One never knows when the lesson shirked will come back to bite you on the ass.
Every life experience must be grabbed with passion. Learn and earn, if possible, from everything put in your path.
This advice is not just a nice-sounding bit of advice based on theory, it is premised by a very traumatic event in my life some 32 years ago. That event could have put me in a federal penitentiary for a very long time.
I once heard a story of a would-be flight navigator who cheated on a major part of his written exam. His deceit went unnoticed for many years until an in-flight emergency left him at the helm. As he was descending, he couldn’t recall the total sequence. In desperation, he radioed ground control and half in tears told them that he drew a blank on how to land. The calm ground control staff walked him through it and, by shear luck, he landed without a glitch. He was fired on the spot.
Likewise, I was encouraged by my college teachers to keep a journal, and my freshman teacher encouraged me to write with passion. That lesson made me fall in love with English and when, in 1978, I stood at my arraignment and read my recognizance speech to the judge, he quickly reduced my substantial $500,000 baqil to a mere $500.
Unlike the navigator who fudged his way through, I was prepared adequately for the trauma I faced in the courtroom.
Scruffy old men were once upon a life young, egoistic and full of hope.
I believe I heard the late, great Jim Rohn say, “You’ve got to touch people where they are.” Far too often, however, people dismiss people simply because they look and act differently than they do.
What a tragedy that we refuse to leave our safety bubble of peppermint sticks and good fairies in order to experience the seeds’ and seediness of life.
In the teeming hell fires of a Bombay or Mogadishu slum stand idle vagrants looking at you for a handout or busily rummaging through garbage for some rancid morsel or a tin can to sell.
How disgusting and despicable these crumb bums seem from our sterile world perspective.
But if God’s sacred camera were rolling we would see acts’ of kindness beyond belief. One starving vagrant giving his ration to another more-emaciated street mate.
The world is full of benevolence, and not only from those with a big wad of cold cash. This is a story about a brush I had with a scruffy old man, Jacques, whom I met in my more humble days on the streets of San Francisco. Jacques was extraordinary under his scruffy beard.
Let the judge draw out this important personal story…
There are life-changing moments and then there are LIFE-CHANGING MOMENTS.
Being arrested and charged with attempted kidnapping and then facing a possible 20-year sentence was not something I intentionally wished to happen.
But sometimes you only change and grow when your life or your freedom is on the line.
You learn to improvise and to use your intuition the minute you realize that there is no cavalry coming to the rescue. Here’s the story of the judge facing the executioner:
When you come from a dysfunctional or violent family, you are fragile and can easily drop off the deep end of life. Criticism is something which is reacted to violently or by walking around with your imaginary tail between your legs.
Everyone at some time is vulnerable to manipulation by a “loved” one or a manipulative person or group. While most do not end up in a religious cult or following some violent, radical underground group, I joined the former.
In a recent episode of Boston Legal, the lawyer took advantage of a woman who he was to defend and engage in sex in the office. The scene was down-played for the remainder of the show, but what kind of message was it sending to the viewing public…exploit the weak and vulnerable?
Wherever you are in your life – the master or the slave position – remember that some day without doubt you will be vulnerable and the master may use you shamelessly.
Yes, be understanding and respectful of people living in darkness and searching for the light. Though they may seem powerless and easily exploited, there is a karmic law at work. Eventually the tide will turn on you in unexpected and tragic ways.
So much of marketing is aimed at yanking or jimmying open the gateway to the mind.
Words – hypnotic ones – can make dead souls rise and fight for the glory of the fatherland or for the honor of the father. They can also make us purchase products, services, or propaganda wholesale without a care.
Yet the combination of words, phrases and visions artfully implanted can also lead to uncompromisable creativity, blissful peace and endless tolerance.
Ah, if only most language was only used to such positive effect, then the need to warn others to watch carefully over the gateway to the mind would diminish immensely. We could live with child-like curiosity and experience the newness of each day without ever needing to utter, “What’s the catch?” or “What’s in it for me?”
“Merely through the constant need to ward off, one can become weak enough to be unable to defend oneself any longer.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche~
Don't Let Anger Possess You!
Feeling traumatize by a parent in childhood can leave a lingering, festering wound that never heals.
We are defenseless against a verbal or physical brute when small, but eventually we reach an age when we challenge the oppressor to a fight or at least a reason for their aggression. The parent either relents or ignores you from that point onward.
I often heard people say, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Not so. Being ignoredd by a parent or parents is more painful than a daily belt lashing.
The judge finds the defendant guilty as charged. For the sake of inner peace of the victim, the judge rules clemency. Parents do the best they can which isn’t always much.
“Look up and not down. Look forward and not back. Look out and not in, and lend a hand.”
~Edward Everett Horton~
There are thousands of gurus and wannabes telling you to get focused. Then – in the same breath – they tell you to write down a gazillion goals for seven or eight categories, then narrow them down to a half-dozen or so and focus on them.
So now you have, let’s say, 40 goals that you are supposed to focus on. The only trouble is that the 39 sitting on your hard drive are screaming for your attention. When a stumbling block arrives – as it always does – you jump to another and then another, and then it’s lunchtime, then it’s siesta time, then it’s dinner time, and finally it’s Miller time.
If you snooze, you lose in this high-pace world we live in. But the whole tamale does not consist of 40 appetizers to choose from, rather from one entree to nibble at until it is consumed.
“To err is human, to forgive is divine”.
~Alexander Pope~
Your Number One Hero Is You!
Who are the heroes in your life? Maybe that question gives you pause in this age of put-downs and cynicism.
In the modern world, we love to idolize people and then cut them down to size. To watch others pain and comeuppance gives us a false reassurance that we are lucky to be less.
Ultimately, our heroes must teach us lessons of how to act and and how not to act. We must not hero worship at the expense of striving to be a person of excellence ourselves.
The judge brings this court to session (and turn down the volume a tad):
One of the major tragedies of life is to not learn from mistakes. I’ve learned from some, but continue to this same day many others.
That is why it is so important to review your life on a daily basis using a journal. By doing so, you can remember how you managed and mismanaged life. The next time around, the same mistake – if not learned – could cost you a job, a marriage or even your life.
There may not be anyone able or willing to save you from a mistake in judgment down the pike. Parents do the best they can to forewarn us that we can’t have a baby’s reliance once we leave the crib.
“I would rather die standing up, than live life on my knees.” ~Emilano Zapata~
Amen. If you have been living your life as a sacrificial lamb and a victim, it is never too late to take the reigns of your life back from those who could never have your best – notice I said best – interest in mind.
You were meant to be you, not someone’s caricature of you. Draw your line in the sand once and for all. Become the divine creation you were always meant to be.
Whether you live under a bridge off an interstate highway or in a 20-room estate overlooking the French Riviera, your life is still a work in progress.
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or misfortune which lay before you could yet turn the pauper into king and the king into a stink-pot prisoner on death row. Only time will tell.
One definition of wealth is “a great amount.” We all have a great amount of life – a wealth of it – by the time we reach our 60th. It is our duty to bring – to at least a precious few – our wealth experience and subsequent wealth philosophy. They in turn can pass forward our weighty thoughts about how to approach life successfully or how not to approach it.
Listen to the Judge as he chimes in on this touchy subject:
I understand the rage and impotence that rules the world. We are often raised by caring people who haven’t a clue how to parent their precious charge.
You must be gifted in creating ways to solve challenges with your children and only use tools of the last resort when absolutely required or necessary. John Kennedy’s father, Joe, said this to John…and it will serve so many ways.
Here’s what old Joe Kennedy said: “If it is not necessary to change, it’s necessary not to change.” If it’s not necessary to scold, then it’s necessary not to scold. If it’s not necessary to use sarcasm, then it is necessary in the rest of your speech to use sarcasm.
Controlling that temper is the first step toward reigning in the wild horses that move your life. The judge weighs in…
The audio above was created in response to an observation that a person mustn’t fake it till you make it.
My observations – in relation to my site, SuccessInJapan.com – are important for the billions of people across the planet who worship others and put themselves down. They are the silent majority and they need not live in the shadows.
It was written to the Life Without Limits site whose webmasters, Heather Vale and Barry Goss and their staff, have written disempowering commentary to me about my notion that the “not walking the talk” crowd deserve air time and slack.
After all, if only the enlightened and the affluent have something worthy to say, I’d like to hear about their journeys to the other side or their fireside chats with God Almighty about righteousness.
The word adore comes from the French aourer meaning “to adore, worship” and from the Latin adorare meaning “speak to formally, beseech, ask in prayer.”
In our modern world of relativism, it becomes increasingly difficult to adore anyone or anything very much or for very long. Most images implanted in our minds are fueled by Hollywood fantasy or meant by advertising executives to sell us things we don’t need in the name of unbridled capitalism and consumerism.
Where have all our heroes gone? A good question to put to the adoring Judge…
A man complains because he has no shoes until he meets a man with no feet. I have that sentiment in motivational chatter again and again, but whatever your tear-jerking rap about “Poor me!” may be, there is always a path to the finish line.
It is believed by politicians and do-gooders that legislation can change minds and root out meanness, bias and blatant bigotry. It can’t. We mock and deride what we don’t understand or haven’t experienced…and that’s an awful lot.
I came across Nick Vujicic about a year ago. He was in a video featuring his God-inspired vibrancy and determination to do much more than just survive. He lives to inspire and wipe out all excuses for accepting failure with grace.
