One Thing Leads To Another Naturally

I have recently been  preoccupied with the the thought of why some people achieve on a higher level than others. What is intriguing to me about this subject is that it really has little to do with ability in the normal way that we think of ability. When I think about this word ability I think about what we commonly call a disability( a person because  of some physical or mental handicap not being able to do something or to  function in the way that others are able to). There are  many people in the world whose only disability is in there mind.
The mind is a very powerful force , this is a reality. When I look at individuals I am often baffled by what I observe. I see many individuals who have every advantage in life who are unproductive , while others individuals who are at a great disadvantage do much more with there disability than able bodied person even attempts to do.

By now I know many of us have seen individuals who despite there disability are very positive people, while others without any physical or mental disabilities are very unhappy in life. This all addresses what one of my mentors W. Clement Stone would call PMA or Positive Mental Attitude. What I really want to know is why this PMA seems to be totally absent in some people while others seem to possess it naturally. The question is can PMA be developed and if so how.

If you are like me and most people I know your state of mind fluctuates and can be  influenced by others. PMA thrives in a positive environment  and struggles in a negative one. A key point that I have found in the life’s of the disabled who possess PMA is that in most cases they have had family members and supporters who possess and have passed on to them a strong Positive Mental Attitude. Many will say that there parents and siblings told them that even though they had a disability blindness etc, they were no different and could do whatever they wanted to do in life.

The next thing that I found in the disabled that achieved much more than those who are able bodied and have no mental problems is that they all found some thing they were good at and focused on that skill or talent to the point they became exceptional.

These two things combined made a major difference in these individuals and everyone else in the world who have achieved anything. And these two thing can make a major difference in your life as they have in my life. Recently I have made a decision to change my support group and environment. I have had to do this several times in life. If it ain’t working, it ain’t working. I am sure that I will see a marked difference in my level of achievement and overall satisfaction with life and an increase in productivity as a result. Growth requires both sacrifice and change.

It took me some time to discover these simple facts because we have a tendency to always think that our success and our mental attitude are produced because of something or someone other than ourselves. The truth is  it’s what we do about life that makes the difference.

Do you want to be a more powerful person who makes a difference in the world, one who is a positive influence on others. Check your PMA and look around you to see if anything is blocking that smile on your face and the faith in your heart. Those who have overcome much more to achieve there dreams ( the so called disabled) leave us no excuse. Go for your dreams and eliminate anything and anyone that gets in your way.

Sitting Around Thinking

I have been  doing  a lot of thinking lately. Not that I haven’t always  had these spells of long ,deep thought.
It is just that they are coming more often lately. Maybe it’s because I have more to think about.

I have so many things in life I enjoy doing, but nothing is more enjoyable to me than the act of learning. I love learning new things. I am always fascinated when I am introduced to something I never thought about before.
I love being in a learning environment. Sitting around talking about a new book or critiquing the latest movie or talking about my favorite Jazz artist.

One of the many blessing of getting older is the appreciation of life. Going through life teaches us things that we can only learn from going through them.  Life is a great teacher for those who are willing to learn. Unfortunately some people don’t learn from the things they go through and that is why life forces them to go through them again.

I have had some things in life I have had to go through more than once in order to learn what God wanted me to know. And I may be in the middle of a repeat lesson as I write this,but the point is to never stop learning.  Life is a teacher for those who want to learn.

I was just sitting around thinking about what I learned today. One of the things I learned today is that problems are a part of life and we will never solve all of them. Actually I learned this a long time ago,
I still try to have my problem free days, and some problem free days  do come my way,but that doesn’t mean there is not another problem waiting around the corner.

So what have I learned today?  As I watch president Barack Obama go through his first one hundred days with the press, at the end of the press conference he rattled off the  list of problems he has had to face in his first one hundred days in office. I started to think to myself that  I liked the way he was handling the situation and the problems at hand. From this press conference I learned the following.

Lessons I learned from President Obama’s first one hundred days?

Lesson 1. Change is always challenged
lesson 2. Remain focused ( President Obama always comes back to his agenda)
lesson 3. Be your self ( There is a confidence in President Obama that says he knows who he is)
lesson 4. Have a strong support system ( make good friends, President Obama has a strong smart presidential staff)
Lesson5. And last but not least  is always face the problems you have even if you are not always able to solve them. face them anyway.
Never run from a problem. Problems don’t go a way simply because you run from them. You can only change what you face up to.

Sincerely
David C.Randle

Getting Over Your First love

 

 

If you have been following my blog you already know that I break every blogging rule in the book. I don’t post often and many times I don’t follow the rule of staying with the same theme. Really my blog follows the pattern of my mind which varies from time to time. Which brings me to the subject of this blog:

 ”first Love”.

When I started thinking about the thought of first love, I thought about the first girl I fell in love with. I know that this should be  easy to remember but it’s not.You see when I tried to remember I had to go through my mind and evaluate the different girls I knew growing up. I had to decide if I was going to include girls who I never told I loved them.Or was I going to only deal with girls with whom I had some type of relationship.What would be the criteria for girls I considered my first love. The point I am making here is that even what seems to be an obvious question with an obvious answer is not so obvious when you put it under the microscope.  I  hear many of you saying in your mind, your heart should have given you the answer in a matter of seconds. The truth is the heart is what made this seemingly simple task hard in the first place.

The first girl I thought about was the first girl I kissed.  But because I kissed her didn’t mean she was the first girl I loved. Then I thought about the girl that I thought about the most. But after doing this I realized that many of the girls I thought about a lot had nothing to do with love but was mostly lust.So after a minute or two I narrowed it down to first girl friends and then to the girlfriend who had impacted me the most.

That is how I discovered my first love.I didn’t I know this was my first love until I really thought about it. How did I know she was my first love.I got sick after we broke up ( I really got psychically sick ) when we broke up. I loved this girl so much that I got sick when she broke up with me. Can you believe that?

I probably shouldn’t have told you that story, but I had to do it in order to make a point. We don’t always love things for the right reason. I need to say that again ( we don’t always love things or people for the right reason. You see my first love was all about seeking self approval. I was just happy that someone I approached had accepted my advances. I thought because this girl wanted to spend time with me she felt the same way about me. But to discover something totally different hurt and it was through this pain that learned a valuable lesson.

Be careful who you love and always love yourself more. Some of you may not belieive this statement, but no one loves some one who does not love them self. You see if you don’t love yourself you don’t have any love to give to anyone else.

“This is a important fact if you don’t love yourself when someone like my first love takes there love away you don’t have anything left. But when you love yourself you have enough love to share with everyone you come in contact with.”

This will sound strange at first and will require careful thought (Love Loves Love). What I mean by this is love brings more love. When you love yourself you attract people who love you, but when you don’t love yourself you make it hard for others to love you. My first love thought me valuable lesson that I still live by today, don’t give your love away, keep a little for yourself. People love people who love themselves and have enough love  left over to share. 

I saw my first love some years later at a concert alone, I was attending solo as well. In passing she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw me. Her eyes fixed on me, no longer that skinny confused kid who’s heart she had broken many years ago. She had a loneliness in her eyes , she asked  how I was doing I answered very well. We exchanged numbers and had a little conversation. I actually felt good about seeing her as I walked away, and I have laughed many time since remembering the shocked look on her face when she saw me, almost as if she was embarassed for breaking up with me.

Life for me has become like that first love. I thank life for every lesson good and bad it has thought me. I am thankful for every time life has broke it off  with me and walked out on me, it has left me a stronger person and made me love myself a little more. And just like my first love I leave much of it in the past so that I can enjoy today and move on.

 

A Time To Be Resilient

I sat in the pew listening to this minister that I had heard many times before, speak on a subject I had heard before. My mind had began to drift away.

Have you ever had that small thought in your mind that says I know where this is going. It is about this time my mind started to tune out and day dream. Just when I had made up my mind to tune out this minister struck a familiar note. He did something that I had been trained to do in preparing a speech, he gave his message a frame of reference, one that I could relate to.

You see the sermon was called “Bounce Back Ability”,the ability to come back after facing a problem. I had heard this sermon before and thought I understood all of it’s principles.

But then the minister started talking about a tree in his backyard. It was a Crepe Myrtle tree. He talked about how a strong rain had come and pounded this little tree he had planted. The rain had not only up rooted it,but almost washed it a way. He thought to himself, that it would not live after such harsh treatment and being so young,but he stuck it back in the ground anyway,thinking it would not live.

He told one of his neighbors about the little Crepe Myrtle tree and that he thought it wouldn’t make it a couple of days later. The neighbor looked at him and laughed and said “it will make it, it’s a Crepe Myrtle”.

He didn’t know why the neighbor was so confident that the tree would make it. But as the tree grew his saw that it required less watering , that it could withstand the strongest winds. He notices how the tree would bend in the strong winds and then go back to it’s regular position, and how even with little or no water it bloomed every year. Not just bloomed,but gave beautiful blooms year after year.

He came to understand the smile on his neighbors face when he said the tree was a crepe Myrtle.

I bought a crepe Myrtle and planted it in my yard after I heard this sermon. It was a scroungy little bush planted in the wrong season almost winter. I have watched it now for over fifteenth years. It has grown tall. I have done very little for this tree other than look at it from time to time and think about the sermon.

We are all facing some hard times ahead, it is time for us to be like the Crepe Myrtle, the word is resilient.it’s time for us to be resilient.

Time For Change

That magic word change sometimes welcomed and sometimes not. It does not matter if we welcome it or not change comes, as the song says” Everything Must Change” ( a beautiful song if you haven’t heard it) I think the first rendition I heard was played by George Benson. So change has brought us yet another welcomed surprise and I would dare say a new day. Yes things are difficult now, they always are just before change. But change is needed for growth. I have been a advocate for change most of my life. Being born an African American Boomer, it seem that things have always been changing all of my life. Yet not enough things changed to make a big difference to me it seemed. I had no real understanding of how change worked.

There are two different kinds of change, one sudden and the other slow. Most of the change that comes suddenly is not good because it is the type of change that forces us to accept it ,and grow as a result of it.

But slow change over time is good , why you ask? Because slow change occurs in such a way that we have to anticipate it and so when it comes it is appreciated for the gift that it is. Sudden change on the other hand is almost always resented, because of the fact that it makes us do things that we in most cases we don’t want to do. Change because of loss can be like that, or change because of circumstance is also like that. But change as reward for long and patient waiting , now that is sweet change. Sam Cook sang a” Change is Going to Come”. And it seems change is here, and it is certainly time for a change.

September

What is your Albatross

In the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge;. We read about the Albatross as a bird which brings a curse to a sailor and his ship mates. All of us have challenges and things we need to change. Many times this may be something or person we need to get rid of in order to move on and be happy. One of the reasons it is so hard to acknowledge our Albatrosses is because many times they are often the things we love most.  But for some reason they keep you from moving toward your dream.

Until you realize  what your albatross is, it will continue to hold you back. Now you don’t have to do anything drastic to overcome an Albatross. Many times it’s just a matter of knowing what or who it is that is preventing you from moving forward. In some cases we are our own Albatrosses, a Albatross can also be a negative thought. Yes there can be this one little thought that just won’t go away, nagging you and holding you back.

Sometimes it is necessary to get rid of the Albatross if it is completely blocking you from your dreams, which can be the case, especially if the Albatross is a person. These types of Albatrosses tend to follow you around. They see your success as there failure, and so they prevent you from succeeding to keep from acknowledging there failure ( this is commonly known as jealousy or envy).

Take a look around are there any Albatrosses in your life. They just may be the thing that’s holding you back.

The Simple Things Again

This seem to be something that I am always coming back to as a theme. How the simple things in life are the things we over look can cost us in the long run. I have regained a appreciation for walking. I have always known that daily walking could be beneficial. No I am not walking because of the high gas prices though it could come to that. I am walking now for my health. If you have been following this blog then you already know that I am a marshal artist who practices Tai Chi and Wo Shu. These activities have health as well as practical benefits. But walking in and of it self has many benefits we often over look. When we walk we fine tune the body. As we walk our bodies speak to us and tells us what is wrong or right.  Some days as you walk you will notice that you have more pep in your step. This can be from a good nights sleep or the food we ate the day before (fuel). It is a good habit to walk everyday .I suggest at least a mile a day, it will take this long for the body to tune up and begin to speak to you if you are in fairly good shape. It will talk to you much sooner if you are in poor shape:). But that’s O.k because where ever you start you can always improve by going a little further each day. You will be up to a mile in no time. The point is the further you can go and the longer you can walk the better shape you are in.

Walking is a very good metaphor for life ( our daily walk). You have heard the expression before what is you walk in life. What is your destination? How long will it take you to get there? How far are you going? And what kind of shape are you in.  I wrote this article after I found myself spending to much time at the computer and not enough time using my body. Walking is a simple way to find balance again. For those who don’t have any other fitness program.

Another benefit of walking is thinking. A natural bi-product of walking is self dialog. Listen to the thought as they come to you when you walk. I have many good ideas that have come from a long walk. Also walking is a great way to deal with anger andfrustration. The first benefit of walking is that it removes you from the situation giving you time to reflect and not respond, in Tai Chi we would call this transferring energy. Walking allow us to deflect an attack it also allows time to respond properly and in a way that does not cause us more problems. You would be surprised at what a simple walk can do.

Empty Words

How many times to you find yourself saying the same old thing over and over again. or having the same conversation you had with someone all over again. Many times this happens with family, friends and in the work place where we see people daily. When certain topics come up. The end result is the same and no one has changed. The only thing that happens is the clock on the wall says you have lost some minutes or even hours accomplishing nothing.

This habit comes from  not knowing when a conversation or idea is dead. Knowing when it’s time to move on is very important. These kind of conversations are one  of our biggest time wasters. Somewhere in the back of our mind we get the idea that we can change other peoples opinion or point of view. This seldom happens, when a person has a strong opinion no matter how wrong they may be usually the only person that can change that opinion is them self.

This is very true form a business perspective. Either a person agrees or they don’t, they see the point or they don’t. The simple truth is we are not going to agree on everything and we need to know when to let a dead horse go. Have you ever heard the term ride it into the ground. I look at the same idea  from a different perspective, riding a horse in a different direction away from your task and goals. The next time you find  yourself exchanging empty words, stop and ask yourself have we had this conversation before? If the answer is yes don’t waste your time.

The Economy and Business/ When Times are Bad ,times are good(for some people)

I was watching news cast recently that got my attention. Did you know there are certain businesses that prosper during hard economic times. A story I was watching recently was about a modern day wildcatter. The interesting thing about this interview was that near the end of the interview the wildcatter said that his business would get better as oil prices went up, I think he said he would profit when it reached a hundred dollars a barrel. Last report it was $138 a barrel.

The reason for this profit is that when oil prices are low it cost him to much to drill for oil and he can’t make a profit. This story started me to thinking about how many more businesses there are like this. Mechanic.s only make money when someone’s car breaks down ,Funeral Homes only make money when someone dies. There thousands of businesses like this. And you want to know what was the funniest thing my research found? Yes more people start businesses when the economy is down. Many if not most because they lost there job or the job is not paying enough.

I am like everyone else I feel the pressure of high gas prices and food prices. And when I see stories like the wildcatter I get a little upset,but then I think ,what would I do if I were in his shoes, if I were in his business , how would I feel? Some of the high minded among us would say I wouldn’t be in his shoes or business. Easy to say now,but what if it where different.

Another news story a major city near me (Ft Worth Tx) recently signed a big contract with a major oil company for the right to drill beneath the city. People are being hired, schools and social services are benefiting. Some people have even paid off there homes. All this while other parts of the country are suffering. The moral of the story is this, someone will always be making money while others aren’t. The key is what you give back.