Another Year

        My thought for today? Do the things that improve you as a person. Stop doing the things that are at the very heart of your destruction. Our bodies are dying, but we can be so very much alive. I think that it takes us remembering the times that we were the most happy and content with ourselves to find who we really can be. Then we have to get to the bottom of why we were so happy. The answer to that question is the very thing you have to return to.

       It's not always that easy. I can point to times in my life I've been happier, but mostly because everyone was still IN my life. But what I can say about myself is that people get through things in the best ways that they can. People find a way to adapt and to find the light in their lives. I've done that too. I bury myself in my kids. I've always loved kids and have always admired their innocence. They don't have to deal with the stress that their mother and I have to. They get to be innocent for a very short time in their lives. Me and my wife give each other everything, and I think we both would agree that holding them is the greatest therapy.

        This is the time that I want them to remember me. I think about negative things and I project negative things. I think about them and my wife and how great my friends and family are, and I project who God is, both in my life and in the lives of others. There is significantly more value in one than the other. So I try to outweigh the bad they see in me to redeem their view of the world and the things that are constantly happening in it.

        Looking at everyone's pictures of their children returning to school a year older...and looking at my almost grown up kids reminds me that we get one short attempt at representing everything that is true and Godly and wonderful about being alive. One short try at it. I really...really don't want to fail. Both because I want them to be extraordinary human adults, and also because selfishly, I want them to remember me as one of their greatest heroes and influences.

I want them to see that my importance outweighed my mistakes. I hope I succeed.





Sing.
Migrate.



Thanks for reading...Z

Wherever You Go...

        I haven't had issues with anger since I was a young man. Everything began to fall into place and I was blessed with everything I ever wanted. I guess that makes it a lot easier to be a voice of reason to yourself. It's easy to be cool when no one or nothing is trying to hurt you. But if you add a lot of grief and harmful people harming you, things could start to change.

       So finding myself with such a short fuse and cynical attitude is a little new to me. It's familiar from a life I led that feels like a hundred years ago...but it's new to me now. It sits in the basement of your guts and silently rots you slowly. It goes unnoticed until you say something or think something about another person that alarms you. Then all of the sudden, you don't know who you even are anymore.

        A lot of people take the road of deleting social media and avoiding the things that they often get angered by. I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense to me. "Wherever you go...there you are" - Earnest from Earnest Goes to Camp. While I think it is wise to avoid senseless things that piss you off, like mainstream news and politics, I also think that we need to learn to find the love and good in the world around us. It won't help me to retreat. It will only help me to change the way I think. To look at the beauty that is beneath those storm clouds.

        I'm going to try and only say good things. I've found myself spewing negativity constantly and I don't like that at all. It taxes both myself and others around me. I'm definitely gonna mess up, so I'll ask you to help me by reminding me gently, that I only want good things to pass through my lips. It's not a denial of the bad. It's the refusal to add more bad to the world.





Sing.
Migrate.


Thanks for reading...Z