Hi Leo, Checked out the link and thanks again. Full of reality to read!!

Signs of progress in this message...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-re ... f=politics

In 2013, I divorced my ex-wife, had to close my company, lost my house, lost three pets, had to sell most everything I own and had to live on the kindness of friends and, in some cases, strangers. I've experienced some massive losses, and this is only the highlight reel.

To say I've learned a thing or two this year is an understatement.

The things I have learned, I've written down. This is what I want to share with you: all the things I've decided I can't afford to forget that I learned, because they're just too fucking important.

Ready to drink from the firehose? Here you go:
•Time is the only currency that matters. Money comes and goes. Attention comes and goes. Love comes and goes. Time is the only thing you can never, ever recover. Once it's gone, it's gone. Be aware of who and what you spend your time on, including the time you spend regretting spending time on shit.
•Quit beating up on yourself. The entire world is lined up and ready to remind you why you're not as good as they are. Someone needs to be on your team. Start by recruiting yourself. Be your own biggest cheerleader. Don't stand on your own sidelines wearing the opponent's uniform.
•The best way to learn how not to beat up on yourself is to literally change your language about yourself. If you find yourself insulting yourself, your looks, your thoughts, your ambitions, and your feelings, literally say aloud the words "No. What I mean to say is," and change whatever you just said into something honest but not insulting. Even if you're in a room by yourself, and you think the insult, say it aloud. This one tool will change everything about how you feel about yourself. And the worst possible thing you could do to help yourself grow is to "feel stupid" doing it, so you don't do it. Get over that, do this work, and in as soon as a month, you'll find yourself thinking more highly of you. In a year? Even moreso.
•Love is a verb. You give love. You are loved. If you "have" love, you're neither giving it nor receiving it. It is a dead thing, nonmoving and not living. Quit hoarding and holding on to love, or even thinking you can.
•Love and Respect are two things that, when you give them away, you don't lose any of what you had. You simply replicate what you have and give it to someone else. The effect should multiply. If it doesn't, you're wasting your time.
•When you find you've been wasting your time, stop. I mean, you're free to keep on wasting it. No one is going to stop you. But remember, the SECOND you realize the truth, it's YOUR decision what to do with it. Everything, including ignoring it, is your responsibility.
•Take responsibility for anything you've done. Never hide from it. Everyone already knows the truth anyway, and trying to make up a story about why it's not your fault simply makes you less trustworthy in the future.
•Trust is not hoping the other person does things right. It's giving them permission to fuck it up and seeing how they handle it. If you ever find yourself trusting someone "to do it right" you're not trusting, you're gambling. And that's fine too, just know the difference.
•The best way to figure out if you can trust someone is to trust them.
•People WILL disappoint you. It's inevitable. We all hold everyone in the world to a standard, and eventually they will fall short of that standard. When they do, remember, they fell short of YOUR standard, not their own. You own that, not them. They own their actions, you own your expectations. Proceed accordingly.
•Forgiveness has NOTHING to do with what the other person did or will do, and everything to do with releasing them from the prison of your hatred and anger. If they're not living in your prison, you don't have to feed and shelter them anymore. Prisoners have a cost. Whatever you're paying to keep them, you're not spending on yourself or anyone else in your life. Decide how much someone who completely fucked you over is worth and spend appropriately.
•Cheer when you win. Goals are fun, and achieving them should be a victory every single time. Celebrate every single one.
•Anyone who isn't cheering when you celebrate a victory isn't on your team. Fuck em.
•If you want to achieve more goals, allow yourself to shift them as you yourself change. If your goal is to lose 30 pounds, and you begin working out and you lose a bunch of fat and look fantastic and feel great and only lost 20 pounds, allow the goal to change.
•The world is a great place. In order to experience it, you must open yourself up to the possibility that you may get hurt. But then again, you may not.
•It's just STUFF. Everything you have, everything you own, everything you've collected, everything you've bought or been given, no matter how much it means to you, is JUST STUFF. You will adjust to losing any or all of it, and almost always for the better.
•If you woke up this morning and had a hot shower, you've had a terrific day.
•People change. Trying to stop that is like trying to staple waves to the beach.
•Suppressing feelings is the best way to make sure they show up again at the worst possible moment and fuck your shit up, bad. Feel what you feel, and never ever apologize for it.
•No matter how strong you are, at some point in your life, you're going to have to ask someone for help. Learn to do it sooner rather than later, and you'll spare yourself years of agony borne of thinking you're some sort of invincible Superman, but wondering why all these bullets keep hurting. You're not. No one is. Wake up.
•Ask for what you want. You'll get it, one way or another.
•Courage is not the absence of fear, doubt, or anxiety. It's facing that stuff and seeing the truth beyond it. Anyone who ever tells you they're not afraid is lying.
•Strength is not the ability to withstand anything, it's the ability to recover from anything. It takes no effort for a strong man to wether a storm he can handle. It takes a tremendous effort to admit there's a storm that can beat and break you, standing up, and deciding to rebuild.
•Fitness, losing weight, diet and happiness are four corners of the same parallelogram. I've been involved in some form of exercise for most of my life. My weight has fluctuated greatly as an adult, losing lots of weight only to put it back on. This year, I lost nearly 70 pounds and kept it off. Not because of CrossFit and not because of the Paleo diet (both of which I do), but because CrossFit and the Paleo diet work in conjunction with one another to make me happy. I found an activity I love, that fills me with desire to perform, to the point that I found myself changing my diet, sleep schedule and activity schedule to best fit this new lifestyle. You can try any activity you want, and you may get fit or you may lose weight, but until you find one (or several) that fill you with happiness and joy simply for doing them, you will struggle with the weight loss and the fitness, just as you will struggle trying to push two same-pole magnets together. You can do it, but there's resistance, and eventually fatigue sets in and you let go and the ends push apart. It's just how it is.
•The most useful application of remembering the past is making sure you do not repeat it. Always remember it, and never dwell on it.
•They're not strangers once you get to know them. Best way to make that happen is to talk to them.
•You can tell someone the truth without being a dick. "I'm just being honest" or "I don't mean to be blunt" or "Not to sound rude, but" are simply shorthand for "I'm incapable of actually communicating with anyone without somehow trying to make myself sound and feel superior."
•If you want to be honest about how you feel about stuff, start with telling yourself the truth about it.
•Journal every day. You need some things to be yours and yours alone. That's the perfect place to keep them.
•If you don't keep some things for yourself, you'll be empty.
•Everything ends. Experiences, relationships, even life. The trick is not to be so intensely aware of how great something is that you know you'll miss it when it's gone. The trick is to accept that it WILL be gone, one day, somehow, and to let go and enjoy it while it's here.
•You are the accumulation of every experience you've ever had. To try to pretend something didn't happen, or to cover it up, or to otherwise hide from it is to hide from yourself. You will lose that game. Every single time.
•You are also the common denominator in every experience you've ever had. If you've noticed a pattern where things just keep not working out for you, you need to realize that, in at least some regard, you're part of that pattern.
•If you want something you've never had, you must do something you've never done.
•Joy is a feeling. Happiness is a state. You can be happy in moments you're not feeling joy, and you can feel joy in moments where you're not actually happy. Don't confuse the two.


And finally, the most important lesson I can possibly ever try to convey to you:

This list is bullshit.

This is the stuff I've learned. These are the things that, now that I understand them the way I do, I can't go back to how I used to do stuff. I can try, but I'll always know that the experience is just not the same. Once you've learned something, you cannot unlearn it. All you can do is try to forget its true while you do the thing you used to do, which ruins that experience to the point it's just not fun anymore.

More than that, it's MY list. It's the things I've learned for myself, about myself. It's not your list. It's just my advice to you. And advice is worth approximately nothing whatsoever.

It is impossible for you to read these things and understand them the way I've come to understand them. To do that, you'd have to go through what I went through. And if there's one universal truth to life, it's the fact that you can believe the stove is hot when your parents warn you not to touch it, and you may even go through your entire life never once touching a hot stove because you trust them so much. But you can't possibly know what a hot stove feels like until you touch it. And when you do, it hurts like hell.

But that's the thing about pain: It's the best teacher there is. You know what a hot stove feels like now. You know what your hand felt like when you got burned. You don't have to wonder. That question is now answered.

The same thing goes with loving someone with your whole heart, or investing everything you have into a business, or loving pets, or making friends, or building a home or owning stuff or practically anything that you might do in life. Don't ever take anyone's word for shit. Fucking do it.

Take a risk. Live. Experience life. Get drunk on it. Wake up the next morning and take a deep breath and understand that, for as long as that air rushes through your nostrils into your lungs and leaves again, you are ALIVE, and as long as you're alive, you can make it through anything.

You own you. Period. Take good care of yourself, and treat yourself nicely. You'll be amazed how the rest of the world falls in line behind that.

I may not know you, but I love you. And I want you to have a happy 2014 and beyond.

Amazing grace - you are real! I love you and applaud you. May we grab 2014 by the balls and smile together!

You are a very wise human being Doug. I've always known you are smart, and have a beautiful and wondrous spirit. Now I am aware of the wisdom which glues all of that stuff together. It is truly an honor and privilege to have you as a friend, even though we have never shaken hands or made eye contact. After reading this, I now understand more than ever those are superficial aspects which might enhance our bond - yet the bond is not diminished by their absence.

Thank you Doug. I will do my part. You are in my thoughts and meditations. Peace be within and without you.

Happy New Year!

I am so sorry to have been so unclear. I am not the author of that letter of New Years advice. And did not intend to imply such. I should have been more clear. I would never want to take credit for anything I did not produce. I should have pasted the link to this huff post article and been more clear as to who the author was. Please forgive my error. The article gives good advice, but it's not written by me.

Happy New Year

Then wise to repost it! I have so many thoughts, ideas, feelings and inspirations flowing through me all the time - yet I am usually too "busy" or too lacking of proper articulation to express them. Your post did a wonderful job of expressing so many of the things I feel, and it seems, you feel as well. Thanks so much again!

Happy New Year!

May 2014 be better than 2013 for all.

Thanks for being so graceful Kevin. For a moment, after seeing the replies, I felt bad and deceitful. Thanks for being my best brother from any mother!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-peaco ... +Francisco

Joe Peacock is a wise man, indeed. The title is a bit blunt though. Ha!

And for you too Cher.

I hope love finds wings to fly into your life this year!

The author of the article got some love thoughts here by you posting it DRR and it was good to ack him as the author. Dust is dust whatever and wherever we read it but love reminds us that we are what and who we are to eachother. Most times just dust but sometimes stardust that shines brightly in the darkness that surrounds and sometimes even invades us. Thank you DRR for posting as you did. Life bites, death steals but love…..

Peace and love thoughts to all

Thanks! Not ready for love yet as I still love my Mike too much to think of being with someone else.

enjoyed reading the list, but still ("oh, here she goes...")


i can appreciate that to a point, still, in my experience, from just the opposite perspective:

nice sounding words may gloat, but do not always represent kindness, or even niceness

Though the Bible is mentioned a lot in this article about a year of Jubilee, that does not make me a very religious person. Where I'm really coming from is about what Steve Miller sang about back in the 70s about all of us having been working so hard that we have got to get down to the swing-town! And as the Space Cowboy also sang in Serenade, "Wake up wake up, can't you see that we are lost in space and the time is our own."

http://www.care2.com/news/member/406091837/3695196

This is so very personal and not meant to repress your great memories of Mike, or lessen your love of him. I hope to express myself without being offensive in any way. I'm not asking you to do anything but listen to my own story.

Your situation is unique to you and mine to me, but love is love, light is light, so here goes...

My parents got divorced way back in ~ 1985. My mom has had many male friends over the years that followed. Some of them were serious, wanting to marry her. We did not talk about it much, but she sort of had some notion that re-marrying would be a sin of sorts. Love? Sex? Forget about it! NOT going to happen. Divorce, in her mind was forbidden, but happened. She could not stay married to my dad. Re-marrying was merely optional. So she chose not to get serious, and maybe she even clung to the idea of reconciliation. One of the friends she came to know I really liked. But over time he realized she did not want to take their relationship to any higher level, he moved on from that idea, and he eventually married another woman. They remain good friends to this day.

As some of you may remember, I traveled back east about a year ago and spent a couple of weeks with my dad in Savannah. I love both of my parents very dearly. But my dad and I have only seen each other eye to eye twice over the years since my parents divorced. He lives a long ways away, and we each crossed the country only once to visit. My dad re-married a much younger woman, and I love her and I'm glad they have each other.

I do not remember what I told my mom about my visits with dad when I came back, but something I said clicked a switch in her. She told me this at the time it happened. I just can't remember what it was that I said. I say so much. Hmm.

In talking to my mom in preparation for our Christmas gathering this year, she asked about bringing her new friend, Rich. I knew they had been seeing each other since their class reunion, a month or so before. I knew they were becoming close. As we talked about it more, I came to know they are in love. I will never ask her why she fell in love, or why she waited so long to do so. But I know it was a wonderful feeling to see them together and loving each other. It made me so very happy to see them arm in arm walking out to the car. Simple things done together that I had not seen in about 30 years.

I may or may not have missed those things not being in her life at the time they were not there. But now that I see her so happy and in love, it shines a whole new light on their lives. Shine On, Shine On!

So like that gospel song we sang long ago in Sunday school, I'm gonna let it shine.