The Exploration

  Sentimentality Sentimentality is my gift. It is a gift that will never escape. This gift lets me love, but also brings me pain, deep pain. My emotional depth is so great. Endorphins are rushing through my body, my heart, my soul at all times. They create feelings of love, of joy, of pain.  Right now all I feel is pain. But I must not let this pain overwhelm me. I can grasp this pain. I can control this pain and move it into growth. Pain conceives growth after all. I must hold onto my sanity. Sentimentality is my gift. I can feel. I have felt. I will feel. This growth is what I have been waiting for. A breakthrough has emerged. All this time looking for answers, attempting to will growth into my mind when all I had to do was let go. I had to let go of the things that prevented growth. I had to face the truth. I had to figure out the reality of my feelings. This is growth. I am a stronger person now. What can I not achieve? What goals can I not reach? I showed myself m...

  Declutter Things are not what we want to hold on to, it is the memories that are associated with the things we possess that we hold on to. Nostalgia fuels my knack for holding on to items I no longer need and clothing I no longer wear. At times, I cried at the thought of giving away a specific piece of clothing I’d had for years. It took me years to realize that it wasn’t the thing I wanted, but the memory.  Memories are collected in everything we see. A certain feeling can be sparked just by seeing an old shirt that hasn’t been worn for years. The feeling is completely recreated just by wearing it again. I gave away a bunch of t-shirts from years of baseball today. It was a hard thing to do because so much of my life was spent collecting these championship shirts. They marked an accomplishment, a true journey of becoming somebody in my life. But holding on to them does not show that accomplishment. The growth I see in myself shows how far I have come. So don’t continu...

  Anticipation Anticipation can kill creativity. Oftentimes, I find my mind drifting from place to place and looking toward what is next. I make excuses telling myself “this can happen, once this other thing happens.” It’s a terrible mindset. To truly achieve what I wish to achieve, I have to ditch the excuses and focus my mind now. I must be in the moment.  This year has been a vivid example of how my anticipation has killed my creativity. The cold months of this year were brutal. I told myself I will be able to focus and work much harder once it was warm outside again. I told myself I would spend each moment I could outside. Now, I tell myself it’s too windy, it’s too humid, it’s too hot. All of them are just excuses. Weather conditions should not dictate my ability to create.  Now I find myself looking forward to fall. Everything seems to slow down in the fall even though it is just the opposite. How I waited all winter for warm weather and now all I can think ab...

  Mountain Everyday he stepped outside on to his front porch to watch the sunrise over the mountain peak that overlooked his home. “How long would it take me to get up there?” He thought. He had asked himself this for years with hopes that the peak would get closer. It never did. But his problem was not that the peak was too high, but rather that he had never made the first step. Dreaming of a climb of such a large scale was one thing, but achieving it was a whole new high. So he began his journey. He started to think about what things he was doing each day that would prepare him to climb to the top of that peak. It was difficult to focus his mind on this one particular goal but if it was going to happen, it required all of his focus. His thoughts needed to be in line with his goal. His actions needed to be in line with his goal. All of it needed to lead to one final action.  The next day began just as every other day. He sat on his porch watching the orange light arise ...

Traveling vs Touring When one tours, they look for what they want to see, they hear what they want to hear, and they feel what they want to feel. When one travels, they see what is seen, hear what is heard, and feel what is felt. The only difference is one is passive, the other is active. Typically, the act of being passive is viewed with a negative connotation but in this sense, I believe it is positive. When you only experience what you want to experience, you place a box around whatever it is you are doing. This is being an active tourer. Passivity requires you to experience all that comes to you. It opens you up to any experience and any feeling. The options for exploration are vast. Touring and traveling may be seen as synonyms, but in my eyes, they are a juxtaposition. To feel what is meant to be felt, you must let your mind open up and take in all that comes.  

  Days Changes take place from day to day and the only thing that has stayed the same is the shell that holds my mind. My age has turned. The days have gotten longer when I don’t want them but shorter when I do. What does one do to combat this? It is the eternal craving for the most time and the most joy simultaneously. Days have become boring. The daily joy I once possessed has been replaced by fatigue and a drained mind when the sun goes down. But what have I gained? I have gained the realization that I can create anything I desire. The power is within me and I possess the ability to improve myself and create something magnificent. Wisdom is something I now possess. Experience. I can say I have been there and done that. But the one feeling that never flees is the joy I get in learning. Millions of things are available at my fingertips to divulge. Let me live and give me time to learn all I can. Each experience is an opportunity to learn something new. An open mind can absorb al...

  Presence I didn’t realize it. How could the days that I had longed for so long be gone. I didn’t know that I was in them when I was, but now I most definitely do. Dreaming of the past when I didn’t appreciate what I had right in front of me. The best times are created when you least likely expect it. I have been let down so many times because I anticipate a moment being so good, but it is never as good as I could see it being in my mind.  A memory can be ruined due to planning. I have experienced this first hand. I have learned that just accepting everything that comes to me can help me appreciate everything as it comes. It allows me to not become overexcited of something then look back in regret when it wasn’t as good as I imagine. The message is you never know what you have til it’s gone. It’s a repetitive saying, but it’s so very true. Take every day as it is. Live each moment as its own and do not compare it to others. The practice of memory comparison has eroded my fe...