I can live for two months on a good compliment. ~Mark Twain

I was sitting down getting ready to go through my nightly ritual of meditation, visualization and affirmations when I noticed I had missed a phone call. It was Tanya one of my co-workers who has turned into a really good friend. So I called her back to see what was up and she said she just wanted to tell me that she was grateful that I had entered her life. That touched me. Tanya, if you are reading this, I am grateful to have met you too.

She also went on to say that she knew that I was someone special and was going on to do big things and followed it up with, “I don’t know if anyone told you that today or not…” The simple fact is I get told stuff like this all the time. I am so blessed with so many good friends that I can’t turn any direction without bumping into someone who cares for me, and I am so grateful to be blessed in such a manner.

That wasn’t the only compliment I received today. A young aunt and her little niece had gone horseback riding today and they were both really hot and tired from the Nevada sun. I didn’t know their back story until later, I just heard someone in the deli telling them that Starbucks had some water. So as I passed by them I told them to come right over and I’d have it ready for them, and of course we did.

She and her niece sat down in our lobby and ate a quick snack and drank their water, but on their way out I handed them a couple of samples of a new frappucino that we are selling, of course it was the creme base no caffeine for the little ones. All of this attention impressed her enough to call my bosses and let them know about me.

As I sit here writing this, I have come to the conclusion that I do not give enough compliments throughout the day, and it is my intention to actively, but with honesty, give out as many compliments as I can every day from here on out.

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Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.

Life was not meant to be difficult, but it sure as hell wasn’t meant to be easy. If it weren’t for the challenges we face in life, we would never have a chance to grow, physically, mentally or spiritually.

We have all been in the store and watched as a parent gives into every whim and demand to their little angel who is screaming at the top of their lungs non-stop. If this were to continue for the remainder of this child’s youth chances are, unless the parents are considerably wealthy, have a lot of pull or power in their career field so they can continue the spoiling into adulthood, this child will have learned nothing about patience, work ethic, gratitude, or any other virtues that help to make us whole beings. But if this parent were to say no to this child would that mean they loved them any less? No.  In fact it takes a lot more love to say no, than it does to say yes.

I don’t want to be that spoiled child in life who gets everything handed to them without any effort at all. I want to be able to understand what gratitude truly feels like, what accomplishment truly feels like, and that’s why we have challenges. Challenges are merely obstacles that we either go over or go around, either way we overcome them just enough to get back onto the path we were taking that was moving us forward.

It once again all boils down to perspective. You can look at challenges as either hard work, or an opportunity to grow whatever physical, or metaphysical muscle that needs to be worked on. Challenges in the past to me were hard work, they felt like punishment even though I had done nothing wrong. My mantra was, “Why me?” Now it’s “Why not me?”

Do I face every challenge with a smile on my face? You would know I was a miserable liar if I said yes. But I do face them with the knowledge that there is something wonderful waiting for me on the other side, so let’s figure out how to either get over this obstacle, or around it, because I can’t wait to see what it is.

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Life is something that happens when you can’t get to sleep. ~Fran Lebowitz

I enjoy many things like watching t.v., sleeping, and eating, but not one of these things has brought me the fulfillment in life that I desire. When you consider that we spend almost one third of our life sleeping, another one third working, and then what’s left of the time we have spread amongst things like watching t.v., running errands, visiting family or friends, it is no wonder we think life is just passing us by.

I used to think that I was picky when it came to what I watched on t.v., until I added up the hours, and came to realize why I wasn’t accomplishing the goals I had in life. Over the past couple of weeks I have severely limited my t.v. intake to a maximum of two hours a day, and I am not even hitting that maximum target at all. I am maybe watching one hour, and the amount of time I have left to do the things I truly enjoy is staggering.

What does this have to do with being awake? Well I am awake literally, and metaphorically now. Today is my day off, and I am up at 7:30 in the morning ready to take on the world. I don’t have to be up, I want to be up, because there is a drive and energy within me that continues to grow, and this makes me very excited about the future. Sure I could very well spend a few more hours in bed, hell I could sleep off and on until noon if I put my mind to it, but I would rather make more progress in my life, even if it is just taking one step today in the direction I have chosen head in.

Sleep is not overrated, neither is eating, or entertainment they all have their place. However they don’t have their own purpose in our lives, but are here to serve our purpose in life. I have my hand on the rudder now, I am guiding this ship in the direction I choose to take it. Where it lands is only a part of the journey, so far the trip is pretty damn interesting and that is enough to satisfy me.

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There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.  ~Anaïs Nin

It has been awhile since I wrote out a bullet list of all the things I am grateful for so here it goes.

Today I am grateful for…

• My father
• My brother Donald
• My brother Eddie
• My sister Michele
• My nieces Hanna and Megan
• My friends
• My co-workers
• My job
• My car
• My  home
• My health
• My creativity
• My inspiration
• My determination

And last but not least I am grateful for my rose colored glasses that allow me to see the wonderful things that life brings me while weeding out all the garbage.

We all have rose colored glasses if we choose to wear them.  At the core of our brain stem is the RAS (reticular activation system) which weeds out repetitive stimuli to help us avoid sensory overload.  We see and hear hundreds of thousands of images and sounds a day, and the RAS essentially limits that amount to the images and sounds that we need to hear, or are allowing ourselves to hear.

However, through our subconscious we can choose to see and hear what it is we want to.  We have all had the experience of going out and buying a new car and then for days after we see that same car on the road everywhere we look.  The fact is those cars were already out there, we just weren’t paying any attention, or RAS was weeding it out because it was unimportant to us..  Now that we have decided on something we like, something we want,  we now see more of it.

This is where the power of positive thinking comes into play.  Buy retraining yourself to always find the positive in every situation, to no longer see problems but challenges that can be overcome, pretty soon the RAS begins to weed out all the unimportant negative stuff, while allowing the positive experiences to stand out.  They are all still there, both existing as they occur, but you are controlling your perception, you are wearing rose colored glasses.

Put them on for a test spin.  Start your day off with a gratitude list of things you want to see more of.  Feel the gratitude, be truly thankful, and begin to limit the negative thoughts that enter your head each and every day, and pretty soon you too will start to see the good in life.

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in·ten·tion  [in-ten-shuhn]
–noun
1.  an act or instance of determining mentally upon some action or result.

Today  isn’t so much of a gratitude post, but is more of an intention post.

What I am trying to learn, is to get clarity, and focus on the things I want in life, I truly believe that is what separates really successful people, from the rest of the world.  Clarity is something I have lacked in in the past.  I have allowed myself to stumble through life not knowing what it was I wanted to do, what I wanted in life.  So today I plan on setting forth some intentions to gain control over my thoughts, and to get some clarity.   Because having clarity changes something from a simple wish, to a real goal.

For example in the past I have set goals of, “I want to lose weight this summer.”  Well if I lost one pound, I have achieved this weak attempt at a goal I set.  But having clarity would be to establish what I want to do, by how much, and by when.  A better example would be something like the goal I have set now.   I will weigh 155 pounds by 9:00 a.m., December 1st, 2008.   I can now measure my goals in time and quantity, this eliminates all confusion as to what it is I want in my life.  I am also writing these goals out onto 3 x 5 cards along with an affirmation to read every morning when I get up, throughout the day, and before I go to bed.   Each card looks like this:

Goal:  I will weigh 155 pounds by 9:00 a.m, December 1st 2008.

Affirmation:  I am so happy and grateful now that I weigh 155 pounds.  I have more energy, my joints and muscles are flexible, my body is fit and trim, and I am in complete control of my eating habits, making healthy choices.

In following along with my beliefs of Asking, Believing, and Receiving, I write out my affirmations as if the goal is already achieved.  I have asked by stating the goal, I have believed by quickly meditating on it, and I have received by going into a present state of gratitude accepting that it has already happened.

What I have learned recently is that this creates something called “structural tension,” in the brain.  The brain now has to fill this gap between the reality of what is, and the reality that you are creating with images in your sub-conscious.  The Law of Attraction goes to work, as well as the Law of GOYA *Get Off Your Ass*.  Your mind gets creative bringing forth ideas, and putting you into action in order to achieve these results.

Just like the intention I set forth on healing my body just a few weeks ago, the difference I feel since then is like night and day.  There is still room for improvement, because I am still in the process of healing my body.  But because I set forth that intention, my mind won’t let me rest until I make some sort of steps to improve my health, which presently comes in the form of doing core exercises using my exercise ball.

So my intention I am setting forth today is …

I am so happy and grateful now that I am the master of my thoughts.  Through meditation I have quited the mind and I am receiving clarity.

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The world always looks brighter from behind a smile. ~Author Unknown

I recall a number of years ago, when working for various companies I would be walking through the office and I would often get asked, “What’s wrong?” My response would always be that nothing was wrong, I was in deep thought. Well by the time I was asked three times in a span of ten minutes I would of course be ticked off. “Nothing’s wrong with me! I’m happy dammit!”

Well I am proud to say that I don’t experience that question anymore. While walking through work, I have come to find myself smiling when there was no other reason to smile, other than I truly was happy. People now comment that I have a great attitude, that I am all smiles, in fact one of the ladies who works at Von’s nicknamed me Smiley. When the assistant manager of the store returned from putting in some time at another store he jokingly said, “I couldn’t wait to get back to your smiling face Cary.”

After receiving another nice compliment the other day, I responded by telling the lady, “I’m one of those weird people who enjoy life.” She got a kick out of it. I can honestly say it is the truth. I am having fun, I am enjoying every minute, and I am excited about what the future is bringing.

It’s fun to smile, I suggest you try it. Every morning when you get up, force yourself to smile for at least sixty seconds and here’s why?

1. Smiling makes you attractive.
2. Smiling is contagious.
3. Smiling relieves stress
4. Smiling lowers blood pressure.
5. Smiling releases endorphins, seretonin, and natural pain killers.
6. Smiling boosts your immune system.
7. Smiling helps you to remain positive.

Can’t think of something to smile about? Picture my silly mug grinning from ear to ear as I walk through Von’s grocery humming a tune, while taking the garbage out.

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“Move your seat up I’m all cramped back here.”-Frank “It won’t move!”-Estelle “There’s a mechanism you just PUSH IT!”-Frank “Dad can’t you sit sideways? We are five blocks from the house.”-George “Sideways? Like an ANIMAL! Because of HER I have to sit like an ANIMAL! SERENITY NOW! SERENITY NOW!”-Frank “Serenity now?”-George “The doctor gave me a relaxation tape for my blood pressure. When I get stressed the man on the tape says to say SERENITY NOW!”-Frank “Did he say to yell it?”-George “The man wasn’t specific.”-Frank “What happened to the screen door? It blew off again.”-George “I TOLD YOU TO FIX THAT THING!”-Estelle “SERENITY NOW!!!!”-Frank

If you are a big fan of Seinfeld, then you’d get the serenity now moment.  When describing my quiet time in my car listening to music, Jim jokingly referred to it as having one of those moments.

All kidding aside, we all need a quiet place to just be, to go inside ourselves and to choose to think, or not think.  Or maybe just sing a happy tune, scream at the top of our lungs, whatever.  My time during my lunch, it’s a preemptive strike against negativity.  Every day I go to work inside a little kiosk, and quite honestly it’s a tight little space where we are often bumping into each other.  Not to mention an endless amount of beeping going off to let us know the creamers need to be changed, the espresso shots adjusted, the sanitized water needs to be changed, the coffees expired etc., and if you consider Pavlov’s theory, that you get a conditioned response to a conditioned stimuli, after awhile those little beeps and buzzers become a catalyst for negative energy.

What’s the point?  Well, when I go to lunch, I am still usually in a pretty good frame of mind, and I want to keep it that way.  On top of the tight quarters, and endless beeping, there’s the many moods that get brought to work by both employees and customers, so to just step away and just be quiet for a bit can be a life saver.  So I choose to use my car.  One reason is because the alternative means to either sit outside with the smokers, or sit in the break room with the others, and the conversations there usually take on endless bitching about work.  So, I either sit in my car, or I strap on the IPOD and just go to my inner space and detox a bit if you will.

This time “alone,” allows me to come back from my back feeling rejuvenated, ready to take on the next 2-3 hours that are left in my shift.  It is those last hours that are usually the hardest on my body, so I need everything including a great mental attitude to get me through them.  So while it’s not a serenity now moment, it is definitely serenity, and I am grateful for every minute of it.

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As a people, we have become obsessed with Health.  There is something fundamentally, radically unhealthy about all this.  We do not seem to be seeking more exuberance in living as much as staving off failure, putting off dying.  We have lost all confidence in the human body.  ~Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail, 1979

Something resonated with me while listening to Anthony Robbins speak in a seminar called Energy For Life, and that is when he asked “how can you be passionate about anything, including your job, love, hobbies etc., when you are exhausted?”  The answer is, you can’t.

I talk about how I love my job to no end, but when the day gets long, or it started off with a lot of pain right off the bat, I can’t wait to get out of there as soon as my shift is over.  I essentially become a clock watcher, someone who every few minutes checks to see what time it is, and those minutes seem to last an eternity.

Every day I do my best to avoid talking about what I feel I’m lacking in my health, because that is not what I want to attract more of.  I instead try to focus on my weight loss, which has given me much more energy than I have ever had before, but still I can’t deny that I felt pain, and that was holding me back.  I wanted to exercise more, but then I go and blow out my knee, and then right during the middle of that, I ended up in the emergency room one night, because I got stuck on the couch for over an hour.  My back pain was so severe I couldn’t get off of the couch, and when I finally did, I almost got stuck standing in the hallway, just trying to get to my bedroom for a pain killer.

How did I get here?  Well fear.  Fear of pain, fear of hard work, fear of letting go of comforts, fear of challenges, fear of failure.  FEAR!  It’s the ugliest four letter word in our vocabulary.  People worry about F bombs, when the only F bomb I don’t want to hear out of anyone I happen to love, their mouth,  that is the word fear.

To decide to do something about your life, means to first admit you’re not doing something right, right off of the bat you are admitting to being a “failure.”  It takes courage, or a lot of pain to decide to change the things you don’t like about yourself.  We’re talking about exercise right?  Yep.  Something as simple as exercise.  Because it does involve hard work, it does involve making a commitment, and initially it involves a certain amount of pain, and pain is what we’re trying to avoid right?

Then there are the what ifs.  What if I fail?  What if after all this hard work I still don’t look like Brad Pitt?  What if after losing all the weight she / he still doesn’t love me?  What if…. fill in your own what ifs here.

But then these pains can be a motivator.  My health was so poor I had to make a choice to do something about it.  My initial choice was to have weight loss surgery, and initially I felt great.  I lost a lot of weight, and for the things I was doing my health was just fine.  Then I got a “real” job, and boy was I not ready.  Now it is pain that has become so unbearable, that I am forced to work through it, and actually take on more pain initially, in order to get to a better place in my health.  This is another example of accepting “what is,” and surrendering to the present.  But I know I am getting stronger, and each and every day my muscles and joints become more flexible.

I am committed to my health, and I am committed to making better, healthier all around choices when it comes to my mind, body, and soul.  I am grateful that I have learned this before it was too late, and because of that, I am living a happier, more productive life.

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Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. ~John Muir

If you want to know where I have been spending my days off, you now know.  You can usually find me sitting in the back yard with my nose in a book, or just quietly meditating on the beauty that surrounds me.   It’s amazing how nice it can be to just sit, without any thoughts in your head and just be in awe of life.  I am blessed.  Have I told you this lately?  If not, let me say it again.  I am blessed, and I am in the process of receiving more blessings.

Everyone needs a quiet beautiful place that they can just go and be, and to have this place be just one step out the back door makes me a very lucky man.   I now know what exactly it was my dog was thinking, while sitting out in that very same yard just looking around.  He was thinking about absolutely nothing.  He was just sitting there…just being.

That’s it in a nutshell, I don’t know if I can say much more.  I am grateful to have such a beautiful space to relax, pray, play, and meditate in.

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When you say, I enjoy doing this or that, it is really a misperception. It makes it appear that the joy comes from what you do, but that is not the case. Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do, and thus into the world from deep within you. Eckhart Tolle

Most humans walk this world wandering what they are doing here on this planet, constantly asking themselves over and over, “Why am I here?” “What is my purpose?” I am happy to say that I have come to find my inner purpose.

In the past I mentioned Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. Well I am proud to say, that I finally finished this book over the weekend. I have not yet watched all of the web casts on Oprah.Com, or completed my workbook, but I am going back to those as time allows.

On page 258, he states:

So the most important thing to realize is this: Your life has an inner purpose and an outer purpose. Inner purpose concerns Being and is primary. Outer purpose concerns doing and is secondary.

Your inner purpose is to awaken.

To say this book really resonated with me is an understatement. It would be hard for me to go into detail what it means to awaken, but a part of that awakening is to learn to accept the present moment for what it is. Not for what it isn’t, or what it could be, but for exactly what it is, and this is why I am at Starbucks, to learn this very valuable lesson.

I’ll give you an example. This last Thursday, I was scheduled to go into work at 6:30 in the morning. I won’t rehash all of the details, but I will just say that when I walked in, the opener hit me with unbelievable attitude. At first, I ignored it, and played back, wandering if this was the playful attitude she gets, or if she was really mad. It didn’t take long to realize that she was actually mad, and she took it out on me. Her action is not what concerns me, however my reaction is, and I can explain my “rational” thinking behind my “irrational” behavior.

It doesn’t take long for anyone to notice, whether they read this blog, or just experience me at the store, but I do my best to generate a positive energy, and to think only positive thoughts. As I have stated here before, before every shift I mentally prepare myself for the day, and I set forth the intention that I will have a peaceful, uneventful day. Well coming into this negativity how could this be?!! How could I have attracted this into my life? As these thoughts went through my mind, what happened is I decided I did not like this present moment, it had to be different, and because I could not accept the present moment for what it was, and to just let it be, I added some more negative thought onto the already negative situation. What this did was allow my ego to come roaring out of my body and react which did nothing but add fuel to the fire.

However, coming to just accept the fact that the present moment has arrived, there is no changing it, it is what it is, would have allowed me to recognize that the emotions she was dealing with were a part of the pain she has experienced in life. Just let her be angry. Now that does not mean to tolerate abuse, but to recognize that for me to react would serve no purpose but once again, pour fuel on the fire.

I am sure you’re wondering how this could be a very valuable lesson. Well it goes all to ego. It goes all to me, deep down in the past thinking “I’m better than this,” “This is now how things are supposed to be!” When things are exactly as they are at that present moment. To come to terms with this, and to learn to be present in all activities, brings about an awareness that allows you to bring a sense of quality to your work, your craft that you can’t bring if your mind is focusing on other things.

Imagine Michelangelo and how his carving of David would have turned out, if instead of having such an intense focus on what he does, an intense presence of being, he was instead in his mind thinking about all of the past hurts he suffered, or worried about his meeting with the Pope running through all of the possible conversations in his head, that more than likely wouldn’t happen.

This is what I am to learn. How to just be in each and every present moment, and accept that moment for what it is, for what it brings, instead of rejecting it because I think it should be different.

I can’t tell you how freeing this was to finally understand. As I finally came to realize this Friday afternoon while pouring through this book, it was as if a ton of bricks had lifted off my shoulders. My mind was so much clearer, I finished the last four chapters in no time at all, because I was present with what I was doing, which was reading my book. It in a sense became a meditation.

To give you another example of how this truly changes your life, and how you find the joy in even the smallest things. I will be real honest with you all, at times I was not enjoying the reading process, and that was because I was always looking for a better moment, when all I had was now. I have a ton of books on my reading list, and I was truly excited about reading this one, but while reading this one, I would look over and see another one that I just couldn’t wait to get to and read, but once I started that one, my mind was already onto the next best book. Never fully enjoying the one I had in my hands.

The way I explained it to somebody the other day was like being a kid at an amusement park excitedly waiting my turn on the ferris wheel, but once I got on there, and got to the top, all I could see was how exciting the bumper cars looked, and couldn’t wait to get there. But once I got onto the bumper cars, I saw the roller coaster, and now that held my attention.

I am trying to sum up a ton of valuable learning in over 300 pages of writing, in one blog post, and that would be impossible. The important thing I took away from this is that my inner purpose is just Being, and being awakened to that understanding, finding acceptance, and even submitting myself to the present moment.

Now that I have found my inner purpose, it is time to find and align that with my outer (doing) purpose.

P.S. If you would like to read this book, or The Power of Now, both are on sale at Sam’s Club for $8.72 :).

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