Talking to Yourself

The things that you say to yourself have way more impact on you than the things you say out loud or that people say to you.  You tend to believe the things you say to yourself without qualifying them.  Get in the habit of saying the right things to yourself.  They do not have to be empty platitudes.  Just simply recall what you already are and what you have.

You are both smart, tough, and have a strong history of prevailing under tough circumstances.  You have strong support structures around you and a lot of people in your life who love you.  You have won far more than you have lost and more importantly learned from each time you fell flat on your face.  Your sense of humor always is key to being able to laugh at yourself.  When you can laugh at yourself, people will laugh with you and not at you. 

When you speak to yourself in a crappy way, you are taking the easy way out of a tough spot.  Falling down and staying down is way easier than not getting right back up again.  There are 10 easy reasons to not get back up and only 1 good one for getting right back up.  Use that innate stubbornness that you have to get up off the floor when you find yourself there.  

Saying the right things to yourself will always translate to how you deal with other people.   You are going to be more inclined to appreciate the people and things that get out of tough spots with a strong positive attitudes.  These are the people who you want to be drawn to and they are the people they need to find you. 


Make sure and call grandma.
Love Dad

You should know that

 I just asked a group of people in an instant message chat, what a technical term they were using meant.  After that 5 minute pause and no response, I pulled another woman in the chat who was able to answer the question.  After the question was answered, a lot of the people using the technical term hit me up in a private chat to tell me that was new information to them.

When I have people explain things to me that I do not know, I get one of three responses.  First is silence and it makes me wonder why people can't just say I don't know.  Second is a person who is a dick about providing the information and tries to make me feel that it is something I should have known or that they are bestowing a reluctant gift to me.  Third is a person who enthusiastically shares the information and answers all the stupid questions I ask (there are stupid questions by the way).  I love that guy and because he/she is that kind of person I will always reach out to them with any new information that I have that I think they can use. 

You need to understand the fundamental rule about Information being power (it is).  Information becomes powerful when you share it.  The person who metes out information to people to try to elevate their position will always be on the lowest rungs of the ladder. 

You don't gather knowledge, you obtain it.  Your position in any organization is elevated when you strive to pass along what you know to as many people as you can.  You will also find that hoarded information becomes obsolete really quickly.  

And if you really don't know, say that and find someone who can answer your questions.  One of these people will end up being one of your mentors.

Love Dad

Drama Revisited

My extended family (brothers and sisters) are going through some stressful times right now.  As much as my heart goes out to them, I want to punch them in the neck because they are adding to their own stress and they do not need to do that.  

When you are under stress you will process everything with a filter that is uniquely your own.  In times of great stress most people will default to falling back and defending themselves against anything that feels like a attack, threat, or slight.  And because we all hate for people to see us under stress, you are probably adept at hiding from most people when you are under stress.  So when people do not know you are under stress, they can easily say and do things that feel incredibly insensitive or insulting to you. 

If your default is to defend yourself first, without understanding what is going on, you are going to spend far more effort, time, and emotional time on things than you need to.  It is adding drama, when drama is the last thing that is needed.   

People resolve things for themselves when they go back to the beginning and understand what was going on then.  This can take days, weeks, or months to do and sometimes (sigh) much longer.  It almost always can be avoided with that up front effort of trying to understand what is going on before you act. Next time it comes around, take a couple of minutes and understand what is happening before you react, in a lot of cases it is not going to be just about you.

Do not participate in other people's drama.  If you need drama, spend the afternoon at a movie theater.  I don't share in the drama of my siblings because I understand it is made by them and not me.  I love them all without qualification.  Don't always like what they do, but always love them.  And as much as I hate to sound like a greeting card, love really does conquer all.

Make sure you call Uncle C.  He turns 50 today.

Love Dad

The New Guy

I believe in Karma.  You can plan that the things that you do in words and deeds, will be done to you in return.  Everytime you reach out to someone, someone will reach out to you.  For every punch in the head or heart you deliver, you will receive one in return.  The great part of Karma is that you are never, ever going to know when you are going to receive what you have given. 

It is said a dozen different ways in a dozen different religions but they are basically talking about Karma.  I found out about a great example of this.  I used to work for this guy that was a giant dick to everyone who worked for him and around him.  If you have not worked for this guy, you will.  It is a guy who believes that a position in an organization or a specific title gives him license to do this.   I did not know why he left the organization, but no one was sorry to see him go.  

I heard today that he was hired back in the same organization as a supplemental employee.  Supplemental employee's work under the direction of full time employee's.  He is back working for the people he treated the worst.  In the finest Buddhist tradition he has had a rebirth in his work life. 

I had a pang of empathy for him because he is not only the new guy, but he is going to have to work hard to erase the perception that he is still a giant dick.  I hope everyone recognizes that is the second chance that we all want.  I hope hope he takes advantage of the opportunity.  I also hope people do not look at it as a chance to get even, because like him, we are all going to be the new guy a lot of times in life. 

Sometimes you forgive people not because they deserve it, but because it gives you peace and is the right thing to do.  As good as punching someone in the head or heart feels, it is always temporary and like the fat kid eating cake it will cause you a lot of grief later.


Love Dad

Bum Fighting

We are all God's creatures.  God gets props for his infinite wisdom and his unqualified love for everyone.  He does not get enough recognition for the magnificent sense of humor that he has.  He will bring the occasional shitbag, dickhead, just plain mean, stupid, or clueless people into your life from time to time. This is to exercise your free will.  This is Gods way of seeing if you will participate in the spiritual form of Bum Fighting.  

When two bums fight, you never think that one of them is right, you only see a pathetic bum fight.  There are plenty of times to fight for what is right.  But most of us spend far too much time fighting or arguing with the people who are not the least bit interested in anything except being right.  Being right at the expense of another person, is never going to be the right thing.  Being right is always going to be a bit of a compromise.  It is not planting your flag at the top of the mountain, it is helping another fat ass climb the mountain.  You will see more bum fights in times of great stress or trial.  You can also be drawn  into a bum fight pretty quickly by the family and friends you love the most - be careful of that.  I have included here the Prayer of Saint Francis, who aside from being the patron saint for animals is also the patron saint of bum fights.  Prayer is good for pre and post bum fighting.  The only thing worse than bum fighting is not recognizing when you have been in one.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

 

Love Dad

 

Life Lesson - SP and Change

Stockdale Paradox - Life Lesson

I sent this out in January of last year but it bears repeating.  For most people, when they find themselves in tough or crappy situations they almost always know what needs to be done.  When you find yourself in this situation you have to make a difficult choice to act or to not act.  You should not confuse doing the very same thing as taking an action, nothing is further from the truth.  If you do the same thing (that is NOT working), it is inaction and you should not be surprised when your situation gets worse. 

Here is a tough truth, you will either opt to act to change your situation and attempt to manage the outcome or you will let the situation run over you and things will change as a result of that.  Another hard truth is that people who have what you want are doing things differently than you are.  And if you are pointing to the person who does not have the same challenges that you do, you are conveniently ignoring the other 95% of people who have the same set of challenges that you do.

Being tough and having courage...having grit is NOT doing the same thing the same way.  It is making hard, tough changes when they are needed.  So if you are lamenting being without something, do something tangible and different.  Here is Stockdale Paradox posting from January:

Admiral James Stockdale was the highest ranking POW in the Vietnam War, he was held for 8 years and tortured brutally over 20 times.  When he was asked which kind of prisoners perished in Vietnam, he said that is easy, it was the optimists.  These were the prisoners who said they would be out by Christmas or Thanksgiving and those days would come and go and eventually enough milestones passed that they lost that essential faith needed to survive and die.  The optimists failed to confront the the reality of their situation and when they were forced to do so it simply became too much for them.

Stockdale accepted the reality of the situation.  He knew he was in hell but rather than failing to confront the reality of the situation he accepted it.  He stepped up and did everything he could do to lift the morale and prolong the lives of fellow prisoners.  He developed communication and milestones that help them communicate and survive.    Here is the Stockdale Paradox:

You must retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties.
AND at the same time…
You must confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

Here is the take away for you.  YOU MUST COMBINE OPTIMISM (SINCERE BELIEF) WITH BRUTAL HONESTY AND A STRONG WILLINGNESS TO TAKE ACTION.

James Stockdale quote "I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

Very important life lesson here.  Face any trial you have head on and make them defining moments in your life.  Bloody but unbowed.

Kick Ass - Love Dad

Karma II

I am a believer in Karma.  Your actions and words will always carry the weight of consequence for you.

I am also a firm believer that there are things and people I cannot make better by extending myself to them.  In order for me to reach out to you, you have got to be able to reach back in a meaningful way.  Reaching out to someone implies that you are attempting to connect with them.  Connecting to people is as simple as a smile or word that leaves a door open for that person to try and get to know you.

There is a subset of people you will reach out to that are huge mistakes.  When you peel back the onion, you will occasionally not find the beautiful human you expected, you will find a person with significant personal  deficits that should never be part of your life.  It seems like almost simultaneously when you are finding how much they do not belong in your life -  they will find a pressing need to become part of your life.  

There are connections that should be broken, doors that should be closed, and times when you need to have people get out of your life, who are starting to suck the life out of you.  From a Karma standpoint you only owe these people the honesty of clearly stepping away from them.  

Most people know when you are clearly stepping away from them.  For them not to acknowledge that you are stepping away is a form of manipulation they use to keep in contact with you.   Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is to be firm and honest. 

There are people in my life who I thought would be good or casual friends that were train wrecks.  They had to go through their own journey to find their own self worth.  These journeys frequently involved a series of destructive behaviors that involved bad relationships, drug and alcohol abuse and bad personal decisions.  I would have not helped them or me to have been a witness to that journey. 

So use your good deeds at a time, a place, and  a person where they will find some purchase.  Never dump your good deeds into the black hole of someone else's destructive behavior.