Bryan Parady's Blog, page 25

Grab Life

Step up to the plate. It’s yours for the taking if you want it. Life isn’t meant to just get through, it’s meant to conquer and step into boldly.

It’s not about staying safe and comfortable on your beach house all your life, it’s about going boldly into the face of danger, fighting for things you are passionate about and not giving up.

Life is about bold, daring adventures. It’s about giving more than you get, about taking chances, taking steps in the direction of your dreams.

Don’t get caught up in a fantasy world, where TV shows become your reality, and having the perfect house with 2.5 kids is your ultimate goal. There’s nothing wrong with wanting those things and having them, but there is so much more to life than just that.

You were meant for more, and you are capable of more. So get out there and grab life by the horns.

What Do You Want?

What do you want to accomplish? Have you tried to accomplish it? Have you failed? Succeeded?

We all have something deep within us that drive us, that makes us feel alive. When we talk about it our heart beats faster and the excitement in our voices goes up a notch. So ask yourself this. The thing in your life that makes you feel this way, are you pursuing it?

Are you going after it?

If not why not? There are so many things this world is missing out on because many of us aren’t living out the dreams within us.

This isn’t entirely our fault. We live in a society that doesn’t promote being unique. A society that categorizes most and sets standards for you. If you’ve attempted to dream big before you may have been met with opposition. Whether from friends or family, asking that question of whether you are doing the right thing or not.

When you start to pursue your dream and passion, people don’t know how to handle it. They get nervous, often because they deep down want to be doing something different but have to many fearful things keeping them back, and so they have a tendency to project that fear onto you.

Don’t listen. If you have a dream, go after it, don’t let anyone take it from you.

You Want to Get Fit?

What does it take to be fit? Is it getting on the right diet? Joining the perfect gym, getting in the right crossfit class. Never before have their been so many plans, diets, and gyms. Fitness is a a booming business. Yet we still suffer from a lot of unhealthy habits. Why?

Because we want a quick fix. We want to get in a program or get on a diet and see immediate results. But unfortunately fitness doesn’t work like that. It takes dedication, it takes hard work, and it takes time. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are fitness goals.

A lot of people and a lot of websites will try to convince you that there is only one way to get in shape, but in reality there are many ways. What works for one person might not work for others. For some your goal might be to lose weight, for others it may be to bulk up.

The rules of engagement are simple. Work out. Whether you use weight machines, run, bike, or get on an elliptical. Do something. Get your heartrate up, and sweat. Do this at minimum 4 times a week. Go in with determination. It will be hard. Some days will be easier than others. But you will always have days when there are a million reasons why you shouldn’t go, deadlines, things that come up. Fight through these and make working out a priority.

The second biggie? Change your diet. No you don’t have to follow some written out diet plan. It’s simple things. Stop eating white flour and eat whole wheat everything. Stop drinking soda and zero calorie drinks. Replace it with water. Stop eating sweet cereals, replace it with granola, rasin bran or something whole grain. Cut out fast food, limit it to once or twice a week.

Simple changes if kept up with make lasting change. If you’ve got goals, you can reach them.

I Wish I….

How many times have you thought to yourself “I wish I would have” or “If I was younger”?

I’m pretty sure we all have things we wish we would have done, thought we should have done, or wished we could go back and change. I’ve had these thoughts myself, and I hear them all the time from other people.

My question is, why do we put a timeline on our lives. A timeline that says if we don’t accomplish this or that by a certain age then we just need to settle down and find something that is “good enough”. Why we live with this mentality I’m not sure. There is no magical number that you have to have everything together on.

I was 29 when I joined the military. Some thought I was crazy. Why join the military at that age when you have a good job, a family, and a comfortable average life right?

That’s just it. I don’t want an average life. For what I want to do I have to do certain things to get there. Sure going through all this is hard, but it’s not as hard as having to wake up one day when it really is too late and wishing I had done something when I can.

We only have one life, and in it, we can do anything we choose to do. But that just it. It’s the choice that is the hardest thing. It’s making the decision and choosing to work hard, to make sacrifices in order to get to a long term goal.

Stop the Fighting

Stop the fighting. Seriously. Every day I am bombarded on Facebook with people ranting about different subjects. I know what a lot of people are against but I have no idea what they are for.

We are so quick to slam things, and let people know how dumb, stupid, or bad something is.

How about we stop ranting about what’s wrong though and start being intentional and talking about what is right and what we are for.

There are enough critics. What we need is those who stand up for a just cause, make statements that boldly declare what we are fighting for, and back up those statements with action. That more than anything will actually bring about change.

So stay positive, stay true to what you know is right, and declare what is right, fight for what is right, and don’t give your time to useless arguments.

Remember

Today there are many things that we take for granted. Not necessarily on purpose, but because we live busy lives and often don’t think of what it took to get us to where we are. What we or others gave for us to get there.

Memorial day is one of those times that allows us to stop for a minute and remember. So amidst the barbeques, beach visits and picnics take a moment to remember. Remember that there are those who have given their live so we can live in freedom and safely spend the day with our families today. Remember those left behind who now have to make it through life without their spouse, without their father, without their mother.

The selfless acts of thousands of men and women went above and beyond to serve us, to serve our families, to serve their country.

So today, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, take a moment to honor them, to remember them.

Today

What are you going to do today to make a change?  What will you choose to do today that brings hope, life, and a difference to someone else’s life?  It’s not just about you.  Life is meant to give to serve, to  make the lives of others better, and in the process become stronger and grow as a person.  Live today as if you had nothing to lose, whether it’s chasing after your dream in order to make the world a better place, whether it’s doing something for your family that you’ve been needing to do for some time.

Live today and make that special someone feel like a million bucks.  Live today and kick that habit you don’t want.  Live today and get the body you’ve wanted.  Live today and make a change. Make a difference.  Today.

Bring The Change

What are some ways you can make a difference? Really. How do you influence others, how do you make the world a better place? Surprisingly it’s not some big huge event, doesn’t require millions of dollars, backing by a movie star, or political leadership. It requires you making the right change in your life every day. Sure we screw up. Everyone of us do. But we have to strive to live life that we can be proud of, that our children could be proud of.

Our actions should be those of which if someone had a 24/7 camera on us they wouldn’t find any reason to be ashamed.

Lofty goal? Yes. But doable? Yes.

Start today, start making right decisions. Whether it be simple decisions at your job. Doing things properly when everyone else is taking shortcuts. Walking away from a party you know you shouldn’t be at.

Getting out of a relationship you know is unhealthy. Staying true to the person you are in a relationship with.

Stop wishing things would change, and simply live the change live out an example you would want to follow each and every day. Don’t stop. And don’t ever ask if it’s making a change, because you may never know whether it is bringing about change, but people are watching.

Meet The Waves

Took my daughter to the beach just a week ago. The first day didn’t go well. It consisted of her clinging to me and freaking out if the sand touched her. She’s a bit OCD when it comes to messes to the point where she walks around picking up any little things on the floor and throwing them away. She couldn’t stand the mess or the thought of what she thought was dirt being on her. She didn’t leave the beach blanket the whole day.

So going back for the second day I wasn’t sure how it would go.

It started off better, she walked down to the beach area despite the sand getting on her feet. I picked her up and took her down to the water. With each wave of water that crashed onto us she clung a little tighter to my neck and pointed to the shore where she wanted to go to get away from the water.

I know my daughter and she is a little adventurer. She has no fear and I can tell already she has a type A personality. She strikes up conversations with everyone she meets and is a take charge person in a group of kids, so I knew she would love the ocean if she just got over that initial fear.

So despite her requests and pointing to go back to the beach area I stuck it out. Soon I knelt down so that when the waves came they would hit her. At first she started freaking out. But after about 10 minutes she started to get used to it. She then was brave enough to release her death grip around my neck and stood in the sand as the waves crashed around her feet.

Five minutes later she was running towards the water, letting the water crash over her and laughing hysterically.  She had zero fear as the water smacked her in the face, and she ran up and down the beach giggling for an hour.

How often do we act like that? We don’t know how something is going to go, so we just stay where things are safe, where we are comfortable. We are comfortable with the seashore, but don’t want to venture towards the waves, so we stay with what we know, we stay where it’s comfortable, and because of that we miss out on so much of life. There is so much waiting if we put our foot in the water and embrace it. So what is holding you back?

What do you want to do that you have fear about? Get over your fear and race out into the water. You never know what great things are waiting for you.

Stop Listening

Stop listening. That’s right. Stop listening to the doubters, the haters, the naysayers. Stop listening to society who says it’s okay to cheat. Its’ okay to lie. It’s okay to not take care of your body. It’s okay to not discipline your children. It’s okay to look at other women, okay to ignore real world problems. Okay to not step in when you see something wrong. Okay to look the other way.

Stop listening to all these lies, because they are nothing more than that. They are lies, and dangerous ones at that. Start listening to your gut, not what others are trying to shove down your throat. We all know what is truly right, and what is wrong. But that gray area in between seems to get larger and larger, until we no longer even see the right or wrong.

Stop listening to white lies and take charge. Take ownership of your life and the actions you choose and stop letting what is popular or what society deems as satisfactory rule your life, and step up and stop listening.