Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are, for it shows me what your ideal of manhood is and what kind of man you long to be - Thomas Carlyle

As stated in a previous post, that I was going back to basics when it came to pursuing my goals.  I am still working on those small goals, but more importantly, I have been trying to become really clear on who is it I choose to be.  If I will just be that man, the goals where I am trying to achieve wealth in all areas of my life will come, and a lot sooner.

So each night, before I go to bed I write down the things I choose and believe, these are the things that make me the kind of man I choose to be.

• I choose to have strong boundaries
• I choose to be strong emotionally
• I choose to be unaffected by people’s and life’s tests.
• I choose to accept the “what is” in every situation.
• I choose to believe the Universe is a friendly place, and I believe it conspires for me.
• I choose abundance.
• I choose to believe I am blessed with all I want and more.
• I choose to believe I am a cause, I create my own reality.
• I choose love, I accept all with open arms.
• I choose an internal frame of reference.
• I choose optimism.
• I choose to evolve consciously.
• I choose long term success.
• I choose risk.  I win big, and lose small.
• I choose change.
• I choose uncertainty.
• I choose to grow.
• I choose to know and accept myself.
• I choose to accept, integrate and transcend all.
• I choose excellence.
• I choose to let things go to make room for the new.
• I choose to play big.
• I choose to enjoy the paradox.
• I choose to learn.
• I choose to invest.
• I choose fulfillment.
• I choose win/win.
• I choose to understand.
• I choose to give first.
• I choose honesty.
• I choose integrity.
• I choose to learn, to teach, and mentor others.
• I choose to be successful by helping others to be successful.
• I choose to surround myself with success.
• I choose to do it the best way.
• I choose to work on the system.

Most importantly, at the end of my list I write in big letters across the page… “I CHOOSE ME FIRST!” and then I sign it.

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Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. - Kahlil Gibran

As the title says, I am sort of back.  About 6 or 7 months ago someone special entered my life and I grew to love her as deeply as she did me.  The only problem was, I began to love her more than I did myself, and once I did that, that is when I ventured off my course, and my life was soon out of balance. Her happiness became more important than my own, and because of that I lost her.  I was no longer that same man she fell in love with, I in fact had regressed to a version of my former self, a self that I had hoped was long dead and buried.

She often told me that she couldn’t understand how “she got me,” how she was so lucky to have me in her life.  In my mind, it was I who was the lucky one.  I told her on more than one occasion that there was a reason our paths crossed, that there was a reason for our meeting.  I still believe that to this day there was a reason for us to have come together at that particular place in time, lessons to be learned.  To say I learned a lot of valuable lessons during that time is an understatement.  I am sad and heartbroken that those lessons had to be learned on someone so special.  I wish I could have been a better man at times, a better friend and didn’t need to learn anymore lessons in life, and then we could have spent the rest of our lives just enjoying each other as we often talked about.  But that of course was not how it turned out.

One very important lesson I learned during all of this, is no matter what, you always have to love yourself first.  If you can’t love yourself first, then you’re just not going to really be able to love others in a manner that would be considered the healthiest way of loving.  If you love yourself first, while some of the choices you make may upset those you love, if they truly love you, they will only respect and love you even more.

Another lesson I learned is no matter how much someone may want you to, you just can’t fix others.  At one time, she had told me that my song was “Fix you,” by the group Coldplay.  She told me she needed me in her life, she needed someone to fix her.  In the end I came to realize, that this only causes resentment.

Lots of painful lessons to be learned, but valuable lessons that I will hopefully carry forth into the future so as more special people cross my path, I don’t make the same mistakes I did with her.  It is over, as well as it should be, and it is for the best.  I will forever be grateful for the time I had with her, I will be a better man for having known her.

Where do I go now?  Where any sports team goes when they lose focus, back to the basics.  I am starting over at square one.  I sat down and just mediated on my life for a bit, and took stock of where I am, and how things are going.  I then wrote out some goals for this next week, nothing big and audacious, I just need to get back to that version of me that could find happiness wherever he looked, that found the lesson, and the gratitude in all things, that version of me that continuously attracted so many blessings into my life.  These goals are real simple, just things to tune up the mind, and get my energy flowing in the right direction again.  So here’s what I came up with…

1. Expressing gratitude daily - Whether out loud or on my blog, I need to get back to looking for those things in my life to be grateful for, and there are so many.
2. Daily affirmations - These are a vital tool to keeping the mind focused on the best possible version of me, that I can be.
3. Exercise - I just gotta get moving again.
4. Spiritual Diet - Music, books, movies, t.v., even friends, If it doesn’t feed my mind, my heart, or my soul, then I don’t want it in my life.
5. De-Clutter - Both my bedroom, and my car became a physical manifestation of how chaotic and imbalanced my life had become.  If your physical surroundings are cluttered, then so is your mind, which makes it very difficult to make sound, reasonable choices.

These are my only goals for now.  Until I get myself back on track, a week is long term for me.  I will focus on these goals this week, and continue to do so until they become habit.  Once they become habit, and I have realigned myself with the true desires of my heart, I will begin to bring back those big audacious goals into my life.

Thanks as always for taking the time to stop by and read…

Cary

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I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that deep within you don’t know already. All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten - Eckhart Tolle The Power of Now

Here lately when it comes to the lessons I am learning in life I am often finding myself asking God, “Didn’t we already cover this in an earlier chapter?” But then here comes a pop test, and I quickly realize I have forgotten some very important parts of that assignment.

Over the past couple of months, knowing in the back of my mind I would begin to create my exit strategy from Starbucks in the first weeks of 2009, I began to grow frustrated.  Some people call it “short timer’s syndrome.”  I was ready to go, in fact I still am, my desires in life have not changed, but an earlier lessons began to unfold before me again, and this time I’m starting to see there were more layers to this lesson than I had noticed before.

A huge part of my frustration comes from wondering why I am still at Starbucks, how come I haven’t moved on, and how come magical doors have not been opened to me.  WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO LEARN FROM THIS?!

I know one of the reasons I got my job at Starbucks was to get over my ego and understanding that a job making fancy named latte’s was not below me.  I learned that lesson.  Honest work is good, no matter what the job is, do your job well, and do it with pride.  Okay class is over, promote me now.

But as I have meditated over these thoughts, wrote in my journal, prayed nightly, it all began to come together yesterday.  There was more to that lesson, much more.  As I sat outside in my truck eating my lunch, I watched people going in and out of Vons when a co-worker caught my attention.  I asked myself “Is he happy with where he was in life?”  Looking from the outside, not really knowing what he was thinking he seemed to be happy.  But of course looks can be deceiving.  I then began to wonder what brought him here to this point in his life and would he be like so many others at Vons and work there most, if not all of his adult life.  Well lunch was over, my answers didn’t come to me then, but it sure did get the ball rolling.

That same afternoon, I was driving over to Jim’s house to meet with him and Denny.  I decided to take all surface streets across Vegas, I didn’t feel like messing with all of the freeway construction near the strip and downtown.  So in order to pass the time, I strapped on my headphones and began to crank out some tunes.  I love to drive, especially when I am not in a rush to get anywhere because in my car I seemed to get inspired, and the thoughts just come rolling in.

As I drove down Durango and was beginning to cross the 215 where two lanes merge into one, I saw in my side mirror an Escalade roaring up behind me, and they were going to disrupt the flow of traffic and instead of taking their proper turn and getting in behind me, they were going to try to pass me on the right.  Well my heart began to race a bit and my foot hit the gas and I sped up just enough to thwart their plans.  The Escalade was forced in behind me and what I saw in the rearview mirror was quite ridiculous.  At the wheel of this very pretty piece of machinery was a forty plus year woman who was clearly hanging onto her twenties a lot harder than her steering wheel.  In fact she wasn’t holding onto the steering wheel at all.  She was talking on her cell phone, which was held onto her shoulder by her chin, and both hands were in the air and she was dancing in her seat.  There apparently was a rave party going on in the vehicle behind me.

Of course the absurdity of the situation made me laugh, and that’s when I realized during that moment I wasn’t any better.  Who am I to police the world?  Why did I find it necessary to make someone else follow my imagined set of road etiquette  rules?  Even if I attempted to explain this imaginary set of rules to this lady she just was not going to get it.  So I told myself to just chill out, relax there is no hurry,” you are in the right place, at the right time.”

> Insert sound of a record player coming to a scratching halt<

I had a huge moment of clarity here.  I began to understand why I am still at this place in my life, wherever that is, because it is the right place at the right time.  In five minutes from now, in thirty seconds from now, when I complete this sentence, whatever happens good or bad, I will be in the right place at the right time.  There is a lesson to be learned from each second we have in this physical form that we have chosen to manifest ourselves, and that is very simply put, what time is it?  The time is NOW.  I must quit worrying about tomorrow, and focus on this keystroke, focus on this breath, and detach myself from the outcome because the future will arrive when the time is right, and wherever I am, I will BE.

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I just completed an overnight sleep study and as I was driving home I began to contemplate and meditate on different aspects of my life such as accomplishments, goals, and challenges that lie ahead.

One of my biggest hurdles right now is that I know where I am headed, I can see the steps, but a few of those steps require me to pull the trigger and make some decisions where the only thing that holds me back right now is fear.

One of those decisions is that it is time for me to leave my comfy world at Starbucks.  While Starbucks has provided a great place for learning, growing, and security, it is knowing that I applied that last word, “security,” to one of the most insecure things in life that causes me great distress.  A job has never, nor will it ever be security.  A job is only there for me, when I am there for it.  The moment I cease to be, the moment it ceases to be.  In other words, as long as I remain as healthy as I can be, that job will be there for me.  As long as my superiors continue to appreciate my efforts, that job will be there for me.  But to everything there is a season, and the sun will not always shine, there will come at some point a long hard winter, and maybe a few thunderstorms and eventually my season at Starbucks may change, and I may no longer be the fair headed wunderkind that is looked upon with favor.

I am still grateful for my job, especially in such a time of economic turmoil that has devestated a lot of families.  I pray that this is the economic bottom, and if anything, over the next couple of years we will only plateau, or begin our rise again.  So while I do feel grateful, I also feel a load of guilt for wanting to move on, and not just guilt for wanting to give up the job, but I also feel guilt because I am taking up an opportunity, a blessing for somebody else who maybe wants a career with Vons or Starbucks, while my stay is only temporary.

But in the end, it is those two words that haunt me.  Job security.  It is job security that has stopped people from growing, learning, loving, and living their life’s purpose.  It is job security that has kept people from realizing their life’s dreams.  One of my dearest friends may not have realized the level of success she has experienced, if she had not turned her back on the security of a government job.  That one step in faith, has lead her on a journey around the world.

Me, I have been a victim of my own fears for so long, and I don’t believe getting over a fear can be done by slowly peeking my head out to see if the coast is clear.  The question I must ask my self is, when is NOW the right time?

Stay tuned, this year will be an interesting one.

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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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