Tag: Relationships

OLD-FASHIONED IN THE MODERN DAY 🌻

Here is a relationship secret that really shouldn’t be a secret at all. It is something that a lot of couples find very difficult to manage in today’s complex and connected world. That secret is to not share too much of your relationship online. It may be tempting to air out your dirty laundry like your favorite celebrity. Especially in the heat of the moment. You want everyone to know what they did to upset you so. Here is two problems with that. First, there are people who are just waiting to swoop in and take the person you love, even if you do not like them at the moment. Every episode of drama you air on social media puts a chink in your armor of love and gives them a little more ammunition to try and tear you two apart. You may not even know who these people are, maybe your partner doesn’t either. They are out there, rest assured.

The second one is even more certain. It makes you look foolish. You might be asking yourself how sharing something totally thoughtless your partner did can make you look foolish. There are actually two answers to that as well. You are the one who chose to be with them. If you are constantly belittling them, what does that say about your judge of character? We all know that couple that are forever breaking up and getting back together online. One day they are trying to convince the world how terrible they have been done wrong, the next day they are waxing poetically about the ‘forever love of their life’. Stop it. You look foolish. People are reading it and thinking “How can she go back to him?” or “I would never lower myself to being with a woman that treated me that way.” You are making your partner look bad and you are making yourself look bad.

That being said, you would certainly benefit by sharing your love for your partner. Sure, you may have to deal with some sarcastic comments from those who are either jealous, jaded or affection-challenged, but it is a small price to pay for the rewards you will get by sharing all the wonderful things about your partner and all the reasons you love them. What are those rewards you ask? Let us take a look at just a few of them.

In many ways you could flip the things we discussed earlier. For people who are looking to damage your relationship or steal your partner away from you, sharing how wonderful you think they are and how much you love them would serve as a great discouragement. They may search out easier prey. Second, you make both your partner and you look good. When you post what an amazing cake your partner made or the wonderful dinner they prepared for you, people will look and say things like, “That Margie is sure talented.” or “Look how good she treats her man.” A random post about how grateful you feel to have your partner, provided it is genuine, will accomplish much the same thing. People will read all the things you are grateful for in your wonderful partner and think highly of them. They will notice how appreciative you are, and think, “Boy I wish my partner appreciated me that much.” You will help both of you look better in the world’s eyes.

Relationships are not for the world at large and neither should your efforts. Although we have shown why that can be important, let us look at another important to share your pride and gratitude for your partner with the world. That is you increase the intimacy between you. Why? Who does not like to feel their partner is proud of them? Do you know what else feels good? When the wonderful things you say about your partner get back to them. I recall being at a jewelry store with Margie and one of the employees came up to tell her all of the wonderful things I say about her. I am sure she might have been hoping to sell us some more diamonds, but gave us an even greater gift. She showed my love that my affection for her is alive and well even when she is not around. Who wouldn’t want to hear their partner is telling everyone how much they love them? In turn, that increases trust and affection between the two of you.

You should feel proud and grateful for your relationship. If you don’t, there are bigger issues you may want to address. Follow the steps we have outlined here to make sure you take some of these old-fashioned values with you into the modern world of love.

WHAT FITNESS AND LOVE HAVE IN COMMON 💪❤️

We like to share secrets to amazing relationships on this site as well. This should be no surprise as relationships are one of the things that can have the greatest impact on your life. Nowhere is this more true than your romantic relationship. The romantic partner you choose in life can have a greater impact on the success or failure of your life than almost any other choice you make. How you take care of this relationship will make all of the difference.

The first order of business is to understand that the fitness of your relationship is very much like the fitness of your body. It is never ‘handled’. What would happen if you got into the best shape of your life and then stopped working out and started eating all of the junk food you could find? In no time flat, all of your efforts would be in vain. The same is true for your relationships. If you work to achieve a loving, caring and growth-minded relationship and then stop working at it, soon you will not have that relationship anymore.

Here is another ‘secret’. When you are first starting to workout, it is extremely hard. You must put in a lot of work upfront. It can be very difficult to develop a discipline to engage in physical activity on a regular basis. I heard a quote that said the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door. That is so true. Once you are at the gym, working out is a lot easier to do. Dedicating the time and getting to the gym is where the struggle is. The same when you are first working on growing your relationship. There is a lot to learn. There will be fights. Both of you will say and do the wrong things. You will forget to say and do the right things. Setting up and dedicating time and effort to work on your relationship can often be where the difficultly lies.

Here is some good news, both for fitness and relationships. Once you get into shape, it takes a lot less effort to stay there than it did to get there. Although, you must put in the effort just the same as we discussed above. In a relationship, once you learn how to develop a loving and healthy relationship with your partner, it is a lot easier to maintain and grow than it was to get there. Once again, you must put in the effort just the same. Just as you will continue to discover new things about health and fitness, you will do the same about relationships. You will also experience challenges in both. I cannot count the times I was on a roll at the gym and then got an injury or illness. It is hard to keep that discipline and often start over. Same in love. You will have a long period of love and romance when it seems nothing could come between your hearts. Then, a disagreement pops up out of nowhere.

It is important to learn from these. When you get injured at the gym, it might be form or perhaps a muscle that needs special attention. When there is a difficulty in a relationship, there may be some communication that needs to be cleaned up, or affection that needs to be redefined. Both of these situations, as humbling as they are, provide us an opportunity to come back stronger. We can make sure they happen less frequently and with less severity as time goes on. We can also walk away with additional knowledge we did not have before.

As a side note, this is not the post I sat down to write at all. Therefore, there will be more relationship secrets in the next post!

BE THE WISE WARRIOR ✨️

One of the most prevalent problems we have today is a lack of energy. It is not always physical energy. It can be emotional, spiritual or any other drain. People just feel burned out. Is that you? Certainly, considering all of the things that I am involved in, it is always something to be on the lookout for. It seems you are working hard just to meet up with your obligations and then life picks that time to give you a tough challenge.

Have you ever felt like you were close to having it all together when suddenly you find yourself catching a cold? Maybe you finally are starting to feel some inner peace and that is when your spouse has a personal meltdown? It can be even worse. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you can seem to be constantly working on keeping your head above water. You make it through a tough day at work. Your coworkers call in sick. There is more work for you because of that. Your boss is aggravated that the other employees decided to stay home and takes it out on the employee that didn’t. Namely, you. Then you get home barely making it through the day and your spouse has a meltdown. You snap at them because you have already had a tough day. After a minute you regret not treating them with compassion. Now you are not only stressed beyond breaking, you have created a new problem.

Here is where a great deal of this issue starts. We fight every battle that is in front of us. By the time we show up for the really important ones, we are often to tired and crumble at the first sign of struggle. That is why it is important to set boundaries and decide what is really important. You boss yells at you because other workers didn’t show up and they are in a bad mood. Is it fair? No. Does it suck? Yes. Is it really important in the long run? No. Do not waste your energy being upset about other people, which is something we cannot control anyway. This is the same for getting fired up listening to talk radio on the way home. I know a few people who listen to political or sports programs and come home full of rage. Why on earth would you do that? News flash – the athletes and politicians do not know or care about you. Your spouse does. Listen to some music that will help relieve the stress of the day and have you arriving at home full of love.

My day job is at the US Postal Service. Not only is there lots of stress there, but I work 55 hours a week. If I wasted my energy on every little thing at the office, I would come home drained and angry. Margie and I work at a bar on the weekend. If we played into every situation of drama and gossip, we would not only be wasting our time, we would be exhausted. My love for her, and my respect for both her and myself, is worth far too much for that.

How about you? What battles are you fighting that are draining you and not serving you? Could you set boundaries that would help you? Do you have a written list of what is your priority in life and what is important? How often do you review that list? Just a few minutes in the morning, or even in the middle of the day to recalibrate, would make a world of difference!

LET THIS FACT GUIDE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE 🦮

This may be my stoic way of thinking, but I find this to be a very powerful and motivational quote. Many people have told me it sounds morbid or fatalistic. Why? It is a fact. We never know exactly when our final day may come, but we know it is out there. It will never be a comfortable situation to be faced with, but wouldn’t you rather do so prepared? How can one prepare for the end of their life? By living each day to the fullest. This does not mean working yourself to the bone, or even not working at all and spending all day in leisure.

For me, if the end came tomorrow, I would want to know that I made the most out of each moment. How do we do that? The first part is the ability to be present. This is a skill that is all but gone from the world today. I recently saw a video where a monk was asked his secret for remaining joyful. His answer, in its simplicity, was yet profound. He said, “When I am at work, I work. When it is time to eat, I am eating. When it is time for sleep, I am sleeping.” He went on to explain much of the discord in life is that when people are at work, they are thinking about eating. When they are eating, they are wishing they were sleeping. When they finally get to bed at night, they are already worried about working the next day. How true is this? When we find our mind regretting the past, or worried about the future, we are doing the same thing. The past and future do not exist. If you dread and regret the past, use that emotion to drive you to do better in the present. If you are worried about some aspect of your future, use that emotion to plan and prepare better today. The present is the only time we have control over.

The end is always drawing closer. This is not meant to scare us, but to motivate us. Do what you can with what you got today. You never know what you will have tomorrow. Love with all you have today. That is one thing you will never regret. If it is true that we might die tomorrow, how are we living today? Ask yourself that question.

IT IS LIKE MAGIC 🎩

This is something I have the great pleasure of experiencing in my life. It is not by accident. If you are a giving type of person, I will naturally gravitate towards you. People who show a great interest in helping others are people I like to have in my life. For example, I just have coffee with my good friend Nick the other day. He is a giver. Always happy to lend an ear, some solid advice and even some encouragement. A great guy. A few posts ago, I mentioned Tanya and Montell, who are friends of Margie and I. Very generous and giving people.

The danger of being a giving person is that sometimes you connect with a taking person. Someone who is just looking to drain others. That is why it is so important for giving people to set boundaries, otherwise they could find themselves drained and jaded. A taking person can ruin a giving person, but only if they are allowed. When two giving people get together it is not only like magic, but an artful dance. Sometimes one person gives, sometimes the other gives. Yes, there is taking in this relationship. If not, it would not be possible for there to be giving. What is beautiful is that the reciprocation is always right around the corner.

Giving people can often have a hard time receiving. This is where being with another giving person helps. You are both able to give, and to help the other receive. I used to be someone who had a hard time receiving. Then, I heard a story about a man who also tried to be a giver. One day a friend of his took him to lunch. When the man tried to pay the bill his friend snatched it out of his hand and exclaimed, “How dare you deprive me of the joy of taking you to lunch!” I had never quite thought of it that way. I feel great giving and helping others. I am sure they feel the same way helping me. Why should I deny them that? It has helped me be a little more comfortable with the receiving aspect of relationships.

How about you? Do you know some amazing givers? Are you a giver? If so, have you been able to set boundaries so you are not taken advantage of and drained? Have you found other giving souls to connect with and how has that created magic in your life?

WHAT ARE YOUR 7 MINUTES? 🎰

This is an interesting thought. I’ve been clinically dead for a bit, but not sure how much my brain lived on before, during our after for that matter. If it is true, and I’m not sure how they came by this information, it brings up several important questions.

The most important one is rather obvious. What is your 7 minutes? Were they when you are younger? Have they come recently? Are they, as this quote implies, tied to a certain person? Have they Perhaps come at a certain location? Maybe your best 7 minutes was engaged in a certain activity?

I think if we view our life in 7 minute blocks, it can help us stay in the present. After all, 7 minutes is not a very long time. I can tell you there have been several 7 minutes in my life that I can recall. The first 7 minutes I spent in Jamaica with Margie. Knowing I had helped make one of her life dreams come true. Even the first time she was able to see a palm tree in Las Vegas. Recently walking hand in hand in the Bahamas shopping and making new friends was amazing. I recall a morning sipping my favorite iced coffee with my mother at the State Fair listening to a band play tropical music. That was an awesome 7 minutes! Speaking of the State Fair, last year I proposed to Margie there. That was a crazy and memorable 7 minutes.

As you can see, there are several people and locations involved in my 7 minutes. I also think of my uncle and I at the Iola car show, my grandfather and I at this rummage event. My grandmother and I playing cards for an entire afternoon. So many good memories! Each one of them is an amazing 7 minutes. How my brain will pick out 7 from all that will be a neat trick. Then again, I am not in a hurry to find out. Instead, I am going to focus on what I will suggest you focus on – creating more amazing 7 minutes!

WE MADE IT! WE SHOULD NOT HAVE WAITED ✋️

It is Friday! The day so many of us wait for. In some ways, seeing this makes me glad that I work 7 days a week. That may sound crazy to many of you but let me explain. When it comes to planning dates with my beautiful lady, or maybe just treating myself to a bit of self-care like a good cup of coffee and a book, I do not wait for the weekend, as I will be working. I carve little bits of time whenever and wherever I can find them. Quite often we go on a date on a Thursday evening. Maybe I will take Tuesday after work to stop by the local coffee shop and get lost in the current novel I am reading.

The point of all of this is that I do not wait for the weekend, 5 o’clock or any other designated time. Do not misunderstand me, when I go on vacation, I am on vacation. It is more important to find joy in the life you are living rather than working to escape it. When you wait for the weekend, you are essentially resigning yourself to the fact that 5 out of 7 days will be a burden and lacking joy. Can you imagine giving anyone else that advice?

How do we create a life that we do not need a vacation from? By doing the things we preach on this site. Practice gratitude. Be present. Understand that we do not get more life. Time is truly our most precious commodity. Once it is gone, it is gone forever. One day will be your last. Before that day, you will witness the last days of many of the people you love and care about. This is not to sound depressing, but to impress upon you the urgency of changing your perspective of life now. Coming home to Margie is a blessing I am grateful for everyday. One day, it will be the last time we come home to each other. Saturday I am having coffee with my good friend Nick. By listening to him, feeling and expressing the gratitude for the friendship we share will help me be present and fully appreciate the moment. I never know how many more coffees we will share.

How about you? Are you putting off your joy until you reach the destination or are you working on ways to enjoy the journey?

STRIVE SATISFIED? NOT EXACTLY

I heard this strategy called “Strive Satisfied”. There are some really good things I liked about the premise behind it, but I think we could tweak it to have it work even better. The idea behind this strategy is to be satisfied with your life as it is, but striving to make it better. Again, I like the sound of that initially. The more I thought about it, the more of an issue that I had with the word ‘satisfied’. We all know there is great power to be had in the words we use. Subconsciously, the word ‘satisfied’ does not move one to action. It does quite the opposite. Satisfied, at least in my brain, is where you are contented to stop acting.

I would prefer to say “Strive Gratefully”. Being grateful for what you have as you are striving for ways to improve it makes a lot more sense to me. Grateful does not mean you are satisfied. When it comes to showing the woman I love how much she means to me and what an amazing person she is, I will never be satisfied. She continues to amaze me with her beauty in both appearance and action. If I was ‘satisfied’ with the way that I loved her, I am not sure the new version of her would receive the appreciation it so richly deserves.

Never being satisfied does not mean you will feel miserable. That is why I suggest to strive gratefully. I am beyond grateful for the love I share with my lady. The way we are improving our communication. The ways we can discover new things we enjoy, or might enjoy together. All I have to do is look at a picture of her and I feel grateful. One thing I never feel is satisfied. All I have to do is think back 2, 3, or 5 years ago. I was grateful for the love we shared then. It was wonderful. If I would have been satisfied, however, there would be so much growth and love I would have missed out on.

This not only holds true in romantic relationships. It is your health, your friendships, your sense of adventure and your career. Keep a grateful heart and always strive to get better. Between the two of those, your life will be guaranteed to improve in ways you cannot even imagine at this point.

HEY YOU! JOHNNY APPLESEED! 🍎🍏

Have you ever heard of Johnny Appleseed? This may surprise many of you, but he was a real person. His name was John Chapman. He was an American nurseryman. Meaning he looked after young plants, not young humans. He was famous for introducing large parts of North America to trees grown from apple seeds. He was a very successful business man who ended up owning over 1200 acres of land by the time of his death. He shared his knowledge and seeds with many different people. He would plant a nursery, move on and come back a few years later to check on it. Cute story, but what does that have to do with living an amazing life?

We can be our own Johnny (Or Janie) Appleseed. What we can do is spread seeds of inspiration, hope and empowerment. I use the example of Johnny Appleseed, and planting seeds in general for 2 very important reasons. First, we must keep in mind no matter how pure our intentions, we should not try to change other people. Planting a seed is just that. You give them the opportunity to let it grow within themselves. What they do with it is their responsibility. They can water or fertilize it, or they can let it die. All of that is up to them. We must keep this perspective to help us from becoming disillusioned when our efforts to help someone improve their life do not seem to be working. We are planting a seed. Different seeds grow at different rates. It has a lot to do with both the seed itself, as well as the environment. The same can be said with the seed of self-improvement, encouragement or whatever else you are planting.

That leads us to our second reason for using this metaphor. You may want to stop by after some time and see how the seed you planted is coming along. If it does not seem to be blossoming, there may be several reasons. It may be growing slowly. It could use some extra help, or just some extra time. Maybe it did not take root at all? You may need to plant some more seeds or find more fertile ground. Just remember, the more seeds you plant, the more likely they are to grow. Spread the seeds of love, kindness and compassion wherever you go. You could even wear a pot on your head like Johnny Appleseed if you think it would help.

A BIRD WITHOUT WINGS? 🐦

Salvador Dali, crazy talented artist. Check out that mustache! Here ol’ Sal makes a pretty good point. Many people think that improving yourself is just about learning more. It is actually a balance of learning more and putting that knowledge to use. We can learn all we want, but if we fail to act on it, well…we might as well not have learned it at all. I would not only say act, but act boldly. Many times we need to act to learn vital pieces of information. As the saying goes, you do not know what you do not know. Meaning, often when acting on knowledge you think is complete, you realize that a vital piece of that knowledge is missing.

One of the most “interesting” areas that this comes into play is in relationships. Whenever you are dealing with two human beings there will be unexpected events that crop up. This is not only to be expected, but can be one of the greatest opportunities for growth. When I learn something that is supposed to improve a relationship, I can’t wait to use it with the love of my life. It is often with Margie’s help that I learn a tweak that will add greatly to the tool or strategy that I just learned. When two people work together they multiply their efforts.

Acting on the knowledge you have gained will only add to that knowledge. The more you do anything the better you get at it. That is because you learn things along the way. Just as acting without knowledge (think of driving a car without knowing how) can be dangerous. It does little for us to learn something without putting it to use. I see many people who spend years researching the best way to lose weight. They would have been better to just start walking and learning along the way. Act with the knowledge you have now and build upon that knowledge as you move through life.

Lastly, make that action bold. If you are going to love, love boldly. If you are going to give, give boldly. The more intense the action, the greater the knowledge and results. Even if you discover that action is not right for you, this will be learned quicker if the action is bolder. Learning isn’t worth much if we do not couple that knowledge with action.