How You Play The Game

In the game of life, heredity deals the hand, and society makes the rules; but you can still play your own cards. – Peter’s Almanac

Never forget that. There are too many “victims” in this world, people who insist that the world is out to get them, or that the world is holding them down or back, or that the world owes them something because of all that they’ve had to go through.

The world doesn’t owe you anything. You are alive in this world full of opportunities. That’s all it owes you, and that’s all its going to give you.

The world is not out to get you. You’re just not that important to the entire world. I assure you that there are billions of people on this planet that have no idea who you even are.

The world is not holding you down or back, not nearly as much as your own attitude is.

If you’re not getting what you want, then change the way you play. You can’t change your cards. You might be able to change the rules. But the only way you can do that is to play the game.

Manifest Abilities

A man must not deny his manifest abilities, for that is to evade his obligations. - The Treasure of Franchard by Robert Louis Stevenson

I believe that we were given our gifts and talents for a reason – for them to be used. Whether they are for our own entertainment or the betterment of life, that depends a lot of the talent, the amount of talent, and the opportunities in your life to use that talent. But if you choose to say “screw the God/dess” and refuse to use what you were given, that’s your choice. I personally think your choice is wrong, but it’s your talent and your life, so you get to do with it what you want.

Now, some of you are going to go to extremes. “What if the only thing I’m really good at is killing people?” Or some such thing. Let’s take a look at it. If I can figure out a way to make killing people into a talent that betters humanity, then surely you can figure out something to do with your talent.

First, what part of killing people are you good at? Are you good at stalking them until they’re alone? Are you good at assessing people’s weaknesses? Are you good at breaking into a place so you can attack them in their own homes? Are you good at killing quickly and silently? In what way are you good at killing people? And how can you turn that into something else?

Stalking people is also useful for private detectives, law enforcement, bounty hunters, and news reporters. Assessing people’s weaknesses is also useful for career counseling, professional trainers, body guards, and boot camp. Breaking into places is good for thieves, people who assess burglary systems, tomb robbers, and guards since they’ll know how to prevent others from doing the same. Being quick and silent in your killing can mean you’d make a good surgeon because you know anatomy well, or a good butcher because you slice quickly without waste, or a great soldier either for the nation or as a mercenary.

If you doubt that what you are good at could possibly enrich your own life or someone else’s, add a comment. Tell me what it is, and I’ll see if I can give you some ideas. But, you were given the ability for a reason. You just need to figure out what it is.

One Week

I understand the average American watches four hours of television a day. That’s twenty-eight hours a week. I also understand the average American reads two hundred and fifty words per minute. Therefore, if the average American would turn off the television set and spend those twenty-eight hours a week reading, he could read all the poems of T. S. Eliot, all the poems of Maya Angelou, two plays by Thornton Wilder, including Our Town, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and all one hundred fifty psalms in the Old Testament. That’s all in one week. – David McCullough

This just astonishes me. It also makes me wonder why I don’t get more books read. Then I remember how many computer games I play, how much television I watch, and how much stuff I read that isn’t in books.

You read a lot as well, I’m willing to bet. You’re reading this blog. You may read other blogs. You probably read the newspaper or the news on the web. You read e-mails and memos and instruction manuals at work. There are also comic strips, web strips, magazine articles, recipes, letters, post cards, insurance information, advertisements, ingredients lists, cereal boxes, etc. You do read. You are a reader.

But can you imagine how much more you or I could read if we would watch one fewer show a week? Just one? You know the one I mean. The one that you only watch because there’s nothing better on right now or because that’s what the gossipy woman at the water cooler insists on talking about every Wednesday morning and you want to be able to be in on the conversation or because it’s got that really good looking guy in it and you just want to turn the volume down and watch except he’s also got a really sexy voice so you don’t want to miss any of it. You know, that show, the one that if you had a gun to your head you’d give up first. One hour a week. That’d be an extra 15,000 words every week. Wow. I’ve already trimmed my TV watching, but my computer game playing could use a good pruning. I know where I’m getting my extra 15,000 words. How about you?

Bi Any Other Name

Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out edited by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Kaahumanu is a great book. It was written in 1991, and I would love to see another of its kind written on its 20th anniversary. It’s almost a Chicken Soup for the Bisexual Soul. It’s full of stories by bisexuals about their lives and experiences. Each of them have different views on and different definitions of bisexuality. It’s quite a read. They cover all kinds of topics as well – coming out, politics, biphobia, oppression from monosexuals, celebration, feminism, racism, and much more. Most people will find something in there to relate to. I recommend it to any bisexual and anyone who loves a bisexual. It’s not a “read in one sitting” book, but it’s worth finishing.

A Delicate Balance

To be successful you have to be dumb enough to think you can change the world and smart enough to know how. - Clint Borgen.

“I don’t know. Let’s find out.” These words have begun some great adventures, in travel, in science, in cooking, in many, many areas of life.

“That can’t be done.” These words have aborted a good number of adventures in life, especially when they aren’t true.

“They say it can’t be done, but let’s do it anyway.” These are some of the best words you can have. Think about how many things have been accomplished that were “impossible”. Flight, for example. Heart transplants. Telephones. Too many others to list.

You can change the world in ways that the nay-sayers and the doubters can’t even imagine. You can change the world, your life, yourself, and bring light into some “dark ages” mentalities that insist “don’t confuse me with facts, I know what’s right”. And even if you can’t change the mind of someone who insists that what you’re doing right in front of them is impossible, at least you’re doing the impossible, and you’re making yourself, your life, your world better.

You can do the amazing, the wonderful, the impossible. Don’t let anyone else tell you different.

Fiction and Inspiration

Fiction, because it is not about somebody who actually lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about ourselves. – Orson Scott Card

Some people find inspiration every where. Some people can see a part of themselves or something applicable to their lives in every story. Other people can see a thinly-veiled biography of themselves and just not get it.

Some of the snootier readers will only read non-fiction, and only the “proper” stuff at that. Well, if they’re so limited that they can’t find something enjoyable about a really good fiction story, that’s their problem. For the rest of us, let’s dive in.

I usually have more words to say what I want to say, a way to make it clearer to people who don’t want to believe the direct truth or who need to be persuaded that something has meaning to their own lives, but I don’t got it for this one other than the above, and the above is pretty awful. So, this once, here’s the short and dirty version, and then good night.

You can find inspiration and meaning anywhere you look or read, and that’s just fine.

Inaction

Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation … even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. – Leonardo da Vinci

If you doubt the truth of this quote, think back to your school days. How quick was your mind the first week of school after summer vacation? What about first period on Monday morning? Were you as bright and swift on the uptake as you were later in the year or week? Probably not. Few people came to school raring to go first thing. And if they were ready, they probably kept it quiet because the others would retaliate.

How about you right now? Is your mind invigorated? Are you feeling creative or inspired? How’s your memory? Your vocabulary? Your quick wit, the one that your friends always enjoy so much on Friday nights? Even snappy comebacks use your brain power. Do you need time in the morning to get started, kick into gear, shake off the weekend? Imagine that same sensation, but a thousand times harder as the years start to pile up and up and up, years of using “just enough” of your brain. How hard will it be to use it when you need to or just when you want to?

Your brain needs exercise, just like your body. Read, rather than watch TV. Talk with people, rather than go out to the movies. Do a crossword puzzle, rather than read the comics. There are dozens of ways you can work your brain every single day. Your life will improve for it.

Lake of Molasses

I was e-mailing a friend earlier today, and I compared my life to a river of molasses with shore only barely within sight. I think it's really more like a lake than a river, but the rest of it is pretty accurate. Lake waters move, sometimes to shore and sometimes away, but usually must slower than a river and in a much more confined area. A river at least gets you somewhere.

So what do you do when you're stuck like that? Not even sure where shore is, or if there is a shore that's worth the struggle? You know (pretty much) that there's a life worth living out there, but you sure can't see it from here.

You hang on. You take care of yourself, keep yourself afloat, and keep your eyes out for landmarks to help you on the way. Landmarks include things that give you pleasure (head towards those), things that give you pain (head away from those), and solid rocks of assurance, perhaps in the form of your spirituality, a friend, a belief, a cause, or some other thing about which you have absolute surety. Using these rocks, you can find the right shore and get yourself out of the lake. But keep your head up, and keep away from the dangerous shores. Just because it's a shore doesn't mean it's safe or desirable.

Cinderella Was a Liar

Cinderella Was a Liar: The Real Reason You Can’t Find (or Keep) a Prince by Brenda Della Casa is not the greatest relationship advice book of all times, but it’s better than most and a whole heck of a lot funnier. The advice you can get from plenty of other places (other than the no sex on a first date rule which seems to be right or wrong depending on the book), but it presents it in a manner that’s amusing and straight forward. It’s easy to relate to the advice, because it’s presented in fairy tale language – not as a fairy tale or about fairy tale characters, but about princes and toads and maidens and slippers. I’m glad the author asked me to reconsider reading this. Even if you’ve found your happily ever after, check this out of the library for an amusing read. It’s more entertaining than a lot of things you could pick up.

Wiccan New Year

Last Friday was Halloween for many people, and New Year's Eve for many pagans. For me it was a time of renewal and rededication. My "new year" thus far has been very interesting and getting back on the right track after a long time spinning my wheels. I hope that the new season brings new an end to that which was wrong and new space in your life for the Deities to bring in some more wonderful.

Magnify Yourself

Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant, and interesting. – Aldus Huxley

Boredom is a common complaint in America. Much too common. Why else would we have so many gadgets, gizmos, game consoles, and other devices devised to entertain us while giving us no value? But you don’t have to be bored. Some people won’t read because they don’t read quickly. It bores them to get bogged down with the words. Reading is like any other skill – the more you do it, the better you get at it. You read a whole lot better than you did when you were in first grade, don’t you? Why? Practice. Practice reading like you practiced riding your bike or writing cursive or typing or so many, many other things, and you will get better at it. And while you’re at it, read interesting things so you don’t get bored with all this practice. Ask your librarian to make some suggestions. I assure you, there are plenty of free books you can try out that you will enjoy. I cannot suggest them to you, because what I like and what you like are probably different. But, if you tell your librarian you want some books that involve your favorite subject, she’ll probably be able to find some if not a lot of them. The vast majority of life situations, sports, relationships, and jobs have some kind of non-fictional book written about them, and most of them have novels written about them, too. Check out your library and have a blast. There aren’t many lives that can’t be enhanced by reading something new. Make your life full, significant, and interesting. Make your Future those things, too.

One Hour a Day

[Reading] one hour a day will translate into approximately one book a week. One book a week will translate into approximately fifty books over the next twelve months. If you read an hour a day, one book per week, you will be an expert in your field within three years. You will be a national authority in five years, and you will be an international authority in seven years. – Brian Tracy

I don’t read one hour a day every day. Most days, but not every day. The suggestion is for non-fiction books all in the same field. I read a lot of fiction, but as my book reviews show, I also read a good deal of non-fiction, too, just not all of it in the same field. It’s a nice thought to be an international authority in less than ten years (giving you a little time to slack off). That’s over 350 books. There are some fields of study that don’t even have 350 books written! Still, even if you read just a half hour a day (like on your two 15 minute breaks at work – one in the morning and one in the afternoon, or during your commute perhaps with a book on tape, or any other way you want), you’ll be a national authority in ten years. How much better would you job be if you were a national authority? Would you even have that job or would you manage to create your dream job instead? Heck, even in three to six years, you will be an expert. Expert. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? I’d love to be an expert in certain things. What kinds of things would you like to be an expert in? Do you want to be an expert in your Future? An authority, perhaps? You can be, if you choose to be. You can create this in your Future.

What You Read

What you read, what you see, what you listen to truly influences your thoughts. – Pat Williams

You are what you eat. You are also what your mind “eats”. What you read, what you listen to, what sort of environment you put yourself into, it all influences your brain, your thoughts, your personality. If you read racist bullfeathers, you will get influenced by it. Maybe this will inspire you to fight racism, or maybe it will chip away at your mind, creating a slippery slope where this is okay because it isn’t “really” racist.

You don’t think that this is true? I’ve got a challenge for you. For one month, read the teachings of Jesus, Buddha, Ghandi, and Teresa of Avila, and just these people. Every day, read some of this. At the end of the month, write down how you feel, emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally. Then, for the next month, read the teachings of Hitler, Mussolini, and the Marquis de Sade, and just these people. Every day, read some of this. At the end of the month, write down how you feel, again emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally. If you want to make it really interesting, without telling your roommate/coworker/significant other what you’re doing, ask them at the end of each month how they think your behavior has been over the past month compared to normally. See what they think.

If the two month end reports are exactly the same, that’s impressive and rare. More likely you’ll feel a whole lot worse after the second month but will have plenty of excuses for it, something, anything, that doesn’t have to do with what you read.

Whatever you may think, no matter what excuses you may have, the truth is that what you put into yourself influences yourself, and like a computer, it’s garbage in, garbage out. Treat yourself to the good stuff.

Burning Books

Where one begins by burning books, one will end up burning people. – Heinrich Heine

I do not approve of burning books. I do not approve of most kinds of censorship. I’m hard pressed to think of any kind of censorship that I would approve of, for adults that is. With kids, it’s a different story. But, this post is about adults.

Books contain ideas, radical ideas, different ideas, powerful ideas. Books provide points of view that differ and perhaps confuse people. Books can make people think. For these reasons, some people consider them dangerous and should be burned so they do not disrupt the harmony in society (what society they think they’re living in, I’m not sure; my society isn’t in harmony).

However, people contain ideas, radical ideas, different ideas, powerful ideas. People provide points of view that differ and confuse people. People can make people think. For these reasons, some people consider them dangerous and should be censored so that they do not disrupt the harmony in society. But in America, we have freedom of speech and I believe it can be said with a good deal of accuracy that America as a whole likes to shake things up a bit.

You cannot have both censorship and freedom, and you cannot have both freedom and complete harmony. Freedom is too important to ban or burn books, even at the expense of harmony in society, because generally that harmony is just a surface illusion at best while freedom, when done right, can exist throughout the whole.

The Millionaire Next Door

The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko. I read this book perhaps a decade ago. I read it again about five years ago. This past summer, I bought a copy, and it now resides on my bookshelf for me to pick up and leaf through whenever I want. I recommend this book. It has a lot of statistics, but it also has a lot of examples and stories. If you don’t like statistics or if you don’t like stories, you could still enjoy this book. Just skip over the parts you don’t like. I recommend this book. It’s an eye-opener about who really is a millionaire and what they really do. It also has a lot of excellent suggestions about how to become a millionaire yourself. Have I become a millionaire in the past 10 years since I read it? No, but I don’t always practice what I know is best for me. However, I’m closer to it than a lot of my friends, and I fully intend to get there, and this book will help.

Fresh Start

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down. – Mary Pickford

An appropriate quote for me considering the brief hiatus I’ve taken on Mondays. The previous week’s Monday was because I discovered rather late that I duplicated a quote and essentially a post, so I deleted the post and never got around to putting up another one. This past Monday is because I am in a bout of laziness and lethargy, not to mention a heaping dose of apathy, though that is waning. I simply didn’t get around to it. But, I start fresh again. I do not abandon my blog just because of a few missed posts. I continue.

You, too, can continue with your dreams and your goals, even after you have stumbled. There are some things that are simply unattainable for the price you’re willing to pay, but there are a lot more things that seem just out of reach but really just need to try one more time. I wish you luck in discovering which is which, and I hope you wish me luck in that as well.

Beauty of Dreams

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of dreams. – Eleanor Roosevelt

If you cannot imagine the Future, if you have no goal or dream for your Future, then it really doesn’t matter a whole lot what you do, because your Future will merely happen to you. It will not belong to you.

If you can imagine, if you do have goals and dreams, and you can see the beauty and desirability of them, then you can work towards them, and your Future will belong to you through your efforts.

If you want to shape your Future, see it first. Imagine, dream, and create goals. It’s up to you.

Everything You Want

You can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want. – John-Roger & Peter McWilliams

It seems to me that these guys are pessimists. Unfortunately, their book makes a lot of sense. I reviewed it in an earlier post. You can have everything you want, just not necessarily at the same time. Also, you can have everything that’s essential to you – that you not only want but need to have a fulfilled life, provided you are completely honest with yourself about what you truly need.

You don’t have to settle for “good enough”, but you do have to realize that “perfection” is in the eye of the beholder, and greedy beholders have very large eyes. Go for “great”. Go for “amazing”. Go for “astonishingly wonderful”. Get what you truly need and add what you want the most until you can fit nothing more into your wonderful life.

You can have a fantastic Future. You deserve get. Go out and grab it.

Castles on the Ground

Dream but also do; wish but build; imagine but ever face reality. – Dr. Joseph Fetterman

A lot of people build castles in the sky. They imagine how great it would be if X would happen or once they actually got off their butts and did Y. But, X never happens, and they never get off their butts.

Others build their castles on the ground, or build the ground up to their castles. You can have a castle in the sky, so long as you have very long and sturdy pillars beneath it. Or you know how to fly. You start with today and a dream, and then you work your butt off to get from here to there. Without a dream, time just passes. Without work, time just passes and dreams float away. Make time yours, make it work for you, not just pass. The way to do this is to work for yourself and your dream. Act. It’s the only way.

Read For Your Life

Read for Your Life: 11 Ways to Transform Your Life with Books by Pat Williams with Peggy Matthews Rose is a passionate look at reading, why it’s important, and what to do about the lack of it in today’s America. If you don’t love reading, this book may change your mind. If you do love reading, this book will strike a chord with you.

The first couple of chapters drag a bit as it discusses the statistics of illiteracy. It tries very hard to make the case that there is too much illiteracy in America and that we should do something about it. The rest of the book is dedicated more to reading – improving your own, inspiring others to do so, what to read, how to read, and many other things. It really is a very well written book, other than the dragging problem. But, even the dragging wasn’t quite enough to turn me off to the book entirely. Trust me, if you start to read this book, continue. It is worth it.