A Journey of Self Discovery and Weight Loss
I woke up this morning with a pain in my chest and a sore back, Thank You God for reminding me I’m Alive.
Don’t ignore life’s built in alarm clocks, if you hit the snooze button one to many times, then snooze you will find yourself permanently.
Don’t stress about tomorrow and forget about today, live a good life.
It’s not unreasonable to think that marriage for men is 70% physical and 30% emotional and for woman the opposite. What woman sometimes fail to understand is that most men whether they want to admit it or not, are selfish creatures, we like to have our cake and eat it and then still look at the desert menu after we’ve eaten our cake.
As I walked the long avenues of my local hardware store this morning I noticed I was the only guy in the store for one and the only person buying a hammer because it looked cool most customers were woman and buying practical items like locks and taps and it dawned on me.
What happened to when Men just used to be men, no matter what colour, religion or economic strata of society you’d come from in the past men had a place we knew our worth.
In every relationship there are special moments, moments that only two people who love each other would understand, a glance, footsie on the couch, a soft word blown in the ear while shaving. A connection that can only be explained as special, but we sometimes share too much with other people outside of our relationships which leads to influences who where not there when you met nor the first night you kissed, who don’t understand the feeling you felt the first time your eyes locked. Our friends should never be allowed to navigate our ship they should be there to support and listen.
Don’t erode that special connection between you and your partner, if your relationships trust has been eroded and other people are over staying their welcome, then stop and change, take a time out. I have found that on a few occasions my wife and I have just needed a weekend away to regenerate, to get away from all the static noise and sometimes to remember what we first saw in each other.
“Relationships dont always make sense. Especially from the outside”
― Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride
I sat outside last night, we got the deck chairs and downloaded star walk and there dad and kids sat gazing at the universe.
The first thing to remember is you going to get somethings wrong, the key to being a good parent is simple ,love your children, understand that they going to be disappointed but be there to hold them, listen when they don’t speak and pay attention when they do, cry together, laugh with your belly , wear a funny hat to dinner and sympathise as if you were 14 again.
Life is not easy for kids who are constantly bombarded by adult content, we ask them to understand divorce or moving house, changing schools to accomodate a parents job, but how times do we ask them how they feel ?
We need to cherish the gifts God has given us, take a walk, discuss the stars, play a game of catch, water the plants, choose a song to buy.
One of the most fascinating aspects of our lives is we work to provide for our kids and in return we never get to know our kids because of work. I sometimes feel like the song “We are running”
The funny thing about traffic jams, is they tend to be the great leveller in life, for no matter what type of car you drive, or how much you earn we are all in it together, and going to go through the same experience of stop start until the impasse. They also tend to bring out a persons true personality we get the impatient, angry and layback and then there is the majority the “us”, the poor sods who accept their fate in life, we sit in our cars worry about being late, how our teenage kids are doing in school, how to resolve the monday morning argument you had with your spouse over finance, the people who dont jump the queues, the moms and dads who save coupons and live for seventy odd years only to have a one liner chiselled onto our grave stones. “Here lies _____ they lived an unfulfilled life, month to month.”
It’s time to look around and squeeze a little more juice out of the lemon you’ve been given, book a holiday, save some money, take your children on a fishing trip, book a cruise with the family. First start the day by climbing out of bed on the other side. Make a conscious decision to change your life by first changing the small things, start by throwing away the bland coffee cup you take to work, buy some new shirts, get a haircut. Then begin to plan the larger changes, cut out some images of a new house, car, exotic holiday place them on your desktop and start to build your dream by investing in yourself.
Open a secret bank account, sell all the crap you have collected that collects dust and eBay it . Let you grave site rather say “Here lies _____ they died on a beach in the Maldives”
If you ever sat in a traffic jam and wondered that there has to be something more you’re right!
The other day I paused for a second to look at a old wedding photo, a time when the future had what seemed like infinite choices and adventures, when love was blind and most sentences end with “I love you cutie smoggy pie”, when my clothes hadn’t shrunk yet, when face and book had no reason to be in the same sentence, but alas time is a cruel mistress and the reflection in the mirrored frame seemed to have been give a beating by father time and all his homies.
Growing up is not for wimps, being tired should not be seen as a symptom of growing old, but rather a badge of honour, we should be proud that we as parents are raising children and getting it right most of the time (gold badges to single parents), for those of you that skip the midweek gym session and buy a slab of chocolate on the way home and snuggle up with your best friend on the couch and watch a good movie good for you, you deserve it.
The world is not going to honour the good mother or father with an award nor will there be any red carpet rolled out at the end of your performance, but the one thing you can count on is at the end of the day when the street lights switch on and the sun goes down, that every little success and failure, all the adventures have brought you together to this place, in your home with your family.
What does our partner see in us ? Using the bathroom scale and looking in the mirror is always a great reality check. The other day I watched a show with a guy who had changed his life through weight loss suplements and had made millions through mail orders not to mention the get rich quick schemes that investors stand to make 40% return on their money. CRAP all of it. We get old and if you have kids you get poor, stressed and overweight all at the same time.
I am sick to death of these quick fix programs from weight loss to financial freedom, not to mention the get rich bastards who prey on the desperate and vulnerable. I’ve decided that no goal is achieved without hard work, you have to walk and workout, save money to make money, but slowly and patiently.
Life is about quality, happiness and what ever you consider you need to be in your confort zone is what you need to achieve. The other day all I needed was some fish wrapped in newspaper and soft chips and sitting on the beach with my family. God could have taken me then. The lesson I think is one coffin does not fit all, when you get to the end of your life which just might be today how would you have lived today differently .
January is all done and dusted, and if you have started the year running like most of us working people (robots) who earn just enough to float above the debt collectors and bank phone calls, then you probably have spent the last four weeks blurry eyed trying to make out what that 11pm sms or email to your phone says.
Well stop for a second and try to remember what your wife dressed in yesterday and what the name of your kids teachers are? I thought so because I have no idea either , you got to stop for a second and just ask yourself the question who or rather for what are your working for. The answer should be the family and a quality of life, sadly Work and Quality of life very rarely go together, so you need to make the weekends count.
Plan your Saturday and Sunday, goto church and take the family for a drive, surprise them with a Drive-Inn movie or Mountain walk or a packed picnic with Cheese and Wine. Get out the iPhone and snap some shots with the kids and wife. Take the time to sit with each kid and get a little insight into their lives, give them a hug, and let them know you care.
Its never about the trash or dishes, but it always seems to be the last straw or in this case dirty dish, that seems to ignite the 24 hour argument. If we as couples simply discussed and resolved the little things before the big blowout how many arguments could have been avoided.
Men tend not to notice the subtle irritations, we dont usually notice that collectively all the little things we do or miss, tend to get our partners all riled up. We would love it if you just told us that nail clippings on the bed are disgusting, or arriving home late after work and griping about a cold dinner, that used to be warm is inconsiderate and tends to come across that we are not appreciative of all that you do for us. We men are simple folk and you need to realise that each every little annoying trait we have probably got passed down to us by our fathers or lack of a father.
If you break the argument chain and gently discuss and put in place better (easier) alternatives most of us are willing to avoid arguing and will change.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. –Leo Tolstoy
A Man's Brain 