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I believe that God has a reason for bring people together. I know many people don’t believe this but it has been my experience in life that this happens often. And many times we don’t realizes it until after the fact what impact the person or contact has on us. I recently lost a good friend William Ray (RIP) a fellow photographer. William and I had become closer in the last few years. Because we where both only children,we were both somewhat private people and because of this we were not as close as we could have been. But if we had been closer then the losing him as a friend would have been harder.
I appreciate having William as a friend, I say having because I believe true friends even in death remain friends. A strange truth, death does not destroy relationships, many times it makes them stronger. Fond memories can bring back feeling that you didn’t you had until you miss them. I will miss my friend , his weekly conversations and most of all his good advice and confident smile.
About three years ago I had attended a womens conference with my wife and was flying back to Dallas from Long Beach California. I was reading a book ( Hand Book for the soul). The person across from me( Jason Womack) comment on the book , saying he had read it and it a very good book. Because we were both internet connected me being the C.E. O of Inputplus and Jason at the being a consultant for David Allen’s GTD program and having his on blog and website Jason Womack we exchanged information and became Internet friends. As a matter of fact Jason posted a blog about our conversation that same evening and emailed me about it.
Three years later I find out Jason is in Dallas and the following interview takes place. Notice how much remember about the plane conversation in the interview. I and my business have grown since that meeting and as a result I have become a very savvy Internet business strategist thanks to Jason’s friendship. Click here to see the interview
Today has been filled with inspiration the rain does that to me. I see rain and sunshine as life giving sources. I am a plant lover( I put my indoor plants out today to gather rain water) I have always been fascinated by there growth. The earliest memory of this is when I was about three or four years old playing in the yard and in my fathers garden( my father always had a garden). My parents where country folks who lived in the city. I did not realize until much later in life that the only reason they lived in the city was for survival. My father the son of a share cropper owning no land he came to the city for work. My mother who cared for her father until his death came to the city at the urging of a sister and not being able to farm her fathers land alone. Growing up I often heard them speak fondly of the country,nature and the land.
The rural parts of Texas had brought them racial discrimination and hardship, but they always spoke with admiration about the land and all things living. I remember in third grade science learning about photosynthesis, even at the age of ten I was spellbound by the process of plant life. I remember it like it was yesterday, when the science teacher showed us the picture of a leaf and how it turn green by processing water and sunlight , how it created Chlorophyll turned green and gave us oxygen. I am still amazed by this as I watch the rain. I think about how my father would welcome the rain always commenting about how good it would be for his garden. Or how much he respected it when we were told we had to evacuate because our house was in the flood plain ( our house never flooded though, came close but never flooded).
Many years before Katrina, I attend a community meeting in Dallas with the army core of engineers who were meeting with community leaders about plans to correct this problem after one big flood in 1989 did finally flood the entire community leaving hundreds homeless. This was long after my father had passed and my mother had moved to a senior citizen home. In this meeting the army core of engineers explained why my childhood neighborhood had been flooded for so many years. It was because of the opening of flood gates and the by passing of wealthy homes. The really bad thing was in this meeting it was disclosed that they had knowledge of this two to three week before the water would be released. When asked why they only told the people the night before they had no answer.
When I saw the victims Of Katrina, I remember watching all the people from my old neighborhood as they stood above the flood plain and watch the water cover there roof tops in 1989 ( I was working at my old High School at the time and went to see some of the students who I worked with who hadn’t come to school that day).
I remember that day because as the people stood around watching homes submerged by the flood with only roof tops showing. Suddenly helicopters flew over and sirens blasted, Dan Quayle the then vice president was in town and came to see the flooded area. He made a statement that he would look into th the problem and he did, or helped the process. After some meetings with the Army core of engineers and city official they finally built a levee and the community has not flooded since. I think now about man and nature, men can be friends or enemies. As friends we are our greatest resource and we can do many great things, but as enemies we destroy ourselves.
Though nature can be unkind in most cases it is our friend, so I welcome the rain. And I remember the lessons the rain has thought me
Foundations Magazine presents ideas to build your life on. This magazine lays down the basic building blocks of a successful person. It is based on the understanding that there are universal laws that govern us and our environments. Learning to live within this context is the key to all success.
I practice Tai Chi, the art of Tai Chi is all about balance. When the form is practiced at it’s highest level there is perfect balance. But one of the first things you learn is that there is rarely perfect balance ( but we keep trying and as a result we get better at it). I started this practice over twenty years ago and would be much better at it if I did it daily , but I don’t, sometimes not practicing it for months only to go back to it again. What I have found for me is, so goes Tai Chi Ch’uan, so goes life. Even though on T.V you see large numbers of people in China in the park doing Tai Chi ( most Tai Chi practice is done alone). I have said in the past that we do what we love to do and we find time for the things we love. I love Tai Chi but I don’t always find the time to do it, I love to eat healthy and right but I don’t always do that either.
What I am finding is that I am not always doing the things I love. Most of the time I find myself doing something totally not related to what I really want to do. To get back to the point I find that this all has to do with balance. In life sometimes we loose our balance and fall off (sometimes we are pushed in Tai Chi we have a practice called push hands), but the important thing is that we get back up and gain our balance again. One of the practices in Tai Chi to strengthen balance is walking on a log at various speeds fast slow,forward backwards. This practice increases agility and teaches you how to remain balanced throughout the form, At one time I had been relatively good at it. But when I attempted it the other day I couldn’t stay on the log even standing still, ha ha. Why you ask? because I hadn’t practiced in years and rarely do my forms anymore (which starting today I will get back to again as I have over and over).
I thought that after so many years of doing this that I could just hop back on the log and begin where I left off. No it just dose nott happen that way. And neither does life, when we fall off and get back on,it takes some time to regain our balance, but with time and focus we will regain our balance.
Lessons Learned:
Know what you love and do it.
Your priorities and time should be set around what you love
GIve those things your time daily
Remember work is only part of what you do
Pay attention (time can fool you)
What is important to you, marriage , family,relegion and spirituality,work
Rank these things and give each your time accordingly
Take time out daily for yourself
I really like this person not just because of his age and the fact he can run. But in a interview he gave the reason for his being able to run as simply ” I am not like other people”. Sometimes it’s good to be different.
101-year-old Buster Martin is training to become the world’s oldest marathon runner when he runs in the London marathon next month. He ran the half marathon last weekend, completing it in just over five hours. (Pimlico Plumbers)
Have you ever noticed that the more active a person is the more happy they seem to be. Mood can be determined many times by activity or none activity. There are a couple of reasons for this I believe. The first is that when people are doing something they have less time to think about there problems. Remember the saying “a idle mind is the devils workshop” there may be something to that. Studies have shown that the weather has a effect on mood,so does sun light. So why not movement.
Truely I believe that the mind does respond to the body and it’s activity. Most of us have heard of Endorphins they reduce the sensation of pain and affect emotions. Our level of Endorphin increases with activity. But not only does our Endorphin level increase with brisk walking for thirty minutes or more.but our blood flow increases and the oxygen to the brain increases which is indeed beneficial to the mind. Other excercises like Tai Chi can benefit the mind by calming it and training it to focus, yoga acts in much the same way.
We have all been conditioned to think that it is the mind that speaks to the body,but indeed it may be the body that speak to the mind. Many mental problems can be addressed by teaching the mind to listen to the body or training the body to speak to the mind, We just have to start moving our bodies to find out who is talking to who. Take thirty minutes out your day to do body work,it can be walking, Tai Chi, Yoga, aerobics, whatever you enjoy. The main thing is to move the body and see how the mind responds.
