Sunday, March 26, 2017

Get Your "Buts" Out of the Way...

Started thinking more about this and how it relates to the Law of Attraction after writing it this morning... Those additional thoughts are in red...
43 years ago, an 18 year old, audience member at a comedy club... Was thinking how great it would be to do stand-up comedy for a living...
That 18 year old with no direction also thought enlisting in the Navy would be a good idea... Three years later as a 21 year old he did... Turning 22 in boot camp... Law of Attraction???
36 years ago, he was aboard a submarine on a six-month West-Pac deployment... Reading Louie L’amour novels as fast as he could... Dreaming about getting out and disappearing into the mountains out west... Alone!!!
Sharing his thoughts of living alone in the mountains with a shipmate, one day.... The shipmate replied that it would never happen... To paraphrase him... “The world will suck you into the system”, he said...  
It did for more than 20 more years...
15 years ago, as a 46 year old, he finally found out how great it was to do stand-up comedy... Law of Attraction??? A dream fulfilled...
10 years ago, he left the "system" and a shitty stress filled, health destroying, career with a death sentence work schedule...
Pursuing comedy almost full time the next three years... Finding out comedy on-stage is great... While the business side of comedy sucked...
7 years ago, he made “the mistake” of returning to the “system” and his previous shitty stress filled, health destroying, career with a death sentence work schedule... Just like a bad relationship it wasn't any better than it was before... He was just older and even less willing to put up with the bullshit...
4 years ago, he left a shitty loveless hate filled 10 year relationship... Why it even started, let alone why it lasted that long is a subject left for a NEVER day... Who cares... He knows why... No need to share it here... He’s just thankful to be rid of it...
He would have been willing to die to escape the career and relationship mistakes...
While moving to Idaho had seemed like a mistake, it proved to play a big part in changing his life... NO, our hero did NOT turn Mormon... But looking back he is filled with gratitude and gratefulness for the REAL people who have become an important of his life...    
3 and a half years ago, he left the “system” and the stress filled health destroying career with the death sentence work schedule for the second time...
He was Overweight and Under happy... He had High Blood Pressure... High Cholesterol... And High Anger about it all...
Intending to chase his comedy dreams once again... He found something much better...
Alone with his dogs on the beach in California... Alone in the desert and mountains of California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Colorado and finally New Mexico... It dawned on him... What he had spoken to a shipmate 36 years prior had finally come to be manifested... He was alone... The Law of Attraction???
There was time to clear his head... Time to figure out who he was again before the “system” and bad relationships told him he was supposed to be someone else...
Today he is who he was again and he feels good... Happy and grateful...
Six weeks ago, he turned 61 years old... Today after just getting off the scale he is 35 pounds lighter and down to 17% BF... Happy and grateful to be... Happier than he has ever been... Healthier than he has been in a long time... No High Blood Pressure... No High Cholesterol... No High Anger...
And the Old Bastard just did 66 push-ups...
Have the last 3 and a half years always been easy??? No... But there was also time to meet some wonderful people who never asked him to be anything other than himself... People who extended helping hands to him while on his journey asking nothing in return...
Have they been worth it??? Absolutely...
If you want to change your life... Stop complaining about it... Get your "Buts" about why you can't change it out of the way...  Be grateful and CHANGE IT!!!

Friday, March 3, 2017

Into the Mountains I Went...


For whoever wants to save their life will lose it... Luke 9:24

November 2013... It was time to honor a decision made many years earlier... The peace I had made with a career I hated more than 10 years earlier had been stolen by chaos and drama... Chaos and drama I had opened my door and let in because I had taken my eyes off the prize... Now more than 2000 miles from that place of peace on the lake in NY...

Already rid of the people who lived for the chaos and drama which had stolen it... It was time to lose the chaos and drama they had left behind...

It was finally time to lose once and for all my life with a health robbing career and its death sentence schedule...

It was time to save my life...

It was time to lose my mind and save my soul...

It was time to chase my dream again... A dream I thought I wanted... A dream I had always had... A dream I had started to chase more than 10 years earlier... A dream that had helped make my peace with the career I hated... A dream that had been stolen with the peace it helped bring...  

But a dream I could not chase in good conscience while leaving my three boys behind... Loading them into my RV in August of 2014 and heading to the southern California coast where we’d try to chase it together was difficult... But looking back it was the start of finding something even better...

I won’t rehash the difficulties we faced... I’ll only say thank you to those who helped us through them...

Heading north again the summer of 2015 and spending two months alone with my boys in the mountains I began to find something far better than even the dream I had wanted since high school... I began to find my soul...

Now more than two years later... My soul and my peace has been found again... Peace far better than the peace I lost on the lake in NY... Found on the beaches, mountains, deserts and rivers of California, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado and finally New Mexico...

The boys with me for most of those travels are gone now... Gone but never forgotten... They’ll always be missed... They’ll always be loved...

It’s time to close another chapter... I’ve been to, traveled through, worked and lived in 48 of the 50 states... In less than 2 months I will add another to the list... The RV which has been my home almost exclusively since August of 2014 will be retired the end of April... While still sound enough to be parked and lived in... It needs significant work to keep it safely logging miles on the road...

It will be donated to Fiddler’s Green... A non-profit community in Tularosa, NM providing off the grid housing to homeless US Veteran’s... They are doing a great work and please if anyone would be interested in helping their cause contact me for more information...

Oklahoma... The 49th of the 50 states I have been to, traveled through, worked and lived in will become the new home base... But the adventures will not end...
In many ways, different ones have only just begun... 

A newer RV will soon replace this one... The drama and chaos lost... My mind clear... My soul found... New travels and adventures await and best of all... I am ready and happy to say I won’t be taking them alone...


Stay tuned faithful readers... New adventures await...