M.J. Blehart's Blog, page 94

Pathwalking 237

Everyone is familiar with the phrases quitters never win and winners never quit.  However, I think everyone also knows this is not always the truth.

There are numerous things that need to be quit.  Plenty of less-than-stellar habits like smoking, excess drinking, overeating, being overly judgmental and such.  There are other behaviors that one might consider quitting, like always talking over others, low self-opinion, inactivity and such.

What is the relation of quitting to Pathwalking?  Accepting that, sometimes, you need to quit one thing to start another.

This is not a simple notion, however.  Before you quit something, unless you know it’s a habit that gets in your way of living the fullest life, or a relationship that makes you miserable, you need to consider if you are quitting because you are afraid, if you are quitting because you have tried and failed too many times, or if you are quitting because you know it is time to move on.

Quitting when you are afraid is surprisingly common.  Every single self-help, holistic book I have read or listened to has addressed just this.  At the cusp of realizing one’s dream, at that point where, despite not seeing results you are just about to manifest what it is you have been striving after…you call it quits.  You throw up your hands, and get angry and declare, “This stuff is crap!  I give up!”  Often, this is the result of fear.

Twin fears are usually at play here.  The fear of failure, equal to the fear of success.  You are afraid to fail, and when you have put a lot of time and effort and heart and soul into something and you are not seeing any results, it can be hugely frustrating.  You become discouraged, and you get tired of all the effort.  Despite knowing you have made good choices, despite feeling it to your core that this is where you are supposed to be going…you call it, and walk away.  Instead of failing, you end it on your own terms, and quit.

This seems like an emotionally solid option, but it’s not.  In time, you will probably find yourself wondering what could have been…or even restarting the process and having to work to and through that same point again.

On the other side of this coin, you are at that same point, so close to victory you can almost taste it, but so frustrated with all the effort you’ve expended…and yet, you begin to question what happens if you succeed?  How will other people react?  How will this affect my relationships?  How might this change me?  How will this REALLY make me feel?  What if I prove I am right, and I get what I want?  Oh no, I might succeed, and with success there might be consequences…so you call it, and walk away.  Instead of succeeding and experiencing the change success might bring, you end it on your own terms, and quit.

This may bring emotional relief to the fear of what might have been, but odds are you will soon find yourself questioning why you gave up.  Why didn’t you see it through?  What were you afraid of?  The fear of success is less familiar than the fear of failure to most people, but it can be equally if not more crippling.

Quitting out of fear is no reason to quit.  Especially when most of your fears are intangibles that can do little to no harm.

Quitting when you have failed too many times is a double-edged sword.  Similar to quitting out of fear, just because you have tried and failed a dozen times doesn’t necessarily mean you should quit.  Many of the greatest minds in this world tried and failed dozens of times before they succeeded.  Sometimes it’s a matter of changing your approach, sometimes it’s a question of timing, and sometimes you are missing that one, small necessary thing, but on the five-thousandth try you will make it fly.

I have had my writing rejected by at least two or three dozen agents and publishers.  I didn’t quit writing, and instead turned to self-publishing to put my work out there.  Now I am trying to promote my work and increase sales, but though I have tried many many methods to make this happen, I have not quit, and have no intent of doing so.

Now here’s the other edge of that same sword.  Albert Einstein is credited with saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”  You keep taking the same steps, thinking the same thoughts, putting forth the same actions, and making the same efforts over and over again, and over and over again you do not get the result you desire.  Maybe you give it a small tweak here, a slight adjustment there, but nonetheless you are doing the same exact thing again and again and again.

This takes a great deal of self-awareness.  You have to really analyze this thing you have been doing, and decide if maybe, just maybe, it is time to call it quits and move on.  This is a very hard action to take, because it may ultimately make you feel like you’ve expended a lot of effort for nothing…but sometimes it is the best choice, in order to take a new and more useful path.

Which leads to quitting because you know it is time to move on.  Maybe that job is just not right for you anymore.  Maybe this relationship is no longer healthy.  Maybe you’ve come to realize that the goal you have been striving for is not really what you want.  Maybe being happy is more important to you than being acceptable to others.  Whatever the case may be, situations can arise where it is in your best interest to quit.  Often this gets drawn out, and frequently we seriously question if this is wise, but in general when you quit in this manner you become relieved, and you open up new channels to the life you most want.

Quitting should seldom be the first answer.  But there is no shame in walking away from a path that will not suit you, and that will not make you happy.  Sometimes winners win because they quit something that, ultimately was in fact a loss.

Is there anything you have quit, or might need to quit to create the life you most desire to live?

 

GOAL LOG – Week 27:

Diet: I am still eating well, and still eating far less bread and pasta and the like while continuing to keep away from candy and other sugars of that sort.

Exercise: Fencing happened twice last week.  Dog sitting continues, which meant there were several, daily long walks, of two to four miles each.  Much exercise, but no trips to the gym.

Writing:  One day of editing.  It’s better than none at all.

Meditation:  Two days of meditation, at least 5 minutes each day.

Gratitude: I wrote out 5 things to be grateful for every day last week.

This is the two-hundred thirty-seventh entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life.  I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

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

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

If you enjoy Pathwalking, you may also want to read my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

Positivity: Celebrate our Similarities

We should celebrate our sameness more.

The things that make us all similar, our basic humanity and our universal desires for love and happiness, are not something to be ignored.  These things that we all share are amazing, and we should celebrate them.

We need to deemphasize our differences and the things that divide us, and make a bigger deal about our commonalities.  There is tremendous positivity in unity and in our sameness.

We put too great importance on physical differences like hair color, skin color, height, weight, and gender.  Beneath it all we have the same internal organs and skeletal structures, these meat suits we define ourselves by are just the vessels of our souls.  The substance beneath is a very different thing, and it is pretty amazing.

Even more than our physical differences, we give far too much focus and attention to our intangible differences.  Nationality, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliations and similar unseen identifiers are given so much power, and yet do not truly define us.

What makes us different makes us unique, and it is good to have qualities tangible and intangible to self-identify.  But the things that make us the same, the desires we have for happiness and for love, are the ultimate generators of positivity.

The things that divide us, the differences between us, are so readily used to incite anger, violence, injustice.  We look at different races, religions, genders and sexual preferences and we fear the things that are separate about us.  Why do these things matter so much to anyone other than ourselves?  We are only effected by the differences if we focus on them and see them not as unique identifies, but as vehicles for our fear of the unknown, and fear of the different.

I do not know a single human being who does not want to be happy.  I do not know any individual who does not want to love and be loved.  Rather than seeking out and defining and fighting over the things that make us different, we need to celebrate that we are all the same.  We need to work together to help one another find happiness and to love and be loved, because that would generate tremendous positivity.

When you see a person of a different skin color or gender than you; when you observe practitioners of a religion different from your own; when you are faced with someone who loves differently from how you love, don’t get caught up so much in what makes you different, and insubstantial fears about those differences – remember that, like you, they want to find happiness and love and to live a good life, too.

Stop dividing and conquering, and start uniting and encouraging.  Division is rife with negativity, whereas unity is full of positivity.  We need to come together more than we need to take apart.  Celebrate what makes us the same, and make more positivity.

Finding positivity is not hard, it just requires action.  Knowing that when we are more similar than we are different, we can celebrate our affinities.  When we choose to recognize that everyone, like us, wants love and happiness we forge powerful bonds, and in so doing so we empower ourselves.  When we feel empowered, we often spread that feeling to others around us, and as such can build more positive feelings.  We can use the positive feelings this generates to dissolve negative feelings.  When we take away negative feelings, we open up space to let in positive feelings, and that is something we can be grateful for.  Gratitude leads to happiness.  Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude.  Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

 

This is the one hundred twenty eighth entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.  Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

In relation to Positivity, check out my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

Pathwalking 236

Why do we seem so much better at expressing negativity than positivity?

This question has been on my mind for a while now, and is part of why I began my other weekly posts about Positivity.

Almost every Monday I’d open up Facebook or Twitter and the first thing I would see is complaints.  Weekend’s over, here we go again, another toilsome workweek, fun’s over, and so on.  Heaps of negativity, enough to undo any good the weekend might have done for rest and rejuvenation.

The world can be a dark and scary place, it appears.  Terrorists bombing people, sex slaves being trafficked, political upheaval in the United States and abroad, fear of strangers and refugees and multiculturalism dominate news feeds across social media.  People are constantly focusing on and spreading news of bad world happenings.

So much negativity.  So much anger, fear, and outright hatred.  The internet, a font of information and connectivity is being constantly used to perpetuate the bad feelings, and to make us angrier, more fearful and, frankly, sadder.

It is so easy to let negativity dominate our world view.  I hate my job.  That person really upsets me.  Why are they running that person for public office?  Why does my mouse keep getting lost and my computer freezing up?  How come that person got a raise instead of me?  I hate Mondays.

Everything we say carries weight, often far more than we realize.  And it is really, really easy to get caught up in negativity due to its prevalence on social media.

I can’t avoid the news.  I need to know what is going on out there.  I agree, it is wise to be informed.  However, there is no need to swim into the deepest depths of all the terrible news around the world.  Informed is one thing, inundated and swept beneath the waves is quite another.

What can we do in the face of this?  The first thing is both the simplest and the hardest at the same time.  Mind what you think about.  If you are all focused on that negative thing, if you are caught up in exploring how bad those people are or that situation is, consider what that is doing to you.  Is it helping or hindering your path?   Are your thoughts advancing your goals or holding them back?

The second thing is to mind what we are saying.  Are you talking about your dislike of that person, place or thing?  Are you complaining about something or someone?  Are you discussing how horrid a thing is, how bad it is making you feel, how disempowered you are feeling?  Are you using the phrase I hate?

This is important to not just Pathwalking, but to living a happy, fulfilling and enjoyable life.  When your focus is on negative things, when you are constantly thinking about and talking about them, if consciousness creates reality, guess what you are creating?

My thinking and feeling more positive is not going to get me better Presidential candidates.  It is not going to stop terrorists from murdering people.  It is not going to make a difference.  Actually, that’s where we are all mistaken.  It can and will make a difference, but not in the manner we think is most important.

All that I can control is how I am thinking, how I am feeling, and how I am acting.  I cannot control anyone else.  I could have all the money and influence and power in the world, and I would still only be able to effect myself.  Period.

Why does this matter?  Because when you see and accept this fact, you empower yourself.  You take back control, and you determine how you are going to think, to feel, and to act.

When we all click on those links to those horrid news stories, the people who control those particular media outlets determine that clearly they should put out more of the same.  When we get into heated debates about things with our friends, we perpetuate the things we don’t want to give power to.  When we talk about the things we hate and dislike and do not want, we empower them instead of the things we love, we enjoy, and that we DO want.

It seems selfish, and small.  I recognize that.  However, the truth is that it’s not.  When we change the conversation, when we stop giving the attention to all the negativity and bad news, when we change our focus to positivity and good news we can and will create more of it.  That empowers us, and when we feel empowered we in turn empower others.  It may seem insignificant, it may seem too personal to have a wider range effect, but I believe that if consciousness creates reality, even the small ideas have the potential to become worldwide phenomena.

Here is my suggestion for a means to experiment with this premise.  Consider what you are thinking about RIGHT NOW.  Is it good or bad?  Are you thinking about something you want, or something you don’t want?  Are you feeling anxious, or excited?  When you take this into account, take a moment and focus on something positive.  Remember the power of the words I AM, and think of something good, not bad, to follow them with.

Before you post to G+, Twitter or Facebook, consider if you are contributing something good or something bad to the feeds.

Try these for a day, and see how much better a day focused on positives is over a day focused on negatives.  I think you might be pleasantly surprised.

Do you feel empowered?

 

GOAL LOG – Week 26:

Diet: My extreme diet is partially over with the start of July.  I am still eating well, still eating far less bread and pasta while keeping away from candy and other sugars of that sort.

Exercise: Fencing happened only 1 day last week, but I have been dog sitting.  This means there have been several, daily long walks, plus I spent my weekend hiking, both in an urban and rock-scrambling setting.  Much exercise, but no trips to the gym.

Writing:  No writing but the blogs happened last week.  I need to get back on track with this.

Meditation:  Three days of meditation, at least 3 minutes each day. This, too, needs to be increased.

Gratitude: I wrote out 5 or 6 things to be grateful for every day last week.

 

This is the two-hundred thirty-sixth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life.  I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

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

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

If you enjoy Pathwalking, you may also want to read my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

Positivity: Independence

Everyone desires independence.

Certainly there are times when having someone else to make decisions for you might be appealing, but overall I cannot think of anyone who doesn’t want independence.

Today is Independence Day in the United States.  While this is a national holiday celebrating our declaration of independence from Great Britain two-hundred and forty years ago, the concept of independence is far broader.  All of us, as individuals, are independent of thought, of action, and of feeling.  No one can think, feel, or act for you, unless you let them do so.

Independence is important because when we are surrounded by negativity, or by people who are constantly down, or when we get caught up in deep, socio-political conversations, we independently get to choose for ourselves how to think, how to feel, and how to act.

There are plenty of people who will tell you how to think, how to feel and how to act in this life.  Some are well-meaning, others are manipulative and controlling.  But your independence means that you are ultimately able to make these choices, and to control how your life will go.

It is easy to lose sight of this.  People are constantly giving up their ability to make these choices, sometimes because it feels easier to let someone else tell you how to think and feel and what to do, and sometimes they are choosing not to choose for themselves.

But no matter how we allow others control, we are still independent.  We can analyze what we are doing and how we are doing it, and then we can decide in what areas, if any, we need to take back control of our thoughts, our feelings and our actions.

Independence means we can choose whether to be positive or negative in our thoughts, our feelings and our actions.    Today is the celebration of a whole people declaring their independence, and striving to make a new life for themselves.  Individually we all have the power to do this.  Make today your personal independence day, and take that independence to find the things that make you happy, and seek out positivity.

Be who you are, the magnificent, independent individual.  Don’t let anyone else tell you who you are, who you should be, or how you are supposed to think and feel.  You are independent.  Celebrate it.

Finding positivity is not hard, it just requires action.  Knowing that when we declare our independence we assume control of our thoughts, feelings and actions, and thus we have all the power.  When we choose to think, feel and act on our independence, and make positive choices for ourselves, ultimately we empower ourselves.  When we feel empowered, we often spread that feeling to others around us, and as such can build more positive feelings.  We can use the positive feelings this generates to dissolve negative feelings.  When we take away negative feelings, we open up space to let in positive feelings, and that is something we can be grateful for.  Gratitude leads to happiness.  Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude.  Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

 

This is the one hundred twenty seventh entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.  Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

In relation to Positivity, check out my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

Pathwalking 235

This is not what I expected.

How often in your life have you either thought or said these words?  For me, it has been far more frequently than I might have wanted.

Pathwalking is about finding, choosing and then walking a path in life.  You dictate that path, you make the choices along it.

Of course no path is perfectly straight.  They all come with twists and turns, obstacles to be overcome, avoided or directly dealt with.  The best way to walk your chosen path is to do so in the now, keeping lessons learned from the past with an eye to the future, but right here and now, in this moment, on this given path.

And then the unexpected.  More than just a twist or turn in the path, not an obstacle.  Something you were not planning for.  It is that unexpected something that can have a profound effect on your path, and might even change it.

Pathwalking involves being open to new ideas.  It is about accepting, and really embracing change.  I choose to walk a given path because I want to control my own destiny, and live this life as will make me the happiest.

Still, the unexpected can be daunting.  It can be something challenging to reconcile that you just haven’t quite got the notion for how to handle it.

What sort of unexpected thing is this of which I write?  Something out-of-the-blue that could change your path.  A friend from the past who comes back into your life just when you need such.  That lover you were not looking for.  A job offer you can’t refuse.  A financial windfall.  A relocation to somewhere unfamiliar.  A promotion.

All of these unexpected things are potentially positive.  This is what makes these different from your standard pathway twists and turns, obstacles and redirections.  Also, they frequently come upon you fairly suddenly.  A phone call, an e mail, a text, nothing you foresaw and yet here it is.

Like all aspects of Pathwalking, now you have been presented with a choice.  Leave the path you were merrily trekking upon and go with this unexpected happening…or decline it, ignore it and keep focused on the end goal of the path you’ve chosen.

When you are living in the now as you travel your path, you can better handle the twists and obstacles, and you can equally better handle this kind of unexpected thing.  You are adaptable.  You can make changes.

Often the unexpected is a good omen.  I’ve not written a lot about this concept, because Pathwalking is about your own choices, not simply letting things happen as you go along.  However, as you journey along your given path, chances are you’ve encountered signs that have shown you that this is indeed the right way to be going.  This is why you have chosen the paths you choose.

Still, along the way we often receive signs from the Universe of encouragement.  Omens.  I know this can be a pretty cryptic concept, but it is still something important to be considered.

If, as you are travelling your chosen path, you are full of doubt, and you are uncertain about the choice, you may find that the thing that will keep you on that chosen path, versus choosing a different path, is some kind of omen.  You see a small payoff.  You receive encouragement from without that increases confidence and helps you with choices upon the path.  Something that defies explanation might occur to keep you down this path.

The unexpected of the nature I am writing of is a sign.  It may be unexpected, but it is not unwanted.  It is a good omen, because while it may change the path, it is still something that will bring you happiness.  Because when all is said and done, that’s the primary reason to choose and walk a given path.  The end result we all want is joy.  It is happiness.

Oh, come on.  What about the job?  The money?  The relationship?  The goal of the path is the thing wanted.  That’s as may be, but I would ask you to consider why.  Why do you want the job, the money, the relationship, or whatever your end goal of the path you are walking is?  Because it is something the inevitably will make you happy.

That is why the positive but unexpected happening is a good thing.  Maybe it’s not how you expected this path you are walking to go, but if it brings you more happiness, makes you feel good and improves your life, didn’t you manifest it for yourself by choosing to walk a path in the first place?

My aim may be for goal ‘x’, but I probably cannot see how it will come about.  So what if the unexpected is better than what I was aiming for in the first place?  Because I was making the effort, isn’t it probable I drew this to myself, even if unexpectedly?

This is not what I expected…but I am excited to see where it’s going to take me now.

What unexpected things have you experienced?

 

GOAL LOG – Week 25:

Diet: My extreme diet continues.  I am still eating well, avoiding bread and pasta and candy and other sugars, except for on 1 day last week.  I feel healthier overall, and my clothes are definitely fitting better.

Exercise: Fencing happened three days last week, and I spent several hours in the ocean swimming with my friends’ kids.  I did a decent amount of walking, shot archery, but I didn’t get to the gym.

Writing:  Three days of at least some writing and editing happened.  I need to keep working to make this a more daily practice.

Meditation:  Four days of meditation, at least 5 minutes each day.

Gratitude: I wrote out 5 things to be grateful for every day last week, save one.

 

This is the two-hundred thirty-fifth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life.  I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

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

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

If you enjoy Pathwalking, you may also want to read my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

Positivity: Living in the Now

In the now we are in control of our own feelings, thoughts and actions.

Right now, at this very moment, I can choose how I want to feel.  I get to choose if I want to worry about future events or reminisce about past events.  I get to choose, right now, what I want to think about.  I choose my actions at this moment.

Society obsesses with both the past and the future.  We think of the past that times were better, we need to restore our greatness, it was a happier, simpler time and so on.  Conversely, we think of the future that we need to be ready, fight for the future, improve upon tomorrow and such.

But only in this moment, in the here and now, do we truly have control.  We have control of our emotions, our actions, and even our thoughts.  We can’t undo or redo the past, we cannot control the future because it’s not happened yet, but we can control the now.

In the now I get to choose how I want to feel.  Do I choose to be angry, sad, upset, anxious or uncertain?  Do I choose to be joyful, happy, content, steady and confident?  In the here and now, I get to be the one to make these choices.

People have become so universally disempowered that they think they control nothing.  We are bombarded by news of atrocities on every imaginable level, and we are in a constant state of looking back and looking ahead, unmindful of just being.

When we are in the now, unconcerned about the future and not weighted down with the past, we have the power to choose how we will feel, what we will act on, what we will think about.

It can be surprisingly challenging to live in the now.  But if we take our focus off past and future, and instead put it at this moment we can overcome anxiety, we can evaluate and work through depression, and we can choose to let go of the burdens of thoughts and emotions that do not serve us.

What do you want for yourself, right now?  Do you want to be upset about past events, fearful of future events, or on top of the moment at hand, directly before you in the now?  Because we cannot undo or redo the past, and the future is not yet chosen, only in the now do we have true control.  And when we take that control we take our empowerment unto ourselves.

This is the key.  When we are in the now, we empower ourselves.  The more we are empowered by ourselves, the less we need to be empowered by others.  Yet because we dwell on the past and spend so much energy concerned with the future we regularly turn our power over to others.  And yet, when all is said and done, nobody but you can make you happy.

In the now we can choose Positivity.  I think everyone would prefer to live in a world of positivity than of negativity.  Right now, in this moment, the choice is ours.

Finding positivity is not hard, it just requires action.  Knowing that when we live in the now we get to choose for ourselves how we think, feel and act, we can take control of our reality.  When we choose to take that control, and leave the past behind and the future ahead by being conscious of and living in the here-and-now, we empower ourselves.  When we feel empowered, we often spread that feeling to others around us, and as such can build more positive feelings.  We can use the positive feelings this generates to dissolve negative feelings.  When we take away negative feelings, we open up space to let in positive feelings, and that is something we can be grateful for.  Gratitude leads to happiness.  Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude.  Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

 

This is the one hundred twenty sixth entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.  Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

In relation to Positivity, check out my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

Pathwalking 234

“What do you want to do?”

A respected career coach asked me this question.  My answer, at the time was, “I’m not entirely sure.”

That’s not the truth, though.

Why didn’t I tell her what I want?  Why did I hold back?  How come I didn’t admit to what it is I want to do?

The answer is indicative of what it is I need to be working on.

However, I want to provide some context first.

This was at an all-staff meeting for my job.  A job I have worked at on and off for the past thirteen years now.  A job that I love, for the most part.  But it’s not the thing I most want to be doing with my life.

My bosses are aware of this.  But I have a unique skill set at this job which makes me a particularly desirable employee to have.  I am the tech guy, in multiple iterations of what a tech guy does.  I also manage the staff and open and close the store from time to time.

Anyhow, they have been working with this career coach for several years now.  I have a lot of respect for her.  So when she asked me what I want to do, I gave a non-committal answer.

Why?  Because of fear.  Fear of judgement.  Fear that I am crazy for wanting to do what it is I want to do.  Fear of disappointing myself, my loved ones and my friends.

There is a socially acceptable convention when it comes to employment.  You go to work.  You do your job.  You go home.  If you happen to be REALLY lucky, you actually like the job you do.  Otherwise you are doing that thing because you are an adult and you have bills to pay and responsibilities that require you hold a job.

Pathwalking came about in part because this model has never worked for me.  You spend anywhere from five to ten hours a day at your job.  When you are awake for sixteen or more hours a day, why should you spend half your waking hours doing something that leaves you unhappy?  That has never made sense to me.

Recently I have mentioned Jen Sincero’s You Are a Badass quite a lot.  One of the things she constantly presses home is that while we may be working on certain beliefs about life now, we still have old beliefs we’ve never properly addressed and laid to rest.

I think this has been one my larger issues.  I grew up believing that to be successful it was important to have an important job.  Doctor, lawyer, business professional and such.  If you are not doing one of these things you will NEVER make good money and you are not living up to your full potential.

Yes, I could have studied to be a doctor or a lawyer or some kind of business professional.  But that’s not me.  Those things don’t feel like anything that would bring me joy.  So, as such, not the paths I have chosen.

Any yet, admitting to someone who actually can help me on my path to what it is I want, when I had an opportunity to do so, I choked.  I feared my unconventional desire for my career was not something I could admit to.  I even agreed that maybe I would like to remain in this job I am in and take on a greater role than I have now with the business…but is that really what I want, or is that the safe answer?

Fear and old, outdated beliefs allow us to compromise where we shouldn’t.  I am afraid if I admit to what it is I really want to be doing with my life I will be committed to it.  And commitment and I have often had our quarrels.

I can always change my answer.  Pathwalking is not a singular path.  I state that rather a lot, because it’s true.  Pathwalking is not a singular path.

What’s the true answer, currently, to the question of “What do you want to do?”  I want to find a way to write more.  I want to promote my novels, but I also would like to move forward with doing more writing gigs for businesses.  More blogs, websites, brochures, procedurals and product descriptions.  I want to utilize my writing skills and use them to make money.

I love to write.  I write my works of fiction almost daily.  I blog twice a week, topics near and dear to my heart.  I have done SEO writing, research writing, business writing for a wide variety of businesses on multiple topics and for different purposes.  I can make money doing this, but I think it might be time for me to take a new approach to my professional life.

A need to stop fearing the truth.  I need to embrace it, make it my reality, and to get onto the damn path and walk it.

I often mention that no one can walk your path but you.  This is true.  But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people whom you can turn to for advice and assistance to help you on your journey.  I have an opportunity before me, and I need to set aside my fears and take it.

Stay tuned.  And thank you for your continued support.

Are you doing what YOU want to do?  If not, what DO you want to do?

 

GOAL LOG – Week 24:

Diet: My extreme diet continues.  I ate well, avoiding bread and pasta and candy and other sugars.  My willpower continues to be tested, but I’m sticking to it.  Also – my clothes are fitting better.

Exercise: Fencing happened twice last week, and I made it to the gym once.  I did a LOT of walking, but I still need to do more exercise.

Writing:  Three days of at least some writing and editing happened.  I need to strive to make this a more daily practice.

Meditation:  Five days of meditation, at least 5 minutes each day.

Gratitude: I wrote out 5 or 6 things to be grateful for every day last week.

 

This is the two-hundred thirty-fourth entry in my series. These weekly posts are ideas and my personal experiences in walking along the path of life.  I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way.

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

The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.

If you enjoy Pathwalking, you may also want to read my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

Positivity: How we approach the things we have to do

Welcome to another Monday.  Yes, the weekend is over.  How do you choose to face the work week?

This is so much more within our control than we realize.  Since we are each in control of our own emotional state, as such we each get to choose how we will face the day, and that can totally set the tone for how we face the coming week.

I know some of the arguments that can made against this perspective.  It’s not my fault I’m in a bad mood, I have a million meetings for work this week and hours of travel and I have to spend my day dealing with idiots and all my bills are due and on and on.

But how do you frame these things?  If you look upon them from the negative, well, guess how they are likely to go?  More often than not when you expect things to be bad, to feel bad, to go poorly, they will in fact go as you expect them.

You may not be in control of these things that you must do, but you ARE in control of how you feel about them.  Are you looking upon your coming day and week with dread?  Loathing?  Concern?  Fear?  Distress?  Displeasure?  Is your view of what’s ahead negative or positive?  This will tell you what you can expect from things to come.

So you have a million meetings?  Well, fine, but look on the positive side – you have a job, which means you can pay those bills that are due and you are totally prepared to do your part for those meetings because you are completely prepared and YOU ROCK!  Hours of travel?  Well, that’s time for yourself to think, to get caught up on some audiobooks, to listen to music and to plan your next vacation.  Dealing with idiots?  Here comes an opportunity to help other people better themselves in some way or other.

How do you frame what is coming up?  This makes all the difference for how it will go.  If you find yourself thinking this is gonna suck, why is this happening to me, how will I handle this, I am totally dreading what I have to do or any other negatives, you can change it.  You can take a deep breath, reconsider how you are looking at this and take a whole new approach.  This is gonna be ok, I can do this, I’ve totally got a handle on this, I will rock what I have to do etcetera.

This is not mumbo-jumbo.  This is not pie-in-the-sky self-talk BS.  This is the truth.  When you see what you are facing in a negative way, you’re much more likely to get exactly what you do not want.  You have the power to change it.  You have the power to decide not to approach this from a bad place, and instead approach it from a good place.

Welcome to Monday.  Let’s go out there and totally make this an awesome week!

How will you choose to face the work week?

Finding positivity is not hard, it just requires action.  Knowing that we have things to do and expectations to meet during the day and the upcoming week, and that we have responsibilities to tend to, we have the power to choose HOW we will take them on.  When we choose to face our lives with a positive attitude about what we will be doing, instead of a negative perspective, we empower ourselves.  When we feel empowered, we often spread that feeling to others around us, and as such can build more positive feelings.  We can use the positive feelings this generates to dissolve negative feelings.  When we take away negative feelings, we open up space to let in positive feelings, and that is something we can be grateful for.  Gratitude leads to happiness.  Happiness is the ultimate positive attitude.  Positive attitude begets positive energy, and that is always a good thing.

 

This is the one hundred twenty fifth entry of my Positivity series.  It is my hope these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone.  Feel free to share, re-blog and spread the positivity.

In relation to Positivity, check out my Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.

Thoughts on my Writing

Writing is my passion.

While my favorite things to write are fantasy, sci-fi and Steampunk, I enjoy writing EVERYTHING.  Give me a topic, tell me how many words you want and I will write!

I totally need and want more paid writing gigs.  But I digress.

Over the years I’ve written brochures, blogs, text for websites and many other business-centric pieces.  For a time I even had my own company for this purpose, though its focus was a bit broader.

For the longest time I thought myself a pretend writer.  I had only a couple small works published, I was full of uncertainty.  But now I see that I have always been a writer, and always will be.

Let’s recap, shall we?

First there were my short stories, A Treacherous Stone, published by Dragon Moon Press in the anthology Rum and Runestones; and then The Vapor Rogues, published again by Dragon Moon Press in the anthology Spells and Swashbucklers.  Both of these anthologies, if you have not read them, are full of stories all about pirates and magic by some pretty awesome authors!

After these two short stories had been published, I decided to try my hand at self-publishing.  I began with Pathwalking – A 21st Century Philosophy.  This is the first year of my Pathwalking blog, along with some additional bits.  I have been blogging Pathwalking every Wednesday for over 4.5 years, and still going! I am currently exploring offering classes on the topic, and creating a workbook of a sort to go with it.

I began the fantasy series The Source Chronicles back in 1998.  Along the way I had, for a time, an agent, though this was not his normal line of publishing.  Then the first book – Seeker – was professionally edited.  I continued to seek an agent or publisher, until I decided, nope, time to go this on my own.  I published Seeker – The Source Chronicles Book I at the end of 2014.

A year later, after completing editing, I published Finder – The Source Chronicles Book II.  Still not sure everyone who purchased Seeker realizes its sequel is available, and I have yet to see any reviews on Amazon.

The third book in The Source Chronicles – Harbinger – is complete, but unedited.  My current plan is to have THAT one out in 2017.

Over the course of several years, I have participated in National Novel Writer’s Month (NaNoWriMo).  I have, as such, completed 4 novelettes.  On more than one occasion I ventured out of my usual comfort zone and wrote something different from my regular genres.  One such story was Vortex Pilgrimage.  Influenced highly by the works of Paulo Coelho, I decided in July 2015 to edit and publish it.

After some things posted to social media over a couple particularly dark days, an idea came to me.  Back into the realm of non-fiction, I wrote a short self-help/holistic short book called Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better.  I have this fairly simple idea I felt the need to express and share.

Five Easy Steps to Change the World for the Better also was my first foray into using Smashwords to spread my work to a broader audience.

Back to fiction, I decided after all the world building that I did for The Vapor Rogues short story, I needed to create more.  So I began a new novel series.  I had completed the first book, and determined to get it edited.  That completed, just in time for the Steampunk World’s Fair I published Clouds of Authority – A Vapor Rogues Novel.  Yes, it’s Steampunk, but it is also full of elements of both sci-fi and fantasy.

The next book in that series, Clouds of Destiny, is complete, I just need to edit it.

So I have now published a total of six different works, covering several genres.  I blog twice weekly, Positivity on Mondays and Pathwalking on Wednesdays.  I have 2 more complete novels, both in need of editing.

What am I working on now?

Currently I have one editing project and one writing project underway.

Editing: The first successful NaNoWriMo piece I wrote was a narrative of my experience following the reason why this blog is called The Ramblings of a Titanium Don.  As I mention from time to time, in November of 1999 I was struck by a car while crossing a street (which resulted in my having titanium plates put into my right shoulder).  I wrote about my recovery and my life over the next few years after the accident.  It is fairly humorous, and also a true recounting from my perspective of that time.  It is one of the most personal things I have EVER written, and over the years numerous people have told me THIS is the story I should be publishing.

Well, after years of resisting, I am moving forward with editing The Journey of a Thousand Miles…Begins with a Trip to the Post Office.  The names have been changed to protect people, and rereading this has been an interesting experience for me.  I am unsure just when I will be publishing this, but keep watching.

Writing: For some time now I have been itching to go back to my favorite genre, sci-fi.  I just wasn’t coming up with an idea.  Then, in September of last year, something popped into my head.  Since then I have been writing this epic sci-fi space opera, creating new worlds, alien races, and using several non-traditional characters as well as playing around with some of the standard tropes of sci-fi stories.  I am creating a rich universe with a diverse cast of characters, and it has been a LOT of fun to work on.

I still have no title for the story, but it’s probably so far on the order of about 350 pages and counting.  Not sure when this will be completed and shared with the world, but keep an eye out for it.

Once I complete editing The Journey of a Thousand Miles…I will either start editing Clouds of Destiny or Harbinger.  Additionally, I need to soon pick up where I left off in Guardians, the 4th book in The Source Chronicles.

So, dear reader, I have two requests of you.  If you have enjoyed any of my works, PLEASE share the links with friends!  Please, if you’ve not done so, take a moment to review on Amazon.  Word-of-mouth is STILL my best marketing tool, and more readers means more people buying my work, which in turn means I can spend more of my time writing, editing and publishing.  As I began, writing is my passion!

THANK YOU!  Thank you for your encouragement, and all your support and inspiration.  THANK YOU!

Taking a Stand for Equal Rights for ALL

It is time to take a stand.

Full disclosure: I am a white, straight, non-Christian male.  And I believe that EVERYONE deserves equal rights.

I do not care in the least if you are white, black, Hispanic, Asian or what-have-you; it does not matter if you are male or female or gender fluid or no gender at all; it doesn’t matter if you are straight, gay, bi, omnisexual or any other option; it is of no matter to me if you are spiritual, agnostic, atheist, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Hindi or so-on-and-so-forth; fat, thin, short, tall, flat-footed, blonde, brunette, grey, American, European, Indian, rich, poor, etcetera; EVERYONE DESERVES EQUAL RIGHTS.

We live in a world where people still hate based on the must ludicrous perceived differences.  People act out of fear of those who are different from them, and spew hate and anger at whole groups of people who have never done anything but not be the same as them.

Hatred gets us nowhere.  Period.  Fear only drives us to cower from change and to allow a small, vocal minority to disempower people.  This has got to stop.

Take a stand.  Express your support for equality.

And if you are afraid of people who are different from you, ask yourself this question – WHY?  What are you afraid of?  Are you afraid of being changed?  Are you afraid of losing what you have?  Are you afraid of anything tangible?  Are you afraid of being shown that your fear is completely irrational?  WHY are you angry, why are you afraid?

Everyone deserves equal rights.  We need to love more, fear less, and seek to make the world a better place, together.

I am not afraid of you if you are not like me.  I support you in having the right to worship as you want, to love as you will, to have a life of love and peace and equality.

Equal Rights.  For EVERYONE.  Resist the hate and fear with love and courage.  Do not give back the hate and fear and anger, turn it around and give what you want to get.

I stand with the LGBT community.  I stand with the black community.  I stand with women.  I stand with Muslims and Christians and Buddhists and Jews and Atheists and anyone else trying to worship, or not, freely.  We all deserve to be treated with respect, with dignity, and with equality.  That’s our birthright.

Disagree with me?  Ok, that’s your prerogative.  You are entitled to your own opinion.  What you are not entitled to, however, is degrading, belittling, condescending or denying the rights of those you are in disagreement with.  Don’t politicize basic human decency, and don’t treat people as less than you, because none of us are.

We are all one.  We are all equal.  We all want and deserve equality.  That’s a plain, simple, unbiased fact.

I stand for equality for all.  Will you stand with me?