Category Archives: Uncategorized

Here in the United States we like to say we live in the greatest country in the world. I believe that this is indeed the case, but nothing lasts forever. We have operated for over two centuries with the idea that the USA will last forever, so we can do whatever we please and all will be forgiven. In the meantime, we have charged up those credit cards, both personal and national, lived outside of our means, and said “screw it” I’ll pay for that tomorrow.

I’m as guilty as the next guy, probably more so. I have built up sizable debt and it has cost me dearly. For close to fifty years I have spared myself no indulgence. I have been hedonistic and selfish, just like my country. And finally my empire failed.

A wise young man put it into perspective the other day. Empires have failed throughout history. It is a never-ending cycle. The great civilizations of the world have all failed at some point. That point was usually when they lost their focus on what they were built upon, whether it was religion or ideology. As the focus wanes, the greed, hubris and hedonism sets in. Down goes the empire.

The United States has never been an empire in the classic sense of the word. We have been more of a shadow empire, dabbling in nation-building and propping up one strongman over another in the interest of what is good for US. Saddam Hussein is the classic example of this. We pick a winner and then make sure they win, throwing in as much money as it takes to get it done.. We give billions of dollars to “friendly” foreign dictators each year. We need to turn off the faucet.

The United States of America is turning into a modern-day ruin. Our cities are crumbling and rotting. The area that I live in is known as the rust belt. Buffalo, Detroit, Milwaukee and Cleveland, large cities all, have seen their factories close and their unemployment rates go through the roof. It is estimated that more than half of the black men in Milwaukee were unemployed in 2009. I spent the evening in Dayton, Ohio yesterday. I was stricken with sadness by the picture of huge factories shuttered and decaying. How is it that we have let our cities fail? Plain and simple, we’ve invested in other countries when we should have been investing in ourselves.

We need to get back to the business of being the greatest country in the world. That doesn’t mean that we bail out failing car companies. It means we shift our focus to sustainable business and infrastructure. It means we educate ALL of our children to the best of their abilities and create jobs that can compete with crime as a viable profession for our city kids. We need to rebuild the middle class and address the huge mass of citizens that fall below the poverty line (that line is a discussion for another day). The problem is the people who currently hold the power. Rich folks. Nothing but rich folks.

The conservative right likes to yell really loud about fiscal austerity. What they are really trying to do is destroy the middle class. “Big business will save the country. Just let them do their thing.” Right. Because they’ve done such a great job in the past. American car companies failed because they didn’t evolve. They kept pumping out different versions of the same car year after year. They were overtaken by competitors who used our own technology against us. We innovated and they implemented, making better cars less expensively. It is the same in every industry.

The liberal left is really good at crying too. “Spend spend spend and jobs will happen. They have to.” Right. Not so much. The left did so much crying about their issues that they couldn’t get their agenda completed before they were unseated. “The President isn’t liberal enough.” “He doesn’t support gay marriage.” “He isn’t pro-choice enough.” “He’s too slow on ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.” “He compromised too much.” Are these things really the most important things to fix the country? If not, then why do we waste time with them. I love President Obama, and I think he is absolutely moving in the right direction. His own party is getting in his way. This country will be forever deadlocked if we maintain the status quo. We need a viable third party to break the deadlock. A Moderate Party. A Party of the People.

The Party of the People should be for the people and by the people. It should be dedicated to rebuilding our economy one neighborhood at a time. The Party of the People should be dedicated to Americans helping Americans. The haves helping the have-nots so we evolve into an even greater country where all have a brighter future and share in the bounty. Our cities are screwed, but they are not hopeless. All they need is an investment of time and hard work by all of our citizens. We can rebuild the rust belt and the rest of the country will follow. I talk to these people every night and they are bowed and bent, but certainly not broken.

What we really need to do is get back to basics. Pull back on the foreign aid and nation building. Eliminate weapons programs that are superfluous and redundant. Fix the health care bill to actually make it more efficient and accountable. We spend over forty percent of our money on entitlements that can’t be reduced. Cut down the size of government by ten percent, but do it in increments. Fix the tax code to make it easier to use and also harder to manipulate. It costs way too muck money just to collect the tax every year. I believe that we can balance the budget and start paying down the debt the next five years, but only if we do it strategically.

I’m making it my mission to fix my city. I don’t have two nickels to rub together, but I have broad shoulders. I’m strong and motivated. And I love the sound of my own voice. Beware. I am going to ask you to help.

Until next time,

Brother T

From the day we are born we are flooded with sensations. Assuming that all goes well with the birth, we are place in our mother’s loving arms. We immediately start to bond with her. Over the course of days and weeks we are bombarded with wondrous things. Smiling faces, stroking fingers and the words of loved ones fill our wakeful moments. This is universal, whether you are born in a suburban hospital in middle America or in a wooden and tin hut in one of the poorest slums in the world.

Today I deal in universals. As we begin to grow the wonders of the world keep on coming. For the American kid it comes in the form of toys and playgrounds, sports and music, television and games. For the poor kid the wonders come in the form of natural phenomenon, puddles, grass, dirt and mud, discarded objects and trash, and hopefully a soccer ball or jump rope in the best of times. These two kids live in different universes but they share the one joy of all children, curiosity.

As children we are all bombarded with new things. We sit up on our own for the first time and become cognizant of out surroundings. We notice ordinary things and take pleasure in them. We hear the sounds that people make around us and learn to recognize what they mean. We learn to form words and take wonder in the sounds that we can make. We discover new tastes and smells. We develop our dexterity by first grasping fingers, then objects and finally we can manipulate those objects. We learn to roll over, then crawl and finally take those first tentative steps. This is universal.

As we grow older, we start to recognize the beauty in things. At first it might be our mother’s face. We gradually learn to discern light and color. We hear music for the first time, or the sound of a truck backing up, beep, beep, beep. We jump in a puddle for the first time, luxuriate in the water squishing between our toes. Or we run outdoors for the first time and feel the brisk wind in our hair and whistling in our ears. For the first time we see that little girl or a boy who seems meant for us alone, we love their smile, their eyes or their hair, and we know that they are the most beautiful person in the world. We share that first kiss and we know that this is what life is all about. This is universal.

We grow. Our bodies change and we begin to know longing. Life’s challenges and stresses become tantamount. We begin to plan for our future. We dream of professions, of owning things, of moving off to the big city. We want the next big thing, whether it’s a gaming system or a real soccer ball, a new dress or pair of shoes. We long for things that are realistic and we long for things that are impossible. We continue to experience the joy of new sensations, but that joy is tempered by What Might Be. This is universal.

We become enmeshed in school. We try to decide what we want to be when we grow up. Images flood into our awareness. Movie stars, doctors, lawyers. Gentleman farmers, store owners, taxi drivers. Our dreams narrow into our realistic possibilities. Some of us take the path of least resistance. Others embark on a path to greater things. There is suffering in each path. The easy path to the future might lead to a life of hard work, of necessity rather than luxury. The hard path with start with the hard work and the hard work will continue until late into life. The luxury that is experienced will come at the cost of time and effort. Some will accomplish great things through luck and timing. But most will achieve it day by day, year by year. There are plusses and minuses along the way. This is universal.

We emerge from the exuberant time of youth into the burgeoning time of adulthood. Most of us will still dream. Dreams of a better car, a house in the suburbs, a second degree. Dreams of owning a car, having a job, emigrating to another place for a better life. We save for things, we forego experience of today for the possibility of tomorrow. We settle into a day-by-day grind. We value our off-time above all else. We watch the clock until it’s quitting time. We stop after work to self-medicate. We play with our kids, our pets or the toys that we accumulate. We plan for vacations to “get away from it all.” Because we are adults we forget what was most important to our child-selves, joy, wonder and curiosity.

So I challenge you to search for that feeling again in your life. Break your routine. Find your bliss. Park in the farthest spot in the parking lot at the grocery, or better yet, walk there. Be mindful of your steps and the cool fresh air. Go into the produce section and breathe in the smells of the fruits and vegetables. Do the same in the bakery. Go down to your local waterway and stand, listening to the rushing water and the wind in the trees. Be mindful of the air as it tingles the nerve endings of your exposed skin. Follow the tingles all the way to your heart.

If you are fortunate enough to have a child, look at the world through her eyes. Experience things as she does for the first time. Jump in a mud puddle. Put aside your worries about getting dirty, being presentable. Laugh, just laugh. Turn off the television for a day and read a book. Unplug from the technical world so that you can plug-in to the real world. Find your bliss.

Just find you bliss. You will thank yourself.

I have been contemplating the deep rift that divides our country. It seems as if the United States of America is ideologically divided down the middle. But is it really? Just because we have a conservative base on the right that shouts really loud and a liberal base on the left that shouts really loud. The problem that we have is that the shouters on both sides drown out the majority in the middle. Does that mean that the majority in the middle doesn’t really matter?

I was a Marine. I may have been one of the worst Marines that ever served, but I did my four-year tour in the Marine Corps. I learned about the history of the Marine Corps and my country. I learned how to kill people. Rightly, they determined that I probably shouldn’t have a weapon in my hand. In fact, the only thing that I was ever armed with was a hand-held anemometer, a wind gauge. I was a weatherman. But my brush with the military made me think about peace.

“Cultivate peace first in the garden of your heart by removing the weeds of selfishness and jealousy, greed and anger, pride and ego. Then all will benefit from your peace and harmony.” Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha

That Buddha guy went through some pretty tough transformations on his way to becoming heroic. He started out as a hedonist who was coddled by his parents, protected from the outside world. He was in his twenties before he ever knew sickness, suffering and death. It so affected him that he left his beautiful wife and newborn child in order to get to the bottom of the human condition. He went from having all of his desires sated to living on one grain of rice per day. He was starving to death in search of enlightenment. A young girl with bowl of rice came by and saved his life. The funny part was that his fellow monks shunned him for being so weak. They would rather he died than caved into his human frailty. He took repaired his body and his mind came along for the ride. The rest is 2500 years of history. Which brings us to today.

The enlightenment that the Buddha found was that everything comes from within. We have a well inside of us that runs as deep as an ocean. Magic happens when you tap into that spring. To know yourself, to love yourself, is the key to happiness. It is also the key to peace. Before we can have a societal change away from the wars and the imperial hubris that guides our ideology, we must first know ourselves, love ourselves, and foster peace in our hearts.

You hear it a lot. America is a melting pot. It’s a cliché, but in this one instance it is true. We are Christians and atheists, Catholics and Muslims, Mormons and Wiccans, Jewish and Buddhist, agnostics and Taoists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientologists. If I left anyone out, I’m sorry, but you get the point. Just because we all bow to a different God, or no god at all, just because we read from a different holy scripture, or no scripture at all, that doesn’t mean we don’t all have things in common. We are the stewards of this planet. We are all a part of the same family tree. Whether you believe it goes back to Adam and Eve or Australopithecus afarensis, we can agree on that. So, if we are all a part of the same family, what makes it okay to kill each other?

Nothing. Not land or diamonds or color of skin, not religion or politics or oil or resources. Nothing makes it okay to kill your cousins.

“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Tanka, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this.

“The second peace is that which is made between two individuals, and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men.” Black Elk of the Ogala Sioux (1863-1950)

So it starts with one person. You have the opportunity to grow peace in your heart. And the hearts of your children. You can choose to sharpen your spear with love or with hate. I choose to sharpen mine with love. One person nurtures peace in her heart and shares it with another. And then there are four peaceful hearts and then eight and so on. If everyone evolves the peace in his or her heart there would be no need for war. But it has to start somewhere. Why not here?

I can hear the naysayers shouting already. There are bad people in the world. We need to protect ourselves from them. We need our guns and our planes and our bombs to protect ourselves and our country. But have we really examined what makes the terrorist strap a bomb to himself and kill a bunch of people? What causes a Hitler or a Stalin or a Genghis Khan? I don’t have the answer. But I don’t think it really matters.

The only one you can control is yourself. And this very moment. You can try to push someone in the right direction, order them into whatever form you want them to be. But in the end they will have to buy in to your ideology. And they won’t. That kind of discontent is what starts wars. It is what causes people to shoot up the McDonald’s or their work or their Congresswoman. Better to leave them to their problems and spend your energy worrying about your own.

“Anger is the real destroyer of our good human qualities; an enemy with a weapon cannot destroy these qualities, but anger can. Anger is our real enemy.” The Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama was forced from his homeland in Tibet by a Chinese invasion in 1959. Despite fifty years in exile, he still supports non-violent protest. The images of bald monks and nuns in robes facing the Chinese war machine are burned indelibly in my mind. Yet the Dalai Lama refuses to say he hates the Chinese and says that they could even be friends someday. He keeps peace in his heart 24/7/365. This is a lesson for us all.

There are going to be crappy people in the world. You don’t have to be one of them. You can choose to be peaceful. You can choose to vote for candidates and issues that value peace above all else. You can choose to support companies who believe in peace. Or boycott companies who don’t. You can choose the way your food is grown. You can choose to educate those who will listen. You can choose to protest. But keep peace close to your heart.

So greet each day and each person that you meet with a smile. Start your own personal peace movement. Foster the evolution in your heart. If we all agree to do this, if we refuse to sponsor the war machine, if we reject the empire, it will begin to falter. It may not happen today, or tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean that we should waiver. We should emulate the Dalai Lama, keep peace in our hearts 24/7/365. Start a peace evolution instead of another war. Only then can we make the planet a more peaceful place.

Have you heard about Pecha Kucha Night? If you haven’t then you’ve been missing a lot. Pecha Kucha is a night like no other. Taking place in 230 cities across the world, Pecha Kucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat,” it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It’s a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.

Twenty seconds? Are you kidding me. How can you get a message across in twenty seconds?

Think speed dating . Or better yet, an elevator pitch. You catch the CEO of your dream job in an elevator and you have twenty seconds to make an impression. That is the spirit of Pecha Kucha Night. Except at Pecha Kucha you get twenty chances to get your pitch across.

Last night was the 16th Pecha Kucha Night in my fair city of Columbus, Ohio. A crowd of about 500 was on hand to see eleven of these little “chit chats.” It was awesome. The first presenter was Jeff Sims, the videographer from the host site, Columbus Museum of Art. He specializes in documenting the various installations and guest artists who exhibit at the museum.

Next up were two “friends of friends” Rachel and Heidi from OpenheartArt. They could best be described as creative educators and performers who use music, theatre, and body puppets to teach and inspire kids to live the artful life.

Julia Applegate and Liv Gjestvang gave a funny talk about their two-year quest to get pregnant.

School planner Christian Long gave an inspired presentation about new ideas in school design. The crux is that there is no one cookie-cutter way to teach and learn, classrooms and curriculum should be designed to adapt on the fly to get the most of every minute of face time.

Amy Turn Sharp’s presentation was about keeping the creative flame burning through life’s twists and turns.

Tim Lai talked about the new wave of green architecture. His firm designs one-of-a-kind living and working spaces that balance concept, function and beauty. His work is quite a contrast to the one-size-fits-all standard that has been the trend in building for the last thirty years.

The Columbus Idea Foundry was presented by Alex Bandar. The Foundry offers classes and resources to help everyman conceive and execute a creative project from design to fabrication. They have offered classes in blade-smithing, building a contact microphone, making a mechanical iris, and an upcoming one on sand-casting aluminum. They also put on the Ohio Tool Racing Championships. Wow!

Next up was Marianna Kerppola from the International Design Collaborative and Nationwide. She talked about using social and local networking to foster sustainable micro-enterprises.

The Ely Brothers Photography (Caleb and Levi) gave an inspired talk about starting a business on the cheap. They touched on building websites, business cards, proper cell phone usage, social networking, and bartering on a budget. “I’ll trade some photographs for a new office chair, hint, hint…” was one of the best lines of the night.

Tristan Seufert of the local music dynamo Shin Tower Music talked about the Columbus Music Scene and the possibilities for the future. Tristan spoke to the fact that we all love our city and it is our responsibility to get the word out to the world about our local bands. He suggested that our current brand of collaborating and genre-bending is cutting edge in a world where new music is just a click away. He also pointed to the VIA festival in Pittsburgh as a blueprint for our coming out party.

Last up was the developer of CORNIFY.COM, Christoph Ono. If you don’t know about CORNIFY, you probably will in the near future. It is an innovative website that puts fun on any page you happen to visit. People like unicorns and rainbows. Who knew?

Musical groups WAY YES and the OSU NEW MUSIC COLLECTIVE provided the preshow and intermission entertainment.

Pecha Kucha Nights happen daily all around the world. If you see a PKN pop up on your radar screen stop by and take it in. I guarantee you’ll be amazed and inspired. I know I was.

my fingers play over
scarred bartop
like miles
pressing down on the keys
his horn
moaning and throbbing
painfully
stabbing phrases
through the air
like so many voices
in a gospel choir

bill evans
tinkles the ivory
restrained
and masterful
filling the space
like raindrops
on a warm spring night
while the great man
takes a blow

miles starts in again
sweet sweet horn
taking my breath away
i play with the sweat
on the rocks glass
take a sip
of smoky scotch
inhale a lungful
of kingstown’s finest

i run my fingers
across your bare shoulder
its texture as smooth
as the bartop is rough
hoping i can play you
like miles played that horn
cool and effortless
relentless
through the night

It’s 1959
we aren’t born yet
but miles knew
we’d be listening
played this song for us

best we make the most of it
he’d like that
sketch the dance flamenco
all through the night

a.k.a. the code of honor that I should have lived my life by

I have done a lot of things in my life. I’ve been a Marine and a slacker, a bartender and security guard, a landscaper and Jetski salesman, a supervisor in retail and a long, long time restaurant manager. I have had some brief and shining moments of excellence and long periods of mediocrity. It would be a lie to say that I have ever gone “all in” on a job. Sure, I’ve spent long hours, driven myself to drink, contemplated suicide, and nearly had myself committed. But I never gave 100% of myself to a job.

I’m the wrong guy to give career advice.

The best that I can do is offer some simple rules that might help someone else live a better life. Work these rules into a lullaby and croon them to your newborn baby. I guarantee he will grow up to be a great kid. I’m so sure of this that you can have money back if it doesn’t work. The Four ‘R’s Of World Citizenship.

1 ~ RESPECT YOURSELF
2 ~ RESPECT YOUR NEIGHBOR
3 ~ RESPECT YOUR PLANET
4 ~ TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS

1. Respect Yourself
a.k.a you can live in moderation and still have fun

Respecting yourself can take on many forms. Taking care of your body. Not abusing illicit substances. Eating right. Exercising regularly. Keeping yourself groomed and hygienic. Avoid doing things in public that you wouldn’t want your Mom to see on TV.

It is okay to break some of these guidelines occasionally. Try not to break them all at once.

2. Respect Your Neighbor
a.k.a. the world is a village everyone is your neighbor

We all have prejudices. We made hide them, even to ourselves, but they are there. Mine? I have always been quick to dismiss the slovenly and unkempt. It is a prejudice that I am aware of and making an effort to fix. I’m sure that you can think of a person that you have written off before you gave them a chance. Make an effort to change your instant reaction.

Once we have taking care of our immediate community, then we can address our worldview. What group do you detest without question? Is it the ‘arab terrorists?’ The ‘white trash?’ The ‘f****ts?’ The ‘n****rs?’ The important thing to consider is that these are not really ‘groups.’ They are people, just like you are a person. The deserve that same respect that you demand on a daily basis. Do you think they are putting you in a group? If they are, how does that make you feel? It isn’t just words or epithets. It can be a glare or a cutting of the eyes. It makes you feel less than a person. Exactly how they feel.

Exercise: Next time you encounter someone who you would normally not give a second glance, make eye contact, say ‘hello’ or ‘have a nice day.’ You may be surprised by the look of surprise that you see in those eyes. Somewhere don the road, maybe that person will pay it forward as well.

Tune in tomorrow for part two

sometimes i imagine
i’m the first man
to stand
on two legs
in the afar valley
south abyssinia
horn of Africa
mother earth

i imagine my mama
i call her
well…
mama
who is known to the world
as Lucy

miss australopithecus
earth mother
to us all

she shows me the way of our world

we breath the clean air
we drink the clean water
we eat the lovely vegetation
and we love each other
unconditionally

i wonder what I’d think
if i had to take out a mortgage
for the cave that we live in

i wonder what i’d make
of smoke-belching machines
in place of my two good legs

i wonder what i’d think
of genetically mutated food
that has no taste

i wonder what i’d do
if told to kill another
in the name of god and country

i think that
if I was first man
if i knew then
what i know now
i’d kill myself
so that second man
wouldn’t live to screw up eden

sometimes i imagine
that i’m first man
to stand on two legs
it gives me a headache
and makes me cry

From A GATHERING STORM (c)2006 by Terry Bowman
Buy The Book

“You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or a path, it is someone else’s path. You are not on your own path. If you follow someone else’s way, you are not going to realize your potential.”
~ Joseph Campbell

What path should you follow? How many of us have been stifled or made miserable because we followed a path to someone else’s dreams? The beauty of our world is the infinite possibilities that are out there. A child born into the world today can become whoever they want to be. Whoever they want to be. That is the key. If you are a parent, don’t stifle your child’s dreams. If you are young, don’t be afraid to dream. Your dreams might change, indeed they probably will, but your happiness is directly proportional to you doing what you want to do, rather than what other’s wish of you.

“When the soul of a man is
born in this country there
are nets flung at it to hold
it back from flight. You
talk to me of nationality,
language, religion. I shall try
to fly by those nets.”
~ James Joyce

Joyce speaks of the societal conventions that are thrust upon us at the time of out conception. Of course our parents want us to be a doctor, a lawyer, or some other professional. They want us to be happy and they equate happiness to money. The family becomes a dynastic line. Doctor begets doctor, lawyer begets lawyer, captain of industry… You get the picture. How many times have we heard of tragedy in this scenario, when junior doesn’t live up to senior’s expectations or talents? Better to throw whatever resources you have into helping junior achieve her dreams rather that trying to force her into yours.

“Follow your bliss.”
~ Joseph Campbell

Nothing is more important than love and happiness. Have you notice that happy, fulfilled people attract other happy people? It doesn’t matter what your profession is, it’s the joy that you take from it. As a parent, it is essential that you try now to guide too much. You child’s talents will reveal themselves in good time. If junior has a dream, make sure that he attacks it to the fullest. It is okay to fail, but it is not okay to give up without really trying. That will just result in a lazy child. The faux talents will fall by the wayside. If junior can’t play guitar, he’ll figure it out. He’ll find another dream and attack it to the fullest. The important thing is that he is chasing his happiness, and not the dreams that someone else has for him.

Until next time, brother t

“While Eeyore frets …
… and Piglet hesitates
… and Rabbit calculates
… and Owl pontificates
…Pooh just is.”
~THE TAO OF POOH- Benjamin Hoff

How often have you been stuck at a point in your life when you couldn’t see the way forward? How many times have you had a less than desired result because you didn’t focus on the moment? Far too often I have worried about the ramifications of the future rather than living in the moment. It almost always reaches up to bite me in the you-know-what. Winnie the Pooh always lives in the moment, and while he makes mistakes, he always comes out on top because he is in everything with those around him.

” From the state of the Uncarved Block comes the ability to enjoy the simple and the quiet, the natural and the plain. Along with that comes the ability to do things spontaneously and have them work, odd as that may appear to others at times. As Piglet put it in Winnie-the-Pooh, “Pooh hasn’t much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right.”
~ THE TAO OF POOH- Benjamin Hoff (12)

Being an “Uncarved Block” doesn’t mean that we don’t need to study our world or think of the effect of our actions. It means that we live in the now. We are aware of everything that is affected by our actions. It is like invisible webs connect us all to one and other. An Uncarved Block will rely on instinct and ancestral knowledge to make the right decision without thought. Like Piglet, we are amazed that Pooh comes to no harm, but if we looked deeper, we would find that he was never really in danger.

“You’d be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs into round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are.”
~THE TAO OF POOH- Benjamin Hoff

We get back to my original thought. Living in the now. Over the years I have had a variety of soul killing jobs. I have been through corporate training for a variety of different large companies. As a manager and as a Marine, I have gone through leadership training. There is one thing that has stuck with me through all of these years.

BE HERE NOW

The basic concept is to throw yourself into whatever you are doing. Don’t allow your thoughts to stray. Don’t look at life like a chess master, always planning three moves ahead. I don’t mean that you don’t need a plan. But there is a time for that, and you should go at it with all of your concentration. If you are playing with your children, play with all of your heart. If you are taking a walk, focus on all of the things in your path, the smell of the fresh cut grass, the rush of the river as it runs by, the riffle of the breeze in your hair. If you are writing a book, like I am, set a schedule and follow it, setting your laser focus for a predetermined amount of time, until the book is written.

And if you are doing your job, do it with all of your heart. If a job is worth doing, devote all of your concentration to it. Devote your full attention to your employees or customers. Make your environment as pleasant and productive as possible. If your heart is not in it, by all means search for another. In fact, don’t just search, but chase a new job like your hair is on fire.

When you friends and family look upon you at the end of the day, the nicest thing they can say is “Pooh just was.” You lived your life to its fullest and you connected with everything that life had to offer. JUST LIVE and good things will come of it.