Bryan Parady's Blog, page 49

New Adventures

Currently in my life I am working through some very big decisions. Life is probably going to be looking very different for me in the near future.

My life is at a crossroads.  I feel like I have to buckle down and decide what I want my future life to look like. I’ve spent a lot of years focusing on other people and helping them, and while that is a good thing, I’ve neglected myself. I’ve failed to make some key decisions I needed to and as a result I feel very behind in a lot of areas.

It’s scary and exciting. I tend to over-analyze and over-think everything. I have to have it all figured out before I act. This isn’t good when combined with my OCD tendencies. I’ve been making some difficult decisions in the sense of having to act without knowing everything. It will cause me to freak out a bit, but it will be worth it in the end.

I’m Back

 

Back to normalcy.

It’s always bittersweet coming back from vacation, it’s always nice to get back to normal life and back in a routine, but it also sucks not being free to do whatever you want to in a day.

My wife and I got back yesterday from our cruise in the Caribbean. It was great to see our daughter again after a week away from her, and now the ten loads of laundry and grocery shopping begins.

We hit the ground running our first day back. College starts for both of us, back to work, meetings, and the like. Workouts were great on the cruise ship despite the small gym, the view made up for it.

I went unplugged for the week, naturally unplugged from phones and internet because on a cruise ship the price to get online could fund your own personal boat fund.

I love being connected with all of you digitally, but I will say I think we all need a break at least once a year from all forms of social media. It gives us a chance to refocus and renew, and that’s exactly what this vacation allowed us to do. This wasn’t the first cruise my wife and I went on. I think the thing we most like about it, is that we are completely free to come and go as we please. We are blessed with grandparents who watch our child for the week so we can be by ourselves.

Free to laugh, to eat whenever we want, stay up however late, go to the gym whenever.

While vacation is awesome, the best thing about it, is getting time to reevaluate where you are in life, make new goals, new plans, new deadlines, so that you come back to life renewed, and ready to hit the pavement.

Vacation was amazing, and being back is equally so.

Unplugged

Today I am heading to meet up with my parents where my wife and I are dropping off our daughter for the week while we go on a cruise.  While there are many things I like about cruises, one of my favorites is the ability to unplug.  Cell reception is nowhere, and I find myself leaving the cabin room without my cell phone all the time, (something I wouldn’t think of doing when I’m going out at home).

This next week I will not be posting.  I debated pre-scheduling my blogs, but really think it’s good to just be totally off the grid.

So I will be gone this week, catching up on some much needed away time, and enjoying being with my wife.  Hope everyone has a fantabulous weekend.  We’ll talk again in 9 days.

Don’t Just Know…Believe

Knowing something and believing something are two totally different things.

Knowing something is nothing.  Anyone can know something.

Let’s say you know that someone gave you 50 bucks.  They told you they left it in your mailbox.

You go and look in your mailbox and see a $50 bill sitting there, you look at it for a moment, then close the lid, leaving it inside.

Then lets say you go to the store to buy something, only you get to the register to find you have no money to pay for it.

You can say “I know I have $50, but knowing you have that means nothing.  You didn’t believe, you did’t reach out and take it. You left it as knowledge only.

How many things in your life do you have knowledge about, but don’t believe?  Don’t just have knowledge.  Knowledge is good, but by itself it won’t ever get you anywhere. You have to have knowledge, and you have to believe, and those two things,  will get you far.

3 Years Ago

Three years ago today I was married. Sometimes it doesn’t seem possible it’s been 3 years, and other times it’s hard to even remember life before her. I don’t think either of us had a clue what marriage would be like (who does when first married?)

We’ve been through so much in just 3 years, wonderful times, fun times, and hard times.  We’ve traveled to three countries, had a daughter, moved five times, managed a family, work, and full time college, had our ups and had our downs.

While I wish I could say that all the bumps of marriage are over with, I know that I have a lot to learn still in the road to discovering both myself and my wife.

I am a different person because of my wife (and I mean that in a good way).

I still can’t wait to walk in the door at the end of the day and see her, I look forward to seeing her smile and hearing her voice.

She is now as much as the on our wedding day my one and true love.  I love you Heather Parady. Here’s to 3 years I would never trade, and to all the years to come.

It’s Not Crazy

 

Your dreams aren’t crazy.  What’s crazy is people who think you should live your life a certain way.  If they spent half the time trying to figure out their own life, they’d be well on their way to their dream.

Just because you think differently doesn’t mean you’re crazy, just because you have high goals, or ambitions that don’t fall in line with typical academics, or typical career choices doesn’t mean you are crazy.

What people term “crazy” is just you being uniquely you.  It’s okay to be that way.  You don’t have to try to put on a show, or please someone, you have to be happy with you, if you’re not you’ll make yourself and everyone else miserable.

For Better Or Worse

Marriage is incredibly hard. Anyone married knows what I’m talking about.  Anyone single, ask someone married if you don’t believe me.

There is a reason in wedding vows you say for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.  It’s not just because it sounds good.  It’s because in marriage you will go through the worst of times and the best of times.

When you get married you have a lot of expectations of what it’s going to be like. Mostly we get this from Hollywood and TV.  But think about, we don’t run into bank robbers, get into high speed shoot-outs and witness explosions every day like in the movies, so why would marriage be like the movies?

It’s not. It’s better.  It’s harder.

When you get married, everything you’ve ever done, and everything you do is exposed to your spouse.  There’s no more getting in your car and driving back to your place when you get in a knock down screaming fight, no more going for a late night drive where no one knows where you are, no more complete and utter independence.

Yes some things you do lose in marriage, but you also gain so much.

Marriage is hard, to say it was easy would be a flat out lie. It takes commitment, it takes telling yourself that no matter how badly the other person hurts me, or how much I disagree with them, I’ve made a commitment to love them, and I have to honor that.

Most of the time you don’t have to remember that, you love your spouse, you think they are it. But during those rough times….that’s why we have those vows, to remember, I committed to love this person through both my worst, and their worst.  It means loving when they don’t deserve it, not to get something in return, but because you are committed to them.  It means pointing out their qualities, not their faults.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither is a marriage.  It takes work, it takes pain, but it is filled with rewards.

Getting Back to Your Love

We all once were kids, we all once had hobbies and interests.  As we grow older we slowly seem to lose them one by one.  They fall by the wayside, work crowds them out, our families crowd them out, and soon we find we have no hobbies (sorry watching TV doesn’t count).

We think we are growing more mature as we outgrow our hobbies, that we are leaving behind childish behaviors.  In reality we are becoming less interesting and boring people.

We need to reawaken the things that once brought us life.  No I’m not saying go bust out your Barbies or GI Joes, but take those interests and apply them to your life now.  Did you love painting?  Go get a canvas and have at it, did you love building tree-forts, get some plans and build a piece of furniture.

Don’t let your passions die, you need them.

You Can Do It

Achieving your goals is hard work.  It is.  There are no shortcuts to working hard.  Shortcuts are wrong paths that lead you having to start all over again.

But the thing is you don’t have to take any shortcuts, because you are fully capable of I doing absolutely anything in this world.

Don’t believe me?  Take Thomas Edison. Most notably known for creating what we now know as the light bulb (actually he just improved the design so it could be used in homes), he also started General Electric, invented the phonograph, the alkaline battery, a generator, fuel cells, and improved tons of other devices.  He was also whipped by his father at the age of 6 in public for accidently starting a fire, his teacher said he was one of the stupidest boys he knew, he went deaf in life, his wife died, and he was fired from working on the railroad.

From all common perceptions he had everything against him.

But he persevered, he continued to invent, continued to improve designs, and our lives today are still affected by his inventions.

None of us grow up in the best of conditions, none of us has everything handed to us on a silver platter.

Work hard, avoid the shortcuts, and you will do anything you determine to.

 

When The Applause Dies

Have you ever started something new?  You bought the kit, purchased the program, posted a status about it on your Facebook and took a selfie while wearing the shirt.

People are excited for you, they reply to your post, they ask you how it’s going, and for that first week or so your adrenaline is rushing and you think, “I got this’.

Then week two hits, and after that week 3.  You don’t see the results you did that first week, you don’t have people asking you about it, and for some reason your closet ate the shirt you bought.

Whenever we start something new, it is inevitable that the sudden rush we feel when we start will fade away.  It’s just a natural thing that happens.  That doesn’t mean you should quit.  The applause you got initially will fade.

During that week two or three when you’ve lost steam and when you start to question why you started in the first place, it is so important to keep going, to work through the pain, to work through the tough things.  That doesn’t mean you don’t re-evaluate.  Maybe part of what you are doing needs to be adjusted a little bit, or you need to add something different.

But whatever you do, don’t quit just because the adrenaline is gone, and people no longer care.

In the end it’s about  you accomplishing your goal, for you.   You will be glad you did.