Tag: Games

EVOLVE, DO NOT INVOLVE

Here is a simple question I have learned to ask myself that has reduced my stress by a great margin. In addition to the stress reduction, it has kept me focused and helped me improve almost every aspect of my life. What is this amazing question? Will this help me evolve in any way? Now this can be financially, spiritually, emotionally, physically or any other way in which you might come out a better person.

Routinely I see and hear about people concerning themselves with things that do not matter in the slightest. They argue passionately (and sometimes even hold grudges) about things such as sports or politics. They get involved in gossip. They worry about celebrity activities. The ironic thing about all of this is it seldom affects the people they get so passionate about. The political landscape will not change because you and your coworker are no longer on speaking terms. Your team will not change its approach to the game because you and your best friend end up screaming at each other. In fact, they probably will never even know or care that the discussion happened. How will it affect you? It will stress you out, put a little wear and tear on your nervous system and probably a lot of your relationships.

Then there is the matter of gossip. Margie and I go to great lengths to keep this as far away as possible. Working in bars as a DJ, however, I have the unfortunate displeasure of seeing this more often than I care too. People who have no involvement in an issue throw their opinion and quite often themselves into others business. I cannot think of a time when this has resulted in anything but more of a mess.

Begin this week to ask yourself “Will this help me evolve as a person?” Maybe the book you are about to read will help you learn something, or maybe it will give you a laugh or some heartfelt entertainment. Will voicing your disagreement as to how your football team played verses how your friends played do anything but start a disagreement?

While thinking of this, be careful to know the difference between instant gratification and evolving. Sure screaming at your spouse when they make you mad may allow you to blow off some steam, but will it do anything to help your relationship evolve? Will giving a not so friendly gesture to the person who cut you off in traffic really do anything to help the situation?

This takes a little practice and we all have moments that we do things that have us asking ourselves, “Why did I do that?” If we make a practice of asking ourselves “Will this help me evolve?” more often, we can avoid asking ourselves the first question.

WHAT TO WEAR

formal

Those who know me in person know that I am not the definition of high fashion. Some may even say I am not the definition of low fashion. Yes, my clothing generally follows the axiom of ‘function over form’. That being said I did most recently even wear a dress shirt and tie to impress a lovely young lady. So why I am writing a relationship blog entitled ‘What to wear’ if I know little to nothing about fashion? Simple, the article I am going to tell you to put on is not an article of clothing at all, but will do far more for your appearance than the finest ball gown or Italian tie. So what is this thing that can so improve our appearance? Diamonds? Fancy jewelry? Expensive cologne? Actually no to all of those. In fact this item will not cost you anything. Enough teasing, let me tell you the answer, or more to the point let me use this quote to explain what I am trying to say.

“Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society” – William Thackeray

Is humor really that important? Yes. A good loving sense of humor can fill a relationship with many amazing things. Humor can take away the sting of a disagreement. Humor can lessen the pain of an accidental hurt. Humor can intensify love and half sorrow. So I implore of you to develop humor with your partner. Not humor of the biting sarcastic nature, but one of the fun and childish nature. Can you share a children’s joke like “What do you call a fish with no eye? fsh” Or even make up a silly word that only the two of you know that brings a smile to both of your faces? Recall moments that made you both laugh as often as you can. Always look for the joy and humor in life and in your relationship. A good sense of humor was in the top 3 of most desired traits of both men and women. Nobody likes to be with someone who doesn’t smile. So find some good jokes and always look for ways to make your partner laugh. Laughter and Love always make a good pair.

HOUSE OF A THOUSAND MIRRORS

dog

Let me share a story I have heard with you. The story is called “The house of a thousand mirrors” At the edge of a small village there was a house with a thousand mirrors. One day a happy little dog was walking by wagging his tail. “Let me see what is in this magical house” the dog thought to himself. So he bounced up the stairs and looked inside. What did he see? A thousand other happy dogs all wagging their tails back and him and smiling. “This is a fine house” the dog thought to himself “I shall come back here often” A few days later a different dog was walking by. This dog was a sad dog, he was told by the other dog about a house on the edge of the village that contained thousands of happy dogs. Surely he thought one of these dogs can cheer me up. So up the stairs he went head hung low. He peered inside the house and what did he see? Not the thousands of happy dogs he was promised, but instead many other sad dogs like himself. “This will not do at all” he said to himself. “I will never return here again”

Now the moral to this story should be rather obvious, but how does it relate to the subject we are discussing? Specifically our relationship? In short it has everything to do with our relationship. In our story both dogs approached the same house but had distinctly different experiences. Why is that? What they saw in the house was a reflection of what they brought to the house. This is true of our relationships as well. Quite often an problems we may be experiencing in our relationship can be a reflection of what we, ourselves are bringing to the relationship. If we find our spouse to be unromantic or quick to anger, can we say that we are brining patience and romance to the relationship ourselves? As we have mentioned quite a few times in this series of blogs you cannot hope to change your spouse you must work on yourself. Remember, life and our relationships which tend to be a focused representation of our lives, often reflect most what we bring to them. If you hope to attract a positive and loving spouse into your life, you must be a positive and loving person yourself first. Sometimes when we do focus on the qualities we desire we can even end up attracting a different partner into our lives, one that is more suitable to the qualities we desire.

Another valuable lesson that may not be so obvious in this story can be shown by the second sad dog. If you recall the sad dog was approaching the house, which serves as a symbol of life, or in our case a relationship, to fix him. He thought if he could only find the happy dogs he heard about they might fix his sadness. However he still approached the house as a sad dog. The same holds true for our relationships. If you are going into a relationship to receive love, but do not love yourself or bring love to your partner, you will not find the love you seek, even from the most caring partner. This may sound sad, but in it is the seed of great opportunity. If you wish to attract a loving and caring partner, or even trickier, transform your current partner to a more loving and caring person the answer is easy. All you have to do to find the traits you desire is embody them yourself. You will either see them reflected in your partner or perhaps even attract a new and more perfect partner for you. So the lesson today is remember relationships, much like life, can only return what we bring to them.

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

romantic3

You may have heard the saying “you get more bees with honey than with vinegar” the same holds true in a relationship. Although personally I do not want any bees in my relationship. What does all this mean and how can we use it to create the secret to an amazing relationship? Let me start by asking you a question. If there is something you really enjoy that your partner does, how can you get them to do it more often? Here is another question. If there is something your partner does that you do not like, how can you get them to do it less often? The answer is surprisingly the same. Positive reinforcement. Now I will be the first to tell you that one of the single most important traits to a healthy relationship is great communication. However it must be the right kind of communication. Sometimes how you say things is just as important as what you say. If the communication in your relationship consists of a few gestures you give each other in the hallway as you walk by you may want to consider reading this post. Even if your relationship has great communication and you are just looking for a few ways to improve it this will definitely be worth your time.

Let me start by sharing a story with you. I have a female friend who was complaining that her boyfriend never responds to her text messages or when he does it is often hours after she has sent him a msg. “So how does that make you feel?” I asked her. She told me it made her feel unimportant and unloved. When I asked her what she wanted to feel and how that may happen she told me if he would only text her back sooner she would feel more important and cherished by this man. I inquired if she had ever explained that to him. Often our partners may be unaware of something that may be bothering us. This was not the case here. “Oh yes. He knows” she told me and went on to explain the last time he text her back she ripped into him and told him that he better not wait so long to text her back and how awful it made her feel. So what was she showing her boyfriend? She thought she had explained to him that texting her back quickly would make her happy. What she had really done is show him that texting her equaled pain. She made him feel guilty and hurt. So how could she have handled this better? First, she could’ve been more compassionate. Maybe he did want to text her back. Maybe he had a lot going on in his life that day? Maybe he was driving and didn’t want to risk being unsafe. She could’ve explained to him “I know your busy, but if you have the chance it really means a lot if you could text me back as soon as you are able” or if she wanted to avoid the issue altogether she could’ve just expressed how much it meant to her that he did text her back by saying “It is so great to hear from you. Every time I receive a message from you my heart skips a beat and it makes me feel so loved” If we focus on what we enjoy from our partners and let them know what makes us happy quite often we will get more of that. It is also not a stretch that our partners can connect the dots and realize the opposite of that thing will upset us. In this case the young man would realize that if receiving a text made her happy then not receiving one would surely make her unhappy. What we focus on in our relationships as well as in life we get more of. So be sure to keep your focus on the positive by doing some of the things we mentioned earlier in the week as well as what we talked about here today. Praise your spouse when they do something that makes us feel loved. Everyone likes praise and everyone likes to know they made the person they love feel good. Let them know and soon you will find they are working to do it more often. Until tomorrow my friends, live an amazing and passionate life!

GRAPH OF PROGRESS

line graph photo

As you can see in the graph most prices has both its ups and downs. Just stay focused on your goal and keep moving forward. Whether your goal is to improve your financial situation or your relationship there is very seldom a straight line up. Nor should there be. The beautiful thing about the downs is that is forces us to refocus. If everything is going along smoothly there is little motivation to think about improvement. When things start slipping away then we often are forced to take things seriously and work harder. It is quite often after someone suffers a heart attack or some other health scare that they suddenly adopt a healthy lifestyle they have been avoiding. When someone loses some of their income they often start to review their budget. We grow from our challenges. A set back is only a failure if you give up. Any growth or goal you are working toward is never a straight line from A to B but is quite often a crooked line moving in that direction. If you are able map your goal. Keep an eye on your budget, if you start to spend more than you should or income should decline and the graph go down use that to motivate you to positive action. If you are trying to keep track of how many positive days you have with your spouse and one week you have 5 and the next week you only have 3 use that to examine the difference. Sometimes it can be circumstances you hadn’t expected or even ones beyond your control. Your car breaks down, your spouse is sick and in a bad mood. Still keep your goal firmly in mind and remember where you are heading.

WHAT’S SO HARD?

“There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond and to know one’s self”

-Ben Franklin

This quote from our first postmaster general has a lot of truth to it. Funny thing is one of the people we know the least is the person we see in the mirror every morning. A lot of your opinions of ourselves are generated by what others share about us. Which, since most of the people we talk to are our friends we seldom get the whole picture. So here is this weekends challenge. Make a list. On one side list everything you think is good about yourself, on the others areas you would like to improve. The goal here is to come up with more of the positive than the negative, but be honest with yourself. When you are done with that list take a look at each item on its own. How did you come to that conclusion? Did someone once tell you that you are a bad dancer? Did someone once tell you that you have a nice voice? Have you finished a few races with good times so you believe yourself to be a good runner? Does going to the gym make you a healthy person?

If you are interested in taking this a step further, contemplate on a few interesting matters. Think of where a lot of your identity comes from. A lot of us it comes from your job. When people ask me who are you? Providing they already know my name I must confess my first reaction may be to tell them my occupation. “I’m a postal worker” or “I’m an author” or even “I’m a bartender” the problem with this thinking is the state of change in today’s economy. I realized this when I was dangerously close to losing my Post Office job…the first time. I thought to myself “I’ve been working here for 13 years, it’s who I am. Now what?” This makes a job loss twice as tough. Not only do you lose your source of income, but you lose your identity. That’s why a lot of people slip into a depression after losing a job. From the outside people may say “What is the big deal? He just lost his job” In reality a lot of people fail to realize that to a lot of us that is also losing a part of our identity. Something many employers fail to recognize as well. So how did I get out of this funk? How did I protect myself in the future and how can you do the same? Great questions! That is what this site is all about. Living an amazing life. So here is something I suggest you try as soon as you can. That day I was basically told I would lose my job I went to a secluded spot in nature I go to do all my thinking. There is something about nature that seems to clear my mind. I began to think what will happen in the future. I also thought what was I like before I started to work for the postal service. I realized there was a whole other Neil I was missing. Now 13 years is a fair amount of time, but I am blessed to have several fans I have known a good deal longer than that. I called a few up and asked them what they first remember about me and basically who they thought I was. After making sure I wasn’t hitting the rum a little too hard they provided some great insight. Still other’s opinions are only part of the equation. Recently I have had the good fortune of spending a good deal of time and conversation with an amazing new person. They give me their opinions of me of course, but one of the greatest things is they stimulate me to think of things including my life and myself. Think of the people you associate with daily. Do they all tell you just what you want to hear? Are they all from the same group such as work? Do they permit you to be different without judgment or ridicule?  The goal is to be with people who bring out the best in ourselves. They not only encourage us, but also are honest and accepting of ourselves. This post was quite a mouthful. But as Ben Franklin said getting to know yourself is one of the hardest things. The rewards however can save you from years of heartache and bring you lots of rewards. It is a journey well worth taking.

PERSPECTIVE

In former posts I have talked about the importance of the way we look at situations. As I have also stated living an amazing life is a lifelong journey and not a goal to be reached. We all have much to learn. I would like to offer an example from my own life. Recently I had been discussing issues that were quite meaningful between another person and myself. It left me feeling rather connected to this person and quite special. Well a few days later this person had told me they had presented those very details we were discussing specifically when I was not there. Suddenly I felt hurt, like maybe the issues were not as much of a connection as I had thought. Have you ever noticed when your feel hurt your mind just seems to take over and make all sorts of connections that may or may not even make sense? Well that is what happened here. I began to wonder if perhaps the connection I thought had developed with this person may not have been as close as I had hoped. Perhaps there was no real connection at all. Even typing that makes it sound crazy. Knowing what I know of this person and the things we have shared in the past this thought should not have even entered my mind. A good fact to note here is when rational thought and emotion run into each other it is like a semi running into a sports car, emotion will always win. I had decided that this person did this so it meant that. Why would I do that? They are always several reasons. Past experiences when others have done the same and I ended up hurt? Misjudging what I know of this person? Living in reaction instead of action? So what to do when you find yourself in this situation. Well nine times out of ten if you are waiting to ask this question until you are in that situation you are probably to late. Again this site is about being proactive. So what actions can we begin to take today to help us should such a situation come up in our future? Here is the bad news, because we all are unique individuals with unique rules and experiences somebody in your future will hurt or disappoint you. Not even because they are trying to, but because they look at life different from you do. So knowing that how can we minimize the chances of being stuck in a train of thought like I was yesterday? Begin to develop a positive perspective. When something happens that you feel another person has let you down try to come up with as many positive explanations as you can. It may be hard at first, especially if you have been hurt in the past. When you ask why this person did this answers may begin to fill your head like “because they’re a jerk” “because they don’t care” pull the brake. Begin by trying to get at least one positive option. Maybe they simply did not understand what their actions would have meant to you? Maybe some even occurred in their life that caused them to have to make a change without being able to tell you. Maybe their actions mean something entirely different to them? Keep practice doing this. Why? I will give you two great reasons. One, you will feel hurt a lot less or at less not feel hurt as often. Two, you will find a lot less conflict with those you really care about. Let’s face it the more you care about someone the more they can make you feel amazing, but the more they can hurt you.

So how did my situation end up? Luckily this person has an amazing grasp on personal relations and a large dose of patience with me. They could tell that I was feeling upset and asked what they may have done. After some expert cajoling I explained that the ideas they expressed I felt were special between us and I was a bit(which at this point was an understatement)hurt that they chose to present them when I wasn’t even around. To my surprised they agreed that indeed they felt they were as special, if not more, than I did. They also went on to explain the reason they chose to express them for the first time when I wasn’t around was because they wanted to be able to do so flawlessly by the time we were together. So initially I just felt like a total jerk for even being upset. Still being one for learning from my mistakes I tried to see what I could selvage out of this experience. Here is what I learned. I have a lot to learn. One I learned I have one amazing person in my life who really does care more than I realized. I also learned that I still let my past affect me and the relationships I have in the present. Which is not only terribly unfair to that person, but also to yourself. I also learned I could probably learn to express how things make me feel in the future. Most importantly I learned that I really need to work on developing a more positive perspective on people and why they do the things they do. So I will be following the very steps I gave you earlier. As well as being grateful for the amazing people I have in my life. Tomorrow we will look at how we can productively expressing what we like and how to actually make people want to do those very things.

WHICH GAME DO YOU HAVE?

Excellence, a habit
Excellence, a habit (Photo credit: Celestine Chua)

I heard an interesting story about a philosophy Pat Riley the NBA coach and front office person shared about winning. The same thought can be applied to the even more challenging game of life. He discussed the difference between and excellent game, and game excellence. Which one are you striving for? In order to answer that question I guess we should begin by defining those two terms. Let’s tackle an excellent game. An excellent game means you train for a particular game and give it your all for that one game. Rivalry games come to mind in this example. How does this pertain to life? Think of a first date? You spend so much energy picking out the perfect place to go, or the perfect outfit. You make sure you have your best jokes at the ready, breath fresh and every possible emergency covered. What happens if you happen to have the good fortune of dating that person several years later? “What do you want to do? Order a pizza and stay home and watch television?” How about a job interview or first day on the job? You try to do your best on every little detail. Pay close attention to how you present yourself, the words and things you say at the office. A couple of years down the road? “Damn I don’t want to go to work, one more time with the snooze button” This happens to each and every one of us. Once we accomplish that goal such as having the affections of that attractive person we have been chasing, or finally getting that dream job. Once we have them we kind of let ourselves go. Not always intentionally. Perhaps we take things for granted. The funny thing is if you ask yourself honestly do you still deserve your partner as much as you did during that time you were trying to convince them that you were the one? Are you still the employee for of promise and hard work that company hired that day? If you are, congratulations to be sure! Chances are you mind find yourself lacking in a few areas. We all do. So what is game excellence and how does it differ? an excellent game focuses on massive action to accomplish a certain end and having a great game, which has its place. Game excellence is the constant daily focus on the small details daily to improve the player. How does this relate to life? At home, are you constantly listening to your partner to gather new information and compare it with what you already know about them in an effort to find new ways to make them happy and strengthen the relationship? At work, are you constantly looking for ways you can do your job better and save the company time and money? For my sports fan followers I compare that to watching film. Looking for ways to increase your value as a player or in real world terms as a person. So this weekend ask yourself “Am I shooting to have an excellent game, or to have game excellence? Am I looking to have a great night or to become a great person?” I certainly learned a lot from that interview I hope you did too.

PUT TOGETHER A PUZZLE

Jigsaw Puzzle
Jigsaw Puzzle (Photo credit: Beedle Um Bum)

Life is like a puzzle work on understanding each piece and as you figure each piece out the bigger picture becomes clearer

This great piece of wisdom came out of a very late night discussion with a friend of mine. One of the most amusing things about us as humans is our inclination to decide what something means before we have all the information we need. I liken this to putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Further more there are two ways to look at this. First, let us assume we have no idea what the picture we are trying to create looks like. this is a pretty accurate metaphor for how most of us approach situations in life. We begin a job, a friendship, a relationship or any new endeavor with a passive, wait and see attitude. Something to the effect of “let’s see how this job goes” or “is this relationship any good” Then often with only a few pieces of the puzzle put together we decide what the picture will be. Can you imagine putting the first ten pieces of a puzzle together and saying “this is a picture of a dolphin” just because you saw a little blue in the picture? That dolphin could turn into a shark, or a blue sports car. We must be sure we have enough pieces of the puzzle together before we can accurately decide what picture we are looking at. Even then a few pieces can change the pictures meaning greatly.

There is a second, and I feel even more constructive way to go about putting the puzzle of any situation together. That is doing it exactly as most of us put a puzzle together. First we dump all the pieces on a table or wherever we happen to be putting this puzzle together. Next, we look at the picture on the box. We decide this is the end result we are going to come up with. A picture of an abandoned church in a thunderstorm or whatever it may be. Then we begin to rearrange and assemble all of the pieces of the puzzle until the picture becomes clear. Often referring back to the picture on the box and looking at the piece and how it fits into the puzzle. Sometimes it may take us hours, or even days to fully be able to assemble the puzzle but we keep trying different pieces in different places and do not give up until the puzzle is complete. Unless of course you are like me who starts enjoying a couple of glasses of wine and soon the rainstorm is inside the church. Seriously though, what would happen if we applied these same principles to our lives? We hold a picture of how we want a certain aspect of our lives to turn out. Say we desire for a relationship that has went sour to become filled with joy again. Well treat it like a puzzle. The relationship happy and healthy is the picture on the box. Begin by trying to put one or two pieces (efforts that seem to bring joy to the relationship) together. Notice if they fit (seem to be working) The more pieces (happy aspects of this relationship) we put together the closer we are to having the picture come into focus (the relationship healed and full of joy) I wouldn’t suggest my wine drinking tactic when it comes to this, however the results could be a disaster. This should work whether the picture you are putting together is a new job, a new partner or crafting a best-selling book. Just keep putting pieces together and pay attention if they fit and adjusting accordingly. I know I am excited to apply this idea to my own life!

driving toward your future

Every Friday I try to leave you all with something to ponder. This came to me ironically while pulling out of my parking space leaving our fine state fair.  I was backing up and looking in the rear view mirror. The I shifted into drive, but before I could start to pull away some people were yelling right outside my window and took my attention away for a second.  When I saw that it was nothing serious I went back to focusing on leaving my parking space.  Forgetting I had already put it in drive, I looked in the rear view mirror and took my foot off the accelerator.  Imagine my surprise when the car began to move forward! I immediately applied the brake and thought “That could have been bad” Mind you all this took a second, but as I did pull out of my parking thought I was struck with what a powerful metaphor this is for life.  Can you imagine trying to drive forward to work, while only looking in your rear view mirror?  First it would take forever and second you would be extremely lucky if you arrived at all.  Now what does this have to do with living an amazing life?  What struck me, which was luckily not another car, was how many of us do this on a daily basis over and over again?  I am not saying the road is filled with crazy drivers, although some days that is debatable.  What I am saying is this, how many of us are striving toward a new future while focused on the past?  It just doesn’t work.  How many times have we heard friends, or even ourselves say “The last person I dated was dishonest so I am going to have a hard time trusting in my new relationship”  You are staring in the rear view mirror focusing on your past hurts until BAM! your current relationship crashes due to your ‘trust issues’. How many future ideas and adventures have you passed on because you were focused on past failures?  I’m not saying we shouldn’t learn from our past and adjust for the future or even just look back to admire where we were and how far we have come.  Just like in driving where you are supposed to ‘glance in the rear view mirror every eight seconds’ I suggest that is what you do with life. You’ll have a lot better results when focused on what is around you and what is coming at you. Remember you can never drive into the future looking into the review mirror.  Oh, and as a side note, please use your turn signal.