Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

How To Simulate Being A Sailor

Any I still miss this ... some day. B-)

Buy a steel dumpster, paint it gray inside and out, and live in it for six months.

Run all the pipes and wires in your house exposed on the walls.

Repaint your entire house every month.

Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of the bathtub and move the shower head to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you turn off the water while you soap down.

Put lube oil in your humidifier and set it on high.

Once a week, blow compressed air up your chimney, making sure the wind carries the soot onto your neighbor's house. Ignore his complaints.

Once a month, take all major appliances apart and then reassemble them.

Raise the thresholds and lower the headers of your front and back doors, so that you either trip or bang your head every time you pass through them.

Disassemble and inspect your lawnmower every week.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, turn your water heater temperature up to 200 degrees. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, turn the water heater off. On Saturdays and Sundays tell your family they use too much water during the week, so no bathing will be allowed.

Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling, so you can't turn over without getting out and then getting back in.

Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have your spouse whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and say "Sorry, wrong rack".

Make your family qualify to operate each appliance in your house - dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc.

Have your neighbor come over each day at 5 am, blow a whistle so loud Helen Keller could hear it, and shout "Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out and trice up".

Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in your back yard at 6 a.m. while she reads it to you.

Submit a request chit to your father-in-law requesting permission to leave your house before 3 pm.

Empty all the garbage bins in your house and sweep the driveway three times a day, whether it needs it or not.

Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item before delivering it to you.
Watch no TV except for movies played in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch, then show a different one.

When your children are in bed, run into their room with a megaphone shouting that your home is under attack and ordering them to their battle stations.

Make your family menu a week ahead of time without consulting the pantry or refrigerator.

Post a menu on the kitchen door informing your family that they are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for an hour. When they finally get to the kitchen, tell them you are out of steak, but they can have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they ignore the menu and just ask for hot dogs.

Bake a cake. Prop up one side of the pan so the cake bakes unevenly. Spread icing real thick to level it off.

Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread.

Set your alarm clock to go off a random during the night. At the alarm, jump up and dress as fast as you can, making sure to button your top shirt button and tuck your pants into your socks. Run out into the back yard and uncoil the garden hose.

Every week or so, throw your cat or dog in the pool and shout "Man overboard port side!" Rate your family members on how fast they respond.

Put the headphones from your stereo on your head, but don't plug them in. Hang a paper cup around your neck on a string. Stand in front of the stove, and speak into the paper cup "Stove manned and ready". After an hour or so, speak into the cup again "Stove secured." Roll up the headphones and paper cup and stow them in a shoebox.

Place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have your family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 4 hour intervals. This is best done when the weather is worst. January is a good time.

When there is a thunderstorm in your area, get a wobbly rocking chair, sit in it and rock as hard as you can until you become nauseous. Make sure to have a supply of stale crackers in your shirt pocket.

For former engineers: bring your lawn mower into the living room, and run it all day long.

Make coffee using eighteen scoops of budget priced coffee grounds per pot, and allow the pot to simmer for 5 hours before drinking.

Have someone under the age of ten give you a haircut with sheep shears.

Sew the back pockets of your jeans on the front.

Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go to the scummiest part of town. Find the most run down, trashiest bar, and drink beer until you are hammered. Then walk all the way home.

Take a two week vacation visiting the red light districts of Europe or the Far East, and call it "world travel".

Lock yourself and your family in the house for six weeks. Tell them that at the end of the 6th week you are going to take them to Disney World for "liberty". At the end of the 6th week, inform them the trip to Disney World has been canceled because they need to get ready for an inspection, and it will be another week before they can leave the house

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Merry-go-round

I began to feel like a clown juggling too many balls.

Each ball represented a problem I was keeping up in the air.

My arms were weary and I knew I couldn't keep on much longer,but I was not about to give up.

My pride and ego wouldn't let me.

Bosses, judges, co-workers, lawyers, car notes, bar tabs, loan sharks, utility payments, landlords, my girlfriend, people I had double-crossed -- I looked to all these as the source of my problems, while overlooking the most basic problem:
my drinking and myself.

I'd known for a long time that I desperately wanted off this merry-go-round,
but I had no idea how to do it.
-- Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 506



Swallowing my pride will not get me drunk.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Facts of Life ... B-)


Cats chase birds. It's what cats do.
Guys want to get laid. It's what guys do.
Bakers sell pastries. It's what bakers do.
Banks loan money. It's what banks do.
Developers build housing. It's what developers do.

And cats will keep chasing birds,
guys will take all they can get,
bakers will sell all they can,
bankers will push as much money out the door as they can,
and developers will take all the money they can get and build all the housing they can.

In the old days, it was up to the birds,
the women and the banks to say no.
But women don't get diamonds and jewelry for saying no.
Banks don't make profits by hoarding excess cash.

One day, dawn breaks.
The girl gets pregnant,
the housing market gets overbuilt, and
banks get stuck with huge nonperforming loans.

The devil has taken tomorrow,
tomorrow has become today, and
now there's hell to pay.

So whom do you want to blame?
The cat?
Hormones?
Pastries?
Banks?
Developers?

No, bunkie.
We meet the enemy every day.
He's in our mirror, and the joy ride is over.

And so we cry out to the government to save us from ourselves.
Better we should apply to the devil.
The terms are better.

B-)

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Life

Look not on life as a person would watch a play on the stage.
Rather look upon it as a student who is learning at college.
It is not a passing show; it is not a place of amusement in which to fool our life away.
It is a place for study, in which every sorrow, every heartbreak brings a precious lesson.
It is a place in which to learn by one's own suffering, by the study of the suffering of others; to learn from the people who have been kind to us as well as from the people who have been unkind.
It is a place in which all experiences, be they disappointments, struggles, and pains, or joys, pleasures, and comforts, contribute to the understanding of what life is, and the realization what it is.
-- Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Saturday, October 10, 2009

The Purpose Of Life


By Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan:

As to the religion and the moral of the mystic, the mystic has one moral and that is love.

And he has one aim in his religion and that is to make a God a reality.

Therefore, his God becomes a greater God than the God of millions of people who only imagine that there is a God somewhere.

To him God is a reality.

The work of the inner life is to make God a reality, so that He is no more an imagination; that this relationship that man has with God may seem more real than any other relationship in the world; and when this happens, then all relationships, however near and dear, become less binding.

But at the same time, a person does not thus become cold; he becomes more loving. It is the godless man who is cold, impressed by the selfishness and lovelessness of the world, because he partakes of those conditions in which he lives.

But the one who is in love with God, the one who has established his relationship with God, his love becomes living ...

Why is it that among simple and illiterate people a belief in God is to be found, and among the most intellectual, there seems to be a lack of that belief?

The answer is that the intellectual ones have their reason.

They will not believe in what they do not see...

But the process that the wise consider best for the seeker after truth to adopt is the process of first idealizing God and then realizing God.

Among millions of believers in God, there is hardly one who makes God a reality, to so many He is an imagination, to many He is in a mosque, a church, or a temple.

Many wonder if God is really.

Many others think God is goodness, He is a personality separate from us, He is most high, most pure, most beautiful, but He is separate and difficult to reach.

Many think that as it takes so long to reach this planet or that, God must be further away still.

The purpose of one's whole life is to make God a reality.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Moments


Happy moments, PRAISE GOD. 

Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.

Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD. 

Painful moments, TRUST GOD. 

Every moment, THANK GOD.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Permanent

There is nothing permanent except change.
--Heraclitus

Nobody knows how to do life perfectly - 
that's why we need our Higher Power to guide us.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Perspective

Your perspective will change your perception.

Your perception will change your experience.

Your experience is your life.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

My Life = My Thoughts

The universe is transformation;
our life is what our thoughts make it.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

 

It's awesome, the power I wield in the life that unfolds before me.

My dreams shine like beacons in the dimness of my mind.

Just as my thoughts can nurture positive experiences and outcomes, negative episodes might be drawn to me, too.

I can be sure, though, that I use this individual power to create the flavor of each day as it's met.

My attitude is the by-product of my thoughts.

It is in my attitude that I discover strength or weakness, hope or anxiety, determination or frustration.

Alone, I determine whether my attitude will be loving or jaundiced.

The breadth of personal power is awesome.

Today will be what I choose to make it.

No more and no less.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Keeping It Together


 

We can only survive our world when we trust that God knows us more intimately than we know ourselves.

We can only keep it together when we believe that God holds us together.

We can only win our lives when we remain faithful to the truth that every little part of us, yes, every hair, is completely safe in the divine embrace of our Lord.

To say it differently: When we keep living a spiritual life, we have nothing to be afraid of.

Henri Nouwen

Monday, July 28, 2008

Step Eleven

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Step Eleven of AA

 

God, help me let go of my fears about living life one day at a time.

Help me trust that when life is lived simply and in trust, a beautiful mosaic called "my life" will be woven.

I am being divinely led, guided, and cared for.

 

~~~ @@ ~~~

 

Monday, June 30, 2008

Shepherd Me, O God Prayer


 

Shepherd me, O God,
beyond my wants,
beyond my fears,
from death into life.

 

God is my shepherd,
so nothing shall I want,
I rest in the meadows of faithfulness and love,
I walk by the quiet waters of peace.

 

Shepherd me, O God,
beyond my wants,
beyond my fears,
from death into life.

 

Gently you raise me and heal my weary soul,
you lead me by pathways of righteousness and truth,
my spirit shall sing the music of your Name.

 

Shepherd me, O God,
beyond my wants,
beyond my fears,
from death into life.

 

Though I should wander the valley of death,
I fear no evil,
for you are at my side, your rod and
your staff, my comfort and my hope.

 

Shepherd me, O God,
beyond my wants,
beyond my fears,
from death into life.

 

You have set me a banquet of love in the face of hatred,
crowning me with love beyond my power to hold.

 

Shepherd me, O God,
beyond my wants,
beyond my fears,
from death into life.

 

Surely your kindness and mercy follow me all the days of my life;
I will dwell in the house of my God forevermore.

 

Shepherd me, O God,
beyond my wants,
beyond my fears,
from death into life.


Based on Psalm 23

 

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Highest Appreciation


As we express our gratitude,
we must never forget that the highest appreciation
is not to utter words, but to live by them.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Conscious Creation

The First Moments Of The Day

The moment during the day when we very first open our eyes and come into consciousness is a precious opportunity.
It sets the tone for all that comes after it, like the opening scene in a film or novel.
At this moment, our ability to create the day is at its most powerful, and we can offer ourselves fully to the creative process by filling this moment with whatever inspires us most.
It may be that we want to be more generous, or it may be that we want to be more open to beauty in our daily lives.
Whatever the case, if we bring this vision into our minds at this very fertile moment, we empower it to be the guiding principle of our day.

Sometimes we wake up with a mood already seemingly in place, and it’s important to give this feeling its due.
It can inform us and deepen our awareness to what’s going on inside us, as well as around us.
As long as we are conscious, we can honor this feeling and also introduce our new affirmation or vision, our conscious offering to the day.
We may want to decide before we go to sleep what we want to bring to the next day of our lives.
It could be that we simply want to be more open to whatever comes our way.
Or we may want to summon a particular quality such as confidence.
Then again, we may simply call up a feeling that perfectly captures the texture we want our day to have.

We can reaffirm our vision or affirmation as we shower and eat breakfast, as well as recalling it at various times throughout the day.
We can write it down and carry it with us on a little slip of paper if this helps.
Simply by being aware of those first moments, we set the stage for a more conscious, enlivened experience, and we become active participants in the creation of our lives.

DailyOM

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Life’s Journey

Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave
safely in a well preserved body.

But rather to skid in sideways,
totally worn out, shouting
“holy shit . . . what a ride!”

Monday, March 31, 2008

Preventing Worry Nests

That the birds of worry and care
fly about your head
This you cannot change
But that they build nests in your hair
This you can prevent.
Chinese Proverb
Today I replace my worry with
trust and faith in my ability
to use my resources to
face whatever life brings me.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Game Of Life

The game of life is not so much in
holding a good hand as
playing a poor hand well.
--H. T. Leslie

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Be Yourself

Often we want to be somewhere other than where we are, or even to be someone other than who we are.
We tend to compare ourselves constantly with others and wonder why we are not as rich, as intelligent, as simple, as generous, or as saintly as they are.
Such comparisons make us feel guilty, ashamed, or jealous.
It is very important to realize that our vocation is hidden in where we are and who we are.
We are unique human beings, each with a call to realize in life what nobody else can, and to realize it in the concrete context of the here and now.

We will never find our vocations by trying to figure out whether we are better or worse than others.
We are good enough to do what we are called to do.
Be yourself!

-- Henri Nouwen

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Stay Close To Love

Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
love is knowing I am everything,
and between the two my life moves.
-- Nisargadatta Maharaj

And while you're living, stay as close to love as you can.
-- Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Vulnerable, Like A Bird

Life is precious.
Not because it is unchangeable, like a diamond, but because it is vulnerable, like a little bird.
To love life means to love its vulnerability, asking for care, attention, guidance, and support.
Life and death are connected by vulnerability.
The newborn child and the dying elder both remind us of the preciousness of our lives.
Let's not forget the preciousness and vulnerability of life during the times we are powerful, successful, and popular.

-- Henri Nouwen