This is something I wish I would have understood when I was growing up, as it would have made some areas of my life simpler and more satisfying. Perhaps my thoughts will help you giving you a direction you want your life to go in, and make it more satisfying and fulfilling.
In the movie, The Edge, the main character Anthony Hopkins is Charles Morse, who is constantly asked, “What now Charles?” Charles is a business and book smart billionaire who finds himself stranded with his wife’s lover Alec Baldwin plying Bob Green in the wilds of Alaska. Only Charles knows enough about survival from his voracious reading to save both of their lives in the rugged wilderness. Before the plane crash, Charles was by perception in the movie, an extremely successful businessman having inadequate social skills.
 I was or perhaps still am, as are many other people, like the character Charles. I spent years trying to fit in where I always felt a little out of place. My fitting in was always met with varying degrees of success depending on how one wished to categorize or rate what constitutes success. In parts of my life I was very successful, in others areas, which are the areas we tend to focus on when reviewing ourselves, I did not feel I was that successful.
When the plane crashes, Charles is now in a position to compete where he can excel, not to far removed from the business arena where Charles was a stellar performer. Some could say Charles was an illusionist, in that he chose not to excel in any activity that did not reward him financially. This may or may not be the case.
In the wilds of Alaska, with his extensive survival knowledge, Charles was in an arena where the other person did not even know the rules of the game. There was almost no chance of Charles being less successful than someone who had no survival skills experience or knowledge. Charles was unfortunately because of the plane crash in an arena where he would excel using all his knowledge and talents.
What came to pass was I realized that no matter how I tried, unless I changed myself and many things about me, I would never fit in with certain groups of people. That seemed to leave me two choices: Change, or always be a little bit of an outsider. I tried changing, but those clothes were not comfortable. Neither was being a little bit of an outsider, but it was the better feeling of my two options.
Somewhere along the way of living my life, I started to have an awareness that my not fitting in had nothing to do with me, or the people around me. We were all being ourselves, and doing what made us happy. Any conflict was a result of the situation, not them and not a flaw in me. I was trying to belong where I could never comfortably belong or fit in.
Almost by accident I stumbled into changing my circumstances into situations where I did fit in. I quit trying to fit in where I thought I should, and started looking for people and activities that fit the real me. In essence I became Charles after the plane crash. I had leveled the field and began spending my time in places where other people like me spent their time too.
During this time the way I felt about me and my life became much better, and more comfortable. I did not change myself in the process. I changed what I did and who I spent my time with. Phrased another way, I changed my reality. I am still the same person, but those around me, have a better understanding of my character, and personality, and therefore have a clearer perception of why I do the things I do, or not as the case may be.
If you are like me and you look in the mirror, are happy with the person you see, who does not quite fit in their life as you think they should, do what I did. Decide where you do fit in and with whom, and see if that agrees with who you think you are. If you find that those types of people share your idea of life, join them and don’t be surprised when you become like Charles too. Often it is not the person who is not quite right; it is the situation they are in that does not fit their character and personality.
As we go through life, we tend to identify with certain people and and their thinking. For one particular way of thinking there does not seem to be any middle ground as there is in many other areas of our lives. I believe for those opposite of myself and others like me are missing out on most of life’s greatest gifts.
The thinking I am referring to pertains to whether you feel life holds endless abundance, or scarcity and there is never enough. I am part of those who know there is enough for everyone if we choose. No matter what anyone wants or needs, there is always enough.
 The other side, or the other group believes there is not enough to go around. These folks do whatever they can do to ensure they keep as much as they can for themselves. In most cases it does not matter in the least if the amount they have is more than they can manage or use in their lifetime. What matters to people in this group is they keep as much as they can in their control.
This thinking is most prevalent or obvious in political affiliations. Whatever you think about, whether it is love, money, or knowledge, someone believes the opposite. If you see abundance, they see scarcity. If you share and are generous, they see you throwing important things away, or wasting something precious. They believe there is a finite amount, and it needs to be kept under control or better yet hoarded. Some of the most violent and vicious people that ever walk(ed) the earth believe(d) in scarcity or finite thinking.
If you are part of the group of people who believes there is not enough, who taught you to think this way, and why? This belief is used as a method of control. Perhaps it was used on you in various ways to control your actions as a child. Perhaps you learned from role models who felt the need to control you by reserving those things that cost nothing to give? Perhaps there are reasons deeper or more complex which you may not know what they are.
How much healthier it is to know and believe in abundance. Knowing no matter what, there will be enough for everyone as long as it is freely given, or freely shared. We are all inhabitants of one single earth, and we have access or control of everything the rest of the world needs to survive if not thrive. All we need is to change this scarcity, fear based belief system into one of abundance.
 We were born in abundance. We were given everything we needed to grow and thrive to the point we are now at. For most of us, our life is very rich and we are very wealthy compared to most of the world, in that we have everything we need and more to live a comfortable happy life.
Thinking abundantly, we know there will always be enough of everything we need. At times it may take more effort than other times, but generally we have no need to worry about not having enough.
Because we are masters of our own personal universe, if we allow ourselves to believe that there is not enough, there never will be. We will be like two children trying to decide who really has the right to one piece of candy. Living our lives in such a limited scope that we will never be open to the life of abundance we could have is a sad state of life. Life will always be a struggle, always on guard, protecting our few hard earned possessions. Life will always be a juggling act, where we have to do more, and be more than the person next to us, to ensure we have enough for us.
Believing in scarcity, is a limiting belief. It limits an individual to being a big fish in a small pond. Believing everything is scarce or limited introduces fear into life. Fear there will not be enough. Fear introduces hoarding, withholding, and other acts of greed into life. Living in the shadow of fear, is at best a meager existence. At best believing in scarcity, and living in the shadow of fear keeps one from knowing that the sun shines on us all equally.
 I came across two interesting thoughts today I wanted to share, and add too. The first was along the lines of, “If you do and act like everyone else, you are rewarded like everyone else.” The second was a re-quote from Henry David THorough, “All men lead lives of quiet desperation.”
Unfortunately these are tried and true, died in wool, written in concrete, branded in steel truths. Everyone is rewarded in the manner of everyone else like themselves. Everyone leads lives of quiet desperation. If you do not believe me, think of the people in your social group.
Everyone dresses the same, has similar tastes, all make about the same income, and they all have about the same expectations for their future. It makes no difference if the group you belong to is in their late teens, thirties, sixties, or somewhere in between. Everyone in your group will more or less progress and achieve at about the same rate.
It does not have to be that way though, unless you prefer it to be that way. Social pressure, a lifetime of listening to others expectations, and your beliefs all contribute to having a live like everyone else. Most people want the house, the car, the job, whatever group you identify with, everyone has about the same value set.
So why does everyone in that group deceive themselves by thinking they are unique and what everyone else will likely accomplish through their lifetime does not apply to themselves? I once read a definition of stupid as doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.
Hold up your hand if you suffer from doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. I am holding up my hand as you read this. Unless I am paying attention to what I am doing, I find myself repeating the same pattern over and over and expecting different results.
What is wonderful and important right now, is reading this and wondering if reptition applies to your life. If it does, it is your lucky day, because from this moment onward there is an opportunity to take a new approach to how you manage your life.
If you realize you have been doing the same things and hoping for a different outcome, this moment is the time to know and believe that nothing will change except the calander date. There may be an occasional fluke where something different happens, and your mind will jump on it reinforcing the thought that you are on the right track, but do not take one instance an place it above the other hundred or more instances.
Repeating the same patterns leads to the same results. Starting now, make an effort to change the way you do things. The first time, or the first twenty times may bring about change you do not want, but at least you are making changes, and you know what won’t work. Eventually you will find what works and your life will take off in the direction you really want it to go in. Of course you will have to take personal responsibility to step out from the crowd and dare to be different…and the crowd won’t like that.
I wrote about aligning what you really want with your actions in this post. If you have not read it, here is a capsule version. If what you think you want and what you do are not in alignment, one or the other needs to change.
For many of us change is easier said than done. We want to change; we want our secret desires to be our public desires, but something holds us back from making this change. We plod along with our secret desires hidden where only we can see them. Our public desires remain something we can live with, but not always what we really want.
It should be a simple matter to make our private desires public, and let our public desires go. We don’t really care about some of our public desires anyway, they are the expectations of others upon us. It really should be quite easy to walk by a trash can and drop our public desires in, and walk on.
 Yet we do not. Why can’t we just drop our public desires and start living the life we really want? No matter what reasons we think we have for not allowing ourselves to be who we want to be, all reasons are rooted in one common place.
We fear…. We fear what our parents will say. We fear what other family members or friends will say. We fear what the world will think of us. We fear what will happen if we start to change. We fear that allowing ourselves to change will somehow make us different, and we do not want to be too different. We want to be the real us, but we would rather no one noticed, so we stay the same.
What happens when we allow this fear of change to run our lives? Well for starters we are miserable. We are unhappy because we know we are living a partial lie. We want to change and quit living in a lie, but we do not change. We would rather be miserable as we are than change and become who we really are.
The great artists of the middle ages painted some beautiful work in their day. These same artists also created some less than okay paintings. Where did all the less than okay paintings go? Artists who paint discovered a wonderful secret that we can all use in our life.
In days past, canvas for painting was very expensive. One did not simply throw a bad painting away. Great and not so great artists of the past did one of two things. They either modified a bad painting into something they were satisfied with, or they painted it over completely and started fresh.
Artists in general do not worry about failure. Failure is creation too, and a learning process. Every artist knows every painting is not going to be a masterpiece. Great artists use this secret to recreate on the very same canvas something better than what they had created in the first place. In essence they reinvented what was on the canvas.
We are all artists in our own way. We are our own canvas. We are the creators of our own painting. It is the only painting we have of ourselves, and most of us do not like what we have created. We have the freedom to repaint it as often as we wish, and there is no time like the present. We are the only person who needs to approve of our painting. If we approve of what we have created, others will approve of us too.
Unleash the artist in yourself, and recreate who you really are. Cleaning the canvas of us, or modifying what is already there is what we need to be doing to improve our lives. If your first attempt is not a success, that is okay. Because we are our own canvas, we can paint over our mistakes as many times as we need to in the process of getting us right.
I do want to go fishing and spring does not seem to be getting here quickly enough for me to get out and do some fishing. The weather has been warm, above average. Maybe it won’t be too much longer until I am sitting by the lake with the sun shining, birds singing, and a cooler full of fun.
I will happily wait until the day actually gets here because there is always a lot of life to enjoy between this moment and some moment in the future. It is even a possible I won’t be around when the day actually arrives, so I choose to enjoy each day while I wait.
As I have mentioned before in other posts, remembering that I am mortal, makes each day special. Even those days when everything seems to go wrong or against me. Sort of like a bad day fishing when everything is perfect. Except the fish are not biting, and out of nowhere a breeze starts.
Then in what seems like a moment, the wind is gale force, and the sun is hidden behind dark rolling clouds with lightening streaming from them…mostly towards me. Even those days are happy enjoyable days. I was fishing, enjoying a beautiful day, and now I have a front row seat for a little of natures springtime fury. Almost a special show created for my viewing pleasure.
Looking for happiness is a lot like fishing. Maybe looking for happiness should be fishing for happiness, because in essence that is how it is done. I have never found happiness laying on the floor next to my bed in the morning. Nor have I found happiness waiting outside on the porch, or waiting quietly anywhere else.
If I am not happy, I go out and fish for happiness. Unlike the movie that coined the phrase, “Build it and they will come”, happiness does not happen that way in real life. When I fish, I fish in different areas around the lake. I fish in one spot for a bit, and if nothing happens I move to another spot. If I catch a nice fish at one spot, I may stay fishing right there longer in hopes of catching more fish.
What is funny, is for me, the type or size of fish really does not matter. Happiness is the same way come to think of it. I don’t go out and work and sweat for a record piece of happiness. I find that I am happier when I find situations that make me happy throughout out my day.
Perhaps I really do fish for happiness, one little piece at a time, all day long. Happiness, like fishing takes a little initiative, but it is well worth the small effort it takes to be happy. In my experience same as fishing, if I try a little happiness, the rewards I receive are more than I expect most of the time.
If you wake up tomorrow and are feeling a little blue, take my suggestion. Get out there and fish for a little happiness. Happiness is out there waiting for the patient fisherman.
If I were a carpenter, and you were a Lady…. If you listen to old country music, or happen to be a Johnny Cash fan, you know this song was sung by Johnny Cash back in the day. If you are not familiar with the song, the song is questions asking the woman different trades and if she would still love him.
What I enjoy about the song, is the different ways the man asks the same question. If I were a carpenter, tinsmith, so on and so forth will she still love him? It may seem that the man is not sure that the woman would love him and be with him, so he keeps asking to make sure the answer stay the same.
And of course the answers are the same throughout the song. June Carter sings that, yes, she would still love him and support him at whatever he does. That is a pretty strong bond the man and woman have between them, and her validation that she will and would love him no matter what came down the pipeline shows how sure they are of their relationship.
I think this song has a lot of relevance today with our world as it is. For some of us, this is our second, third, or maybe fourth major career change in the making between the job we were going to do the rest of our lives and today. For others the track record is the same in the relationship department. It seems many of those truths we were given as children are no longer true. Rarely is there a one lifetime job, or a lifetime long relationship.
Where is the balance in our lives? How do we as individuals meld our personal values, wants, and needs into something that fits our life, where not everything is forever any more? How can we go through a lifetime full of ups and downs, where the downside brings up stressors and pressures that ripple out and back, rocking our personal values, wants, and needs to there very core?
Most of us follow some variation of two main methods. One group tries to maintain order in their life, and the other group takes life as it happens. The key of course is balance. If a healthy balance is maintained between being a control freak, and letting life take you this way and that, it is possible to live a happy contented life most of the time.
In the song, what the man does for a living is not important. The relationship between the man and the woman has nothing to do with his past, present, or future career(s). The relationship is not centered on money. The relationship does not revolve around what they have or do not have. The relationship does not center on how they look, or how witty they are. The relationship is centered on the love each has for the other. As long as love is the center of their relationship, nothing else matters.
Nothing else matters to the couple in the song. They know what is important for them and why. They know that not compromising what is most important to them by life’s other distractions brings them the most happiness possible. Letting yourself be distracted away from what is most important to you is the second biggest cause of unhappiness. The biggest cause of discontent and unhappiness is not knowing what is most important in your life until after you have given it away, or otherwise compromised it.
Take time at the end of each day before you fall asleep and review at what you are doing with your life. Is what you are doing bringing you closer or farther from what you truly want? Is what you are doing making you happy, or does it tug on you, stealing a little of your happiness away every day? Decide what is most important to you each night, and start each day trying to make it happen. Before you know it, you will wake up and realize you are there!
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