The time will come when winter will ask you what you were doing all summer.  ~Henry Clay

Today I had to go into work early.  It was actually my day off, and I didn’t get to bed until after 2:00 a.m., and I got a call at 4:30 a.m., asking if I could come in and cover for someone’s 6:00 a.m. shift, which I gladly did.

There is nothing like getting a call that early in the morning, at 4:30 am, it can rarely ever be good news.  But this morning for me it was.  I want extra hours, I want to work, so when I arrived this morning, on just a bit over two hours of sleep, I thanked Tanya the Assistant Manager for calling me because I want MORE of that in my current reality.

I have people who have seen The Secret movie, they have read the book, and are listening to the CD’s and for some reason they just can’t seem to “think positive.”  What my posts are here to remind people of every day, it is not just important to think positive.  The key for me, what changed my life, was being grateful.

To illustrate my point, I could have for example just $20 left in my pocket, and not another dime in the world, and I could be POSITIVE of that.  The important thing is to be grateful for it instead.

I explained to my nieces this way.  “If someone were to ask you for $20 and you gave it to them, and afterwards they bitched and moaned, ‘$20, that’s all?!’  Would you give them anything else after that?”  Of course their answer was no.  So my next question to them was, “If you can’t be grateful for all that God, the Universe has provided for you, would you expect to receive more of anything?”  Once again, their answer was no, and therein lies the crux of the problem for those who live a life lacking in anything.

I have said it often, and I will say it again and again, FIND YOUR GRATITUDE.  Once you do that, you will begin to feel worthy of getting more of what you want out of life, and when you start getting MORE, that is when through positive thinking, you focus only on what it is you do want out and not what you don’t want out of life.

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Just a quick note, some days I may miss a blog post, or I get it out later than usual, that is because I had to work the early morning shift.  My feedburner email delivery option is set to go out between 11:00 am, and 1:00 pm, and I try to have my blog post done before then.  However, when I have to work the opening shift, it is hard to get up at 2:30 am, to give myself time to write a blog post.  Can I write them in advance?  Sure, but that sort of defeats the purpose of awakening each morning, and finding something I am grateful for to write about.   I enjoy my first hour of the day being spent finding some inspiration from the preceding days events, or from an idea that is floating around in my head when I awake.  So rarely if ever do I have a gratitude post already in the hopper, so to speak, prepared in advance.

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For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst — Matthew 18:20

What is Church?

As you can see by the picture I chose this morning, it is definitely not a building, and to help further illustrate my point, I chose a quote from the Bible, which it does, even if you are not a Christian.

Church is when two or more people gather together in a creative spirit, regardless of a location.  It can happen in a building designated for religious services, or it can happen in a Casino, and that is where I had Church on Thursday night.

I grew up being taught Judeo-Christian beliefs, and even in their own Bible, it says right there, “where two or three have gathered in My name, I am in the midst of them.”  There’s no need for pomp and circumstance, there’s no need massive cathedrals with bigger bells than the “church” down the street, there’s no need for ornate fixtures lined with gold, all there needs to be is a spirit of unity and you have church.

Sanjay invited me this past Thursday down to the Flamingo to hang out in the Diamond Club, because his membership expires this weekend and we wanted to take advantage of all it had to offer.  So I did, and we enjoyed free drinks, and a mini-version of a casino buffet.  But while we were there, we held Church as he and I do what we enjoy doing most, we discussed the Law of Attraction, and before we knew it, it was time to go.  You can always tell when you are in perfect harmony and matching the vibration of the things you are attracting, because you are filled with joy, and time passes by so quickly.

This is my kind of church, this is the kind of church I am willing to put my life on the line for.  Not the facades that have done more to damage the spirit of mankind, than to uplift them.

Church can be held at anytime, and should be a joyous occasion.  Growing up, my experience was it was held way too early on a Sunday morning, and people walked around in a pious state.  I laugh when I think about them walking to the altar with their hands clasped in front of them, and a solemn look on their face, partaking in communion.  It was almost as if they regretted their current worshiping choice, but they were locked into a contract.  Come on people, it is your spirituality and not a cell phone company.

I enjoy Church, because I have it so often.  The people I choose to associate with, which includes family and friends, uplift me, and my spirit.  They help me to aspire to a higher calling, they challenge me to become a better person, and inspire me to live my life’s passion, and follow my dreams, and this is why I am grateful for Church.

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Faith is putting all your eggs in God’s basket, then counting your blessings before they hatch. ~Ramona C. Carroll

This morning I am grateful for having 1,000 subscribers to my blog. I am asking, I am believing, and I am receiving that it happened, in fact as you can see I am already celebrating this fact!

It is not enough just to ask for these things, it is not enough just to believe it, but you have to truly receive it, and I have just not really done that yet. I can say all day long that I believe this site will grow in traffic, and subscribers, but my faith has been faltering. Every day I look at the Feedburner Chiklet that lets you know how many subscribers I have to the site. Every day I go through my google analytics account to see how many hits I had the day before.

No more. Starting today I will no longer check my stats, or display the Feedburner Chicklet, and then six months from May 1st, I will report on the growth of this site. Currently I have 14 subscribers, and my traffic as of March 28, was 17 visits. Below are a couple of screen shots of those stats:

Why am I doing this?

Well, I am not exactly acting in faith, and receiving, if everyday I am desperately looking at my stats just to find even a little bit of growth, in fact when you act in this manner, you are doing exactly the opposite of believing and receiving because of the dominant feeling you have when you do this is…fear.

Think about how every time you step on a scale while dieting, and remember the thoughts that go through your head as you do so. For me, in the past, it was always something like, “I’ve worked really hard, I had better not have gained any weight.” Or, “I screwed up and ate a bowl of ice cream last night, I probably gained some weight.” There isn’t a whole lot of faith, and believing going on in the few seconds I have before I step onto the scale. The dominant thought is usually on the exact opposite of what I want to happen. So I stopped weighing myself, and what happened? People are still noticing I have lost weight and telling me that, shirts that fit properly a few months ago are getting a little baggy, so yeah I am still losing weight. It reminds me of the old adage, a watched pot never boils.

So from this point on, until November 1st, I will not be displaying any stats, instead I will just turn this all over to God, the Universe, and let them worry about it. In the meantime I will continue to post, and put forth the ideas that I am inspired to either write about, or act upon, and I will have my 1,000 subscribers.

I am asking for it today, and I am believing it, and today I receive that it has already happened.

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photo credit: rivaalessandro

My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.  ~Anais Nin

There are days when the ideas, and thoughts don’t flow so freely, in fact I sit here for twenty of thirty minutes, before I even put one single word down on my blog.  That is not to say I can’t find anything to be grateful for, I have my laundry list which I have posted a few times before.  However people wouldn’t find it interesting if I just posted that, in fact I’ve been accused of “phoning it in” when I write those.

I have up to nineteen articles sitting in cue, that I would love to finish writing.  But I feel compelled to do these gratitude posts, because they have not only an effect on me, but they seem to have an effect on those who read my blog.  I have toyed with the idea to even discontinue them, in lieu of the other articles that I would love to spend more time on, but I think that would be a terrible idea, and yes I am getting to a point.

To simply write a gratitude journal, I could knock it out in literally seconds.  But for me, I choose to live an inspired life.  I don’t want to just find gratitude in the things that are so blatantly obvious, I want to explore life, and what it has to offer in its lessons, and find gratitude in that.  I am greedy, I want MORE of it all from the Universe.

Life is my canvas, and the world is my muse.  I am grateful for the inspiration that I receive every day.  Some days it is immediate, other days, it takes a bit more work.  But the fun is in the challenge in finding it, and then sharing it with you all.

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photo credit: kittykatfish

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years.  We grow old by deserting our ideals.  Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.  ~Samuel Ullman

I will be forty-two in September, so really I’m grateful for being young at heart.

Growing older, I’d have to say that there is only one birthday that bothered me, and that was when I turned thirty, and for a couple of reasons.  As I have mentioned before, I wanted to do stand-up comedy, and at some point, I let life get in the way of me living out my dreams.  I was also under the impression, that it seemed as though all pop icons, became the stars they were, whether they were  James Dean, John Belushi or Curt Cobain, by achieving great things before their 27th birthday.  Turning thirty, made me feel like that opportunity had passed me by.

I also knew turning thirty, I could no longer use the youth excuse.  I was a grown man, and it was time to act like one.  Did I?  Not in the least bit.  I spent most of my thirties in self-pity, but regardless of my physical age, mentally, I felt, and do still feel young.

When I turned forty, I am glad I didn’t have one of those over the hill parties, where all the party favors and decorations were black, or where people gave you joke gifts like a box of depends, to signify that you are now old.  I celebrated my birthday like I always do, dinner with my family.

I welcome my forties.  Years ago, if you would have asked me what year in my life I would like to freeze in time, I would have said my early twenties, but if you asked me today, I would say, RIGHT NOW.  I don’t know what it is, but something just seemed to click in me, this is my decade, these I know will be the most enjoyable years I have ever had on this great blue marble.  I just don’t know how to explain it, but it seems I am awake, and realize that certain things just aren’t that important, and other things I didn’t even consider, are life changing.  If welcomed, age and experience can give you a sense of confidence, where you come to realize that, you just don’t have to accept what the world dishes out, you are above that.

I would be lying if I said that I don’t feel the physical effects of the stress I put on my body throughout the years, but mentally, I am still just a kid.  When I see myself in the mirror, I don’t see some old guy who is just a hop, skip and jump away from his fifties.  I see a striking, handsome man.  I see someone brimming with confidence, because he has God given experience that he can rely upon to make the right decisions.  I see a man, who can, and will achieve greatness, because of the youthful vigor of his mind, and spirit.   The forties are mine to own, and own them I will.

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No one has ever become poor by giving. — Anne Frank

I was blessed on Easter Sunday to be a part of an event, in which it was made possible to brighten the lives of twenty-seven children, and their families.  There is nothing more uplifting in this world, than to put a smile on the face of a few kids.

I enlisted the help of my family, and specifically my nieces.  The simple truth is, while helping to raise them for the last fifteen years, there were often times where I sweated the holidays.  I have done my best to shelter them from the fact that they for most of their lives, have lived below the poverty line.  Sure it was tough, and at times we got very creative, but in the end it always worked out, their Christmas stockings, and Easter baskets were always filled.

Now I want them to learn, that while their lives at times seem tough, there are those out there who definitely have it a lot harder.  I also wanted them to learn that you don’t always have to give money to help out those in need, in fact, they could give their time, which is a much more valuable commodity.

I am happy they enjoyed themselves, and I am happy, that they got to participate in an event that turned out to be such a blessing for all those who participated.  Their wasn’t a child in that place who wasn’t smiling from ear to ear.

I am currently working with my youngest niece, I have helped her to start her own gratitude journal which she emails to me daily, and I wanted to share some of her thoughts.

“I am grateful for meeting that one 9 year old boy that told his life story to me, I felt special that he opened up to me. It seemed like I was the only person he could open up to, with the way he talked about his life.”

The little boy she wrote about, sat down to get his face painted, and it was quite apparent he wasn’t real happy.  Hanna tried to engage him in conversation, and at first he was reluctant, and then all of a sudden he just opened up.

He told her he hated Easter.  One reason was because he usually didn’t get anything, another reason was because it always reminded him that he didn’t really know his father.  He hadn’t seen his father in years, and the holidays were especially tough since it reminded him how unloved he felt, when his father never called.

This is something Hanna has experience with as well, her own father rarely if ever calls, and told her and her sister the other day, that the best thing he ever did for them, was not being involved in their lives.

Before it was all over, Hanna made the little boy happy.  He was able to tell someone the emptiness and pain he felt, and someone took the time to listen.  Hanna may not know it now, but because of her own experiences in life, God had prepared her just for that moment.  Who knows what kind of impact she may have had on him.  Who knows what kind of impact we all had on those children yesterday.   We may not have saved any lives, we may not have saved any souls, but what we did do, was brighten the lives of a few people, even if only for a couple of hours.

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photo credit: rosemaryann11

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. ~William Arthur Ward

Happy Easter! It is time for another gratitude bullet list. If you choose to write a gratitude journal, it could quite simply be a bullet list like this one, it is not necessary to pick just one thing you are grateful for, and expand on that for an hour. However, I do suggest that in your gratitude list, you should at least write out what you are grateful for in complete sentences, so that you can express exactly what it is to the universe that you want more of.

This list is something I run through everyday, and more than once a day. It is a list I say out loud when I pray each day and give thanks to God. There are days where the list is longer, because something different happened that day, and there are days where the list is a general “laundry list” of things I am always experiencing.

This morning I am grateful for…

• I am grateful for another day of opportunities, whatever they may be.
• I am grateful for my loving, caring, and understanding family.
• I am grateful for my amazing friends who love me, and respect me.
• I am grateful for a job that I love, that provides me an opportunity to interact with so many interesting people each day.
• I am grateful for my car. Not only does it provide me with reliable, safe transportation, but it provides me with a quiet place to meditate and reflect every day during my work breaks. I am especially grateful for the CD player that it came with.
• I am grateful for my blog and the therapeutic release it provides for me each day. I am grateful for being inspired and finding new and interesting ways to express my gratitude through my blog every morning, and I am grateful that people are finding inspiration in my posts.
• I am grateful for having a wonderful home to come back to each day after work.
• I am grateful for being in great health, and I am grateful that each day my body gets stronger, and I lose more weight.

I thank God each and every day for where I am at right now in my life. I now realize that if I could, I would not go back and change a thing, because it has all made me who I am today. People and things were put into my path for a reason, and it all led me right here, right now, and to go back and change one step, no matter how small, would completely alter my present reality.

In the end, I am grateful to be grateful.

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photo credit: emilybean

The safe way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket. ~Frank Hubbard

There is so much talk about a collapsing economy, so much power given to this thought throughout the world right now, I can only assume it is inevitable
“You create your thoughts, your thoughts create your intentions, and your intentions create your reality.”

People are even gambling on this collapse, hoping for price increases that will punish financially their fellow man, so they can in turn make a small profit. These people are driven by a competitive spirit where their prevalent thoughts are to obtain as much “wealth” as possible, as quickly as possible, in some attempt to rise to the top of the financial food chain. Why? So when the world collapses around them, they can live behind gated walls protecting their stores of gold, water, and toilet paper.

Will it happen for them? I can’t predict that, but what I can discuss is what I have experienced in the past. The more desperate I became in wanting something, the more I chased it, the quicker it moved away from me, and the farther it got. Yes, this is a law of attraction thing. The tighter you grasp onto something, your dominant thought is fear, fear of losing it, so lose it you will. It’s like trying to grasp onto Jello.

It is this competitive spirit that gets us into trouble, we should focus on trying to be creators, and operate with a creative spirit. A creator would instead of trying to find ways of making money off of the pain of others, would quit focusing on how to obtain more than others, and would make their prevalent thought on how they could lift others up. You will find success, in making others successful.

In the end we all end up worm food, and if you choose to keep score in your life by how many dollars you saved, versus lives or souls, then you will die unfulfilled.

I am grateful that I get a paycheck each week now. I provide a service, not only to my customers, but to my employers, and co-workers as well, and I get paid for that. I do my best to find my successes in making them successful.

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photo credit: ReDiCuori

God allows us to experience the low points of life in order to teach us lessons we could not learn in any other way. The way we learn those lessons is not to deny the feelings but to find the meanings underlying them. — Stanley Lindquist

I am grateful for each new lesson I learn.

Yesterday I sat down and wrote out a long post about why I had a bad day at work, after hitting the publish button I had this sinking feeling in my stomach that I just did the wrong thing. I ignored it for a few hours, but then my conscience got the best of me, thank goodness, and I edited out the offending matter.

Basically it was a bitch and moan session detailing about how I had been wronged at work. The words I had typed did nothing to uplift me, or to uplift others, it only served to shine light on my “wound.”

People love to repeat stories about the offenses others commit against them in life. I was having this discussion with my niece and she tried to explain to me that the only reason she did this was to get it out of her system, to talk about it. I told her fine, if you feel you must get it out of your system, you talk to the offending party, then that’s it, move on.

We have all used that excuse. That we’re just trying to get it out of our system, and then we get it out of our system with 9 different people. When in fact what we’re really wanting to do is prove to the rest of the world how we were right, and they were wrong, and point out how badly we were hurt. We are looking for pity, and that is all I was doing yesterday.

Another reason you shouldn’t continue to discuss these so called offenses, is because you give them way too much power over your life. It is has been proven that when you relive these experiences mentally, your body reacts in the exact same manner as it did the first time you experienced that pain. This is why stress kill us. If you think about a situation that made you extremely angry at one point in your life, your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure goes up, all the chemical changes your body experienced during the real situation, is now occurring as you just sit there and think about it. Hate, anger, bitterness, resentment, are truly a poison to the body, and it kills you. Sometimes quickly, but most often times so slowly, that you don’t realize it.

One more reason you shouldn’t discuss these once again, so called offenses, is because when you do, that is your prevalent thought that you are giving power to, and the universe will bring you more of the same. If you want more drama in your life, then keep talking about it, keep rehashing it over and over with your friends, and lo and behold you will find it.

I don’t want more of the same negative experiences in my life, so I am trying to focus on the positive aspects of my job in order to get more of that. Even if I don’t see this occur immediately, I can change my perspective on how I view those things, and find something to be grateful for in them.

That was the lesson I was supposed to learn yesterday, the exact same lesson I was trying to teach my niece, and that is if there is a situation in your life that bothers you, or creates conflict within you, address it, or move on, but don’t relive it, over and over.

I was being tested that day, whether or not I passed the test I don’t know, but I will be prepared for future tests.

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I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much. ~Mother Teresa

I apologize up front, this morning will be one of my more lengthy posts, if you choose not to read it all, I understand, this blog is my outlet, and it is very therapeutic for me.

I have had maybe two “bad days,” in almost three months, that to me is amazing, when all I could remember allowing myself in the past, was just bad days. I speak often about my job, because right now, that is what I mainly experience, and I speak about how I love it. I still do, but yesterday, I feel I was truly put to the test.

<snip>

I edited most of this post, because honestly I could not find how it would benefit me, or anybody else to read.

<snip>

Yes I am bitching and moaning and I do apologize, I am trying to get to a point. As I have said often, I love my job, but I truly felt like I was being tested yesterday, and I don’t think I passed. I allowed outside influences to control my happiness.
I took on this job for a variety of reasons, sure I needed the money, but more importantly I did it for my ego. I needed a job, something I had obtained on my own, without asking for anyone’s help. But I also needed to come to terms with being a 41 year old man who has owned his own business, been one of the top producing managers for Taco Bell, worked in the commercial / film industry, and am now making essentially minimum wage. I needed to push my ego out of the way, and get my ass to work.

So why am I grateful for trust? Because I trust that I am where I am at for a reason, and I will learn whatever lessons there are to learn. I trust that the Universe will open up to me, soon, and will inspire me once again, to transcend where I am at financially. I also trust that in the mean time, I will continue to be grateful for having this job, and that no matter what, I will not allow anyone to take my gratitude from me.

Once again I apologize for including any negativity in a post. I wanted people to see that it’s not all peaches and cream, and that I am not perfect, that I am like everyone else reading this blog, a human being, who is prone to making mistakes. I guess the lesson to learn from all of this, is to just continue to press forward in faith, while finding your gratitude, and keep smiling. As they say, every day on this side of the grass, is a good day.

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