This is 40

40 ain't shit. I go the gym 3-4 x's a week, I eat sensibly, and my favorite beverage is H2O (with wine and vodka coming in at a close 2nd and 3rd).  All good, low-carb options. 

40 is just a number. Or is it? Is this me embarking on my best decade ever? I believe that. I stay positive, focusing only on the now, I meditate, and even do yoga sometimes. I know I have to take care of my body. He'll get fat quick if I don't. 

So I make the best of today. It's all I have. I have this moment. *takes a breath and sits back* 

So much time is spent worrying about future events that you forget about NOW. Let everything else go. Be here. Be now. 

Stop reading. Take a breath and sit back while following the trace of your breath. Feel the tips of your nostrils take in the oxygen as your lungs fill. Straighten your spine, stick out your chest, tilt your chin up and say to yourself, "Everything is okay!"

At that moment, everything was okay. Fuck everything else. Just be right here. 

If nobody has told you yet today that they love you, then let me be the first. I Love You 

Could This Be Love?

I'll be 40 in two months and I don't think I've ever been in love. I've loved women. But being IN love is different. Approximately one year ago, i got out of a painful 11 year relationship. I loved her and she loved drugs. Prior to that, I was a reckless twenty-something that was incapable of loving anyone because I didn't love myself. Now, I love me. Now, i think I'm about to love her.

We've only had two dates but we spoke for weeks prior to those phenomenal events taking place. Everything is different. The intensity is deafening. When I look into her eyes, the rest of the world ceases to exist. I hear nothing but her. I take in her scent and a blanket of calmness covers my soul. I guess this is a prelude to love. What the fuck else could it be? 

It's one of the most exciting feelings I have ever felt and I know I want more. I crave it. I know I want this and that's why I'm not holding back. I'm not going to 'play it cool' or purposely not return her calls/texts to remind her that I'm not sweating her. I was always too afraid to expose who I was, so instead, I played games. I'm too fucking old for games. I'm not worried about getting hurt. I know that what was meant to be, will be.

And today, right now, I know that I feel emotions for this woman that I've never felt before. I know I care more about her feelings than I have for any woman I've been with. It's crazy to think that I'm about to fall in love. But I am. 

How could I not? She's amazing. She's beautiful. She's kind. She's funny. She's everything I ever wanted in a woman. 

She's like no one I've ever met before. And I say that because no woman has ever gripped my attention and my soul so abruptly. 

Prior to my first date with this vixen, I used to think that people who talked about 'love at first sight' were crazy. But now I get it.

I get her. I get Us. And for once, I get love.

Be Without

The greatest gift I have ever given myself is learning the ability to stop thinking. To remove yourself from thought and just BE. Just exist. 

We are programmed to always be in thought. Replaying conversations or moments over and over, analyzing, comparing, reenacting, and over reacting. That moment is gone and never to be seen again. And you just missed another moment because you were in thought replaying the scene in your head. 

Devoid yourself of that thought. Anytime you feel a reminiscing coming on, you immediately dismiss it. Scoff at the notion. Say to yourself, 'hmmpfh, I just had a thought about the past', and let it go. Don't judge it or attach an emotion to it, just disassociate yourself from it. When done in repetition, you can eventually learn to never live in the past again.

The future? Well that'll just have to get here whenever the hell it gets here.  I can't bother myself with playing out future events anymore unless it has to do with the greatness that lies before me.  Yes, of course I have goals, both short and long term, written down.  But I'm not talking about achieving your personal legend, I'm referring to the self-induced anxiety caused by worrying about minor future events or conversations. That moment in time will get here eventually, and it will work out fine. It always does. The worry I create (in my head) leading up to that event or moment is always 10x worse than it turned out. I created the anxiety and worry by staying in my head, my own thoughts. That is emotional torture.

As we Rocky-loving Philadelphians say, 'Fahget about it!'

Meditate. Or merely spend a few minutes being devoid of thought. Too hard? Follow the flow and trace of your breath. As it channels past the nostrils and into the lungs, feel it moving. Try feeling your chest/stomach rise and fall while feeling the air flowing in and out of your nose. If you can successfully think of both of those same, inner moments together than you will not be able to think of anything else. Those two internal thoughts will busy your mind enough to allow it to take a short break. 

Be still. Devoid of thought. Give your mind a break. It deserves it. 

Fuck you Death

Death is all like, 'Fuck you, dude' and I'm all like 'No, FUCK YOU, dude!', with two middle fingers all up in his grill. Please take note how I toned it down once I got to the word, 'dude'. You can't scream that word. It's oxymoronic. In every sense of the word.

My younger cousin took his own life over the weekend.  His battle with addiction became too much for him to bear, or so I'm told. Although my cousin and I hadn't been close since we were kids, his death impacted me tremendously because of how he died. If someone gets hit by a bus or dies in a plane crash, well, I can't relate to that. But if somebody commits suicide, well, now that I can relate to since I've attempted suicide twice myself.

My first suicide attempt was done by taking 60 Xanax.  Apparently, that little cocktail wasn't enough so a few months later I took 60 more Xanax, 15 serroquel (sleeping pills for crazy people), and I smoked twenty dollars worth of crack. Well, probably more like ten bucks because that homeless dude was taking bigger hits than I was.

Neither attempt worked, thankfully. I guess it wasn't my time. Unfortunately, for my little cousin, his time had come. He leaves behind a beautiful little girl that is going to be raised without parents because her mother committed suicide a few years ago.  Sad story, actually. But I have never heard a good story about death.

Addiction is a ruthless, insidious disease and I wish I could cure it. I wish I knew how to fill those voids in our lives that only addiction could fill. I was an addict because I wanted to be an addict. I wanted to get high to help me forget. I needed to get high to assist with filling that empty hole that I carried around as a child that grew every year until I succumbed to it and attempted suicide.

I tried meds, therapists, exercise, drinking, and not drinking and nothing worked.  Except love. Love cured my addiction. I stopped hating myself and I began to love me. I just woke up one day in the hospital and I said, 'Enough!'  I decided that I deserved greatness. I decided that I deserved love.

So if you struggle from addiction, feel free to hit me up. I love you. You should try loving you too.  You deserve it.

Just Do It. Gosh

"We become what we think about most of the time" - Earl Nightingale

My cognizant ignorance is one of my better qualities.  I don't want to know.  I want the current events of the world to elude me.  I'm an eternal optimist.  I don't want to see the evils of this world. Apparently, that is all the media has to offer in the form of entertainment.  The opening story, and ninety percent of the stories thereafter, will be about death, rape, or some other horrific crime.  I don't want to know about that shit.  The world can be an evil place.  Fine, I get it Mr Newsperson.  However, if you live from a place of love and you only LOOK for the LOVE in the world, then that's all you'll see.

"Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results" - Willie Nelson

Well, now it's official.  Willie fucking Nelson just got quoted.  But, seriously, many of our greatest minds have quotable words pertaining to the belief that positive thoughts create a positive world. You just have to make the DECISION to make the change.  You must scoff at the idea of a negative thought even entering your mind.  You have to disassociate yourself from that thought by thinking, "hmmpf, i just had a negative thought."

Now don't entertain the negative thought and think how far it would have gone IF you would carried that thought further because that's craziness.  You must SCOFF at the thought.  Realize how dumb that would have been IF you would have carried that negative thought out.  You then program yourself (and your mind) to then only be able to think in positive thoughts.  Stay in the moment at all times and only allow yourself to think forward with positive, conceptual thoughts about the greatness that lies before you.

Meditate.  Start by going to YouTube and putting, "10 Minute Guided Meditation" in your search.  It will be the best 10 minutes you spent that entire day.  I would give you a link but there is SOO MANY good ones out there and you're the one that has to find the meditation that feels right TO YOU.  It's pointless to give you my favorite meditation, because that might not agree with your soul.  By removing everyone else's opinion that's ever been passed along to you, you are only left with your own decision making abilities.  And inside of you, there is an inner voice that is dying to be heard.

Meditation helps to release that inner voice.  The calmess and tranquility of those 10 minutes allow you to get more in touch with YOU.  Start listening to that inner voice.  Your greatness lies within but first you have to remove the negative thoughts and just BELIEVE.

I believe the children are our future.  Teach them well, and let them lead the waiiiiiiit.

That's not right.  That's plagarism.  Some guy from the Sexual Chocolates said those inspiring words.  

So start tomorrow off right.  Before your feet hit the floor, put in your headphones, go to YouTube, and meditate.  It'll change your life.  One great thought at a time.  

Question Everything

I don't recall the exact moment that i realized that everything was going to be different.  It's odd how a single thought can change your life.  Up until that point, i've conformed and accepted what was taught to me by others.  Not anymore.  Everything's changed.  From that moment forward i had to question everything because this life is not what i thought it was.  It's not about working a nine to five job, earning a good pension, so you can have a nice retirement.  If that's your goal in life, than you're acknowledging defeat.  You've accepted a comfortable death and you're now planning for it. 

Fuck that.  I believe in so much more than accepting that life of mediocrity.  I accept greatness.  That's what i know is in store for me and i cannot achieve that while spending 1/3 of my life working for someone else.  I will NOT do it.  I can't.  I owe myself more than that.  We all do.

Today. That's All. Just Today

November 17, 2014.  That's today.

That's the last time that i'll be able to say that statement, without lying.  That's powerful.

That's just one day of many that i'll have to live, so it's no big deal if i just stay home today because it's cold and rainy, right?  No.  Wrong.  There are people that live in climates where it is cold and rainy 90% of the time, so are they supposed to stay home and watch Murder She Wrote marathons all day?  Hell No.  They get out there and they live.  So that excuse is not valid.

I figure that if i live to be around 75 years old, that gives me approximately 27,375 days on this earth.  That's not that many.  At all.  I COULD spend the day thinking negatively or in my shit about some ol, "Poor Me, Woe is Me" attitude.  I could do that, easily.  But then i lost a day.

Or, better yet, today could be filled with a life-changing event.   But how the hell will that happen if I sit at home with my thumb up my ass feeling sorry for myself?  It won't happen.  So why not start the day with a cup of tea or coffee, a quick 10-15 minute meditation to get your mind right, and then start your day?  Your MIND is the most powerful thing you have or own, so spending a few minutes a day to get that valuable sonfoabitch in its right place is the LEAST you could do.

One of the greatest minds of our generation, Napoleon Hill, spent 3 hours a day meditating.  And his words impacted hundreds of millions of people.  So turn off Oprah and go make some great shit happen.  Walk outside and smile at everyone you meet and tell them hello.  Pretend you love every single person that you encounter and watch how the day changes.  We receive what we put out.  If you are negative thinking and expecting bad shit, than bad shit happen.  Transversely, if you keep your head up, your chest puffed out, and you stay in the moment, taking in all the greatness that this world has to offer, then you won't have an opportunity to be negative.  By NOT allowing yourself the opportunity to think about past events or fret over future obligations, you are forcing yourself to stay in the moment.  Do It.  Try it.  It'll change your life.  It changed mine.  And i was a lost, hopeless soul that endured numerous jails, hospitals, and psych wards.  I created my misery.

But today, i create my greatness.  Yeah, sure, i do miss SportsCenter....but i'll get over it.

If nobody's told you yet today, then let me be the first:  I Love You.

Thanks for stopping by.

xoxo