What I've come to realize...

In recent times I have endured some very trying issues. Life has taught me much. I have found out a lot about myself, others, and the world I live in. These circumstances have provided me with random insights. My eyes have been opened. These are things I have come to realize. Maybe you will agree, maybe not. I realize that is okay.

• There is exhilaration in following your passion. There is also loneliness.

• I am often given opinions by people who could stand to follow their own advice.

• We must give up hope of a better yesterday.

• People yell a lot at things that do not hear them.

• Everyone is a dimmer switch away from being a “10”.

• I always seem to get exactly what I need, even if what I need is not of my own construct.

• No matter how hard I try to the contrary, someone will think I am an asshole.

• Money does not buy happiness, but it does put gas in the tank.

• I realize I am much more powerful in ways I never knew.

• I realize I am much weaker in ways I never knew.

• I don’t like when the answer to my prayers is “no”.

• Writing allows me to travel the world and live forever.

• The people who often push my buttons are the only ones who know me well enough to do so.

• I am frustrated that they can make smoke free cigarettes, but there is no cholesterol free bacon.

• I always get caught when I dance like no one is watching.

• Some people should be ashamed of the things they do in the name of God.

• Everybody is addicted to something.

• Many people live in fear that others will make them feel “different.”

• The truth is we are all so much alike.

• Beauty is only skin deep. Fat is just deep skin.

• I spend a lot of time talking myself back into liking myself again.

• When you have kids, your backseat will smell funny.

• People in the small dilapidated houses are just as happy as the people in the fancy homes.

• God doesn’t care where you sit when you talk to Him.

• Sometimes we have to love people from a distance.

• Being alone and being lonely are two different things.

• Your past circumstances have nothing to do with your present identity.

• Our net-worth has nothing to do with our self-worth.

• Captain Crunch does cut the roof of your mouth so quit saying it doesn’t.

• Naked people shouldn’t crouch.

• You can’t make a “gratitude list.” You should hope you are on gratitude’s list–it finds you.

• Wanna feel like royalty? Make your kids homemade ice cream.

• People do not do enough of the stuff that made them happy as children.

• If our enemies had puppy breath we’d all get along better.

• I hope retirement doesn’t feel like unemployment.

• True friends will allow someone to call them after not speaking for years and ask a favor.

• It is okay to cry in your car–just dry up before the red lights.

• I wish I were rich enough to be a philanthropist, so I could give it all away.

• I wish I knew a philanthropist right now.

• The greatest things I learned were not in a school.

• The closest I have felt to God was not in a church.

• The richest I have ever felt was when I had no money.

• I am thankful. I am grateful. I am blessed.

If it bleeds it leads

From my days in television (on the absolute periphery of the line up) I would hear this phrase come up from time-to-time. It refers to the hierarchy of a news program line-up. This means that no matter the content scheduled for air, if even at the last minute, a story that has “blood” (or harm, or an accident, or murder) it is bumped to kick off the program as the “attention grabber.” It captures the interest of the viewing public.


The reason I have time to write is I decided to excuse myself from the morning news show to come to my “fortress of solitude.” After watching a handful of minutes that highlighted adultery of a public official, a mother who murdered her child, environmental disaster, financial disaster, overthrown governments, airstrikes from NATO, as I waited for the piece on helping out a charity that needed it, I became deflated and depleted.

Now I do not sit back and look at the world through dream catchers in a room filled with incense and wind chimes. I get the world I live in. I respect and am aware of the current situation of our planet. I do see that it can be likened to someone grabbing the loose string of yarn on a sweater and then running away as fast as they can to see it unravel exposing your naked self. We need to get out the knitting needles.

I just found myself asking: “What is so compelling?” I guess I want to know how many updates we need on the same stories. How much attention do we donate to the same drudgery and debauchery? Why do we find ways to tell the same story from a hundred viewpoints? Why do we need to interview the next door neighbor’s cat to find their viewpoint on the neighborhood crime?

I just wonder where we transitioned into baby birds with mouths agape waiting for the next regurgitated serving of drivel. I am totally fine with being informed. I am also okay with an update on a situation. I just find it hard that recently my cell phone flashed an update of how a father crushed his newborn with a cinder block. I wish we had ways to alter the flow of what gets in.

*Exhale* (Puts away soap box.)

I guess it is just another case of “feed the dog what the dog wants to eat.” We are all to blame collectively, as well as we are all praise-worthy of the efforts we make to do our part in the clean-up. I guess at times it would just be nice to wake up and hear the news anchors say, “It’s all good, everything’s cool, go back to bed for an hour!”

Side Note! - This song made famous back-in-the-proverbial-day by Anne Murray kind of says it all. It is called "A Little Good News" by Anne Murray here sung in tandem with the Indigo Girls. I encourage you to give it a listen paying attention to the lyrics. Enjoy!