denying the infinite capacity.

“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”
G. K. Chesterton quotes


i had the chance to go to walter reed hospital yesterday, a military hospital that specializes in soldier rehabilitation. its attention to detail was obvious, but it is what one would expect seeing as it was occupied by soldiers. smiling faces enveloped the first wheelchair as it rolled past, an anomaly i assumed. but after awhile i noticed that it was more of a pattern that took me awhile to grow accustomed to.


when we walked into the first room i didn’t know what to expect, i thought i was going to see a soldier laying on his back staring at the wall, daydreaming of some desert scenario where he twists and turns his way into a different outcome. but i found no hidden regrets in the three hours that we were there.


the first guy ‘chris’ was surrounded by friends and family, with hundreds of cards posted over the place like wallpaper. he had a grin on his face as we walked in and wasted no time befriending each and every one of us. his story was tragic but you couldn’t tell it by the enthusiastic and upbeat way he conveyed his story.


‘chris’ was shot 4 times, ravishing his legs. the impact of the bullets shattering his femur shoved him over a wall where he fell 20 feet onto the ground below. once there the armed gunman still shot round after round at him, but ‘chris’ mustered the strength to drag himself over 40 feet to safety. his goals and dreams for the future is to ‘once again walk’, said all through smiles, with the distinct accent of ‘hope’.


stories like this reoccurred all day, some stories being more tragic then others, but all with similar endings, hope. i even met a father of twins who explained that if he not been shot and his leg amputated that he would not have been there to watch his babies being born! HOW! how do people see so clearly through the grey to see the one lone bright spot, and then exploit it to such a profound end.


“Most human beings have an absolute and infinite capacity for taking things for granted”
Aldous Huxley quotes


a few soldiers broke down and told us that they do get down, and saddened by their circumstances but they tell me that they can’t let that get them down for long or it will consume their lives. the MOST positive outgoing upbeat person was a ‘leon’ who had lost both his legs and one of his arms in a roadside explosion. after his intense story he explained that he came home to a caring wife, a new home that a non-profit organization bought him, and a few months later found out his wife was pregnant with his second child. he told us his life had never been better, all that, with only one arm.


and i digress; i catch myself complaining about the small insignificant meaningless moments in my own life, but i walked away not feeling guilty for my heaven bound disagreements but completely motivated to look at the darkest moments of my own life and figure out a way to see the smallest ray of hope and expound on that. these men were not sorry, or saddened but hopeful and proud. i hope one day i can be as brave and strong in the face of my own battles as those men i met at walter reed.

finding your core.

i have read several business books throughout the years, for college, in college, and beyond. it is so funny how focused we are on obtaining ‘it’ ($) but have you ever stepped back to figure out why we as a people want it.


being ‘rich’ to me is far more than obtaining wealth, for me there are things equivalent or even greater than simply having financial freedom. what about health, happiness, joy, relationships, adventure. etc.


possessions are the great salve. they cover, but they are not responsible for the healing. it seems we have been trained by handsome women and pretty women in the advertising that everyone seems happier when they are holding a bottle of _________. so year after year we begin to accumulate, and after awhile they have bought themselves into poverty with their hurt and pain still following them every turn they make.


i think this is why there are so many men and women who have quarter/mid life crisis, and changing of jobs, and spouses. they are hurting children/teens that never quite healed the hurt through the proper anecdote of communication, counseling, forgiveness etc. and instead turned to the american dream thinking that it was also the american reconciler.


why do we focus on the superfluous (money) when its really the ‘core values’ that we are after. i’m sure with very little hesitancy we could all name ‘things’ we wanted right off the top of our head, (new car, appliance, clothes, cell phone, etc.) but i think it is going to take you longer to find what values you hold.


david bach wrote a book in which i am going to paraphrase a section, he believes in a life-planning process. so what were going to do is to create a ‘core value circle’. what i want you to do is to find the top 5 values that are most important to you, that ‘drives you in the decisions you make everyday.’ select the 5 values based on what your instincts tell you and not what looks good on paper. DO NOT confuse goals for values, ‘being rich would be a goal, but wanting security would be the value.’ write these five values in a circle on a piece of paper, in the middle write “my core values”.


(‘here are some words to help you identify some core values: security, freedom, happiness, peace of mind, fun, excitement, power, family, marriage, friends, making a difference, spirituality, independence, growth, creativity, adventure, fulfillment, confidence, balance, love, health…’)


why do we focus on the superfluous (money) when its really the ‘core values’ that we are after. i’m sure with very little hesitancy we could all name ‘things’ we wanted right off the top of our head, (new car, appliance, clothes, cell phone, etc.) but i think it is going to take you longer to find what values you hold.


from now on when you are making decisions with your time, money, energy, etc. just compare it to your new values. why are you buying a new jacket when what makes you happy is your value of ‘adventure’? go on a road trip, go get lost in the woods somewhere. why are you trying to salve your way through creativity? why are you medicating yourself through independence?


stick to your core.

never remain.

'if you would attain to what you are not yet, you must always be displeased by what you are. for where you are pleased with yourself there you have remained. keep adding, keep walking, keep advancing.'


~saint augustine

lord of the flies.

i sat in church a few weeks back.
it was a really archetectually asthetic structure, with wood beams, sterling silver, and large windows. honestly it felt more like a loft than a church. i wanted to live in it, not practice my faith there.

as the service went on i noticed something so very peculiar. basically everyone that went to church there looked like they were from silver lake, california or williamsburg, nyc... basically 'hipsters'. not that i have anything against that at all, but upon further observation i saw that there was not one old person in the building, then i realized that there was not even one older person there, then i realized that there was not one person over 40 years old!

in the book 'lord of the flies' a group of boys get stranded on an island and end up having to fend for themselves, before long one by one a group of the boys began to kill the other. it is a fascinating read, and short, and is one of my favorite books because it shows the shear barbaric state we digress to when not held accountable.

in this country, because this is not a global phenominon, we value youth or the apperance of such. i am not sure why or how we 'digressed' to this state but i feel we are doing ourselves and our communities a disservice by alienating those who have more wisdom, knowledge, and years to share.

have we so segregated ourselves from those who have time on their side, thus limiting our knowledge of things to come? in essence, if there is 'nothing new under the sun', then aren't people older than us basically time travelers, how much can we learn from those who can see into our future?

we may all go through different experiences, travel to different locations, have different friends; but in this life there are much more that we share in common with our fellow man than we have different. in the same way i feel that our grandparents, people we may work with that are older, our elders, etc. may have an insight into our lives that the people closest to us our age may not have.

what happen to the word 'mentor'? i feel that it is a lost art and life left to the past. i admit that besides my father i do not have one, its not that i am not open to it, i just feel that this current culture does not extend its hand to such. my challenge is to somehow come up with ideas on how to incorporate people 20 years older than you, or more, into your life.

now i digress... are we not slowly creating an island of age in our little world? are we not simply the shipwrecked boys on an island slowly eliminating each other due to our lack of wisdom, knowledge, foresight, and accountablility?

to progress we must incorporate all to learn,
we must learn so that one day we might teach,
-stephen

sense of an accomplished day.

“When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.”
-anonymous

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mankind gives life to machine!

before the sudden burst of technological advancements mankind had to communicate using old fashion methods of 'talking face to face' & interpreting the body language presented which are both now as we know a barbaric and primitive form of interpersonal communication.

now that we have deemed it obsolete we have to issue a new set of rules that go along with our newly formed communicational evolution. it seems to me you can NOT take the ‘old outdated ways of communication’ and apply it to the new way of computerized advancement.

for instance: my brother was giving me his honest opinion in an email of something i created. even though it was a negative opinion i appreciated it because i would much rather brutal honesty then yes men. because i didn’t email him back right away, because i was working on something else, he took lack of response as a sign that i was upset or mad.

tsk tsk paul for thinking that we live in the barbaric days where if i was silent after you said something negative in a face to face conversation that the ‘body language’ (as it was known to primates) would infer that i was upset. but that doesn’t apply to the computer age. if you email me back please wait no set amount of time as i may be on twitter, youtube, myspace, or facebook living ‘real life’ and i will get back to your email in due time.

cell phones: when having a face to face conversation with another human apparently texting/cell phone calls DO TAKE PRESEDENT. listen if the person your with in-person really cared about you they wouldn’t have monopolized your time by asking you to go to lunch or coffee, they would have befriended you on a social network and allow you to see 160 characters of their life in short doses.

to be honest though, technology is getting to me and i feel i am at the point where i want to rebel against the whole system and actually meet people. we have gone too far in many many ways. no joke, just this week a man killed his x for changing her facebook page from ‘in a relationship’ to ‘single’!!! really???? have we given our computers such life that it dictates our emotional responses?

we have given life & breath to machines, no longer to we engage people but tell our computer how we feel in hopes of hearing others feelings through there machine as well. people fall in love, break up, talk, respond, and engage without ever meeting the other person! does anyone else find this unnatural?

in the 50’s everyone was clean cut and their children in the 1960’s rebelled and were liberal and 'free'. the 90’s rebelled against the 80’s etc. its just a cycle of life. i wonder if our future children will rebel against us by actually walking outside and having personal contact with other humans. wouldn’t that be crazy????

-stephen

IRONY: here i just wrote this and am about to post this on my online journal (or blog as we call it), then go to twitter to make sure everyone knows about it. this ladies and gentlemen is the definition of hypocrite in case you didn’t know.