How do you know you made the right decision?

In a reply to a post on my last blog, I made mention of a person being in control of their choices and not necessarily the circumstances they find themselves in. Today I had the opportunity to test my own advice, and I am ecstatic to say I actually followed it. So what is this advice I gave myself? Without pouring into the details I will relay this event that solidified for me I am on the right path.

For the first time in my life I was completely aware of the two paths/choices that were laid down in front of me. It was as if I was wide awake actually participating in my life, and having a hand in how it plays out. To my left was a well beaten path, the way could be seen until it bent downward and became part of the horizon. It was bright and clear, truly inviting. To my right was the path I had been on. Unlike the path to my left, this path was uneven and a fog enveloped the ground. As I walked down this path, the sky was the color of the dawns first light peaking across the sky, turning the clouds and trees black, while contrasting in the most beautiful blue hue over the onyx sky. Traditionally, the dawn is a symbol of hope and a promise for a new beginning. The night is mischievous. It can make you think things you know aren’t true. It will make you feel things you know aren’t right. Shrouded in mystery, the night can be a cold and lonely place if you allow it to control you. The path to the right that was mixed light and dark was not an easy one, but one on which you travel through life with heightened senses. You hear what your mind and your soul are telling you more clearly than you have ever thought possible- if you choose to listen. You no longer see with natural eyes, but rather see with your heart- if you care to see differently. Closing my eyes, inhaling, and exhaling- I listened and I saw my life for what I wanted it to be for what I knew it could be. When I opened my eyes and looked to my left, what I had envisioned in my mind was my future, and it did not even so much as resemble what was revealed to me in reality. I knew then, instantly that I needed to press on, moving towards the dawn’s horizon, and allow the next traveler the opportunity to walk in the warmth and comfort of the sun. That path was not for me.

I don’t think I am capable of sufficiently expressing the overwhelming sense of pride in my decision to continue down the path less traveled. To make a goal and make priorities that allow you to progress towards making your life what you believe it can be is the best feeling I have ever experienced in my life. In some form or another we all face choices every day. Whether you need to decide to choose the fruit instead of fries, the highway instead of the back roads, or to stay in a particular relationship or move on, my advice to anyone who wants it is for you to make these decisions with an open heart and an open mind. Follow your heart and do what will make you happy. Be awake and alert, listen to your soul, see with your heart, and you will find solace in whatever path you choose. Participate in your life, you won’t regret it.

 

A little inspiration…

We all visit a place in life we call Crossroads. Some of us that are driven and focused on living with purpose get to break free from this place that breeds complacency and mediocrity. Many of us can live the better part of our lives in this place that is neither cold nor hot, neither draining nor fulfilling, neither dark nor light. A small number of us come across these crossroads several times in our lives, and too many of us never get to leave.

The first true Crossroads of my life felt like the world was passing me by. Where only in the depths of my soul could be revealed the inner ebbs and flows of a life full of joy, as well as iniquities. I was suspended in a motionless space where thoughts and memories had no vessel to contain them. There was no going forward in this place and there was no going back. It was as if I had washed down river and set up camp at the delta of the river of Life. My path had plunged into the the massive expanse in front of me, and upon disappearing from my view to know that path became what I longed for. It seemed as if the ocean separated me from it. There was no ship to carry me to my destination. From this camp I could see the horizon. The ambivalence of the time acted like a wall, and through the cracks I could see glimpses of my most fervent desires. It seemed so close, and yet so far. My soul ached for fulfillment and my mind longed to leave that delta.

With only thought and memory to accompany me, I plunged into the depths of the unknown to leave forever the horrid purgatory of the Crossroads I had come to know so intimately. Like a pilgrim I press forward today, with a destination of the horizon, on a path undetermined.

 

Valentine’s Day, Shmalentine’s Day…

All across the globe people are ramping up for the one day out of the year that is dedicated to the celebration of love.  While understandably not everyone celebrates Valentine’s Day, the argument that it is merely a commercial holiday created by greeting card companies is not accurate.  I would like to set straight this common misconception used by the anti-Valentine’s Day movement.

There are a few myths as to the origin of Valentine’s Day. The first dates back to the third century. During this time Claudius II had outlawed marriage in the attempt to build an army full of unattached, able-bodied young men. Valentine, seeing the injustice of it all, performed marriages in secret for lovers determined to take “the plunge”. The emperor found out [gasp!] and sentenced Valentine to death [shocker] around the middle of February.  In the next myth we have pre-Christian Rome as our back drop again, but this time Valentine freed Christians from a Roman prison, where they were often beaten and tortured for their faith. (How heroic!) Another commonly recognized myth is that Valentine himself sent the first “valentine” to his jailer’s daughter while incarcerated for an un-named crime. And finally my favorite, and in my opinion most likely to be accurate, a celebration of Valentine’s death was planned to coincide with the Roman fertility festival, Lupercalia.  It was common practice during the introduction of Christianity, for the early church fathers to create holidays for the non-Christians to identify with, thus making the conversion to Christianity easier. This happened with many other holidays such as Christmas with Yule the feast of Saturnalia and Easter with the celebration of the Saxon goddess of spring Estre.

Is Valentine’s Day a day for lovers? Allow me to offer my two cents. This claim of a day dedicated to a man, that, at best, had a sketchy history with the church, likely did not gain sainthood based sheerly on his benevolent, heroic, and romantic image. To think that the church, without ulterior motive, sponsored a day dedicated to the memory of a man that spread the message of brotherly love and secretly sponsored lovers in their desire to vow a lifetime together, all the while, breaking out persecuted Christians and penning love letters to a warden’s daughter seems highly unlikely. Logically speaking, it is probable that this was the propaganda spread by early church fathers to appease their already converted followers, of the legitimacy of the holiday by elevating a beloved man of the people to sainthood.

Does this mean we shouldn’t celebrate it? No, not necessarily. Just because yet another holiday has been commercialized doesn’t mean that you can’t celebrate in the true spirit of that holiday. If you need a reason to tell your loved one they are special then by all means use Saint Valentine to give you that reason, and if you treat your relationship everyday as if it was Valentine’s Day then you are living the good life! For all of you that are part of the anti-Valentine’s Day movement- be kind to those who do celebrate it, they are merely trying to show someone they love them!

 

SNAFU? IDK…

There was a time in our society where use of acronyms as a preferred method of communication was reserved for big business and the military, but alas here in the 21st century we find ourselves communicating through these abbreviated methods almost exclusively. With the evolution of mobile communication and the rapid pace at which we all live, it becomes easier and easier to make as little personal contact with our fellow man as possible. I remember as a young child being so proud when Mom’s pager would go off while we were in line at the grocery store. To me, that shrill “Bebeep, Bebeep. Bebeep, Bebeep. Bebeep, Bebeep” told everyone within ear shot my mom was important. She would take it off her belt and see a numerical code that indicated to her the urgency with which to handle this alert. Shuffling out of the store and loading the bags with haste, we would either drive to the nearest pay phone or just go home. And so began my introduction to electronic communication anytime anywhere…

I was maybe 14 or 15 when I got my first pager. My friends and I would send numerical codes, that when the pager was tipped on its side, spelled out words. This primitive method of E-communication was the precursor to our modern day text messaging. Today we have mainstream acronyms for our more commonly used phrases. BFF, IDK, OMG, LOL, ROFL, and many others that do not need an explanation or to be defined for most of us- we know what they mean. We use these at work and in our personal lives. Have we really gotten that busy OR that lazy that we can not find the time to type out the whole phrase? Better yet, is it really all that cumbersome a task to pick up the phone to find out what your best friend forever is doing on Friday? I hear some people say that they hate talking on the phone, and that they would much rather text or email. Have we really lost all desire for personal contact with others? I work in a large office, but it isn’t so large I can’t get up and go ask my coworker a question. I find myself using our IM to chat him/her instead of looking away from my PC and making eye contact.

I have seen people develop entire relationships over text messaging. I mean not just friendships, but loving and intimate relationships. I can see the appeal, but when we actually lose the ability to verbally communicate with our fellow man we lose much of what makes humanity so wonderful, and, in the instance of relationships, we lose the ability to read tone and body language. The benefits associated with human to human contact are vastly under-rated by the general public. Let me use my personal experience to illustrate. Last week I was working on a project at work that required me to work with people outside my office. I happened upon an issue that I hadn’t seen before, and I wasn’t exactly sure how to proceed. I IM’ed my remote support person and explained the situation I had come upon. They gave me an answer that indicated to me I had not been clear in my explanation so I reiterated my problem. Still not getting an answer that could help, I picked up the phone and through this personal communication I was able to gain the resolution I needed.

I challenge everyone reading this to give personal communication a try. It really won’t take any time at all to get up and go ask Peter two rows over if he has that “TPS report”, or to personally inquire of Nina if you have had any calls. When you get home instead of catching up with a local friend via email give them a call and set up a luncheon. You will be glad you did. Don’t fill the void from lack of personal interactions with more impersonal communication. No one likes to feel like a number. Together we can combat this “number-osis” of humanity by reaching out and letting someone know you care enough to take the time to personally communicate with them. The possibilities are endless when we communicate with one another personally and effectively to resolve our problems and offer respect for our fellow man.

 

What do bread, a dream, and Missouri have in common?

How many times have you said “___ is the best thing since sliced bread.”? Have you ever wondered how this phrase came to be? Well I did, and the following is what I have come up with after researching the net.

In 1928 a man and his family traveled from their home in Iowa to a town called Chillicothe in Missouri. Why this town? I am not exactly sure, but Otto Rohwedder and his family chose that oddly named town to peddle their wares. We have all heard the phrase “Desperate times call for desperate measures”. For Frank Bench, a baker in Chillicothe, 1928 was just that- desperate times. He was on the verge of bankruptcy when the Rohwedder family pitched their idea of pre-sliced bread. Frank, I am sure feeling like there was nothing left to lose, took their invention and started filling the Chillicothe, Missouri grocery store shelves with bread that was presliced on July 7, 1928. Mr. Bench saw a 2000% increase in sales in just two weeks time. And so started the world’s love affair with the time saving pre-sliced bread.

We, as a species, are a fairly progressive bunch, right? I mean we invented the wheel, harnessed the power of electricity, and even invented an apparatus through which people could communicate over wire; and yet the idea of pre-slicing bread had to wait for a decade after the first World War???? Let’s immagine for just a minute John Montague the 4th Earl of Sandwich’s version of a sandwich- the first sandwich. How haphazard and pleb-like it must have seemed without the perfectly uniform pair of wheat and yeast brewis adorning the outside of the lamb and bitter herds he had selected for himself! I just can’t come to grips with the reality that we could build ships such as the Titanic and no one had contemplated selling bread pre-sliced.

After discussing this with some coworkers the comment was made that necessity is the mother of invention. Maybe there wasn’t a need for pre-sliced bread. While this may hold true to a point, with regard to sliced bread the exponential growth of Frank Bench’s bread sales speaks volumes about a need being fulfilled. Let us not, dear friends, ever speak the phrase “greatest thing sinced sliced bread” in vain again! Let us remember the chance one baker and one Iowan family took to better the lives of people across the globe by using the Rohwedder bread slicer as the standard to which all inventions post 1928 should be held!

 

The conditions are just right for introspection…

It was warm this morning. The driveway was wet, I guess it rained last night. Thats not unusual for this time of year in this part of the country, but never the less this morning’s weather took me by suprise. I poured myself into my vehicle, set the radio to my favorite morning show, and started off to make my “daily contribution to the machine”. Half listenting to Mike and Mike, hosts of the morning program I listen to, I started wondering what events in their lives led them to where they are now.

Mike Greenberg started out as a columnist for a newspaper, and Mike Golic a football player. There are a lot of columnists and football players in the world, but not all of these columnists and football players acheive such success and recognition as Mike and Mike currently enjoy. What set them apart from their peers? What decisions did they make to get to where they are? While contemplating these questions I reflected upon myself. I thought about where I want to go in life. I thought about my mentor, Kellie, and her journey to where she is now, and where her current success will take her. What are the attributes all successful people have in common? Are great people born or are they made? Could I enjoy even a fracture of the same level of success as Mike and Mike or Kellie? I am sure I can. I am driven and focused. I have a plan, and I am following it. I have set my priorities and I am making strides to align my thoughts with those priorities. What else should I be doing?

I got a fortune cookie a while back and as expected, tucked neatly inside was a slip of paper. There was nothing different about this slip of paper from the many I have gotten before, but the fortune, this time, was very different. It read: “Focus on the journey, not the destination”. I never before felt like a piece of paper could speak to me, but this one did. I placed it in the change part of my wallet for safe keeping. I now have this indescript slip of paper nestled in the corner of a picture frame at my desk at work. Each day I look over and see it there, and it helps keep me fixed on my goal while reminding me to focus on the task at hand.

I will take away from this morning’s introspection this: I can be successful and acheive my goals so long as my mind is clear and focused and my actions directly impact my progress toward my goal.