Appreciate Everyone You Meet

Everyone you meet has something to offer you.  Never forget that.

I’m sitting in a bar as I write this, and my case in point is the bartender, withered and hollow-eyed from drug use.  Most people would look at her and make judgements about what she represents, and they would probably be right.  She probably is as easy as her suggestive glances suggest.  She probably is strung out.  She probably does eat too little and party too much.  She probably isn’t much deeper than the drugs, the guys, and the occasional small talk.  We shouldn’t judge, but we do, and the truth is sometimes our judgements exist for a reason.

Yet, there is another truth we mustn’t forget.  The other truth is this woman has seen things we’ve never seen and knows things we could never know.  She is the only person who has seen the world through her experiences, and with personal experience comes personal wisdom.  If I were to catch her attention and let her talk, truly listening to what she has to say, I would find there is a real person behind her current life choices.  I would find we have common ground whereupon we can connect, maybe not enough for a real friendship but enough to appreciate her humanity.

My childhood forced this lesson upon me at a young age.  I grew up in the dirtiest, slimiest trailer park I’ve ever had the misfortune to see.  I remember stepping across a stream of raw sewage to walk to the bus stop in the morning and listening to alcholics and meth-heads rant and rave in my living room as I chased sleep.  In retrospect, my childhood was more than challenging, but I gained a lot by growing up this way.  My dad was in prison and my mom was usually working or partying, so I had to find a way to draw what I could from my environment as I became a man.  I soon realized every single person had something to offer me, even if all they offered was an example of what not to be.

People who only offer an example of what not to be are worst case scenarios.  Almost everyone has something more to contribute if we are patient.  We must find solace in our faith that people exist for a reason and are more multi-faceted than we think.  When we cannot understand them, how can we find a lesson in their ignorance or the horrible sensation they provoke within our stomachs?  How can we make even the worst moments count?

There are other people further down the scale who don’t give us that horrible feeling in our stomachs.  They come across as basically ignorant or mean or shallow or misguided, but the whole point of this post is if you appreciate them and listen to their words with an open mind they have something to offer you.  I myself have found messages in my worst moments.  In fact, many of my worst experiences in life laid down the richest soil for personal growth.  There is always a good lesson in hardship.

Everyone you meet can add to your personal growth if you cultivate a similar mentality.  My own childhood required I learned this skill at a young age.  In order to move on, I had to draw what I could from my surroundings, and my surroundings were less than nurturing.  I had to somehow find value in the words and actions of the adults present in my upbringing.  Luckily for me, the value could even be found there.  Even in the cases where nothing good seems to exist, draw a lesson and learn from someone else’s downfall.  We can all live better lives if we harness this skill.

The world is rife with different human experiences.  Loathing other people’s flaws breeds disdain for the world.  Instead, open your mind more than is comfortable.  The person standing before you may be ignorant.  They may be mean-spirited.  They may be racist.  They may be misguided.  People like this are overwhelmingly abundant across the Earth and throughout the centuries, but don’t forget there may be a reason you have met them.  You may find yourself caught off guard by the depth in a stranger’s words and recieve the answers you have been seeking. 

So try not to dismiss those who don’t live up to your expectations.  Try to relate to them instead.  As they talk, don’t be so quick to push your opinions.  Just listen, taking what has value and letting the rest go.  There is a place for changing minds and standing up for what you believe in, but first consider whether or not doing so will make the difference you desire.  Are you there to teach this person, or are they there to teach you? 

It is great to be the change you want to see in the world, but sometimes the world is there to change you.

What is Life?

The small sailboat sits before me,

 rocking on the pale green water. 

As I stare at it,

 it seems to ask,

 “What is life?

“Is life a 9 to 5, putting money in someone else’s pocket so you can give away your dreams and your time?

“Is life living on somone else’s clock, never having the courage to embrace the unknown?

“Is life that walk from table to table in a dimly-lit restaurant, bowing your head and humbling yourself for crotchety old men and ignorant rich people who have never known what it is like to work a job with no rewards and no future just to survive?

“I think not,” the boat seems to say.  “That is not life.”

Life is the bird-shit splattered on this wooden bench I’m sitting on.  It is the old lonely men sitting on their bar stools in The Wharf House directly behind me, sipping beer and trading stories.  Life is their dreams, their hopes, and even their solitude.  Life is the well-fed pigeon waddling past me on a giant wooden plank, a strange guttural click emerging from its fat neck as it begs for food.  

The boat seems to say these things but of course it doesn’t.  It doesn’t think.  It doesn’t talk.  It doesn’t complain.  It is just a boat.  And though I endow personifications upon it, it is not human in any way.  It is merely a symbol reminding me to never stop being human because being successful does not necessarily require being tied down by someone else’s dream.  Not when you could find a beat-up old boat and learn to sail, dipping and swelling with the tide as you explore the American coasts.

A seagull lands on the small dinghy tied to the back of the boat, as if to emphasize my point.  He stands proud and free, without a care in the world.  In truth, he is probably a she and is probably looking for something to eat.  But still. . . he/she possesses a look of serenity and I feel that look reflected in myself.  I can find relief in the fact that at least I rode my bike out here to look at the ocean instead of sitting in my apartment alone, wasting my moment of life to watch television.

And the boat just rocks. . .

Two women just sat down on the bench behind me.  Snippets of their conversation drift over.  “Maybe I should just go. . .” one woman says to her friend.  I wonder where she wants to go and what is holding her back.  I can’t help but think her urge is inspired by the same view inspiring me, the jagged cliffs jutting from the bay and the glistening stretch of beach. 

Life is not as set and rigid as we make it.  Dead end jobs and stifled dreams are a human creation.  My own goals are greater than my temporary employment, but doing it even “for now” reminds me why I want more.  Until tomorrow comes, the moment must count.  I must savor the customers who truly care about the soul behind the waiter, who want to know who I am and why I do what I do.  The good customers know I’m not there because I want to wait tables for the rest of my life.  This intrigues them because they know I must have a dream.  They reach out to show me they are human and they understand.  They are the ones who help make even that moment important. 

And you have to make even that moment important because every moment could be your last.  The ocean of life will swallow you if you let it, and one human is a small thing even in his greatest moment.  Treasure this time because it can be taken away.  More than anything, don’t let this scare you–let it inspire you.  Let it be the wind in your sails and find the courage to be more than a land dweller.  Land can lock you down, but water goes on forever.

And the sailboat just rocks. . .

A group of other boats sits beyond the first, just as empty and quiet, as if waiting for someone to come along who needs to be free.  What are the men who own these boats like?  Have they figured something out the rest of us don’t know?  What are their lives like?  Do they embrace the freedom most of us crave, or do they take it for granted?

In any case, I will not take my moment for granted, whether I find my freedom in a bicycle ride, a happy hour, or the common bond between co-workers who not only share self-imposed limitations but similar goals.  I will find my freedom in the dreams I hold dear and the seconds along the way.  No job or limitation can take away the freedom anchored in my spirit.  It simply sits and waits, gently rocking in the ocean of life, waiting for me to gather the skills and courage to hop on and take it for a ride.

When I got back home, I opened my notebook to this first page of this entry and saw a brownish yellow splotch on the two pages open before me.  Puzzled, I stopped thinking for a moment and focused my attention on them.  For a moment, I couldn’t figure out what they were, and then it hit me.  A grin crept across my face as I pondered the irony.  Birdshit.  A bird flew over while I was sitting there writing this and dropped a bomb down on my notebook.  How appropriate. . . 

Now that is life!

Words of Wisdom From A True Genius

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”

-Dr. Suess

Let The Moment Flow

This is a moment right now. 

This is my life. 

How can I harness it? 

How can I make the most of it? 

Certainly not by staring at a computer screen.  So then how?  Do I make it a moment by simply letting go and letting the words flow through my fingers?  Do I make it a moment by forgetting about producing a blog I want people to read and simply remembering I like to write and don’t care who is reading? 

Because this is the part I forget as I make my way through this one and only life–I exist.  Time ticks.  I am not getting any younger, but I am surely getting older if I keep pushing for the moment in the future when I will be doing what I want.  Instead, why not focus on what I want right now?  To be truly happy in this time and in this place, what conditions have to be met which have nothing to do with the future and everything to do with being alive?  Drop the worries of the future like a bad habit, and let the words flow. 

What makes you feel alive?  Can you find it in a song?  Can you find it in a book?  Can you find it in a touch?  A day on the beach?  Alive.  What does it mean to you?

What it means to me is that I be who I am right now and appreciate not only being alive but the fact that someday I will be dead.  And what does that mean? 

That means I cannot afford to worry over injured credit or wounded pride.  That means I cannot afford to dwell on regrets or painful childhood memories.  Acknowledge them, yes, but never dwell.  Let it flow from your mind through your heart and out your fingertips like a deep breath releasing to the world.  Let it go and make a new memory, or sit with your partner and enjoy a nice cold one.  Connect where you can, and allow the parts where you cannot connect to exist as they are.  Go to that barbecue and have a good conversation with someone you have never even talked to before.

As I write this, I try to let the thoughts come to the screen just as they come to my mind and my girlfriend has come home early.  She is standing in the kitchen, trying to start a conversation with me about her hair and then a kitchen decoration and I try to focus my attention away from her and to this computer. 

And therein lies the problem. 

I am trying to focus.  I am trying to focus on producing something of merit, and there she is before me–so real and so genuine and so alive, and she is where my focus should be if I truly wish to savor my moment of life.  I should be lying in bed and being in love like I was a teenager all over again, not caring about money or success or anything but just worrying about how my heart feels and my morals, allowing my mind to shine in all its natural depth.  Because with money and success you lose that, and I guess that is just part of being an adult.  You have to lose all that if you want to take on the real world responsibilities. 

Or do you?  Is that just a cop-out?  After-all, my teenage responsibilities were no less real than what I face now.  I was going to school and trying to come to terms with an alcoholic mother.  I was constantly worried about not having enough to eat or having old ratty torn up clothes that didn’t fit me right.  I was consumed with the possiblity of having no real future and not having the option of going to college, the whole while working a job so I could change it all.  Yet still, I cared more and I worried less.  I lived.  I would have done anything to uphold what I believed or protect what I held dear. 

I am not one to dwell on the past, and I certainly don’t wish I was back then, but I guess what I realize as I sit here is that I’ve lost something I once had.  But I can get it back.   Because with being broke again comes the ability to stare the world in the face.  With being broke again comes the ability to reach down into your soul and confront your innermost fears and the things you forget when you’re doing well.  Being broke brings out my inner child and my spirit, the spirit that reigned when I was going through those turbulent times.  It brings out that spirit that made people who met me walk away a different person if they truly took the time to understand me. 

And that spirit is still there.  If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be writing again.  I need to harness it.  In all fairness, I seek income without employment so I can travel and experience life, nature, and raw human experience; but in my hunger for financial freedom, I mustn’t lock myself in a cage and throw away the key.  I mustn’t develop tunnel vision and lose sight of what is right here in my heart and soul, raging and screaming to be given expression once again.

And you musn’t either.

Let your moment of life be what your heart wants it to be. 

There is success out there for you if you follow your heart, but you may find your heart will tell you there is no better existence.  You will not find new friends without flaws and partners with everything you need or a family that is “normal”.  It is what it is, and such is the reality of life.  Savoring the moment requires you realize this and not only let it be but love it for what it is.  Appreciate people not only for their potential but for their consistency in being who they are at every moment. 

And go down to the damn beach, take off your shoes, and run in the waves like that kid you were so long ago.  Because the tragedy is not that childhood is gone; the tragedy is the spirit so strong in you when you were a child is hiding and wants to see the light once again but you keep ignoring it. 

To truly treasure this moment of life, all you have to do is set that spirit free.

Will Ferrel’s Movie, “Stranger Than Fiction,” Urges Us To Focus On The Present

Tonight I watched Will Ferrel’s movie,

“Stranger Than Fiction.”  

The movie is a light comedy/drama

about a disillusioned IRS agent

                  who hears a voice narrating his life

and realizes not only is he a character in someone’s novel but the mysterious author is planning his “imminent death.”  As he frantically searches for a way to stop his premature death from being written, he embraces much about life he has long forgotten, and as the story unfolds it becomes clear this is much more than Ferrel’s usual roles.  His character, Harold Crick, comes across in the beginning as very flat, but his strange predicament breaks his true personality out of its shell.  His reawakening carries an important message and the movie becomes much more than its humorous undertones. 

“Stranger Than Fiction” surprised me.  It was a touching, thought-provoking film, a complete contrast to the majority of his career.  It made me think a little about my own life.  Much of the time, I find myself so focused on future success I am distracted from the present.  We only live once.  I know this.  I remind myself again and again.  Yet still I push onward towards my dreams, brushing the life which unfolds before me away like clutter standing in my path.  This is a big part of why I want to travel.  When I am traveling, I find myself relishing the moment more often and time loses urgency.  I want to embrace that feeling again.

When I went backpacking in Europe, I observed the Europeans going about their daily lives and they seemed less taxed by their lifestyles than Americans.  In America, we are always in a hurry and looking forward to what is coming in the next day or the next week or the next year.  We push onward, racing towards death, and forget to stop and appreciate our moment of life.  Europeans, on the other hand, seemed a little more relaxed and content with their surroundings, allowing a peace of mind only possible when you accept your present self.  I keep using the word “seemed” because I don’t know if my observations were completely valid because I didn’t have time to completely immerse myself in any of the various cultures on my short trip.  In retrospect, this same impatient American spirit led me to cover so much of western Europe in my allotted eighteen days I never got to fully experience what any one unique culture had to offer. 

So, if this is no practice life, how should we spend our time?  Some dreams are worth achieving.  To deny this often denies fully embracing life.  There is a great deal of truth to the age-old adage which tells us things worth having take sacrifice and hard work to obtain.  Goals are the building blocks of a successful life.  But if we race towards them with tunnel vision, their obtainment only becomes a launch pad for the next goal.  Instead, we need to stop and take a breath once in a while, savor a touch or truly taste the food on our plates.  Tomorrow may or may not come, but today is here and can only be taken away by our own neglectful habits.

My own life needs some real renewal.  I was raised with my two brothers by a single mom who worked three jobs just to keep us fed.  I was raised with a workaholic mindset, watching her push forward just to get us the next week worth of groceries or the next pair of shoes.  When I moved out, I didn’t have much of a foundation to work with, as my mother did not have much to pass on, so I carried on her struggle.  I waited tables through college and then started my own landscaping business, willing to work as hard as I physically and mentally could to ensure my future was different than hers.  I am no longer in the landscaping business, but I’m working on other avenues which I hope will bring me even greater success.  The point is I carried on my mother’s struggle to give me a better life, never realizing I was ignoring the real things in life as I pushed towards a better future.  It is time to slow down a little and embrace matters of the soul let uncultivated, but I still want to secure a future I can be proud of.

The answer to my plight is the answer for anyone who truly desires a full heart and settled soul.  My work must be my passion.  My work must provide meaning for my life.  My work must be my play.  If travel captivates my spirit and makes me feel alive, how can I embrace it and use it to build an income?  If nature and adventure lift me up, how can I experience nature and adventure everyday without leaving work?  How can I create a life’s work that forces me to look the important things in life face to face and leaves no excuse for letting it all slip away?

We can all start now by listening to our hearts.  Stop thinking of tommorow’s promises during today’s moment.  Instead, grab your lover by the hand and truly feel their touch and appreciate their being.  Pick up your old guitar and strum a tune or teach yourself to play the harmonica.  Go for a hike and push modern-day worries out of your mind, making room for the world’s sensory pleasures.  Go to the beach and swim in the waves, even if it is a little too cold today.  Force yourself to meet someone new.  Set aside the time to read a book.  Embrace the small things so often forgotten.  Because here is the critical point–pushing and pushing your mind to find your purpose or your big idea is not always the best way to get the motor running.  Sometimes you just need to relax and let things flow.  Do what you love and your heart, mind, body, and soul will thank you for it.  

And in the end doing what you love will lead you to your passion.

It really is stranger than fiction…

Satisfying Wanderlust

Lately, I cannot get my mind off my list of Ways to Make Your Moment Count.  I have a severe case of wanderlust, and I am determined to find a way to make money and start traveling at the same time.  On a similar thread, I would like to find a way to accomplish these goals and help promote a green lifestyle.  How can I do all these things at once? 

One idea I have come up with is to turn this into an eco-travelogue.  Since I still need to come up with the money to really start traveling, I will start here at my new home in Santa Cruz by exploring ways to appreciate the local natural wonders with a minimal impact on the environment.  I will also include resources for people actually traveling in this area for transportation and lodging.  While I am still in Santa Cruz, I will be able to come home and sleep at night, and my adventures will be limited to my days off since I still have to work to pay my bills.  But it is my hope that I can build traffic and start venturing into other areas of California and America, until I can build the online income that will allow me to venture further into the world. 

Santa Cruz is a good place to start because it is well known for its environmental awareness and natural beauty.  I can get up close and personal with Nature here by surfing, hiking, and kayaking.  As a traveler, these activities break down the gap between man and his environment.  They take the tourist away from shopping and back to the basics of human nature.  And that is what travel (and life) should really be about.

Travel writing has always been a dream of mine, but is it already played out?  Can it still be done?  Would an eco-travel slant be enough to set my blog apart?  I guess anything in life can be achieved if you really put out enough effort.

Finding Freedom Through Self-Employment

The other night I was reminded of why it is so important to work for yourself and take control of your own destiny.  I am currently waiting tables at a restaurant in a popular tourist destination.  I just went to bartending school so I could get a job where I could work minimum hours for regular pay, giving me time to work on setting up my own business.  Before I moved to this town, I had my own landscaping business, but after a real estate deal I was working on went sour, I decided I was ready for a change, so I picked up and moved.  Now I’m waiting tables again to get my foot in the door on this bartending gig.  I also like bartending because I can go anywhere and pick up a job in some of the best places in the world to live. 

Anyhow, when I was getting off work the other night, the current bartender was complaining about a manager who constantly hounds her about the most ridiculous things.  For example, she singled her out for putting one too many cherries in a kid’s drink.  This manager always finds reasons to pick on her.  I eavesdropped a little as she vented to an older waitress who had worked at the restaurant for about fifteen years.  The older waitress told her she needed to just do as she was told, no matter if every manager was telling her to make her cocktail a different way or not.  If you know anything about mixing cocktails and the thousands of different recipes which all have hundreds of variations, this is a tremendous strain to put on an already taxed memory.  But this is not what bothered me.  What bothered me about the conversation was when the older “veteran” waitress told her, “You just have to obey her.”  Obey her!  I could not believe my ears.  This woman has been in this line of work so long she has completely taken on the servant mentality.  The money isn’t that good!

This reminded me how important it was to work for yourself.  Living your life like a slave, at the mercy of other people’s power trips and personality flaws is a risky and miserable existence.  No matter what you are doing with your life, set your sights on creating your own income.  Do not let other control your destiny.  The only reason I chose to put myself in this position is because I wanted a lot of free time and it was easy to pick up a job like this in a new town.  I am already experimenting with blogs, writing an ebook, and setting up a business here in town.  But you don’t have to take on so much to work for yourself.  I just have a habit of spreading myself thin.  Pick one interest and learn as much as you can about it in your free time.  If you don’t feel you have a purpose, go find one.  The worst thing you can do for yourself is give up hope and develop a servant mentality.  Every person is capable of so much if they apply themself. 

So if you work for someone else, think of your job as a temporary stepping stone to self-employment, whether it is the first step or a source of income you need to fund your venture.  Just get out there and hold your dream firmly in your heart and mind.  Find a way to employ yourself, and you will find freedom.