say “no” when that’s what’s best for you and your health, wellness, and wellbeing.

How can you know? By being consciously aware and practicing mindfulness.

Photo by Andy T on UnsplashMindfulness and saying no

Active conscious awareness is mindfulness. Becoming actively consciously aware is easy. Rather than just going with the flow and living by rote, routine, and habit, you place yourself intentionally in the here and now.

Once you are present, you can become aware of what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what you intend, the attitude of your life approach, and what you are and/or aren’t doing. That awareness tells you, right now, who, what, where, how, and why you are.

With that knowledge and conscious awareness, you can look at a given situation. Is this something saying “yes” to will bring me more pain and suffering than saying “no” will bring me? The question truly is that simple in the asking. However, the answer might take more analysis.

Most importantly of all, there is no right or wrong answer. At least, in the grand scheme of things. For you yourself, however, the answer will potentially be the difference between quick pain and suffering and long pain and suffering. See my prior example.

Also, there might be no pain or suffering at all. Saying “no” might actually be blissful, relieving, and freeing. Detaching from toxicity, unwanted and undesired people, places, and things can be freeing and empowering.

The power is in your hands. You can choose to say “no” to people, places, and things – both tangible and intangible – when you mindfully think and feel it’s the right choice for you.

And this brings me to a final, very important point.

This is about only you

You can see that someone is in a bad situation. You can tell them to say “no” and walk away.

It doesn’t matter what your insight is or how much you recognize something that they don’t. You can do nothing for anyone else. You can’t force others to say “no” to what you think they should say no to. Even if you’re right, you can’t control the thoughts, feelings, actions, or intentions of anyone other than you.

There are whole industries intent on forcing “yes” and “no”.  All advertising falls into this category. Most political campaigns and religious organizations do, too. The only way to be part of their solution is to not only say yes or no as they demand, but to make everyone else do it too.

I am in no way disregarding the need for law and order in our society. That’s also way beyond the scope of this essay. What I am saying here is that you can make choices and decisions, say yes and no, for only yourself. Turning that inwards and being mindful of it can help you reduce pain, suffering, confusion, and discontent that comes from fretting about other people and what they say yes or no to.

This is part of self-care and is not selfish. The truth is that it’s okay to say no when you know it’s better for you and your health, wellness, wellbeing, and chosen life path. When saying no is better than saying yes to spare another’s feelings or avoid conflict. You are ultimately worthy and deserving of choosing to say no when you know it’s best for you to do so.

When you know it’s in your best interest, do you know that it’s okay to say no?

This is the six-hundred and thirty-second (632) 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 When Is It Okay to Say No? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why is it Always Better to Choose Than Not to Choose?

Choice is how you can take control of your life experience.Photo by Beth Macdonald on Unsplash

Quite possibly the single greatest superpower that we have is choice. The rest of the animal kingdom on this planet largely have a very set life path. Survive, find food and shelter, propagate the species, protect them, and keep surviving. Simple, really.

Humans, however, have choices, like to merely survive or thrive. Some are the product of environment, privilege, birth, etc. However, most are inherent to all and are immaterial/intangible.

This is due to the perception versus the reality of control. The perception of control is all about outward appearances. People doing things, having things, and being things that makes them appear in control. Yet most of that is false, and not genuine control. Why? Because the only things we have genuine control over are our internal processes.

Specifically, thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, life approaches, and so on. All of which are intangible and immaterial.

Why is this the only real control we have? Because we alone exist in our heads, hearts, and souls.

No matter your teachers, influencers, examples, demagogues, or the like. Only you know your mindset. What’s more, you and only you know your headspace/psyche. Ultimately, this means that only you know yourself.

You alone control your mindset

One of the biggest challenges we face as a society, as far as I can tell, is that we’re never taught to evaluate our mindset/headspace/psyche self. We talk about it, we reference it, but we’re not shown how to explore it, recognize it, know it, accept it, and/or change it.

This failure has led us to a far greater amount of disconnect than I think most people are willing to recognize or acknowledge. It’s also part of the massive mental health crisis we’re in the midst of.

The biggest takeaway here is that we have zero control over anyone or anything apart from ourselves. We can’t control other people, what they think, what and how they feel, what they do and don’t do, and so on. This can be especially frustrating when someone you care about does something you perceive as idiotic, hurtful, insensitive, and such. Moreso if they ignore suggestions, counsel, or advice you’ve given.

Then, to add insult to injury, self-care and working inside your own mindset is all-too-readily labeled as selfish. In the interest of avoiding appearing selfish, you ignore yourself for the care of others. Eventually, this leads to discontent and confusion because of change.

This is another obstacle in the way of assuming any control. Change is inevitable and the one and only constant in the Universe. It can, will, and does happen. All the time. Who you were is not who you are or who you will be. Sometimes this is in subtle ways. Other times in blatant ways.

This is why beginning with mindset is important. Because by recognizing and acknowledging your mindset – which only you can do – you can gain control of it.

How does that work?

Mindfulness to choose

What you have utter and total control over is your conscious awareness. However, this works only in the now, in the present. That’s where mindfulness enters into it.

To gain genuine mindfulness you need to know certain things, now, that only you can truly know. This includes what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, your current approach to life and if it’s positive, negative, or neutral, and your actions and inactions.

The truth is that thoughts, feelings, intentions, approaches, and actions/inactions are most of what you can control in life. That’s because they belong wholly, entirely, unequivocally to you.

Too much of our media suggests that change comes from without. Someone influences you to change, something happens that causes you to change, or another external factor makes you change. While it’s true that external forces can influence change, change never comes from without and always comes from within.

That’s because you can and will only actively change when you choose to.

However, because change is a constant, you’re passively changing all the time. Yet if you aren’t regularly practicing mindfulness or living via conscious awareness, you might miss it. That’s the downside of living subconsciously via rote, habit, and routine.

What’s more, society likes us to live subconsciously. That’s because when you are subconscious, you’re far more pliable and open to suggestion. You’re not mindful or consciously aware and on autopilot.

Being mindful empowers you.

Photo by Brett Jordan on UnsplashChoice is empowering

When you make active, conscious choices, you are taking control of your life experience. Via actively choosing, you make a decision and drive your life.

When you don’t choose, however, you cede your control. The universe will move your life, will you or won’t you. Others will sway you to their way of thinking, and because you’re not taking charge you find yourself down an undesirable rabbit hole. Worse, perhaps, you find yourself lost and uncertain how you got there, how to get out of there, and find yourself unhappy, depressed, frustrated, or some combination of these and other negative emotions.

When you are consciously aware you can practice mindfulness. When you’re mindful, you enable yourself to exist here and now, in the present (which is the only measure of time that’s genuinely real) to actively choose.

Active choice is empowering. When you choose, you are deciding who, what, how, where, and why you are. Ultimately, that is how you can take control of your life experience.

This isn’t perfect, of course. Partially, that’s because perfection (like beauty) is wholly in the eye of the beholder. Part of this, however, is because our present circumstances might limit our choices. Sometimes this leaves us with choices that are minimal, not ideal, and even between two evils (one greater and one lesser).

Still, choosing, even in that sort of circumstance, is better than not choosing. Why? Because even making little, seemingly insignificant choices empowers us.

Choice is like any muscle. The more you use it the stronger it gets. Small choices lead to more choices, bigger choices, and potential and possibilities that can’t exist if you cede your power to choose.

That’s why choice is empowering. Ultimately, choice is how you can take control of your life experience.

Recognizing and acknowledging that it’s always better to choose than not isn’t hard

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

When you recognize and acknowledge that choosing empowers you and puts you in control, you can see how making more active choices for your life helps you to live it to the best of your ability. Knowing that mindfulness is active conscious awareness that informs who, what, where, how, and why you are, now, you can take control over your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. This is via mindful choices to choose from increasingly more options.

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

Taking an approach to positivity and 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-first (521) 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 it Always Better to Choose Than Not to Choose? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Is What We Think Other People Think About Us What We Secretly Think About Ourselves?

What do we know about how others think and feel – especially about us?Photo by Elimende Inagella on Unsplash

Even the most introverted people I know have interactions with other people along the way. Friends, family, coworkers, random strangers, and so on. No matter if you are an introvert, extrovert, ambivert, or uncategorized personality type, you do not exist in a bubble.

Because of this truth, to a greater or lesser degree, you desire to make an impression on people. This is wildly variable, situational, and dependent on the level of connect or disconnect involved. You might be attempting to make little to no impression at all. Maybe you have no interest in being seen or even noticed. Perhaps you desire to make a good impression. Maybe you are interviewing for a job, approaching a friend or loved one, or generally striving to be a good example and make that sort of impression.

It’s also possible that you’re actively striving to not make a bad impression. Perhaps you’re walking on eggshells with someone, working on a challenging or difficult project, or dealing with something negative that you would like to salvage or prevent from escalating.

No matter if you’re trying to make a good, bad, or none-impression on people, it’s human nature to impact others. Then, from that impact, you are prone to wonder what the impression you made was.

This is where it can and will all go off the rails.

The perils of understanding others

It’s incredibly important to recognize and acknowledge this fact: Only you are in your head. Thus, you, and only you, can think, feel, intend, and do for you. It’s especially important to recognize and acknowledge that nobody can think or feel for you.

This leads to the other incredibly important fact we must recognize and acknowledge: You cannot know what anyone else is thinking or feeling. Just like nobody but you can be in your head, you can’t be in anyone else’s head, either. They can’t think or feel for you, and you can’t think and/or feel for them.

Yet it’s a part of human nature to wonder what others think of us. We all have a deep-seated desire to know what impression we’ve made on him/her/them/etc.

This is where the wheels come off. That’s because, instead of being able to get into the thoughts and/or feelings of others, we make presumptions and assumptions about this. Some we base on little to no empirical evidence, some on pure conjecture, some on inference, and some on a combination of all these.

What’s more, it’s all too easy to let our own biases, prejudices, presumptions, and general approach and attitude to life be projected onto others. Before you know it, you’re not just guessing what sort of impression you make on someone, or what they think and what and how they feel about you – but you’re projecting your own concerns and secret negative beliefs about yourself onto them.

Photo by Ben White on UnsplashIs what we think other people think about us what we secretly think about ourselves?

Isn’t that a bit of a stretch maybe? Let’s break it down and see.

When you project anything on anyone else, it’s usually subtle and not obvious. Fear, anger, discontent, and similar things we project on others tend to be secret inhibitions, issues, or concerns we hold.

Why is this the case? Because you never know what anyone else thinks or feels. Since part of human nature tries to understand what and how others think and feel about us, we unintentionally project things onto them. For example, let’s say you send a text message to a friend. They don’t reply. You send another, and they still don’t reply. Eventually, you send a third. If they still don’t reply, now you begin to wonder.

Did I do something to offend them? Is there something going on with them I forgot about? Are they okay? Before long, you begin to project onto them what you think the answer to these or other questions like them might be. Depending on how long it takes them to answer, this can get increasingly insidious, concerning, and unpleasant.

Hence, it’s not much of a stretch to ask the question, is what we think other people think about us what we secretly think about ourselves?

The answer is, most likely, yes. Why? Because we think in paradox. I’m awesome/I suck. I’m the best/I’m the worst. That gets projected on nearly everyone we know. Our secret thoughts about ourselves will be part of anything and everything we project on others.

This leads to perhaps a more important question.

How often are they thinking about me?

Perhaps a more important question is, how often do you think about him/her/them? What’s more, when you do think about that other person, is that thought looking into the depths of who, what, where, how, and why they are? Or is it just surface matters unless you’re with them or talking to/texting them?

Most of the time your focus and attention is on your immediate surroundings. However, that doesn’t mean you are wholly and completely focused and attentive. In a world that encourages rote, routine, and habit, it’s incredibly easy to do something with only half or less of your attention on it.

So, where’s the rest of your attention? Probably on nonsensical nonsequiturs. You’re probably thinking about what to have for lunch, that song you heard on the radio, that show you watched last night, why your coworker always chews so loudly, what’s causing that itch on your ankle, how cute your cat was this morning, and on and on.

Most of the time we think little to nothing about other people. Likewise, I think most of the time, those we care about only think about us when we’re with them, or a plan is made/being made for when we next meet/talk/eat together/etc.

Yet, because of our inherent need for connection, we like to think that they are thinking about us. A lot. Yet, since we can’t and don’t know that, it’s a projection onto them that we make. That, in turn, can be based on what we secretly think about ourselves.

Photo by Jonas Leupe on UnsplashWe often think the least well of ourselves

I don’t know about you, but some of the worst things anyone has said about me came from me. I’ve called myself lazy, a fatass, an idiot, an asshole, arrogant, selfish, loud-mouthed, and numerous even more uncomplimentary things.

If someone else said that to me, I’d probably be hurt and/or offended (unless, as is sometimes possible, there is truth behind it.) Even more, I have friends and loved ones who’d want to beat up that person for saying such meanspirited and nasty things to and about me.

The person who is most cruel towards me is me. It’s not much of a stretch for me to presume that the person most often cruelest towards you is you.

Hence, when you start to think about what another is thinking and/or feeling about you since you can’t know, you project. All things being equal, it’s often easiest to take what we secretly think about ourselves and project that onto how we think another thinks and feels about us.

When you pause and give this any consideration, I think it’s clear that yes, what we think other people think about us is what we secretly think about ourselves.

Is there anything we can do about this?

When it comes to knowing what and how anyone thinks and feels about you, there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it. Even if you ask them, the answer might not strike you as being right or might be unsatisfactory.

That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing we can do about this. However, all we can do is regulate our own analysis of how and what we think another is thinking about us.

What does that mean? It means that when you start to question what he/she/they think and feel about you, recognize and acknowledge that you simply do not know. Rather than dig into this via presumptions, assumptions, guesses, and suspicions, turn the focus on yourself.

Ask yourself, “What do I currently think and/or feel about myself?” This isn’t a selfish question because it’s about learning who, what, where, how, and why you are. Since you, and only you, can know this, who but you can answer it?

What’s more, what you secretly think about yourself becomes less secret when you ask yourself what you think about yourself. Before you reject that as crazy and backwards, consider this: When was the last time you asked yourself questions like Do I like myself? Am I a good person? Do the things I strive to do benefit myself and others?

Only by asking questions like this – mindfully, in the present, here and now – can you know what you secretly think about yourself. When you know that, you can identify if it’s true or not. Then you get to accept it or change it.

That is all that we can do about this. However, that’s quite a lot when you get down to it. Because you can only think and feel for you.

Can you see why it’s important to know yourself, and your thoughts and feelings?

This is the six-hundred and thirty-first (631) 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 Is What We Think Other People Think About Us What We Secretly Think About Ourselves? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

It Hasn’t Always Been This Way

Recognizing and acknowledging this truth can change your life.Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

One of the most fascinating elements of conservativism, to me, is how they want to go back to a simpler, better time. Realistically, of course, they want to go back to a simpler, better time that never existed (save in a few minds).

The reason this fascinates me so much is because that desire ignores progress made. Not just social progress, though. Technological progress. The world of the ridiculously idolized 1950s is nearly as different to us in 2024 as the world of 1950 would have been to the people of 1850. Alien, vastly different, utterly unfamiliar. What’s more, the reality is that this would go in both directions.

So much of what we have today is utterly taken for granted. Whatever device you’re reading these words on, for example, didn’t exist only 25-30 years ago. I have friends who have never known a world without smartphones, e-readers, computers everywhere, and instantaneous global connection and communication.

However, I remember. I got my first PC in 1985. It was an Apple IIe with a whopping 128k of memory, a duo 5¼” disk drive, and a green screen. My iPhone is exponentially more powerful and probably 1/24th the size. Many of my friends didn’t have their own PC at that time.

This is proof that in my lifetime alone, it hasn’t always been this way. Yet the false narrative often maintained by many of our so-called leaders and the collective consciousness pushes us to believe otherwise.

Why? To maintain their false sense of control.

Humans, being

A hundred years ago, the First World War and Spanish flu pandemic were recent events. Only a third of Americans had telephones in their homes. TV hadn’t been invented yet. About 15% of Americans had cars. Hell, nearly half the USA didn’t have electricity in their homes yet.

Just a hundred years before that, even telegraphy and radios hadn’t been invented, electricity for power and light was nonexistent. You were utterly reliant on either your own skills or your local community. The world was out there, out of reach.

Today’s world as we know it was unimaginable to the people of a hundred years ago. The people of 200 years ago probably would have found the world of today both terrifying and utterly alien. The point I’m making is that it hasn’t always been this way.

“It” applies to many, many aspects of our lives. Take the 9-5 workday. That’s only about 100 years old. This is thanks to labor unions demanding better, less strenuous, and life-sucking conditions.

“It” applies to politics. The two American political parties haven’t existed throughout all of our nation’s history. The GOP began in 1854 and the DNC in 1828. The positions that dominate the two parties have not always been what they are today. The Democrats were arguably far less liberal before the 1960s. For those doing math at home, that was only about 60 years or so.

“It” applies to education, community, entertainment, information, and everything else material you can conceive of. The first screw was made of wood. Modern screws are made of steel, titanium, and other metals now.

No matter what “it” is, it hasn’t always been this way.

It hasn’t always been this way

There is a pervasive idea in the collective consciousness that how things are now is how they have always been. Thus, working to change them is troubling, problematic, and going against tradition, long-standing beliefs and values, and other similar false narratives.

That’s the key. All the ideas of “tradition”, this way being the eternal way, and the like, are based on false narratives. This concept was invented at some point along the way and accepted by the collective consciousness as being. Then, many so-called leaders in politics, business, and religion cling to the false narrative for their own power.

Not so long ago, how people lived was, truly, simpler. However, not in the way conservatives argue for. Simpler applies to how our communities and family units within those communities were all you knew. This way eroded with the Industrial Revolution and expanding globalism. The local community was overshadowed by a bigger world becoming increasingly more accessible. That led to individualism that was utterly unheard of for the vast majority of humans up until the 1800s or so.

For a far more detailed look at this and other concepts about the evolution of the human race, read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari.

There is one single, major reason why it hasn’t always been this way.

Photo by Viktor Talashuk on UnsplashChange is constant

The one and only constant in the entire Universe is change. Change can, will, and does occur, whether we like it or not. Some is subtle, some blatant. Change can creep up on us and happen around us before we even realize it began. Or it can happen in the blink of an eye and have devastating consequences or take us to new heights.

Change, as such, terrifies people. So, rather than embrace it and/or accept the reality of it, people fear it. They resist it. Worst of all, they cling to how it was – at least in their minds and individually perceived realities – and claim that’s how it always was to justify inequality, intolerance, hate, and other negative and destructive concepts.

When change occurs, you always have a choice. Go with it, resist it, ignore it, redirect it, accept it, reject it, and other options. Recognizing that it hasn’t always been this way can be scary, but it can also be empowering.

Take control of your life experience

The collective consciousness of our communities is necessary because nobody lives in a vacuum. All human beings coexist with other human beings. Even the most introverted still need people in various ways.

The other reason it’s necessary is to establish common ground for balance and equilibrium. Without the collective consciousness, society would crumble because money would lose all meaning, traffic lights would be ignored, arguments would lead to more frequent spur-of-the-moment, rage-induced murder, and the like.

One problem is that you cannot change the collective consciousness. At least, not directly. That’s because all that you can control directly is about you and yourself.

That’s almost entirely an inside job. This means you control your thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, approach to situations, attitudes toward people-places-things, and ultimately who, what, where, how, and why you are.

Though that might not seem like much, it’s everything. Through that control, you can choose your life experience.

Yes, to some degree you need to work in the framework of the collective consciousness. However, that doesn’t mean accepting that it’s always been this way. It hasn’t always been this way, because past individuals did things that eventually impacted the whole of the collective consciousness. However, that always begins with individuals.

Recognizing and acknowledging this truth – that it hasn’t always been this way – can change your life. When you take control, change your life, and do things like take a positive, proactive approach to things, others might be encouraged to emulate you. In that way, the collective consciousness can more readily embrace change and let go of limiting beliefs, values, and the like.

Thus, individually more empowered, our so-called leaders lose relevance. That lessens the false narratives that disempower more than empower us.

It’s advantageous for everyone that it hasn’t always been this way.

Recognizing and acknowledging that it hasn’t always been this way isn’t hard

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

When you recognize and acknowledge that it hasn’t always been this way, you can free yourself from the tyranny of expectation and having to conform to societal expectations and such. Knowing that change is constant and ongoing and that how things were will never be the same again, you can work with change to take charge of your life experience and choose a positive, more proactive approach.

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

Taking an approach to positivity and 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 twentieth (520) 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 It Hasn’t Always Been This Way appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why is it Healthy to Admit “I Don’t Know”?

Not knowing things is how you grow and evolve.Photo by Chris on Unsplash

One of the biggest issues in modern American politics right now is that one side claims that they have all the answers. They know everything they need to know. Whether it’s been endowed by God, Ronald Reagan, or some other demagogue, they have the answer. Their go-to “leader” is a self-proclaimed “stable genius” who always knows everything and is never wrong.

This party is thus, with their claims of knowing everything, moving steadily backward and undoing progress on some truly frightening levels. How are they doing this? Largely by weaponizing not knowing things.

They are pushing the idea that “I don’t know” makes you weak, makes you inferior, and sets you up to fail. The narrative tone they stand for is one of haughty self-righteousness and the right to it borne only by knowing things. They don’t know something? Look how inferior they are because they don’t know and we do.

This is utterly backwards, however. Scientific curiosity is born of looking at something, saying “I don’t know but desire to learn.” The unknown is where great discoveries abound.

Seeking answers when you don’t know is how we got to the world we’re at today. Questions like, “What’s on the other side of that hill? I don’t know,” once met with answers like “Terrible, scary things” were now met with “Let’s go look and see.”

While knowledge is power, it’s not just given and granted. To gain it, you need to learn. That often begins by exploring when “I don’t know” is your response.

Empowering learning and growth

As a child, you didn’t enter the world with knowledge beyond base instinct. Base instinct isn’t knowledge, it’s genetic coding that allows you to get what you need from parents and other caregivers to survive.

School is where you began to grow knowledge. However, at the beginning, this was mostly about learning how to learn. How do you solve basic math, learn to read, and learn to learn in general? That and socialization are the main goals of elementary school.

As you become a teen, your frontal lobe begins to truly develop. Then you start to seek more advanced knowledge. What do I enjoy? Who do I like being with? Arguably, most importantly of all, you begin to ask, “Who am I?”

All learning of real knowledge begins with recognizing that there are things you don’t know. More than that, there are things you don’t know but desire to know. Thus, you start to do what you can to learn.

“I don’t know” leads you to question things and empowers you to seek answers. Social studies, advanced math, and science in school start to address this and teach you. However, it doesn’t address the question “Who am I?”

That is a self-directed matter. Who you are can be known to you, and you alone. That’s because you’re the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Nobody but you can know you, as such.

When the answer to “Who am I?” is “I don’t know,” you seek to learn. That quest ultimately empowers you.

Working with and from “I don’t know” makes you stronger, not weaker

Contrary to the aforementioned American political party’s assertion that not knowing makes you weak, the truth is that it makes you strong. Not knowing things doesn’t make you lesser, unworthy, or defective. Truth is, it makes you human.

Do you know how many things there are to know in the world today? If you do, you’re fooling yourself. For example, there are any number of fields I know nothing whatsoever about. What’s more, they do not interest me, and I do not need to know them. Why? Because they don’t have any impact on me or my life in the least.

This includes things like raising cattle in Australia, mixing rocket fuel, the price of tea in Mumbai, and so, so many other things. Am I lacking because I don’t know these things? No. Unless I was raising cattle in Australia, a rocket scientist, or a buyer of tea in Mumbai, this knowledge isn’t necessary for me.

You are one of 8 billion people on this planet. Those 8 billion people live in nearly 200 countries across 7 continents. The circumference of the Earth is nearly 25,000 miles. Given these numbers, mathematically, can you tell me how many of those people know everything? That’s a trick question because the answer is 0.

“I don’t know” applies to everyone everywhere. That doesn’t make you lesser, or weaker. It empowers you to grow, learn, and evolve.

Photo by Siora Photography on UnsplashWhat do you desire to know?

I know a lot about a few things. Conversely, I know a little about even more things. I don’t know everything about anything, and what I don’t know at all is beyond count.

What do I desire to know? That depends on many factors. For one of my jobs, I know how to edit podcasts, and I am learning how to monetize them and promote them further. With another of my jobs, I’m learning how to use Canva for the creation of images and reels to use on social media. For my writing, I’ve studied physics, biology, other sci-fi and fantasy, planetary distances, solar power, batteries, and more.

The things that interest me won’t necessarily interest you. Similarly, what I desire to know you might not care about in the slightest. Likewise, you have interests that disinterest me, and knowledge I don’t feel any need to know whatsoever.

Because nobody knows everything about anything – but human beings are inherently curious and seek to learn, grow, and evolve – the starting point is inevitably “I don’t know”. That’s why “I don’t know” is so damned healthy. It is from not knowing that we seek to gain more knowledge.

That anyone has all the answers is a lie. Nobody has all the answers. Without disparaging anyone’s religious beliefs; your God, Gods, or whatever deity or omnipotent presence you worship has not endowed any single living being with total, complete, authoritative, end-of-all-questions knowledge.

Everybody doesn’t know something. Period.

I don’t know, because there is always something to be learned

No matter what scale you measure life, the Universe, and everything on, there is always something to be learned.

Nearly all learning, especially in adulthood, starts with “I don’t know”. That doesn’t mean you are an idiot, unworthy, lacking, unqualified, or what have you. It means you have curiosity and the desire to gain knowledge.

Science is mutable because what we know changes. Yesterday’s theory is tomorrow’s law. Take dinosaurs, for example. I was taught, as a child, that they were scaled lizards. Now many are seen as feathered avians. Pluto was a full-fledged planet and is now a dwarf planet. Analog audio recording had a strict channel limit to avoid feedback that digital audio recording overcomes. How? By someone who didn’t know something sufficiently studying it. Learning.

When you are taught to fear “I don’t know”, you are disempowered. You remain sheltered, ignorant, and at the mercy of the people telling you not knowing makes you weak. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Consider this: At some time, during your life, you faced “I don’t know” and decided you desired to know. You took action to learn whatever that was and came away with more knowledge and understanding. That’s why you know how to tie your shoes, read, dress yourself, and do everything else you can do.

There will always be things to be learned. Knowledge to be gained. That’s why it’s healthy to admit “I don’t know.” Without that admittance, how else can you grow, evolve, and expand what you know? How else can you know who you are and change if that isn’t who you desire to be?

This is the six-hundred and thirtieth (630) 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 Healthy to Admit “I Don’t Know”? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

How Does Your Approach to The Unknown Matter?

Your choice of approach always impacts your outcome.Photo by Noah Grossenbacher on Unsplash

In part because I blanked and forgot to take my meds for the first time in ages yesterday; partially because the weather is grey and it’s cold; in part because of a contentious email chain; partially due to anxiety over the surreal insanity of this election year, I am feeling lost, frustrated, and depressed.

The reason is simple. The unknown. Everything above represents an unknown. Forgetting my meds is impacting me physically, the grey cold feels oppressive on my psyche, the email chain has me angry and discontent, and the election bullshit has me feeling pissed off, scared, and deeply disappointed in a whole swath of the American people.

Yet the outcome of all the above is utterly unknown.

Because this is causing me to feel negative, it would be all too easy to let that spiral out of control. Facing all these unknowns, my immediate visceral reactions are negative. Hence, my approach to the rest of my day, let alone beyond that, could also be negative.

For example, I could just say fuck it, none of this matters. It’s all going to hell in a handbasket, there’s not a damned thing I can do about or for the majority of it. Why bother writing for a world on the brink of its own destruction? Nobody will care.

That’s one approach, and in many respects – and given my current state of mind – the easiest one. But there’s another choice.

Recognize, acknowledge, and consciously choose the approach

I can make choices to take a different approach. I took my meds today and when they kick in, I will start feeling better physically. My sunlamp is over there, I could turn it on to relieve that tension. Don’t give that email thread much time or attention. Share my hope and keep believing that we can overcome the threat to this democracy and keep moving forward.

This is going to take more work because it requires me to make more active choices and decisions. If I allow myself to fall victim to my visceral senses, which are almost wholly negative, that’s the approach I’ll take to everything I do today. However, if I choose to seek positivity and take that approach, that will be the approach I take to what I do today.

Either way, the outcome is unknown. Whether I choose a negative or a positive approach, the outcome is not in my control. Why? Because I’d estimate at least 75 to 95 percent of this stuff is wholly, completely, and totally outside my control.

The truth is that outcomes on almost every level are largely unknown. No matter what you plan, what you do, or your intentions, shit happens you didn’t expect, adding to and altering the outcome and expanding how much is unknown.

Hence, if you have any desire at all to make choices and decisions for what your life looks like, choosing your approach to the unknown is a must.

The three primary ways to live this life

Every single human being is here for one primary purpose. To live. I’m increasingly believing that the meaning of life is just that simple. To live.

What does that mean? It means to have experiences, to learn, grow, and choose options for opportunities, potential, and possibilities to realize life.

Once you pass into adulthood and become almost wholly responsible for your life experience, there are three primary ways to live life:

Let life live you

What happens, happens. You might make some occasional, soft choices and decisions. However, for the most part, you just accept this, that, or the other thing and put little to no effort into it.

Curl up in a ball and await death

Life sucks. There’s naught but suffering to be experienced and had. All effort is futile. I might as well give up, and either just wait for the end, pray for an afterlife that may or may not exist, and expect the worst. This can be active or passive (and often is passive-aggressive).

Get behind the wheel and drive life

Make choices and decisions for how you approach life. Actively seek to have experiences, meet people, learn things, do things. Embrace that the wise recognize they know nothing – and that’s exciting – because it means more opportunities to learn, grow, and change.

Note that everyone shifts between these from time to time. Nobody is immune to being hurt physically, mentally, emotionally, and/or spiritually. There are also other ways to live this life between and apart from these three. Yet much observation and various empirical evidence have shown me again and again that these three are the primary, dominant ways people approach life.

Hence how you approach the unknown matters.

Photo by Brad Helmink on UnsplashMindfulness of control in your approach to the unknown

We have a very limited amount of control over the world around us. Externally, this amounts to what we wear, to some degree where we are, and how we present ourselves to the world. Otherwise, all the rest of our control is internal.

What that means is that it’s all about conscious awareness. Rather than letting your subconscious mind do the driving via rote, routines, and habits, you’re choosing to apply active conscious awareness. That practice is mindfulness.

Via mindfulness, you can know what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, and actions you do or don’t take. From thought, feeling, intention, and action, the choice of an approach to life is yours to be made.

Given how much is unknown, choosing to approach life from a place of positivity or negativity matters. That’s because in making that choice you further opt in to get behind the wheel and drive, rather than let life live you or curl up in a ball and await death.

It really is that simple. However, it takes effort and work to practice mindfulness.

There are lots of times when making choices and decisions feels extra challenging, when the unknown makes them appear pointless, and succumbing to negativity is easy. It can’t be avoided, and it should be felt because of that truth. However, how long you remain there with that sense is up to you. Choosing your approach to the unknown is key to taking charge and being as in control of your life experience as possible.

Final note – your feelings and emotions are valid. Nobody but you can feel them, after all. However, you can assume control of them via mindfulness, and rule them – rather than let them rule you. I know what I prefer. How about you?

Recognizing that you can choose how you approach the unknown isn’t hard

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

When you recognize and acknowledge that you can choose how you approach life, with an attitude of positivity or negativity, you can take control over your experience. Knowing that the unknown just is, and you have only a limited amount of control almost wholly related to mindfulness, your choice of approach to the unknown can impact your life for the better.

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

Taking an approach to positivity and 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 nineteenth (519) 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 Does Your Approach to The Unknown Matter? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Does Anything We Do Matter?

Yes. Everything you do matters. To and for you.Photo by Dan Cook on Unsplash

The world is a crazy place.

Here in the United States, the Presidential election is about to start. Caucuses, primaries, debates, and a whole host of lengthy, largely unpleasant bullshit will be dominating the news cycle over the coming months.

Due to the probability of the GOP running a traitorous criminal as their candidate – and showing time and again that ethics matter way less than winning and having control – this is bound to be ugly, unpleasant, depressing, infuriating, and terrifying all at the same time. I don’t desire to be so negative about this, but this is the reality of the situation at hand.

To that end, I’m striving to be on social media less, not watch the news, and stay informed about all that’s going on without letting it get to me or cause me unnecessary harm.

It’s far too easy to feel a sense of impending doom and gloom about the world right now. Outside the US, there’s the ugliness of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Russian conquest in the Ukraine, the shipping disruption in the Red Sea, and other disturbing things. Even writing the above is making me feel a sense of dread and hopelessness.

Inevitably, this leads to this question: Does anything we do matter? Despite the above, the answer is yes.

Take a different vantage point

While the above can and does impact us in different ways, for the most part, this is indirect. Unless we’re being bombed, forced from our homes, or immediately suffering at the hands of an agent of chaos and destruction, our vantage point is peripheral at best.

Does that seem insensitive? Here’s the thing – what can I do about anything going on in the world at large? The answer is little to nothing. I can boycott businesses and places, send emails, attend protests, and express my distaste for this insanity. However, apart from that, there’s little else I can do.

Focusing on it and giving it all of my attention doesn’t help the situation. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t help me and my life.

A little more locally, I can vote, attend protests, and speak out against rising fascism, racism, sexism, and other ugliness. Maybe I can write or email members of Congress and donate to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and other organizations working for the greater good. Aside from that, focusing on it, and/or giving it all of my attention doesn’t help the situation. Unfortunately, it also doesn’t help me and my life.

What we can do about the big picture, situations around the world, around the country, or even in our local neighborhoods, is limited. Why? Because we have little to no control here. We cannot make anyone else see things as we see them, feel them how we feel them, or even express the kindness, compassion, and empathy they don’t – yet scream about endlessly when not given to them.

When you look at the big picture, and the situations all around the world, it feels like anything we do doesn’t matter. However, that’s simply not true.

Does anything we do matter?

Of course it does. It matters to us. What that means is that anything that we do matters. It matters to and for us.

Ah, but isn’t that selfish? From a certain point of view, yes. That, however, is dependent on your definition of selfishness.

Mine is simple. Any action taken with malice of forethought, knowing full well that you are causing hurt or harm to another, and YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT THAT, is selfish. That’s the straightforward, genuine definition of true selfishness. I’m taking everything I’m entitled to, even if it leaves you nothing, and fuck you.

Hence, any act of basic self-care, such as saying no, ending a relationship that isn’t working, quitting a stressful job, cutting off toxic family members, acting for the best interests of your mental, emotional, spiritual, and/or physical health-wellness-wellbeing, is not selfish. Someone else might call it that if your self-care impacts them in a way they dislike. Yet it is not selfish.

There’s a reason I’m taking this stand about genuine and perceived selfishness. Too many people put themselves last, take less-than-sufficient care of themselves, and give themselves little to no kindness, compassion, and/or empathy, so as not to be called selfish. The truth is, it’s not. SELF-CARE IS NOT SELFISH.

When you begin with self-care, you become more empowered. When you are more empowered, you become a beacon. That beacon can help others to also become empowered.

However, others can only be empowered if they themselves choose to be.

Photo by Abhishek Rai on UnsplashYou can only do what matters for you, first

If we are lucky, on average, we get to live in these bodies, in this time, on this planet, about 8 decades. Eighty years might seem like a lot of time, but you need to account for the first 20 being largely beyond your control. That’s due, in part, to the human biological need for nurture to survive our first two decades or so.

Now you have only 6 decades, 60 years, to experience this life. Harsh, I know, but it still begs the question. What are you doing with your time here?

This is why anything we do matters. When we recognize and acknowledge how finite our time is, we can make better choices to get the most from it that we can. Even in the face of the awfulness of so many parts of the world around us.

The thing is, when you accept that the world is shit, and that bad things dominate it, that can and will bring you down. Yet, you have a choice. Choose to take action, be consciously aware and in the now, practice mindfulness with that, and live with passion, and maybe a purpose. –  OR – You can choose to let life live you and be a puppet of the collective consciousness. – Or – There is a third main choice. Give up, curl up into a ball literally or figuratively, and wait for it all to end.

Does what we do matter? Hell yes. Because we get one shot each, in this time, living and experiencing in these bodies. How we make the most of that time is what matters most. That starts for you, first.

Are you making choices and decisions to live, to do, to experience life? Or not?

Does anything we do matter to the big picture?

In the abstract, no. However, when you zoom in on yourself and your life, it absolutely does matter.

Why? Because you are one of 8 billion people on this planet. All 8,000,000,000 people have choices they get to make for how they desire to live. Granted, some have fewer and less palatable choices than others. Yet we all have choices.

If you’re reading this, you probably have many choices available to you. Thus, you can choose to do what matters to you. Decide to live as fully as possible.

Know this – choosing to be the best you that you can be, to live with passion, does no harm to others. I’m not writing about being unkind, uncompassionate, and unsympathetic, making choices and decisions that bring harm to others for no true benefit to you. The lack, scarcity, and insufficiency frequently presented to us is false. We’re not in competition for either tangibles or intangibles. Hence, you deciding to live as fully as possible doesn’t mean someone else can’t.

No, living your best life won’t help the horrors in Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, or Texas. However, it will empower you, which makes you a beacon to empower others. The more people we can empower, the more we can drive back the fear in this fear-based society. Think globally by acting locally, or more specifically, acting personally.

This does take something of a perspective shift. Yet I believe that choosing and deciding to live life as fully as possible matters. To make anything we do matter to the big picture, we must start with ourselves from within to do more without.

This is not selfish, but it is self-interest. You alone live your life and can be who, what, where, how, and why you desire to be.

Does this help you recognize how anything we do can matter?

This is the six-hundred and twenty-ninth (629) 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 Does Anything We Do Matter? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Did You Know that You Are Worthwhile and Deserving?

Yes, you.Photo by Mark Sivewright on Unsplash

The other day I felt particularly down. I was chewing on thoughts about recognition from others that hadn’t come, how few of my friends and family have bought my books, and how it often feels like nobody cares what I write and share here.

My therapist was sick, my wife is going through enough of her own crap that she didn’t need mine on top of it. There is nobody among my friends I’m presently close enough to that I could commiserate with.

So, I took another step. I paused and wrote in my journal. I spoke my usual affirmations loudly and clearly. Here was a chance to walk my talk and recognize – via self-awareness – how, what, where, who, and why I am, here and now. Then, I could make any necessary adjustments.

For numerous reasons, I frequently feel unworthy and undeserving of anything. Who the hell am I? What have I done? How can my life possibly be worthwhile and deserving? Then, as I pause to consider this, I go back to my recent realization about the meaning of life.

The meaning of life is to live. Not just exist, not just survive, but live. Experience life. Do new things. Try new foods. Learn. Grow.

This is not something for only the rich, the obscenely attractive, the powerful, or what-have-you. This is the truth for everyone. Thus, I realized, I’m worthwhile and deserving.

More than that, though. I’m not alone. You’re worthwhile and deserving, too.

What the shit is this?

Life is ridiculous. You never know what could happen. Your brilliant plan to walk to the post office rather than drive, to help you do something healthy, might result in the worst injuries you’ve ever had. The date you were not so certain you should go on might lead to the best relationship. The job you thought was perfect and amazing might abruptly end. You simply never know.

Yet each and every experience you have, good, bad, and in-between, is a life experience. To make the most of these, you have a choice. Do you just exist and let life live you, do you curse life and approach most of it with a sense of dread and/or displacement, or do you take the wheel and do what you can to drive life? The choice is always yours.

Yes, I know that sometimes you can’t drive life very far. Point “B”, where you most desire to go, might be a long, long way from Point “A” where you presently are. Yet every choice and decision you make can be a stepping stone to cross the distance.

What’s more, you might find that on the way from Point “A” to Point “B”, you see a Point “Q”. This might alter your thoughts and feelings, and suddenly you change to this new direction.

Do you need to be a “somebody” to be worthy and deserving of such a thing? No, not at all. Is it important that others approve of and/or validate who you are and what you choose? Not in the slightest. Does your life and how you live it belong to anyone other than you? No.

Did you know that you are worthwhile and deserving?

Yes, you. And I mean you. Also, you, too.

But – you might be thinking – you don’t even know me. That might be true. However, I know if you’re reading this you have mostly good intentions. If you’re taking the time and have read this far, you are a person who cares about these things. You have a desire to be found worthwhile and deserving.

Ok, maybe – you might be thinking – but there are bad people in the world. Are they worthwhile and deserving too? Yes and no. Yes, everyone, at the core of their being, is worthwhile and deserving of being content, happy, receiving kindness, compassion, and empathy, and experiencing life to the fullest. That’s just the truth of it.

However, anyone who forces others to their way of thinking, whether via manipulation, violence, threats of violence, passing restrictive laws, or whatever else, doesn’t deserve to have their way over others. Worthwhile and deserving is only applicable to you and your life. This is for you and only you and what you desire to have, be, do, and so on.

This is why I’m not telling you how to live your life, what to do, or how to do it. What I am doing is sharing an idea that you can choose to take or leave. I’m also sharing the truth that, so long as you’re not doing something that you know will cause hurt or harm (this isn’t about how others perceive it, it’s about your malice of forethought), you are worthwhile and deserving.

Please allow me to address the elephant in the room.

Photo by Afif Ramdhasuma on UnsplashYou are not a selfish person, unless…

True selfishness involves malicious forethoughts. You’re being selfish when you do something you know, even before you do it, will cause hurt or harm to another. On a personal scale, this entails taking more than your fair share of “X” knowing that leaves someone without.  If there are 12 cookies and 12 people who desire to get a cookie, and you take 3 cookies for yourself, you know you’ve left 2 people without cookies. On a broader scale, this is forcing a thinly veiled, religious-based law on women to restrict their body autonomy knowing full well you’re intentionally disempowering them.

While you know that certain actions will cause hurt if you take them – ending a relationship, quitting a job, saying “no” to something another expects of you that you don’t desire, or walking away from a toxic family situation – this is not selfish. Though the person or persons impacted by your choice will call you selfish, that is not a selfish act. How they choose to feel is not in your control.

Do you feel bad knowing they will feel hurt? Since I suspect the answer is yes, that’s a sign that you are not being truly selfish. Why? Because the truly selfish don’t give a shit about anyone or anything other than themselves.

You are worthwhile and deserving of experiencing this life

We only occupy these bodies, in this life, for a limited time. Though our essence is probably infinite, our body and consciousness within it are not.

Human beings have evolved in some amazing ways. What’s more, we’ve developed tools and technologies that allow us to experience this world in ways that were virtually unimaginable just a century ago. Opportunities that were once reserved for a limited few are now available to the masses.

One of the reasons you might not think you’re worthwhile or deserving is old, outdated cultural rules. It’s not untrue that, once upon a time, choosing your life experience was limited to only a few deemed socially worthwhile and deserving. However, the world has changed. You no longer need to be a king, nobleman, priest, wealthy, or male to be worthwhile and deserving of living life on your terms.

You, and you alone, know what you desire and how you would prefer that your life be. Hence, you are worthwhile and deserving of taking actions to make it so.

Given the truth that there is no one-size-fits-all, I need to put a caveat here. If you’re a parent or have chosen to be an active caregiver for an elderly or disabled relative, you must take their needs into account, too. That might impact your choices and decisions, but in the interest of avoiding true selfishness, this is important to account for.

One more consideration

There will be times when you will feel unworthy and undeserving. I sometimes feel that. This is utterly, perfectly natural. Welcome to the Human Condition.

Because we’re social creatures, we desire to have validation, recognition, and acknowledgment of our worth from others. Do you actually, factually need this? No. Yet, you will still feel bad when you don’t get it. Especially if you’re comparing your life to someone else’s, feel like you are being passed up or over, and get a sense that it’s just not fair.

Nope, life is not fair. However, you are a worthy and deserving person, even if you aren’t recognized as you desire to be. Pausing to consider this can help you feel better when you don’t feel worthwhile or deserving. Because you are worthwhile and deserving. Yes, I mean you.

Recognizing that you are worthwhile and deserving isn’t hard

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

When you recognize and acknowledge that shit happens, and you won’t always feel like you’re worthy or deserving, a little mindfulness can show you that, ultimately, you are. Knowing that you approach life without ill intent and are seeking to live it as fully as possible – and so is everyone else – you can take action to let go of needing to be recognized and validated by others and see your ultimate worth.

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

Taking an approach to positivity and 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 eighteenth (518) 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 Did You Know that You Are Worthwhile and Deserving? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Is There Always a Path to Choose?

Yes, but you alone can decide on it.Photo by Iain Kennedy on Unsplash

Everyone experiences at least two “New Years” annually. One is the change of the calendar, December 31 into January 1. The other is your birthday and the change of the year for you and your life.

With the start of a new year, many people set goals and make various plans to a greater or lesser extent for what their life might look like. At the start of the calendar year, there are often resolutions. Go to the gym more, read more, quit smoking, eat less junk food, and so on. Twelve years ago, I realized that resolutions were the equivalent of “try” in Yoda’s “Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.” They have no gravitas, no drive to be acted on.

Thus, all those years ago, I chose to take action for my new year. Instead of blogging randomly, without any set time or schedule, I’d blog once a week, every week, on Wednesday.

The primary purpose of setting a time and doing the thing to blog more regularly was to further spur more frequent and regular writing on my part. After all, writing has been a compulsion of mine since I was 9 years old.

This is the path I’ve seen for my life over most of my life. Storytelling, especially as a writer, is the gift I desire to share with the world.

So, at the start of 2012, I began a blog that would be maintained weekly. Would that get me to start on the path I desired to be on to become a fully realized writer?

I think 628 weeks of consecutive, weekly blog writing – and counting – is indeed a hell of a start.

The snowball effect

In time, I found myself writing 2 blog articles a week. Soon, it became 6. Additionally, I began to put a lot more time and energy into writing fiction, and since 2014, as of this writing, I’ve self-published 9 sci-if, 3 fantasy, and 1 Steampunk novels. Currently, I write 4 blog articles a week, at least 1500 words of fiction a day, and am editing multiple finished works, too.

I believe that this large amount of writing – that began with one New Year’s Action to write a blog article once a week, every week – worked. It snowballed until I did, indeed, find myself on the path I desired to choose for my life.

Everything enormous in the world today started small. One tiny idea evolved into something massive. One person had a notion. That notion led to another idea, which in turn led to another idea, and before long the snowball effect turned an idea into a mobile phone, electricity powering our homes, satellites in orbit, and all else that makes today’s world what it is.

Yet to get from there to here, there was always more than one path. Take the example of electricity. Thomas Edison was a proponent of direct current, or DC. Nikola Tesla was a proponent of alternating current, or AC. To power today’s world, there were two paths, Edison’s and Tesla’s. Without getting into the details or the why, it was Tesla’s AC that got employed, and that’s the world as we know it today.

Both paths would have led to an electrically powered world. Each represents more than one path that might have gotten us here.

A path to choose might be large or small

Another reason why there’s always a path to choose is because of the nature of paths. Some are limited, specific, and relatively small. Others are more limitless, general, and relatively large.

Let’s look at some relatively small paths. For example, earning a degree. That path is relatively small, in that it’s specific in how it’s applied, what the end will be, and the amount of variation on that path is limited. Growing a perfect rose is an equally small path, as there are only so many ways to combine soil, water, nutrients, and light in the limited time it takes for the seed to become a flower.

What about large paths? Let’s take my path, becoming a full-time writer. To get here, I chose to include blogging, taking various jobs involving writing, self-publishing, and the like. However, there are numerous other paths I could have chosen. Traditional publishing, submitting articles to various magazines, a degree in journalism, and lots more. Starting a family is an equally large path, as there are tons of variations for what a family is, how you can build it, and so on.

Large or small, long- or short-term, there are always paths to choose. Arguably, not choosing a path and letting life live you is also a chosen path.

Seeing, recognizing, and choosing a path is all well and good, but there’s another hugely important step involved. Taking a step. Doing “this, that, the other thing, or whatever” to start traversing a given path.

Photo by Jp Valery on UnsplashYou cannot make a path to choose without action

I can talk about choosing this path or that path until you’re beyond sick of me talking about it. It won’t matter if I don’t act on my choice and start walking said path.

What this looks like varies from person to person and path to path. However, certain factors are always the same.

Specifically, you can’t choose to act on a path without conscious awareness of it. That’s only achievable in the here and now. Then, to make any choice or decision for how to traverse a path, you need to practice mindfulness.

This is how you take control of your life experience and open the way to act on doing whatever it is you desire to do. No matter what the path is, walking it always begins with thought, feeling, and intention.

The one and only exception to this is unintentionally finding your path. Maybe you didn’t initially seek to take that path, so mindfulness wasn’t involved. However, to remain on that path and continue to traverse it, mindful choices and decisions are necessary.

To practice active mindfulness, all you need to do is ask, here and now, questions of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions, such as,

What am I thinking?What am I feeling?How am I feeling?What is the intent these create within me?

Once asked and answered, here and now, you gain clarity. With that clarity, you can see what actions will get you onto the path you choose, whether it’s a big path or a small path.

What about not choosing a path?

Actively choosing a path for your life, big or small, long-term, short-term, and everything in between, is an act of empowerment. Unfortunately, due to the nature of our fear-based society, finding empowerment is all too often discouraged in various ways.

The most insidious example is what “they” tell us is “normal.” For example, in American culture, this often looks like working 9-5, living in a house you own, having a spouse and a child or two, following your local sports teams, and pursuing life, liberty, and happiness. All other options and paths are to be viewed as suspect and approached with caution.

Accepting the “normal” as your reality does involve occasional choices of paths. However, for the most part, they’re finite, limited, and feed the machine rather than your soul.

Perhaps this looks harsh and judgmental to some. Maybe it is, but I know too many people who fight depression, anxiety, and imbalance because they haven’t chosen life paths.

That’s the kind of path my Pathwalking philosophy is all about. A path to choose is about something that empowers you, gives you control over your life experience, and makes you feel alive and in charge rather than asleep and someone else’s pawn.

There is always a path to choose when you’re working to live life on your terms, making active, consciously aware choices and decisions, and taking the empowerment that’s rightfully yours. Maybe that makes you “woke” in the falsely derogatory sense of the word. However, I know I prefer to be awake and striving to take control of my life over being asleep and letting some other asshole do the driving.

There is always a path to choose. Will you decide to choose it?

This is the six-hundred and twenty-eighth (628) 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 Is There Always a Path to Choose? appeared first on The Ramblings of the Titanium Don.

Why Do I Keep Pushing Genuine, Non-Toxic Positivity?

Because the world needs more genuine positivity to combat the fear.Photo by Josh Berendes on Unsplash

Whether we like it or not, we live in a fear-based society. All around us are messages aimed to keep us afraid.

Why? This might come across as cynical, but I can’t disprove it: Because capitalism demands sales. One of the best ways to get people to buy goods and services is via fear. Fear of lack, scarcity, and not getting what’s rightfully yours. A fear of the “other”, be they LGBTQA+, black, liberal, conservative, Muslim, Jew, or what have you. The fear of suffering, especially if the war over there somehow finds its way over here, you don’t buy the right car, acquire the right home, and so on. Fear of missing out, cutely called FOMO to disguise just how cloying and insipid it is.

Most of these are expressed to us in subtle ways. Advertising, for example, seldom is blatant in its use of fear to make you buy things you don’t necessarily need. News media needs sponsors, and to get them they need many viewers/listeners/readers/etc. What better way to do that than stirring pots with fear, sometimes subtle and other times shamelessly? Then there are our so-called “leaders”, be they political, religious, business, or other. To maintain and increase their so-called “power”, many (no, not all) use fear to disempower while building cults of personality.

The best way to combat a fear-based society is with reason. Reason, tied to logic, is the antithesis of fear. That’s because reason often exposes fear for its bullshit.

Getting to reason and logic, though, can be challenging in the face of all the fear blanketing society. Since fear ties to negativity, another tool to combat it is positivity.

Unfortunately, that also has been abused, misused, and misappropriated.

Genuine, non-toxic positivity versus toxic positivity

The use of toxic positivity has made genuine, non-toxic positivity seem hard to distinguish. It causes many to automatically dismiss all positivity, genuine or otherwise.

Neutrality doesn’t help anyone when all is said and done. Look at Nazi Germany, for example. Those who didn’t choose to side against the Nazis, many wishing to remain “neutral”, were the catalyst for Hitler’s rose to power. That led to the near genocide of Jews and Romani, resulting in 12 million (12,000,000) dead (6 million Jews, 6 million other people).

Today, many wishing to remain “neutral” won’t take a stand against fascist wannabes, such as Trump, who has already “joked” he’ll start as a dictator to “take care of” certain things, but then he’ll pull back. FYI, if you believe him, I have some lovely ocean-front property to sell you in Iowa. But I digress.

Neutrality can’t combat negativity. Positivity, however, can. Genuine, non-toxic positivity.

The difference between toxic and non-toxic positivity is easy to recognize. Toxic positivity tells you to ignore, disregard, walk away from, and turn a blind to any and all negativity. If you walk around with rose-colored glasses and blinders to negativity, focus wholly on positivity, and ignore all else, you’ll be in a great place.

It’s not possible to live without negativity. It can, will, and does occur. There is nothing you can do about this truth – save choose how to react when it happens. Because it will.

Shit happens. People die. Friends leave you. Jobs are lost and stolen. Life will unexpectedly turn to shit. Welcome to the human experience. Genuine, non-toxic positivity recognizes this absolute, unavoidable, undeniable truth.

It’s a matter of choice in the face of negativity

When shit happens – and it will – you’ll experience an immediate, visceral, automated reaction to it. That varies from person to person, and it takes more forms than this article can cover. Something happens – good, bad, or otherwise – and you have a reaction at the moment of it happening.

After that initial reaction, however, you have a choice. Feed the negativity or feed the positivity.

Certain happenings indeed appear to have no positivity tied to them. That’s the nature of uncertainty. Yet they can teach you something, help you grow and evolve, and open you to make choices and decisions for change. That’s a positive, is it not?

You might not reach that point right away. How long you linger in negativity is wholly up to you. If you choose to be negative and stay in a bad place or make no choices at all and allow negativity to dominate your life experience, it becomes increasingly entrenched. The more it settles in and upon you the harder it is to remove, replace, and change.

Often this comes down to seeing reason. At some time past that initial, automated reaction, you start to recognize your state of being. If it’s not how or what you desire it to be, you are now empowered to change it.

What it takes to change will vary depending on the person, place, situation, and whatnot. However, no matter what that is, you have a choice. Choosing is how you employ reason, genuine, non-toxic positivity, and direct/control change.

Choosing positivity is often not easy.

Photo by Meg on UnsplashThe challenge of outside influences

People might see you choosing to move on from something via genuine, non-toxic positivity, and form an opinion. Then, they might share their opinion. It might run completely counter to what you’re doing.

Whose life is It anyway? Nobody but you is in your head, heart, and soul. Ergo, there is nobody else who can think for you, feel for you, act for you, or intend for you. It’s all yours.

Because of this, other people might see a choice you make counter to what they’d do, and pass judgment. They then might choose to share that with you, expressing their concern, telling you where you’re going right and/or wrong, and possibly letting you know how they’d do it.

Worse, they might imply or state outright that they find your choice to be selfish, inappropriate, rose-colored, or otherwise difficult to understand.

Choosing genuine, non-toxic positivity in response to whatever might cause others to comment. However, you know what’s best for you and they don’t. You know what you need to do to find your center, work with reason, and take whatever control you can over your life experience.

One of the best ways to overcome negatives, bad happenings, and restore balance and reason is via genuine, non-toxic positivity.

What does genuine, non-toxic positivity look like?

First and foremost, it does not apply to anyone other than you. You cannot force, push, coerce, or otherwise try to control how anyone else thinks, feels, acts, and intends.

You can offer an example by showing yourself as someone who is centered, balanced, and able to work with shit happening. However, the impact that has on anyone else is utterly outside of your control.

Genuine, non-toxic positivity begins by recognizing shit has happened. You recognize and acknowledge the world can be an imperfect, illogical, even awful place. Bad things might be happening/have happened, and they’re not to be disregarded.

Then, you practice mindfulness to be consciously aware of yourself. With that active conscious awareness – here and now – you can know what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, and what you are and/or aren’t doing. Then, you can choose to change any or all of these to shift focus to genuine, non-toxic positivity.

What this looks like is recognizing something has happened, but that either/and/or it’s a learning opportunity, a blessing in disguise, an unavoidable change, or a chance to start something new, change direction, and so on.

This comes down to making choices and decisions for how you approach life here and now, and then moving forward. Genuine, non-toxic positivity is working with potential and possibilities to live life on your terms and in your control.

You can only do one thing to combat the fear in our society. Choose not to let it dominate you and your life. Make choices and decisions to seek and find reason and use genuine, non-toxic positivity to overcome the fear. Perhaps, as you do that, it can help others see what’s possible for them and their lives, too.

Recognizing genuine, non-toxic positivity isn’t hard

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

When you recognize and acknowledge that shit happens, lots of things in life are out of your control, and you can’t do anything for anyone else on that level, you can see more clearly how our fear-based society works and keeps us largely disempowered. Knowing the difference between true positivity and toxic positivity, you can make choices and decisions to seek reason and take the control of your life that is rightfully yours to take.

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

Taking an approach to positivity and 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. Happy New Year!

This is the five-hundred and seventeenth (517) 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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