Honey

Especially during the holiday season, but also year-round, I try to remember all the reasons that I am happy to be alive. It’s been real easy over the past few years to be thankful for all the friends, family, my work, my health, my home, happiness, my furry creatures, and a million other wonderful things.

Now, I finally have a place to record and count my blessings, iAmGrateful. Started by Agent’s brother, Dustin, this site gives us a tool to experience appreciation in our lives. As I have realized through my own life, being grateful only leads to more gratitude and more happiness. Joy is free and infinite.

John Jones is now a Life Coach and has created his first web site: Full Potential Strategies. His thoughts and ideas are right in line with my own. I’ve greatly appreciated John’s newsletters for periodic inspiration.

Have you seen The Secret? If you only watch one movie your whole entire life, let this be the one. Since seeing this movie, I have received a perfect job, the cutest puppy ever, a fabulous housemate, an awesome pickup truck, and my dream house. What more could I possibly want when I get everything I’ve ever wanted?

This is a good life.

For the most part, I don’t really know what I’m doing. I am, however, beginning to feel something strange. I’m starting to have the idea that I might actually know basically who I am and I’m going so far as to even imagine that I might actually like myself! There’s a new, comfortable peace soaking into me, and it gets better every day.

I’ve learned a lot about myself in the last month or so from the Internet and other resources.

1. Reading and listening to the news makes me a crazy person. I am negatively affected by the suffering caused and experienced by humans all over the world. When I listen to the news, I feel there must be more that I can do to help, and yet I don’t, which puts me in a guilt-infested situation with no resolution, and I’m tired of it.
2. My mom always called me an “Empath”. According to the Internet, I am a Highly Sensitive Person. Check out the Self Test to see if you and I have anything in common. The good news: I have a rich, complex inner life. The sometimes not-so-good news: Other people’s moods affect me.
3. I need to eat a lot of food to maintain a sense of well-being. My nutritional intake was hit and miss before Wil gave me Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook. Riding 34 miles a day, 4 days a week without an adequate and appropriate diet, sent me into horrible depression, fierce anxiety, and an all-around bad attitude. As soon as I understood the need for large quantities of carbohydrates, and began to satisfy this need, my mood regained its previous excellence and my performance improved 100%.

There is nothing I enjoy more than realizing and understanding the reasons I feel and act the way I do. I hope that this process never ends and my mind never closes. I wonder what I’ll figure out next.

me

I would like the world to be peaceful. I will continue to make a constant effort toward peace within myself.

I would like the world to take care of its people. We’re all so independent and alone these days. People don’t pity each others’ misfortune as much as I would expect. We must take care of one another! There is no one else to do this for us. All the homeless and hungry of this world will not suddenly become healthy and happy. I must set an example of loving-kindness toward all the rejected and dejected in our society: the homeless, those who have committed crimes, the lost children, addicts, victims, the brainwashed, the sick, and all the suffering.

I would like the world to respect and appreciate our home, the earth. This is our only home. We dump our garbage and our chemicals and our exhaust haphazardly out into our planet and our atmosphere and we do not consider the consequences of these actions. If we do consider our affects on our environment, we slip immediately back into a hopeless denial. I will do everything I can to love and respect the earth.

I would like to see more hope in the world. So many of us have given up to one degree or another because change is so slow as to be practically impossible. The corrupt, wealthy government feels hopeless. Global warming feels hopeless. Poverty feels hopeless. The slow strangle of our freedoms and liberties feels hopeless. Our lives feel hopeless to change. We are so stuck in the patterns that have developed so perfectly in our lives, we don’t believe that we ourselves are capable of change. Change is constant and slow. I have seen tremendous change in my own life. I will continue to sow and harvest my own hope and will bring hope to others whenever possible. I’ll start a new movement of hope. We must believe that suffering can be transformed into happiness everywhere.

I would like the world to be more tolerant and open-hearted. I am deeply saddened by hatred and violence toward one-another. I will continue to open my heart to everyone I meet and everyone I already know, especially when it is particularly difficult. I will recognize and acknowledge my judgmental observations of others until these attitudes are eradicated entirely. I will focus as much energy as possible on the feelings and expressions of love and compassion. I will face my most challenging difficulties with all my heart. I will continue to change my thought patterns and processes in order to become the change I want to see in the world.