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287. Alone

You will spend your whole life with them.  You will take advantage of them. Hurt them.  Beat them.  Ask them to take on far more than necessary.  You will be mean to them and brand them.  You will ignore everything that they really need and ask for.  You will demand more and more of them when they’ve given you all.  You will hold them to the highest of standards and will compare them to others, even when no one is around!  You will base who they are on the billboards of the freeway, the magazine covers and the television shows you watch.  You deprive them of sleep, overfeed them on crap food, fill their minds with news of everyone else and blame them for everything wrong in your life.  Some of you force drugs on them…illicit or jacked up opinion from others.  In fact, some of you kill them…figuratively and for a few, literally.  You will maim them and cut them deeper than they will ever know.  You will make them cry, scream, fall apart and hurt far greater than anyone else can. 

You are the one you will spend the most time with.  Ever.

You lie about you, make yourself out to be something that everyone else will like, force yourself to be seen as someone you may not be, because you are afraid of being you in front of others…of disappointing another for the sake of being true to yourself.  Can you live with that? Disappointing another in exchange for being you?  Not too often right?

Keep this in mind….

We all do this for the sake of being with other people.  We have the false belief that this is what we need to do in order to be accepted by the company of friends, family and those we love and want to be around.  We have to be what they want.  A false belief that we feel needs to be done in an attempt to keep company.  We do this to build ourselves up to try and be accepted and what we think they want in us. 

I’m not going to shove this all down your throats too much more...

You see the question I really want to point out is not whether you do this to keep the company you enjoy with others…

The question is if you can truly enjoy the company you keep in isolation.

Do you enjoy the company you have when no one else is around?

Can you sit in complete silence and isolation and enjoy the presence that you are?  Can you sit without distraction, television, book, radio or other and truly appreciate the person you are. 

Try it.  I dare you.

286. cool

-My first meme.  cool.

so uh...now what do I do with this thing?


oh yeah...stop. breathe. and just be.

285. Number 2 Pencil has one

I took an art class one time.  I was horrible at it...couldn't draw a straight line and for the life of me would always tear the paper as I would get so frustrated with myself and erase a lot.  I would draw a line...judge it as wrong and make a grab at my eraser to furiously try and make the line go away.  Ha...it never did.  

The greatest advice I got from that art teacher was this.  He said, "with art...you never erase...just keep drawing."  

I remember thinking..."wow...that's stupid."  

But to be honest...I think he was kind of right.  Really was.  Eventually as I would work on the piece of art…the “mistakes” and lines that I made, that I would furiously try to erase, were simply covered up by the art on top.  They were taken over by the whole of the piece and not dictated by the faint “mistake” that was underneath.

I believe this relates to regret.  I think that far too many people walk around with regret.  They think about all the things that they've done in their lives and they cannot help but focus on it.  This focus results in being the highlight of their life.  The thing that they think about most and let dictate how their lives are ran.  They find it hard to focus on the whole piece of art…their life.  Instead, they become caught up and worried about the little line that for a moment discolored the faint white paper. 

If you focus on the line you made…then try to erase it…you’ll only tear the whole thing.  Instead, focus on the big picture.  On the beautiful lines that you will make…on the colors that run over each other…use the whole fuckin’ crayon box and eventually you will not be able to see the faded line because the beauty of the whole piece has taken over. 

Throw your erasers away.  They do nothing but keep your attention in the wrong place. 

284. Today not tomorrow

Your problem?

You are too busy focusing on the feelings of tomorrow to acknowledge the feelings of today.


The solution?

Stop it.


People get caught up in the day to day moment of thinking about their plans for tomorrow.  They get caught up in the questions of "who will pick up the kids..." or "what will I make for dinner..." or "what will they think if I do...."

This breeds anxiety, stress and self anger.  A holding of yourself to expectations for things that have not come to pass yet.  Ever become stressed out for all the things that have to be done this week?  Sure...we all have.  But the difference is that you should not allow your future expectations and feelings of stress keep you from smiling in the moment.  Tomorrow doesn't fuckin' matter.  Today is your life.  Now is your chance.  And every moment between breaths is your opportunity to do different...feel different and be different.  

I couldn't tell you how many people have told me that while on vacation, their heads are thinking about work.  That while making love to their girl, they can't pull out and be in the moment with her. You are too busy living in the future.  You are too caught up in the "need to do" and the "has to be done" that you never let yourself be.  

This is living in the "what if" world.  

"what if I don't turn in this report on time"
"what if I can't make it to work because of traffic"
"what if I don't call her in two days and she dumps me"

This is all living in the future...in the "what if" world and it drives you nuts...stresses you out and drains your happy fuel.  Let all things fall as they will.  Do not aim to control or hold, which many people do when they plan and live in the future.  Do not strive to have every moment penned out and set.  Allow flexibility, movement and breath.

Stop.  Breathe. And just be.

Today

Dear Readers,

My stomach hurts like hell.

I feel like poop.  Hmm...that's ironic because that all that keeps coming out!


That is all.

You're welcome,

Psych!

283. Greek love

According to the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes (as written by Plato in his Symposium), when the Earth was still young, human beings had a very different form than they do today. Each human being, he said, was comprised of two persons stuck together, so that each one had two faces and four arms, and they moved about on four legs by doing cartwheels. Moreover, instead of coming in the two sexes people do today, these proto-humans came in three varieties, each one with two sets of reproductive organs: male-male, female-female, and male-female. Despite having to move around like Vitruvius Man, they were content with this arrangement and prospered, for as far as they knew they were perfect.

Sooner or later the gods began to fear the humans' strength in this form, and they considered their options. Destroying humanity was not a desirable solution, so Zeus devised a plan whereby they might halve the humans' power so that they may never be able to challenge the gods, and at the same time create twice as many people to worship them: He took up his lightning bolts and split each human being in half, right down the middle.

What Zeus did not predict, however, was that instead of spending their time in worship, human beings now spent every waking moment in search of their missing halves. Inside each one was a primal memory of oneness that his present body alone could not fulfill; so he cried out for that other who would complete him body and soul, and tried to join with the possible candidates when he found them. That was the birth of love, Aristophanes said, and physical desire: A desire which is, at its heart, nothing more than the need to be, literally, re-made whole.

282. Our truths...February

"I finally won and it feels like shit..."

(Feb 3, 2013)


"I think I'm gay"
(Feb 5, 2013)


"She walked in on me and just watched me with her sister"
(Feb 6, 2013)


"I just get so angry sometimes...I don't know what to do with myself"
(Feb 9, 2013)


"I had the greatest time of my life"
(Feb 10, 2013)


"I was pissed at my husband and went to a club to cheat on him"
(Feb 12, 2013)

"Why the fuck does she always pick up my cloths?"

(Feb 13, 2013)


"...I wanted her so much that I gave up my life to be with her."
(Feb 21, 2013)


"I work as a mechanic but told her that I was a enjineer"
(Feb 23, 2013)


"I cheat on my taxes"
(Feb 24, 2013)


"I jerk off to my motherinlaw"
(Feb 25, 2013)


"my girl told me that I was to small for her...fuck her"
(Feb 26, 2013)


"I cant help like checkin' out women all the time"
(Feb 27, 2013)

-What growth can feel like.

281. I can't see it

My patient walks in and tells me, "why is this growth thing so hard...why can't I see myself getting better yet?"

I sat with that for a while.  Now, I hear these kinds of things...often. I get questions all the time about what "growth" is....how it looks and what it feels like when you finally have grown.

That's the stupid thing about growth.  You really will not feel it.  You really will not know that it's happening and most importantly/stupidly...you will not really know what you did to grow...most of the time.

You see growth is a process.  It is a constant dance, a marathon, a long haul, it doesn't happen overnight, "insert more cliche statements here".

So how do you know when it occurs?  When one day someone does something to you and you change the way you would normally react.  You realize that you are responding versus reacting to them.  You realize that you are taking the time to reflect on who you are in relation to your truth, your core and those around you.  You notice yourself taking the stairs more, driving a different route, pushing harder at the gym...growth occurs in the subtle moments and grand gestures.  It is something that demands constant attention and push.  This is why you will not really feel it until you take the time to notice it.

Before I was in the Marine Corps I weighed a good 300 pounds.  I was a big boy.  After joining, running a million miles and losing weight I was down to 180.  Yet when I looked in the mirror, I couldn't help but notice myself seemingly looking the same.  I felt the same, I didn't see a thin guy...I saw me.  It wasn't until I started noticing all the stretch lines and marks that I realized how much weight I had actually lost.  For me, growth and change left stretch marks.  My push and drive to be a marine resulted in a physical change leaving lines of my story.

I don't know if you can ever really "SEE" yourself growing and changing...mostly because we live in moments.  When you live in moments, every second is therefore your chance to grow and change.  Every second is a new opportunity for different, and every second leads you to the new you.  Growth therefore isn't the end result, it is a collection of you with added moments of change.