Bryan Parady's Blog, page 45

When You Don’t Want To

Sometimes it’s really hard being a strong person.  It can mean a lot of sacrifice a lot of heartache, and a lot of worry. People often think you have it all together, but that’s not the case at all. The same worries, struggles, and fears play havoc in our minds too.

We mainly just do a better job of not allowing those things to come out, because we can’t, or at least feel we can’t and keep up our countenance.

It’s important thought to have someone in your life who you don’t have to be a rock to. If you are married this should be your spouse, if not find someone, a friend, a mentor who can pour life into you, and listen to your worries and stresses.

Having this support will not make you weaker, but rather make you stronger.

Make Waves

Have you ever thrown a pebble into a still pond or even a puddle?  No matter how small it still causes ripples that eventually make their way all around the water.

I want my actions to be like this.  We place a lot of stock on talk, a lot of stock on beliefs, but far too little on action.  Ours is a world where opinions are everywhere, quotes are extremely popular, and talk is king.

I want to be a person of action.  I fail at this a lot in my own life. I am working on getting better but still fall short.

I want to be more prone to action, that what I do speaks for itself without the need to explain, justify, or speak out.

 

The Big News

Well for some time now I’ve been hinting that I’m making a huge change in my life and implying that something new was on the horizon.

I am joining the Navy Reserve.  It has been something I’ve given a lot of consideration to and had a lot of talks with my wife about.  We both feel it is a step in the right direction for where I want to head and where we as family want to head.

It’s a big deal, especially for me.  I like to have everything planned before I do something and that’s not fully possible with what I am going into. There will be a lot of unknowns. But I am looking forward to it.

It will be a new adventure and a new step in my life.

Ignorance is a Problem

There’s a lot of things I don’t know, there’s a lot of things I want to learn.  I am shocked at how few people want to educate themselves in matters of the world.  We are spoon fed either liberal news reports, or Christian rantings about everyone is evil.

Both of these are tiresome at best.

We need to do our own research and figure out what is going on both in our own country and around the world if we want to have a say in it.  We are responsible for what we know or don’t know, and while we are all entitled to our own viewpoints and opinions on different issues, we need to educate ourselves on these different aspects with an open mind, before dismissing things that don’t completely line up with our own.

We have such an amazing wealth of knowledge in this day and age, let’s start using it.

Judgemental

If there’s one things especially lately that really drives me crazy it’s how ridiculously judgmental Christians are.  All loving?  Yeah right, that’s a rarity.

In the past week I’ve seen so many posts about the government, ISIS, laws that are passing, Islam etc.

I firmly believe that we live in a very privileged nation, yet we are so extremely ungrateful for it.  We have the opportunity to literally do anything, get any degree, go apply for any job, say whatever we want, post whatever we want.  The very worst that might happen to us, is we get some less than kind comments back on our Facebook postings.

It’s so easy to sit back and judge what our boss is doing wrong, or what the government is doing wrong, or (fill in the blank) is doing wrong.

It’s always someone else’s fault.  How about we spend the same amount of energy and time devoted to just living out what we want to see, and making things happen in our own lives, I guarantee you most of the “problems” would disappear.

The state of our country is not our president’s fault, it’s not the senate’s fault, or big corporate leaders.  It’s we who take no action to make our own lives and those around us better.

Let’s quit with the judgement.

Enjoy Being Nervous

It can be really easy to get nervous.  Usually the biggest cause is facing something we are unsure of, something we can’t see the total outcome.  But it’s also a sign that something really awesome is happening.  Think about when you’ve been most nervous.

Maybe it was a big move, a new job, dating someone new, traveling to another country, getting married, going to college, graduating college.

There are a million reasons of what might make us nervous, and most of them are good things.  But we tend to let anxiety take control of us.  We need to let go and allow ourselves to embrace our nervousness, and view it as opportunity.  We will be less stressed out and more hopeful.

So the next time you feel nervous think about what exciting things might be coming your way.

Bragging

 

Pardon me while I do a little bragging today. My wife is celebrating her birthday today which is always a big occasion at your home.  We’ve known each other now for five years, and every year I feel like it just keeps getting better.

She is everything I could ever hope for.  She gets me (which is pretty near impossible), she’s an amazing wife, and she knows just how to give me that kick in the butt when I need it.

She is indeed my better half, and life would be quite different without her, and not in a good way.

So a big shout out to my wife today, thanks for sharing life with me, and Happy Birthday baby!

Fears, Doubts, and Worrying

I was talking with a very good friend of mine and we were discussing how hard it is sometimes to find your purpose or value.  I’ve gone through times when I’ve had struggles with identifying with who I am as a person.

This came from a lot of different things.  Including hiding a lot of who I was, fearing that things I wanted to do or be were not acceptable.  Then add on the aspect of having a family to care for and needing to provide for them.

Both of these combined kept me from really allowing me to come out.  I tended to live a life of lies, or at best just stuffed down who I was.

This may seem like not a bad thing, but it is really bad for you when it builds up over years, you lose sight of who you are and forget what is important to you.  couple this with fear, fear of the world, of others opinions, and you have a recipe for a possible breakdown.

It’s taken me a long time to rediscover who I am.  I’ve had to for my own personal well being as well as for my wife’s and child’s sake.  They need me to live out my life.  We often think that if we give everything we have to our family it is a good thing.  Don’t get me wrong we need to make sacrifices and provide for our families, but when we make our family everything we actually hurt them.

Because your family needs you, and your individuality as much as it needs you for them.

Lay aside the fear, the doubt, the worry.  Take up your dreams, your passions, and your life and live it to the fullest.  You and your family won’t be happy until you do.

What do you Love?

What do you love to do?  Is it drawing?  Painting?  Writing?  Is it canoeing or hiking?  Is it making business deals or working on your car?

It’s really easy to let the things we love slip by the way side and not do any of them.  There are times when we have to lay them aside because of responsibilities.

But we can’t abandon them all together. Life is hard, it is difficult sometimes, there are many stresses and demands.  This is why holding tight to the things we love to do is so important. It keeps us grounded, keeps us believing that what we love to do is important.

So go on and conquer the world, but remember to take time out for you and make some time for the things you love.

Making It Through

Some days are just plain hard.  Today was one of those for me.  Mostly because I’ve been really sick, and that coupled with work and college, isn’t fun.

But regardless life goes on.  The only thing we can do on our bad days, or our off days (because we all have them), is push through and be persistent.  It’s important to remember that we won’t always have bad days, that we have so many good.

We always have to remember the good, because there is always someone, somewhere who has it much harder than us.

It’s easy to think we have it good when everything is going well, but not so much when we hit bumps in our road.

The bumps are temporary though. We will more than likely not even remember them a couple weeks from now.

So if you are going through something tough, try to focus on the good, try to remember that it won’t be like this forever, and keep persisting through your battles.  If you do, you will win.