Sitting in a dark room surrounded by silence, your thoughts focus on a feeling of loneliness. You feel trapped by the demands of the people who surround you daily. Everyone wants something from you. Your time is not your own.
You want to say something, to speak up about the pressure you feel, but you believe it falls on deaf ears and so you remain in your bubble of inner turmoil.
No one else will ever change, you think to yourself. You have to try harder to make them happy so your personal conflict will fade. …
The elderly man shuffles down a deserted street, fatigue weighing on his slumped shoulders. The broom he pushes falls without ceremony to the ground as he grabs to his hat. Gusting wind sends old paper wrappers and an empty can clanking down the open street before it. Cigarette butts litter the sidewalk, mixed with confetti and slowly dying balloons.
The dampness from a recent rain brings up the musty smell of wet cardboard into the air, rising from the nearby alleyway clogged with old boxes and burdened with evidence of population overload.
Two days ago it was impossible to walk…
Scanning through my Facebook feed the other day I noticed a friend’s family out for the vacation of a lifetime. Smiling faces in selfies, historic scenery in the background. Admittedly, I found myself a little jealous.
Reading on, a college roommate was promoted to vice president in a Fortune 500 company. Feelings of inadequacy crept in.
I admired strangers I’ve never met stuffing gourmet foods from fantastic restaurants into open mouths. I relished their pictures with envy as I read of great accomplishments and absorbed their tales of astonishing events.
I realized by comparison, my life is bland and boring.
…
Sitting in a dark room surrounded by silence, your thoughts focus on a feeling of loneliness. You feel trapped by the demands of the people who surround you daily. Everyone wants something from you. Your time is not your own.
You want to say something, to speak up about the pressure you feel, but you believe it falls on deaf ears and so you remain in your bubble of inner turmoil.
No one else will ever change, you think to yourself. You have to try harder to make them happy so your personal conflict will fade. …
My musings, like my writing, seems to ramble. This little train of thought is no exception.
I’m staring at my computer and another 8 minutes passes before the keyboard started making noise again, fingers pushing keys. The words appearing on the page create a dialog different than the one mulling around in my head.
The voices are seldom loud and obnoxious, but their tendency to wander is common.
It’s a theme for most of my life.
Focus, distraction, focus, distraction. Wander. Can anyone relate?
Most of the time I’m capable of getting back on track, but there are times when…
There is a simple story which highlights a known truth for success or prosperity.
Three birds sat on a high wire talking about flying to great places and hoping for the chance to move to higher ground and seeing great sights. They planned and reconsidered those plans, and developed new ideas and hashed out details. There were cats below this wire and dangers in the air above them and dissention as to what the best course of action might be.
Three days later, how many birds do you think were on that wire? What about a week later?
The answer…
The sun drifted below the horizon as I snapped the picture above. Even at this elevated location, the horizon set the limits of my sight.
A lightbulb moment enveloped me. Such beauty does not end with the horizon, just the vision of it from where I stand. The power to move my horizon and expand my view was available to me; by changing position, I also change my perspective.
Think about this.
Every morning we awake and go through the motions of what will be our legacy for the day. A simple collection of 1440 minutes grouped together uniquely for…
Sometimes our first thought is wrong.
Sometimes all the knowledge and all the experience gained in years of learning can lead us down the wrong path.
We must learn to quiet the voices yelling in our ear and examine challenges with eyes of logic instead of waves of emotions.
All medical students know this famous quote:
“When you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras”
— Thomas Woodward
Hence the picture of the horse and not one of a zebra. Medical students learn that the most common explanation for a medical illness is always the most likely, not the most exotic…
How cliche is it to say, “life is a journey” and “just enjoy the ride?”
Fact is, life is all about the things happening as we watch the passage of time, and how we respond or react to those events creates our character and builds our persona.
And with what’s going on now, the passing time brings a sense of anxiety and uncertainty.
But life does not require us to accept fear as a dancing partner. We have options.
My thought is to offer you a free pass on a few of the fears that grip the waking hours of…
It’s frightening when fables we heard as children become lessons we do not learn as adults.
We’re watching this unfold around us in present time.
Do you remember the childhood story of the boy who cried wolf?
As a refresher; a young man charged with watching over a flock of sheep grew bored and thought it would be funny to watch the entire town come running when he cried, “Wolf!”
The townsfolk didn’t think it amusing the first, second, or third time he did it. He sure got a kick out of watching every one scramble, though.
The people of…
Bradford Chase
I take pictures & write stories. Sometimes I get paid. A perpetual student of life who gets lost on purpose. Clap. Hit Follow. Come along for the ride.
