Bille Baty's Blog, page 2

If I Had Only Known

There used to be this place in San Antonio called Playland Park. It was like a little Disneyland. Okay a very, very little Disneyland. But for someone growing up in San Antonio in the 60’s it was so very, very cool!

It had this huge wooden roller coaster. I can’t remember the name of it but it was BIG and scary for a little kid. I loved riding that roller coaster. I actually loved all the sounds and smells and noises of that place…Playland Park.

It was a part of me and my life and my memories. As I grew older I would go there with family and friends and ride that BIG, scary roller coaster. The older I got, the further back I moved in the cars on the coaster. Then one day I was in the last car. When you reached the top of the big hill, everyone would throw their hands up in the air and scream and act like idiots as the coaster raced to the bottom, leaving your stomachs and your cares somewhere far behind you.

I loved that place and swore I would take my kids there as often as I could just like my parents had done.

I remember the last time I was there. I had been fishing at the coast and came home. I learned my family was at Playland Park so I went there to meet them and have some fun. As we were leaving for the night, several members of my family wanted to ride the roller coaster one more time and get some pictures doing it.

I was tired from the trip and told them we would do it next time. We all went home not knowing that would be the last night Playland Park would ever be open. It never opened again and that BIG, scary roller coaster was torn down and sold.

I’ve often wondered why I didn’t ride that BIG, scary roller coaster just one more time. I always tell myself “If I had only known…”

There are a lot of “If I had only known…” times in our lives.

All of us have them. They may not include roller coasters or Playland Park but they may include seeing a friend or loved one for the last time.

They may include the last time your son lets you hold his hand.

They may include the last time your little girl is a princess.

They all are times we wish we had again.

It’s a human experience we all share…”If I had only known…”

Live today…treat your family…talk to your friends…take in the sights and sounds and smells…as if this were one of those moments…

“If I had only known…”


Keep Believing…

Things Aren’t Always The Way They Seem

The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect my stupidity.

I have three hands-free headsets on my desk.

One for my cell phone.

One for my computer and Skype and making videos.

One for my landline, business phone.

So today, I’m sitting at my desk, minding my own business, jamming to some GREAT music, and working.

My business phone starts ringing and I look at the caller ID. It says Otis Ortiz. I don’t personally know an Otis Ortiz, and I wasn’t expecting anyone named Otis Ortiz to call and I was very busy, working.

By the time I decided to answer it, the call had already gone to voicemail. Oh darn! I missed the call from someone I don’t know. I’ll have to listen to the message.

I paused the music I was listening to, waiting for a message. Huh, no message. I went back to work.

In a few minutes the phone starts ringing again and you guessed it, Otis Ortiz is calling. I pick up the handset and answer in my professional business voice, “This is Bille.”

I heard a woman’s voice say, “Hello.” Only it was more like, “Hello?”

I deepened my voice and added the Zig Ziglar effect, “HELLO.”

Again I heard a woman’s voice say, “Hello.” Only this time it was really more like, “HELLO???”

This time I decided she was hearing impaired and I yelled, “HELLO!!!!!”

She came back with a yell of her own, “HELLO!!!!!”

I loosened my tie, well I would have if I was wearing one, and I really screamed, “HELLLLLOOOOO!!!!!!!!”

The phone went dead.

I calmly placed the handset back on the phone and picked up my glass of chamomile tea. Just as I placed the glass to my mouth, the phone started ringing. It was Otis Ortiz!

I picked up the handset and calmly and professionally swallowed, and said, “Hello.”

A woman’s voice, “Hello?”

Me, “HELLO!”

Woman using Otis Ortiz’s phone, “HELLO!?”

Me, “HELLO!!!”

Imposter on Otis Ortiz’s phone, “HELLO!!!???”

Me, quickly ingesting my blood pressure medicine, “HELLLLOOO!!!”

Person who I’m not sure is a woman but I am sure stole Otis Ortiz’s phone just to torment me and keep me from work, “HELLLLOOO!!!”

Before I can take in enough breath to give her the “Hello” she really deserves, she hangs up.

This exact same scenario plays itself out two more times. Now, after the fifth call from the mocking, banshee from hell, George Costanza from “Seinfeld” starts to rise up inside of me. I plan what I’m going to say to whomever it is manipulating Otis Ortiz’s phone in such an evil manner. It went something like this…

“Where the heck do you get the nerve? You invite me up for coffee and then you don’t call me back for four days? I don’t like coffee, I don’t have to come up. I’d like to get one more shot at the coffee just so I could spit it in your face.”

…except I would have said phone call instead of coffee…and stuff like that.

So I’m waiting, with my hand over the phone, putting the right words together in my mind, and the phone rings. As I jerk the receiver to my ear, ready to erupt like Mount Vesuvius, I see something fall off of my desk. I stand up to see what fell, and as I look over the edge of my desk, I see the hands-free headset hanging from the cord, plugged into the phone. This muted the microphone on the handset I had been picking up, allowing me to hear her but she couldn’t hear me.

I put on the headset, said “Hello” and had a great conversation with a dear friend who was using her son-in-law’s phone. Her son-in-law’s name is Otis Ortiz. He’s a great guy, letting his mother-in-law use his phone like that.

You know, things aren’t always the way they seem. It wasn’t a rude person calling me to torment me. It was a dear friend calling someone too stupid to work the phone correctly.

Barbara Johnson said, “Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.”

A lot of times we feel like “stripping our gears” when we really don’t have all the information we need to make an informed decision. Not everything is as it seems. It’s not as bad as we imagine. It’s not the end of the world. We will be happy again. We will survive. The Sun will rise again tomorrow. Just because the clouds hide it from view doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

Just have faith…things aren’t always the way they seem.

Keep Believing…

You Cannot Go Where Your Thoughts Have Not Been

You cannot go where your thoughts have not been.

Consider this, if you’re leaving on a trip to Amsterdam, don’t you mentally go to Amsterdam first? You plan your trip. You determine where in Amsterdam you actually want to go. Are you staying in a hotel?

Hostel?

The streets?

You think about your trip in advance. Your thoughts go to Amsterdam before you ever physically arrive.

Even if you are one of these people who say “I never plan anything. I just go where the road leads” your thoughts are on the road ahead of you, planning, scanning, organizing, preparing. That’s just the way it is.

Okay, forget Amsterdam.

Let’s say you want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Your thoughts go into the kitchen to make the sandwich before the sandwich actually manifests in your hands. Unless your REALLY lucky and have a spouse who will go into the kitchen and make the sandwich for you. The way you like it…slices perfectly aligned…peanut butter spread uniformly across the whole slice of bread…grape, or better yet, blackberry jelly on the other slice topping a nice thin layer of butter, or SmartBalance, whatever, just so long as there is nothing dripping over the sides of he bread.

Did you just start thinking about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Even if you can’t eat peanuts without going into anaphylactic shock, you were still thinking about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Your mind went there. Your thoughts went there.

That’s the way we work. That’s the way we’re created. When you understand that, and how to use it for your good, it’s a powerful thing.

Try to stop your thoughts from going somewhere. Can you?

Maybe you can but I can’t. My thoughts are always active. Always mobile. Always working, planning, testing, devising, and calculating. What we have to do is start guiding our thoughts to go where we want to end up.

I have a plan to hike up Mount Evans this summer. If there’s enough time, I want to hike up Pikes Peak as well. Now my thoughts are being guided to the top of Mount Evans. I am considering what I need to do to be able to accomplish this goal this summer.

Even before I reach the summit, my thoughts have been there a thousand times. I have seen myself leaving the trees behind as I climb above the tree line. I see the rocks under my feet making it difficult to walk. I feel the chilled air even in the middle of summer as I approach 14,000 feet. I labor to breathe as I climb higher and the air has less oxygen.

Then it comes into sight, the summit. I run to the top and jump around like an idiot. I pose for a picture (which I tweet immediately) next to the marker showing 14,258 feet. I go into the Crest House ruins. I drink a liter of water to get rid of the high altitude headache and go collapse into the vehicle ready to drive me down.
I haven’t been there yet, physically, but my thoughts have!

Now let’s get to what I really want to talk about. Where do you want to be?

In your life…where do you want to be? Are you where you want to be? Are you happy? Do you know where you need to be, to be happy?

Are your thoughts going there?

Norman Vincent Peale said, “Change your thoughts, and you change your world”.

I believe this is true. If you want to change your life you have to change how you think. You have to get your thoughts working for you, positively.

That’s the key… get your thoughts working for you, positively. Even if we don’t know it our thoughts are working for us all the time. The problem is that many of us have our thoughts working overtime, working hard, and they’re working negatively.

We think things like,

“I’m so fat.”

“I can’t do it.”

“I guess I was meant to lose.”

“I wish I could travel.”

“I’ll always be sick.”

“I’m not supposed to have a nice house.”

“I was born on the wrong side of the tracks.”

“I will never make it.”

“A day late and a dollar short, that’s my motto.”

We almost think it is ‘righteous’ and ‘humble’ to be beaten down by life and barely get by and not expect anything good…just “Que sera, sera, whatever will be will be”.

What a load of bunk!

Anyone can send their thoughts there. It is the easiest thing in the world to be complacent and accept anything that comes your way as “The way it’s supposed to be” and just do nothing.

It takes intestinal fortitude to stand up and say,

“NO! That is not the plan for my life. I WILL have more.”

“I will do more.”

“I will live more.”

“I will laugh more.”

“I will love more.”

“I will see more.”

“I will give more.”

“I will live the live I am supposed to live. I will live a happy life. I will live a long life. I will succeed.”

Determine what it is you want to do and begin sending your thoughts there.

Determine where it is you want to be and begin sending your thoughts there.

Determine the life you want to live and begin sending your thoughts there.

Remember when I talked about the peanut butter and jelly sandwich earlier? That is a very simplistic way of explaining what I am talking about but it is also exactly how easy it is to change your life by sending your thoughts to the right place(s).

Once you begin, keep doing it.

Henry David Thoreau said “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”

That’s the key, keep sending your thoughts to the place you want them to be. Be in control of your thoughts. Make your thoughts work for you, positively.

Mahatma Gandhi said “A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes.”

That is pretty strong, what we think, we become.

I’ll let the Bible sum it up. Here is what it says in Philippians 4:8 from “The Message” translation:

“Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”

I’ll leave you with that. Think on the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly.

Send your thoughts there, the best, not the worst. Get them working for you, the beautiful, not the ugly. Send your thoughts-

Keep Believing…

Let me know what you think. Post a comment or email me. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

You’re Exactly Who You Are Supposed To Be

You’re exactly who you are supposed to be. I know this is a little different from the regular blog you may read someplace else, but I have something to say which needs to be said.

Today, someone close to me told of how he had turned in the paperwork to get assistance with his disability.

When asked, “What disability?”

He replied, “You know that I’m slow. I’ve been slow ever since I was in that wreck and had brain damage. I’m slow and feel like giving up”

When he said that, I went back in time, twenty years ago, to my mechanic’s shop. I was there to pick my Suburban and I was about to pay a lady I considered my friend. She had been there in the office to help me every time I had my cars serviced for ten years or more. We always had great talks and she was a great person.

As she gave me the receipt for the work done, I told her I would see her next week when I brought in my other vehicle.

She smiled sweetly and said, “I won’t be here next week. The new manager told me this Friday will be my last day.”

“Why?” I stupidly asked.

“He said I’m slow, you know mentally, slow.”

She saw the anguish in my face and said, “Its okay, Bille. I know I’m slow. I’ve always known it. Its okay he wants me to leave, too. I’ll spend more time with my kids. My kids ain’t slow, they’re smart.”

I started to say something stupid again but she cut me off.

“You know, in school everyone said I was stupid. When I got married and had my babies, I learned I wasn’t stupid. My husband never told me I was stupid, or slow. He just told me he loved me. I was pretty. I was the one he wanted to spend his life with. Then when my babies were born, they needed me and loved me just the way I am. They don’t think I’m slow. They think I’m Mom.”

We both laughed.

“You know Bille,” she continued, “I always thought when they called me stupid in school that God had made a mistake. Now I know I’m exactly who I’m supposed to be. There ain’t nothing I can do about what other people think. They are who they are. They think what they think. I know I’m who I’m supposed to be. I’m Susan.”

I fought back tears as I hugged her goodbye.

I can’t even count how many times over the years I’ve remembered what Susan told me that day.

“I know I’m who I’m supposed to be.”

It doesn’t always feel like it, but I know it is true. All of us are exactly who we are supposed to be. We aren’t mistakes. We aren’t stupid. We aren’t losers. We aren’t retarded. We aren’t unwanted. We are exactly who we are supposed to be.

Now personally, I wish I had more hair. I need to lose a few pounds. And I wish I looked like Brad Pitt.

But I don’t. I look like me, and that’s okay because that’s who I’m supposed to look like.

If I lose a few pounds that will be good for my health, as long as I don’t kill myself doing it, but it won’t change who I am.

What I look like isn’t who I am. My IQ isn’t who I am. My checking account balance isn’t who I am.

Who I am is the person inside. I know I’m who I’m supposed to be.

Susan is exactly who she is supposed to be.

My friend with brain damage is exactly who he is supposed to be and he is going to make it through this.

You are exactly who you are supposed to be.

I am exactly who I am supposed to be. I’m Bille.

Thanks Susan, for helping me to remember that.

I’m gonna work on the hair thing.

Keep Believing…

You Can Get Away, Anytime

Did you know you can get away without leaving town? OK, how about getting away without leaving your house? Or even getting away while you’re still at the office? You can do it! You should do it!

Here’s what I mean. We all have hectic schedules. We all have deadlines. We all face stress that was unheard of in past generations. No, we all aren’t facing death on the fields of Gettysburg, but we face an unmerited, fast paced stress our parents and grandparents would have believed unimaginable. Never before have we been “available” basically 24/7 like we are today.

We need to get away! Not like the “Calgon Bath”…although that’s cool if you’re a “bath” person…

or if you take a “bath” with the right person…just kidding.

We need to “mentally” get away. We need to unplug for a while, mentally. We need to take a mental break from all the stress and all the hectic schedules and all the deadlines.

So how do you do it?

I’m glad you asked!

If you buy this book you’ll find “21 Ways To Get Away”.

Just kidding again, sorry.

Here is one way to get away. I use this one and it really works. I like it because it is so easy and you can do it almost anytime.

Do you have some place in the world with fond memories for you? Memories that stir good emotions. Memories that are vibrant and warm. Well what you do is go there. I’ll tell you part of one of mine to explain.

I love Key West, Florida. I love almost everything about Key West. But there is one thing I always do when I’m in Key West. I have this special place I go to watch the sun setting into the ocean.

I get there about a half-hour before sunset and just enjoy everything happening. I allow all my senses to go into overload.

I watch the beautiful colors of the sky change, as if by magic, as the sun slowly slides beneath the turquoise sea.

I feel the wind blowing in my hair and across my face, and the sun’s warmth ebbing as it vanishes beneath the waves.

I hear the waves crashing and the birds calling and the lovers laughing and the tourists talking and the boats rocking back and forth in the waves.

I smell the fragrance of flowers and ocean and seafood and life and the pina-colada smell of the sunscreen my beautiful woman always wears.

I taste the salty sea air and the shrimp boiling next door and the fried fish down the street and the Key Lime Pie.

I marvel at the beauty and wonder of it all.

It always amazes me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been there. But it’s always the same…amazing.

I can tell you it’s one of my places of escape. It’s one of my places I get away to. When I am getting stressed, when I am running behind and starting to overload, I stop.

That’s right! Stop.

Stop.

Get quiet.

Close my eyes and get away.

I go to Key West. Right then, wherever I am, I go to sunset in Key West. I allow all the good memories and emotions and feelings to stir within me. I relax in the cool tropical breeze. I take in the beauty. I hear the sounds. I smell the smells. I taste the tastes. I relax. I get away.

Your place may not be Key West, and probably isn’t. But I’m sure you have some special place and time inside of you that evokes good, positive memories. Go there. Get away. Relax.

It doesn’t cost a thing, and you can do it anytime you want. Well, almost anytime.

Let me know if you have a special place. I’d love to hear about it.

Oh, by the way, you can borrow Key West if you need to, but make your own memories…
and remember…You Can Get Away, Anytime!

Keep Believing…