The fear of death follows from the fear of life.  A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.  ~Mark Twain

It is true, I do have a terminal illness.  The doctors can’t tell me how much longer I have, it could be minutes, it could be days, months or even years.  It seems sometime in the early morning hours of September 19, 1966 as I took my first breath I contracted a terminal illness called life.  I am sorry to report but there currently is no cure, it is 100% fatal.  It is highly contagious, and from what I understand everyone has it, we are all carriers.

If you’re not quite certain that you suffer from this incurable disease just ask yourself if you have any of the following symptoms:

• You are currently breathing

If you are currently breathing that is a good sign, you definitely have the main symptom of life.  No need to go see a doctor, don’t waste your money, you are definitely dying.  The amazing thing, between Avian Flu, Al Qaeda, and lead coated Barbie dolls from china this disease isn’t discussed much on the news.  I have not yet seen an in depth report by Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN.  I’m beginning to think that this is a huge government cover up, which doesn’t make sense, because fear is how the government gets us to vote, and the media turns your viewing eyes into advertising dollars.

Maybe it’s because we shouldn’t fear this simple little fact that we are all dying, but instead fear how we are living our lives in the meantime.   Sorry if I am coming off as a bit macabre, it is not my intention to disarm anyone, but to inspire myself to get off of my butt and enjoy what precious little time I get on this planet.  That is not to say that I am not excited about what awaits me on that next journey that we have labeled death, but apparently this little adventure we call life is so important that some higher power found it necessary that we experience it, and experience it I must.

I don’t know where this will all lead, but something tells me that through all this growth and change that I am experiencing it is going to lead to some truly interesting places.  It already has thus far, but this is only the beginning, I haven’t hit the big hills or loops on this roller coaster ride just yet, however I sense that they are right around the corner.

I hope no one thinks I am making light of cancer and other illnesses, but the message I keep getting from those who are experiencing such things is that “we know how to die, we just don’t know how to live.”

Time to learn…

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Our ideals resemble the stars, which illuminate the night. No one will ever be able to touch them. But the men who, like the sailors on the ocean, take them for guides, will undoubtedly reach their goal. — Carl Shurz

What is a dream board or Vision Board?

I know my friends who have visited this site see my dream board in the top right corner are wondering what it is I’m doing.

In it’s most simplistic definition, a dream board, or vision board is a a visual image or interpretation of the dreams and visions you have for your life.

The idea behind a dream board is to “dream it, create it, become it.” In order to help you visualize these dreams you have for yourself you take some cork board, or poster board and find pictures of different things that represent what you want for your life, or in your life.

These pictures can represent material things such as a house, a new car, an IPOD. They can represent goals you have in your life in your career, your education. But they need to be defined, they need to be specific. Don’t just say you want a new car, name the year, make and model. I have found the exact car I want right now and put a picture of that on my dream board.

You can find the pictures on the net and print them out, or in a magazine and cut them out. Then using paste, tape or thumbtacks attach the pictures to your dream board and place it in a very conspicuous place that you will see every morning when you wake up, and every night before you go to bed.

I have created my dream board as a wallpaper / desktop background for my computer. This way I see my dream board all throughout the day as I work on my computer.

Why should you have a dream board?

Once again it is a visual reminder of the dreams you have for yourself.

Present day humans pretend to be busy species unlike our cavemen counterparts. We are no longer preoccupied with just trying to survive the day by hunting and gathering the necessary items in order to achieve such a primal goal. We can achieve survival each day in just a matter of minutes, the rest of the day is filled with activities we feel are necessary, but in reality only serve to keep us from getting bored.

It is during these times of activities that we tend to forget what we truly feel is important in order to achieve some sort of “happiness.” The dream board is there to remind you what it is you want out of this short visit we get to the big blue marble. It also serves as a reminder how our dreams can and do change, as we change. So be sure to update your dream board as you achieve those goals and desires.

What is on my dream board?

This is what I am creating in my reality:

• A healthy relationship with a caring lady friend.
• A degree from college
• A career in comedy
• Travel destinations
  • Europe
  • A trip with my family to Disneyland
  • China
  • Southeast Asia - Thailand, Vietnam
• A brand new black 2008 Chrysler 300
• $100,000.00 by 12/31/2008
• A new home

As I said I will be updating this board as I reach old goals and set new ones.  Just a reminder, thoughts become things.

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It is not only my right and my privilege to walk in the abundance God has for me, it is my responsibility…just as it is my responsibility to live the rest of my truth. — Jan Denise

I am not responsible for your happiness and you are not responsible for mine. This is some very powerful freeing stuff I am learning.

This is not an accusatory statement, but one of personal responsibility. I was explaining this to a friend earlier tonight, but first let me give you a little bit of background.

About twenty years ago I was living in Los Angeles, I had been in the entertainment business almost five years. I had worked myself up from a production assistant, to a location scout, location manager, video editor, and an occasional production manager. I was working in an office with four producers, a husband and wife team who focused only on European commercials, and two film producers, one who to this day is quite successful.

I was at a place in my life where I thought everything was heading in the right direction, my father and brother were having some serious financial troubles and they moved in with me. This was probably one of the most prolific times for me in terms of writing. If you saw me, then you saw me with pen and paper in hand, or 3 x 5 cards jotting down notes or ideas. I was working on pitching ideas for screenplays and actually came quite close to landing a deal.

During this time my younger brother was going through some serious emotional issues and my life was now consumed in chaos, and looking back on it now this really set the tone for everything else. We began to attract nothing but chaos, anything and everything that could go wrong seemed to go wrong.

It all culminated in two events where one week my father was driving my car and it was totaled in a wreck, and just seven days later to the day I was driving a motor home full of models from our shooting location back to a hotel where our production offices were set up, when I ended up on the end of a three car pile up where seven people went to the hospital.

Neither my father or I have ever been driving during a car accident, and in one week we both totaled two vehicles, interesting how that just seemed to have happened.

I phoned my father that afternoon and I asked him point blank. “Where would you guys be happy?” Their response was “Back in Colorado.” So I gave up my dreams of a Hollywood career, and moved us all to Colorado Springs. I was actually closer to achieving my dream than I had ever been, in fact my producer friend was in the process of hiring a writer for an idea I pitched him.

Thus began an almost twenty year career of me helping someone else to try and find their happiness. I moved from helping out my father and brother, to taking care of my mother. Then onto my sister and my two nieces, then even for a bit my grandmother, then back to my sister and two nieces.

I don’t regret helping out my family, nor do I hold it against them. The point in all of this as I was explaining to Jim tonight, is that “helping” them all this time was in fact just a crutch to avoid taking responsibility for creating my own unhappiness in life. They became my excuse for why I failed in Hollywood, for why I failed to achieve my potential, when all it boils down to was I used them to avoid even trying to accomplish those dreams. Why? That four letter word I used in a very recent post. F-E-A-R.

I have been thinking about this all night and it really hit hard as I drove home without the radio on. I do some of my best philosophizing when the radio is off in the car. What I had come to realize was that if I had instead went out and created my own happiness , chased my dreams, reached my potential I very well could have been much more successful than I am today, which would in turn help me create an abundant life, then I would have been more capable of sharing that abundance without having to give up my own happiness.

I have seen this in action. Two of my greatest friends live highly abundant lives, and because of this they share their abundance with others, and this trickles down I don’t know how far, and it all began with just one of those two friends in the beginning sharing her abundance with the other.

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My New Years Resolutions

A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other. — Anonymous

To say that I am excited about 2008 would be an understatement. I anticipate every day, I am so excited about what the future brings it is so hard for me to live in the present, which brings me to my New Years Resolutions.

• Learn to forgive my self - I will cite the “I am only human” excuse, which is true. I have my faults, and my flaws, and I recognize and owe up to the responsibility for the mistakes I have made in the past. It has been hard for me to get over some of those mistakes and forgive myself so I can move on to greater things. This I feel is extremely important for me to work on this year, this is by far the most important resolution I have.
• Learn to live in the present - We cannot forget the past we can only learn from it, nor can we really concern ourselves about the future. The only thing we can deal with is right now, the present, and this is something I really need to work on. I can be a worrier, I have been a worrier as far back as my memories go. I was reading the newspaper by the time I was five years old and my mother had told me often that she thought as a child that I shouldered too many of the world’s problems.
• Learn to anticipate the future - Once again we should not worry about the future, we should live in the present but anticipate the future and what it brings.

I could write resolutions all day long about how I will be more organized, I will lose weight, I will start exercising, blah blah blah… but I feel if I can just work with these three resolutions I will find the solutions to any and all other problems I need to work on, so there you have it, my New Years Resolutions. I would love to hear yours.

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We are all functioning at a small fraction of our capacity to live life fully in its total meaning of loving, caring, creating, and adventuring. Consequently, the actualizing of our potential can become the most exciting adventure of our lifetime. — Herbert A. Otto

I welcome 2008 into my life with a grateful heart knowing that I have lead and will continue to lead an interesting life, and have met and will continue to meet interesting people. When I was a younger man I could be heard often saying that I could die even then knowing that I had led an interesting life.

But then something happened, I traded adventure for security, and the only result from that was allowing fear to creep into my life. This began a period of my life where I experienced crippling bouts of anxiety, and I was in constant fear of dying.

As I sit here I recall many nights where I had laid in a hospital emergency bed with my heart rate through the roof, doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with me, me just knowing that I was dying. The fear began to rule my life and I allowed it to make all my decisions never traveling further than the front porch for over a month. This fear became so strong that I couldn’t go to sleep, I just knew that if I closed my eyes I would never wake up. I ended up in the hospital due to exhaustion and I was admitted to the psych ward.

This was a very bleak period of my life, I was in and out of the hospital and spent well over ninety days behind the lock doors of a special ward, but that couldn’t compare with the prison walls the fear built around me. What it took for me to break free from this crippling fear was quite simple really.

I was lying in a bed in the emergency room dying, again, when I came to realize that there was no reason to fear dying because I was already dead. I sure wasn’t living, my life had completely stopped. It was then that I decided I would take control from there on, I was tired of dying, it was once again time to live.

My journey didn’t end there, I have spent the last eight years trying to find the path that I was on and continue my journey. I think I have found it, the signs are definitely there, life is definitely interesting again.

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Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols. - Thomas Mann

As another year passes I reflect upon the good and the bad and in the end I’m thankful that friends and family made it through pretty much unscathed.

I am thankful that my eyes are opened to the blessings in life instead of focusing on the negativity.

A good friend Sanjay and I had a long talk yesterday about weight loss and spirituality as we are prone to do. I was telling him how nice it was that every day when I get up and write one of these gratitude posts that it just sets the mood for the rest of the day.

I would be lying if I told you this were untrue. I would also be lying if I would tell you that even just a few weeks ago I would believe this could be true, but it is.

What I have learned in the past couple of weeks is that people can affect our lives, but it truly is up to us how much we allow them to affect our lives. Ultimately it is we who are responsible for our own happiness, and yes, sadness.

I have also learned that I cannot concern myself with every thought that goes through my head, attempting to stop even one negative one. However, I can recognize the direction those thoughts are heading by my feelings. These are both very powerful bits of knowledge.

To put it into a quick example, there have been days in my past where I just wrapped up the most wonderful time with either family or friends. I’m talking hours of sheer joy, and on the way home almost get side swiped by some uncaring fool on the road.

This encounter would then lead to the inevitable bickering, cursing and yes my favorite one fingered salute (I am patriotic that way). But it would also lead to me allowing a dark cloud to cover what was a very blessed day I had been having so far. I had given a random individual the power to enter my reality and alter it to fit his. Well not really, this is where the powerful stuff comes in. I am responsible for my own feelings and emotions and so are you.

Now that I recognize this I handle situations much better. If I am driving down the road and some uncaring individual almost side swipes me I recognize the feelings that come with this encounter. I still get anxious, angry, frustrated, and so much more, but now I maintain that power over my own life and the direction it heads, I maintain power over the reality I am creating for myself and it stops there.

I recognize the fact that this is an uncaring individual and that since I am responsible for my own reality, I am not responsible for his. Now there is no need to be frustrated, I’m not going to spend the next five minutes attempting to prove why I think they are wrong and should feel bad. Since our encounter ends there and I make sure not to allow this individual to put me into a similar situation I am no longer anxious or angry.

Instead I look for things that will make me happy. I turn up the music and start singing my butt off, or I repeat my mantra of “I attract love, I attract success, I attract respect, I attract money.” Sometimes I’ll call a friend. Whatever it takes to get my mind off the negative thoughts that want to start pouring from my body and get back to creating positive thoughts that will manifest themselves into my reality.

So yeah I’m thankful that I now have the tools to create my own happiness.

Have A Safe, Blessed, Happy New Years!

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A few days ago I wrote a post titled “Money Comes Easily and Often,” where I discussed how I always seemed to break even.

I am not one to shy away from the truth when I write, as I don’t wish to create a false impression about who I am or what I am. So in keeping in line with that let me point out a simple truth.

When I wrote that post and saved it in my wordpress software I still had $100.00 left in my bank account. That was before I took my family out to dinner on Christmas Eve.

That dinner actually left me with $16.00 in my pocket on the 26th, the day I published the post. Ten of which I put into my gas tank so I could run a few errands.

As I drove to my first errand I began to get excited thinking about that post and how I told people that “money comes easily and often.” I started to laugh thinking about how I would stop by my P.O. Box and find a check from some company and post a picture of it on my blog.

It has happened before. In the past I have received affiliate checks for $1,000’s from companies who for some reason or another lost my personal info or just failed to send them.One such check was over $3,000, another over $1,000.

My heart began to race as I drove to the UPS Store where I have had my box for almost 5 years now. But sadly as I opened the box all that was in there were some bank statements telling me what I already know.

But I didn’t let that get me down. I just knew that somewhere, somehow money would come flowing in and it did. I decided last night to stay the night at the girls’ place and watch some movies with them. The girls I’m referring to are of course my sister and two nieces.

when I arrived there was a Christmas Card from my Mother’s sister waiting for me. Inside I found $25.00.

No it is not much, but it is a start, and once again reaffirms exactly what I was telling you. For me money comes easily and often, I have always known this, that I attract money. I just now need to attract more, and learn how to hold onto it a bit longer.

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Ask … Believe … Receive …

I have owned my own name as a domain for years now, but originally kept some poker content on it. I recently changed the direction my life is heading, and this of course changed the direction the content of this blog was heading.

I have never really tracked how much traffic I would get to this blog. I had no real reason to, in fact I still don’t but for interests sake I went ahead and installed the Google Analytics code. Okay, I’m lying. I do have a reason, vanity. If you have ever owned a website then you know you want the world to take notice when you scream “look at me ma!”

Well, it has been 24 hours and the code is working and I had 6 whole visitors yesterday. A couple were referrals through email, which is hopefully a good sign, and a few searched through Google. One, I swear to God was a a search string that included these words in it… “donkey with woman in tijuauna.” Yes the misspelling of Tijuana is “correct.” It seems some poor individual was attempting to find some kind of stage show in the crazy border town, when he came across my site.

When you do a search using that misspelling, you’ll see CaryDarling.Com come up first in Google due to an article I wrote awhile back poking fun at Phil Hellmuth, this is the excerpt they show in the search results.

I felt like a gringo walking down Revolution Blvd in Tijuauna. Oh and there are rumors that Hellmuth will be performing a live donkey show. …

Yes I have completely gotten off track to the point I was trying to make. I got 6 visitors, and I want more. I am asking and I am believing that my blog will have an impact on someone today, and they will share the URL with a few friends, and just like the shampoo commercial, they will tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on.  So now I am receiving traffic.

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Money comes easily and often. Funny, but as I sit here with my last $100 in the bank, I know this to be true.

I have told people for many years that “no matter what, I always break even.” My life has been very similar to the episode on Seinfeld where Jerry tells this to George, and to test this theory George asks for $20 from Jerry and then proceeds to throw it out the window. Jerry is angry for only a second, because as he is putting on a jacket he hasn’t worn in months he finds a twenty dollar bill in the pocket. He broke even.

I have had this happen to me all my life. I could take this last $100 and put it all on red and lose it only to wake up tomorrow morning and somehow come into another $100.

I had accepted “breaking even” as my fate, but no more. It is because I have created this reality, and accepted it as my reality. I have set a ceiling on the rewards I can expect in my life and because of that it has been virtually impossible for me to just move beyond breaking even.

If I would lose a job, I would gain a job. No real increase in pay, no real increase in duties, no gain in experience, I would just move laterally from one place of employment to another. This could be applied across my entire life. Lose a friend, gain a friend. Lose a car, gain a car. Always breaking even.

I accept the responsibility I play in my life, so now instead of telling people I break even, I will now tell them, “Money comes easily, and often.”

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“Everybody’s talking at me.
I don’t hear a word they’re saying,
Only the echoes of my mind.
People stopping staring,
I can’t see their faces,
Only the shadows of their eyes.”

Growing up I saw a movie that had such a huge impact on me that to this day when I watch it I hope the ending changes.  That movie was Midnight Cowboy and starred Jon Voight as naive cowboy turned gigolo Joe Buck, and Dustin Hoffman as  “Ratso” Rizzo a sickly flim flam man aspiring to be Joe’s pimp.
These two misfits fail in their attempts at improving on their lot in life as Joe works the streets while Ratso daydreams of riches, and beautiful women awaiting him on the sunny beaches of Miami.

Ratso’s health continues to decline as they finally gather enough money to get off of the dank, dirty streets of New York.  They hop a bus to Florida, and as they cross the state line Joe nudges Ratso to awaken him but gets no response because Ratso has finally succumbed to whatever it is that ails him. While at times their relationship is rocky, after all the pain, all the mistrust each has had to overcome these two realise they don’t have much else in this world, and you can see how much Joe truly cares for his friend as he puts his arm around him, holds him gently and brushes the hair out of his eyes, while Harry Nilsson’s song plays hauntingly in the background once again.

This is the ending I am always hoping that changes when I watch this movie.  I want to see Joe and Ratso make it to Florida, I want to see them live the life they dreamt of.  But in the thirty years I have watched this film time and time again the ending hasn’t changed yet.

I guess what disturbs me most is I identify with these two characters a great deal.  I tend to identify with many misfits, maybe I see a bit of myself in them and their plight.  I also dream of better things for myself, a better life, and while I am no where near perfect and often make mistakes, I am not a bad guy.  I am a “misfit.”  I don’t fit in.

“I’m going where the sun keeps shining
Thru’ the pouring rain,
Going where the weather suits my clothes,
Backing off of the North East wind,
Sailing on summer breeze
And skipping over the ocean like a stone.”

I am sure you are wondering how this ties in with poker.  I guess it’s an analogy on my life, and how I got to where I am today, and how I wonder why I didn’t get to this point sooner.  You can also safely assume it’s a deeper look at my personal fears on how my life’s movie will end, fearing I will die on a greyhound bus before I get to my Florida.

What is “my Florida.”  It has been many things in my life but has changed as I have changed, as I have grown from a boy into a man.  As a child it was what i wanted to be when I grew up, as an adolescent it might have meant wealth and fame, but as I have matured and learned that riches don’t always begin with dollar signs, or equal the amount of “toys” I have accumulated it’s importance has taken on a deeper meaning.

“My Florida” now as I enter what is hopefully the half time of my life now includes my legacy.  What is more important now is what impact, and what imprint will I have left on this planet and the people I have known, have I made a difference or have I wasted what precious little time we are given on selfish endeavors?

“I won’t let you leave my love behind”

That last scene in my life has not been shot yet, there is no fade to black and the credits have not started rolling but I am in the third act.  The movie has been cast, the screenplay has been written although it is not in it’s final draft, changes are made daily.  When it’s all said and done, and my movie is in the can I often wonder if I will win an Oscar for my hard work, or maybe a Golden Globe.  Who the hell am I kidding?  I would settle for an MTV Movie Award but will probably get a Golden Raspberry.

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