Month: June 2008

A New Day

~ Tim ~ Leave a comment

They say we spend about one-third of our lives sleeping. When we sleep, our normal consciousness stops and we spend the night quite un-conscious. Many people think that sleep is a waste of time, seeing it as an interference to their busy important lives. When I was younger I felt pretty much the same, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve been seeing it differently…

Perhaps one of the reasons that we find sunrises and sunsets so beautiful is because they resonate with something deep within our psyche that instinctually reminds us that a “New Day” is about to begin.

When a new day begins, with it comes the fresh opportunity to do the things that we didn’t do yesterday, or to not do today the things that we didn’t want to do yesterday! To some people that can mean a fresh opportunity to start that new book they bought a few months ago, or to sign up for that course they’ve always wanted to take at the community centre, or to start that new diet or exercise plan, or to look for that new job, or to sit down at the computer and write….It can also mean the fresh opportunity to not do some things, like not picking up that first cigarette, or not picking up that first drink, or not criticising our friends or loved ones, or not sabotaging our efforts to achieve our long-held dreams. The choice is ours. Each and every new day gives us an absolutely fresh slate to draw upon. That makes us all artists—artists of our own lives.

You see, we don’t have to carry forward our yesterdays into today. Of course, practically speaking, our environments don’t change–nothing much really changes in our lives and situations over-night. But what can change is our attitude, our outlook, the way that we choose to view the day, because we really are—at least (and thank God)—free to choose how and what to think.

Most of us carry over our yesterdays into our today’s, via our memories. Memories, however, are like books that we don’t have to carry along with us. We can leave them where most of them really belong, on the “MB”, the Memory-Bookshelf of our brains, just as we leave our real books on the book-shelf in our homes. That might sound a bit trite and simplistic, and you are absolutely right, it is! That is the absolute beauty of it.

We are free to choose the books—the memories, or at least our response or attitudes towards the memories—that we want to carry along with us in the backpacks or briefcases of our consciousness, each  and every new day.

I’m not talking about motivation. I’m talking about the freedom to choose and that is what gives me hope when I go to sleep at night, that tomorrow I can start again, or excitedly carry on, even, with the things that I finally started yesterday! New day, new deal. A new opportunity to be the person I am and was meant to be.

And so can you! What you think, you are! Tomorrow really is a brand new day. Think about that.

For more about who I think YOU are, be sure to visit the “Who are YOU?” page.

Life’s little blessings

~ Tim ~ Leave a comment

Just as I’m celebrating the long-time coming birth of this blog, another REAL birth-to-be, presents itself–literally.

Indeed, within minutes of writing my first blog entry I checked my email. There, was a message from my son, announcing that I’m going to be a grand-father, now for the second time . Their first child, beautiful “Aria”, now 4 years ago, made me a grand-father for the first time. That was an incredible experience, feeling my life suddenly extended beyond my own children. One of my own children was having one of his own. In the process I took on the additional role/tile of being more than just a father, becoming a “Grand-father” (although it’s probably quite debatable just how “grand” I’ve really been…..)

This time, with the soon-to-arrive birth of my second grand-child, the feeling is a little bit different. I’m not acquiring a new role or title this time; once a grand-father, always a grand-father, regardless of the number of grand-children. Instead, I feel like—lets call it the “Chain of Life”, has been extended from me by yet another link. That knowledge, that feeling, is certainly as much rewarding as the first time around. It’s certainly made my day, if not my month, and perhaps my year. In fact, I’m counting it as one of “Life’s little blessings”, thank you to my son and daughter-in-law, Jeremy and Robyn.

“Life’s little blessings”, don’t come around very often. That’s why we call them “Blessings”. Blessings, although originally a religious term, have in common day culture and parlance become simply representative of really good things happening to us, regardless of the source. Credit can be given officially to “God” for the religious folks, or more commonly today for the not-so-religious, given just about as officially to, “The Universe”.

Wherever they come from, they are blessings because they make us quite happy. We really enjoy having them! Perhaps their rarity gives them their uniqueness. Whatever their source or nature, they are certainly “blessed” to have and—I will now challenge the reader—even more blessed to give!

Quite complicated…

~ Tim ~ Leave a comment

Welcome!

My site has been back online for a couple of weeks and I have yet to start the blog, until today. I started out trying to use a “CMS” (Content Management System) program called “Drupal” for creating the site, but that was way to complicated for me, so I switched to this CMS program, “WordPress”, which is easier to learn than Drupal…but…

Well, I really wanted to tweak the design of the site a bit before starting to post, but like most things in life, to “tweak the design” is not very simple, in fact it’s bloody complicated. It requires knowing quite a lot about website programming details….thinks like HTML, CSS, PHP, YUCK…

So, I’ve given up trying to figure all of that out before starting to write/blog. In fact, I may even give up trying to figure out WordPress altogether and go back, tail between my legs, to dear-ol’ Microsoft’s product, “Expression Web”, their modern day equivalent to “Front Page”, which I originally used to design my site back in 2001. Granted, I purchased and read the 400+ page textbook for that program, but it did seem easier to figure out than this….We’ll see.

My whole experience here serves to beautifully illustrate one of life’s “Truism’s” (a self-evident, obvious truth, according to Dictionary.com) in an Industrialized culture; few things worth doing are simple, most things require plain ol’ hard work, time and energy to accomplish. Few people make that effort, which is why there is lots of room at the top, if that’s where one wants to be…(more about the “if” later).

So there you go, that’s the first blog entry done, finally. Feels good. Thanks for reading.