Category Archives: Phylosophy

Phylosophy

I Am Selfish

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“So as of right now I will not give you what you deserve, I will give you all that I am.”
Warning!!! Weird category ahead. My brain is back at it. I’m going to blame it on my kids for getting me up to early this morning to come back from Omaha so they didn’t miss practice. It’s a pretty weird feeling when your kids are waking you up at five in the morning and it’s not Christmas morning. Really what happened to you guys. Are you really that excited about practice? In reality I am very proud of their dedication. I didn’t set an alarm. I told them if they wanted to leave early then they had to wake us up and I would drive. I also told them good luck with Mom. Big day at the zoo yesterday, Mom is tired and I’m pretty sure she will be on “Mann time” tomorrow. So a couple of large coffees and they are at practice doing practice stuff, and I had four hours in the car with five sleeping people to contemplate life.
As animals we are inherently selfish. We were made that way so that in a world with scarce resources we would be able to survive. As time went on humans became smart or should I say smarter. We can still do some really dumb things. We developed tools, language, culture, and eventually civilization. We became civilized, meaning we learned to live with others. The “relationship” was born, and we have been trying to figure them out since. How do we balance our inherent selfishness with being part of a culture and civilization where, for most of us, our resources are readily available and it is our relationships that are the most important aspect of our lives. Whether it is in a job where we go to get money to buy those resources or with our friends, acquaintances, or at home. Relationships rule our lives. How we handle those relationships will have a profound affect on our lives. How we deal with our inherent selfishness will have a profound affect on our relationships.
Because we are selfish we came up with phrases like, “you don’t deserve that.” What does that even mean? “You don’t deserve that,” is a selfish statement because it is implying that you don’t deserve it, but I do. It is a statement that is making a comparison. Most of the time in a relationship it is comparing things that are different. It is not an apple to apple comparison. We are all different. We feel different about things. We think differently, we react differently, we perceive differently. What we feel we deserve is different. If we look deeply within ourselves what we believe we deserve and what other people think we deserve are not even close to each other. Most of the time we sell ourselves short and think that we are not deserving of this or that.
Thinking back have you ever said, “I’m not doing that for them after the way they have been acting.” We have all said that at one time or another. That is why I don’t like the term “unconditional love.” We have used it so much that we no longer think about what it means. I like to use the words “love without condition,” because it makes me think about it a little more. I will love you even though you do not deserve it, I love you without any conditions placed on it. It is our selfishness that places conditions on things. It goes back to the “Do unto others” saying. It does not say, “Do unto others as you would like to have done unto you , after they do unto you what you want first.” Someone has to do unto first, and it is up to me to make that happen.
Sometimes our relationships are not about love. We don’t necessarily always have love in a relationship. Like at work, but the same principles apply. I read in a book one time that if the relationship is important to you to always put the relationship first. For me that means if it is important enough then I need to hold down some of my selfishness and think what is best for this relationship, not necessarily what is the absolute best for just me. Compromise can be a very good thing, and sometimes we may not always know what is best for us. I’m not going to get slapped around in the process, but my attitude will be one of caring, empathy, and wanting the best for everyone. That is how things get done. Nothing gets done in an argument.
I am starting to ramble a little bit so I will try to sum this up. I have no idea what you deserve because I have no idea what I deserve. All I do know is that you are important to me and this relationship is important. I am selfish, but I am trying to work on that. I can not expect you to treat me better if I am not willing to treat you better first. I love you without condition. Whether I think you are deserving or you think you are deserving does not matter. So as of right now I will not give you what you deserve, I will give you all that I am.
Phylosophy

I Gave In

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“By giving you this, I hand you my heart and soul, I have not given in, I have given you a gift because I love you and want you to be happy.”
Ok, if you have not figured it out yet I am weird, if nothing else I am odd. I will call myself eccentric because it sounds better than both of the first two. When my brain is not fixated on my wife and kids I usually start wandering all over the spectrum with thoughts of why an artificially set wage rate would affect price and how that affect would affect demand and blah, blah, blah. If I am bored still I might wander off the reservation and start working on the blueprint in my brain for the electromagnetic engine I want to build and patent that would revolutionize the world. If I get tired of those kind of things I jump to my diesel/electric pontoon boat with electric pods like a big ship that I have designed in my head, that I will travel down the Mississippi on. Just me, the river and Mark Twain. Most of the time though I try to look inward at my relationships and see why for instance something is happening and if for some reason I am the cause. Ya, I just got weird again, I know. So, bare with my weirdness some more and keep reading, or don’t. It ok with me.
Many of you know that we have three older kids and one six years younger. I always get the look and the question when I tell someone I don’t know about the age gap between the last one. “Was he a mistake?” is always the question. I then proceed to tell them the story about how the oldest three were getting into Jr. High and how Tammy started freaking out because she realized that they were growing up and because they were all so close together in age they were all going to leave her in a short period of time. Then I proceed to tell them that I fought it for a while, I had everything planned out and was going to have all of the kids out of the house by forty-six and we would be free to do what ever we wanted. I then say, “I finally gave in and said that we could try.” This was always my story and I was sticking to it.
I don’t know why, but for some reason I started picking apart the saying “giving in” one day. I know, weird. I know that I always say, “I gave in”, when I talk about Tucker. I started to question, did I really give in, or was there some other reason I said ok. I started to look at other instances in our lives, whether it was with Tammy or the kids or whoever. I started to look at some of my decisions and put them to a test and see, did I really just give in or was is something else. As men especially, I think we have a stereotype that we are supposed to follow that says you are supposed to rule your roost with a heavy hand and make “the right” decisions for your family. Dave Ramsey would want to strangle me about right now, because he wants you to make your decision for the betterment of your future, and take all of the emotion out of it. I get that, most of the time I try to be rational, not emotional when it comes to those decisions. But, sometimes what is an extra couple of dollars in your 401k compared to someone’s smile.(sorry Dave got off topic there.) So as men, and sometimes women too, we are portrayed as weak, because we “gave in.” An example would be, you and the guys sitting around and one of them asks, “ Where is you wife at?” You sheepishly say, “oh, I finally gave in and said she could go with her girl friends for the weekend. The guys start ribbing you for being weak, and life goes on. Most of the time the ribbing is in good fun, because the other three guys did the same thing last weekend when their wives were gone. My question is, did I “give in,” or did I simply “give.” Some how we beat ourselves up because we made a conscious decision to give. Somehow we view ourselves to be weak when all we really have done is give someone we care about something that they really wanted. We didn’t “give in,”(something negative) we simply “gave,”(something positive). Now don’t get me wrong, there are limits. Just because my seventeen year old wants a Land Rover doesn’t mean that I can just give it to her, but maybe there is something that I can give her that is more important. Another example is that my eighteen year old son doesn’t like to fill up his car with gas for some reason. So sometimes he asks me to do it. If it fits in my schedule then I will do it. Tammy likes to give it to me all the time because I am “giving in” by filling it up for him. “He needs to be responsible for it himself,” Yes I get that, but sometimes I just want to give, for no other reason than its something I can do to help. It is something positive in Tanner and I’s relationship. He doesn’t have to fill up his car and he knows that I care enough about him to do it even if he is capable of doing it himself.
So back to Tucker, I actually told his story yesterday on the plane to Houston and I kind of felt guilty because I said I “gave in,” again. If I really look deep down I didn’t “give in.” I “gave” and I am really proud of that. If you know tucker then you couldn’t think of your life without him in it. Tucker has been very special in our lives. For Tammy and I it was special because it was a chance for us to have only one baby at a time. For the older kids it was a chance to have a sibling that wasn’t always fighting for the same resources because they were almost the same age. He was an expensive gift to my family, but definitely worth every penny.
If you happened to catch it a while back I posted a couple of lines about what love means. If you missed it here they are:
  • To love: the willingness to give up anything so that someone else has what they want and need.
  • Understanding being loved: understanding the cost of what someone else gave up so that you have what you want and need.
There is a flip side to this coin of giving in a relationship too. As the person who is receiving we have to be conscious of the cost to the one who gave, and also recognize the difference between “giving in” and “giving”. I could go on a week-long hunting trip with the boys and brag to them that I finally got her to give in and let me go. Or I could recognize what my being gone cost her, ie. taking care of kids activities, meals, etc. and be gracious and thank her verbally for doing all of that so that I was able to go. Anyway I am not telling you guys anything you don’t already know. For me I just wanted to verbalize it and tell someone, so the next time someone asks me if Tucker was a mistake I don’t give the standard line about giving in. I will say that I decided that I loved my wife enough that I wanted to give her that gift, and that I am so happy I did.
Phylosophy

A Thousand Folds

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What say men, who find constant, the ripples of life so heavy that such weight would seem to crush them. When first he found solace in the darkness, the silence quelled sorrow and fear. What say he when he finds no comfort there? Where does one go then? What retreat is of avail to him who feels each beat as it moves his blood through vessels so taught that the pressure is felt in his fingers and heard in his ears? What escape does one have from his mind as the demons creep though the recesses of his darkness and grab hold of his hope and try to drown them in his fear? Where does one find a sword to fight a battle with whom he has no enemy except the lassitude and weaknesses of self? His fear is that this master craftsman will not be gentle enough, with each fold one becomes stronger. With each blow he stretches and becomes thinner. His hope is that this master knows when that final blow must come. He must know when one more fold and one more strike has weakened instead of strengthened. His hope is that when it is time to quench it does not warp in the slightest and above all that it does not break and become useless. Where must man search for such a master? How far must we travel to find one of such standing that we give no thought to failure? I contend that one must only look as far as his heart. We must look through the demons that are mounting for attack and find that one speck of faith that is residing there, being patient for us to find it. One must grab on to that spec and know that his master was good, kind, and just and has built it for a purpose. Its strength is from a thousand folds and its sharpness from being worked so thin that no armor stands a chance against it. Demons be weary for I have found such a master and I shall be bold. Enlarge my territory, for I am an instrument of good and shall stand at the forefront and take on any and all that try to bring harm.

Phylosophy

Thankful Alternatives

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So here we are back in the thankful season. Getting ready to count our blessings and stuff ourselves. This time of year always gets me to thinking about life in general and I really try to break down what I am thankful for. I usually end up along way from what a normal response would be. Sure I am thankful for all of the obvious things, but what, at this point and time am I really thankful for. I went way out this year and really tried to break it down into what I am going to call “alternatives.” I broke it down this way because we have a lot going on in our life that can at first glance be very negative, disheartening, and downright no fun. In any situation we always have alternatives. I am not going to go as far as saying we always have a choice, but we do always have a choice on how we react, view and deal with the alternatives we are given.
The first thing I did was strip away the things we cannot control. What I mean is that one of my alternatives is that Tammy doesn’t have cancer. I can not control that nor want to. If I sit here and think about all of the ways our life would be different without cancer my thoughts would end up in that negative, disheartening, and downright no fun category. So then what alternatives do I have to be thankful for? To be very frank with you, I am thankful for any alternative. Without any alternatives there is no hope. With no hope you are left with nothing. If I break our life down into our alternatives it is really pretty basic. Keep fighting, or don’t.
So as I sit here and think about what I am thankful for under this perspective many things come to mind. I am thankful that I don’t have enough hours in the day to exercise, I spend that time with Tammy. Not doing anything special, just spending time. I am thankful that I get to find the time and resources to get her where she needs to be when she needs to be there. I am thankful that I get to cook our meals, do our laundry, put the kids to bed. I am thankful that I am the one that gets to hold her in my arms when she is hurting. I am thankful for all these things and a lot more because if I break it down to its most fundamental parts, I am thankful for this alternative.
I wanted to write this because sometimes in life we get so bogged down with things that we forget what we really should be thankful for. So if you sometimes feel like life has really got you down, break down your alternatives. Sometimes you might find that what you are dealing with is not something that should tear you apart. It should remind you of how thankful you are, because sometimes the other alternative is something that you could not live with.
Phylosophy

The Precipice

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As I stand on the precipice I can’t help but feel the surreal nature that is upon my heart and soul.  What force of nature would do such a thing as to shield my feelings and blind my eyes from what tragedy could be bestowed upon my very being? My calmness betrays what true feelings should be running though my veins.  My smile is a mask of fear that should be permeating my very soul to its depths. What of this calmness? What of this surreal nature that is stealing from me the expectation of pain, that is holding in its immense grasp the strings of my heart? For what purpose am I held back from the edge? For what purpose am I blinded from seeing what truly resides at the bottom?

I can only assume that the force is Providence and the reason is hope.

Phylosophy

A Thousand Years

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If I was guaranteed to live a thousand years what would Ido?

Climb the highest mountain.

Fly a million miles.

See a thousand different places.

Make ten million dollars.

If I was guaranteed to live five hundred years What would Ido?

Walk 200 miles on a beach

Sit in the mist on a cool mountain morning.

Stand in the rain and not worry about the lightning.

Eat ice cream at least 3 times a day.

If I was guaranteed to live 100 years what would I do?

Work hard to make a good life.

Take vacations every once in a while.

Watch what I eat so maybe I could make it to 110.

If I was guaranteed to live ten more years what would I do?

Make time for all of you.

Do something I have always wanted to do.

Not worry about the small stuff

If I was guaranteed the next ten minutes what would I do?

Be thankful for everything that I have in my life.

Regret everything that was not done.

If I was guaranteed then next ten seconds what would I do?

I would touch you so that you could feel that I am sincere and I would tell you I love you.

I am only guaranteed this moment.  So in this moment it becomes clear what is truly important. The most important thing in my life is love.  Love every moment that you live, and live every moment that you love.

Phylosophy

The Thankless Thankful

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There seems to be a lot of thankfulness going around this month.  I have been thinking about this a lot lately and thought I would share my Thoughts.

I am thankful for the darkness because without it there would be no sunrise.

I am thankful for the cold because when she is close I can feel her warmth touch me.

I am thankful for sadness because without it I would not understand the meaning of happiness.

I am thankful for the heart breaks when we are young so that we understand the profound meaning of true love.

I am thankful that I have lost a few times in my life so that I feel the deep sense of accomplishment and joy when  I win.

I am thankful for selfish people so that when I am with a true friend I appreciate them like I should.

I am thankful for silence because when I break that silence with my favorite song it is profound and meaningful.

I am thankful for my kids being just a little bit bad sometimes so I remember how good they really are.

I am thankful for Angels that fly to close to the ground.

I could give you many more, but my point is that life is a balance between the good and bad, the happy and the sad, and the good and the evil.  There is not one without the other, or more important we do not appreciate the good things in life if we have never experienced the bad.  Ying is balanced with yang.  Life is not lived in a vacuum.   It is like water and will seek its own level.  Our greatest challenge in life is to slightly tip that balance in the direction of the good things, and the only way we can do that is by our attitude towards those things that we consider bad.

Phylosophy

Full Of Life

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“I must challenge yophilosopheru Zotikos(Greek). If what you say is true then I have no choice but to climb to the tops of mountains and slay dragons. I must spin circles and chase the tails of squirrels. It seems that I am not living unless I have drunk my fill of Ouzo and danced on stones until my feet have become numb, my head is spinning, and my stomach has wretched.
     Oh Zotikos I must challenge you indeed. Some may call you “full of life,” but I must question your belief of what that means. When we are old men what stories shall we tell. Oh the conquests you have undertaken. What glory you have seen. The gold in your pocket must be heavy. I must ask you though, you are full of life but has your life been full. I question if it was a race to the top of the mountain or if it was a race away from something. As you ran your circles was it because you were chasing something within yourself. As you guzzled your Ouzo were you not running from your true feelings and hiding from what it really is to have a full life. Zotikos, full of life, what is to become of you when the fire has dimmed.
     I too have traveled far and done many things. I challenge you now for I have ran away and I have been lost. I have tried to see life through my cups and drink until I felt nothing but the emptiness of my gut. I have tried to live life to its fullest and found that I had not lived at all. You can not truly live unless you are prepared to live it all, eyes open, standing straight, and feeling every stone that has been hurled and every kiss that has been bestowed. My dear friend Zotikos, hear me now for what I speak is truth. If you truly want to live then stand before life and let it happen. If you are merry then let it radiate through your soul and smile upon everyone and everything around you. If you have sorrow then accept it, feel it, consume it and then move on. You can not chase happiness any more that you can run away from sadness. To live we must feel everything. We can not mask our fear with courage and we can not drink ourselves happy if we are sad. Life is about feeling my friend. It is about the softness of the skin on you lover neck just as much as it is about the heartache of when she is gone. It is the happiness of finding what you are searching for and the defeat of it not matching your expectations of what it should be. To live life to its fullest we must be willing to feel what is good in our world, but also shed tears for all that is wrong. I ask of you my dear friend to pull your mask away and see everything that is around you. If you want to grab the bull by the horns then simply stop hiding from what is around you. If you need some excitement find your reflection and feel what is staring back at you. If you want to live life to the extreme then simply feel every emotion that grabs a hold of your soul and consume it. Live, my old friend, live a full life.”