[hohp] noun.

"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

I'm lucky. 

Really lucky. 

My close friends know I've gone through a lot in my life. Yet, whenever I think about it, I always feel like my troubles are nothing compared to so much that I see and hear. But that's not why I'm lucky.


What about my family and friends? All those tight knit people that know me for me. Absolutely I love all of them, but not why I'm lucky.



(Cue the traditional holiday blessings speech about having a roof over my head and plenty of food, water and clothing) Of course, I am absolutely thankful for that. And truly blessed. But it's not why I'm lucky.

No. I was thinking today about hope. About what it means. About how powerful a word it is. About how powerful a concept it is.

Hope, to me, is staring adversity in the face and believing in the ability to overcome it.

It's not the act of overcoming. It's the belief.

Power is often given to actions. And this is certainly not unjustified. But when actions fail, it's hope that causes you to try again. In fact, hope often springs from the near insurmountable odds that accompany difficult times. It's light to fill the darkness.

No matter how blessed we are, everyone has good days and bad days. Everyone has moments of elation and disillusionment. Everyone has times when they struggle, and some when they are unable to find hope. And I'm lucky because I always seem to find it. And I am never happier than when I am hopeful.

Happy New Year. Be Safe. Stay Hopeful.

Who am I?

"I must first know myself; to be curious about that which is not my concern, while I am still in ignorance of my own self would be ridiculous."
- Plato


"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
-- Dr. Seuss

I’m strange, I know that.

I like to talk about real things on a first date, like your passions, and your beliefs and what makes you get up in the morning. I live to see that smile come across a person’s face when they talk about something they love, even if it isn’t me. I love it even more when I‘m responsible for it.

I love throwing myself into new situations, and friendships and relationships. Jumping in feet first with no idea how deep the water may be. I am impulsive. I move too quickly. And I ignore the “rules”. I wear my heart on my sleeve and I wish everyone else did as well. I make a lot of bad decisions as a result, but I never regret any of them.

I tell jokes when they're probably not quite appropriate. I have difficulty meeting new people. I try to prevent myself from "filtering" who I am on social media. I am passionate about those closest to me. I don't know if I make a good first impression or not. Yes, I really am that interested in getting to know you. I do everything I can to be true to myself. And every time I meet someone that doesn't "get me" I have to remind myself that I'm proud of who I am. That I'm complicated. That I'm different. And if you don't want to take the time to get to know me, I can't do anything about it. That's your choice.

I might not be the best person I can be, but that doesn’t mean I'm going to stop trying.

And to all my friends that accept these things about me, and especially to those that appreciate them and realize they are what make me, truly me. There aren’t many of you out there, but thank you. Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays. May you feel as lucky and blessed as I do.

To everyone else, you might as well learn to deal with it, because I ain’t changing and I’m not going anywhere.

Let's do this. 

 

Second Chances

"Wrong turns are as important as right turns. More important, sometimes"

- Richard Bach


I said at the beginning this would be a process. And failure is often a step you must take in growth.

I promised consistency and delivered quite the opposite.

Two months is a long time. Especially in the blogging world. Luckily according to my page views, no one really missed me.



I bet you're wondering what brought me back. What Earth shattering event broke through 60+ days of compounding apathy and personal disappointment:

Well, frankly, I couldn't sleep.

Normally this isn't a problem for me. But some events today had my mind asking a lot of questions. See I've been torn for a while now about whether or not I'm on my path, and what exactly that means.

I'm so used to being where I'm supposed to be and doing what I'm supposed to do, that it's hard for me to know what it feels like to be headed in the wrong direction and even harder to recognize guidance when it's given to me.

So I write.



Sometimes the only way to quiet your mind is to get out of it.



When your brain is in overdrive it's important to re-connect to your heart.


And there's no better way to find your heart and lose your mind than to write.



Pun not withstanding, it's the truth. And that's what I came here 3 months ago looking for:

Truth.



I'm not certain it's a coincidence that my abandonment of this blog and my acceptance of my current job coincided.

I guess we'll find out in the coming weeks.

But I will tell you, I won't go down that road so easily this time.


So I return to you tonight hat in hand.

Though I don't believe in mistakes, only opportunities.

And I fully intend to take advantage of this one.

Day 12 - Growth, Focus and False Beliefs

“Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for fewer problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges, wish for more wisdom.”
- Earl Shoaf


Sleep is just a killer for me.

I wish I could survive on 6 hours a night, like so many others do.

The extra 2, 3, even 4 hours could help me be so much more productive .



This is what we call a false belief.

It's not false because it isn't true. I probably would be more productive, albeit slightly, if I had an extra 4 hours to use every day.

It's false because it is blocking the true root of the problem: which is that I'm not maximizing the time I already have. What's to say I would use that extra time wisely.

No the problem isn't in how much I sleep, that's necessary for me to be at my best. The problem is making effective use of the time I have. That's what I need to work on.

The desire to create more time by sleeping less is just a cop out. 




Of course the issue is too often in our lives we come across a problem and we focus on the cause that is the easiest to admit to and that's what we try to fix.

Just because a solution is easy doesn't mean it's right.

In fact when it comes to personal growth and introspection, quite often it's the difficult answer we choose not to face that is the one we truly need to deal with.

Growth is a process not a step. It doesn't stop with the effort you put in when you begin. But if you push hard enough eventually it feeds and compounds on itself. And the inertia you build up will enable you to one day wake up and realize that it no longer takes any effort to grow.




Finally, I have to give a shout out to my fellow Mt. Lebonite Christina Cindrich. I just found her on twitter last week, and I have to admit I like her.

She's smart, driven, successful and a good communicator. You can check out this article by her on the 5 DO's and DON'Ts of staying focused. It is very good and hits on a lot of things I've been talking about here.

It's also on a website called Pushydreamers.com.which I'll probably talk about soon.

Anyway Christina I wish you all the best.

Day 9 - 2 steps forward, 1 step back

"The first half of life is spent mainly in finding out who we are through seeing ourselves in our interaction with others. "
June Singer 

Sorry I haven't been with you guys too much the last couple of days. There are two reasons for this.

First, I started up my old blog again. You can see it here  It's more of a sports blog, and with the NHL All-Star Weekend upon us, I couldn't resist putting some new stuff on it. Unfortunately, my posts on it take a lot longer to craft than on here. In the future I don't feel it will get in the way as much, as it is a much more infrequent output for me than this blog.

Second, I've both been busier and lazier the last couple of days. I just can't seem to shake the sleeping in thing. And the problem is when I don't get up until 10am, 11am, even noon, by the time I get breakfast, walk my dog, take a shower and start looking at this stuff I normally have somewhere to be.

The good news is that I have been finding time for the stuff I really want to be doing, but it's a process and I haven't quite settled into the dynamics of it yet.

I think the good update though is I've been doing a lot better with waste when it comes to money. In fact, I'll probably hit you with a post about it in the next couple of days, which reminds me of something.

If you have any questions about anything I write, want me to talk about anything specific, or explain in greater detail anything I cover by all means please email me about it.

I've gotten positive feedback from people so far about the blog. But what I want everyone to know is that while this may come off as just about me and what I'm going through, I'm really hoping along the way to hit on some universal truths in it that resonate with my readers.

Day 7 - That was a longer break than I anticipated

“Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”
- Muhammad Ali

I don't think I'm ready yet to get into the complete accountability details of how I'm doing. What I think I will say though, is I'm doing okay, and I wish I was doing better.

I'm having breakthroughs and set backs. I'd say I'm doing less wasting time, but I have yet to really take complete control of it.

I'm not cycling through web pages, or watching mindless drivel on TV as much as I normally do. As a result I have definitely got more done on a day to day basis. But I'm also still not jumping out of bed refreshed in the morning, ready to seize the day. And I haven't completely eliminated waste from my life. But then again it's a process and sometimes you have to recognize progress and be patient with yourself.

Breaking yourself from habit is hard. As anyone that has ever quit smoking, tried to start working out or went on a diet can attest to.  Part of the point of this blog was to break my bad habits in a public fashion, because I knew even if I only had a couple occasional readers, that was at least someone else that would know I failed.

Sometimes it's easy to let yourself down, it's a lot harder to do it to other people. But that's when I realized that this is another area where I want to make a change. Just because it's easy to let yourself off the hook, doesn't mean I want to accept that. And even though I can use peer pressure and social stigma to push myself, doesn't mean it's going to work any better in the long run.

At the end of the day you still have to be able to look yourself in the mirror. I want to be able to say good job and mean it. Even though I can use this as an aid or a push at times, I want to be able to do this for me, because that's the only way I'll stick to it.

Also for anyone that likes sports I revived my other blog The Legend and The Law.

Day 5 - Take a break

So no deep thoughts today.

Yesterday I was pretty lazy, watched too much TV, didn't get enough done. But today I made up for it and did a complete clean on my house. It's amazing how much better you feel when you are accomplishing something.

Tomorrow is all about going out and talking to people. Booking Terrance Vaughn Band for some gigs. If you don't know about my relationship with him I'm kind of his manager. He doesn't work exclusively through me, but I take care of his social networking stuff, email list, and other stuff he doesn't have time for. This is the facebook page I am working with him on.

I did want to hit you all with one thing though. You have to see a movie called "Exit Through the Gift Shop". It's a documentary about street art. Well actually it's a documentary about a documentary about street art. It's complicated, but it's also amazing and a very good story. It's definitely a film that will be liked by both movie purists and people that think documentaries are meant for PBS and that's it.

You have to see it if for no other reason than one of the main characters "Banksy" has two lines in the film, one at just before the one hour mark, and the other just at the end, that are drop dead hilarious. It's on Hulu right now, so it's very easy to see for free. And it is also up for an academy award for best doc.

It's one of the best movies I have seen all year.

Anyway, gotta run, will definitely have more tomorrow.