HOW MAY I HELP?
I really wish Tank was around.
Mag.
Nelson.
Muse of course.
Even Joe A.
That’s right Joey A., the ‘Rat.’ A good-natured hoodlum-type. No oxymoron. A very nice boy. He was Joe; ‘Rat,’ that’s all. Laughing and kidding when he wasn’t slithering and slathering.
Point is, they’re gone.
All of ’em and way, way too early.
Too soon.
Stuff happens and life happens and you can’t get it back.
Once it’s gone, you can never get it back.
Hey, it may be better over there, up there or wildly, even down there. Who really knows?
Who has crossed over, come back and regaled us with the real facts of the case?
Nobody, I’m quite certain — mystics of all stripes included — if bare-boned truth and honesty were to prevail.
As far as this world is concerned, it can be tough but it can be great too.
For the most part it’s wonderful when you’re a kid because everything is big, shiny and new.
And since you’re a kid you don’t know anything relative to what you will know and you don’t overthink things. That tendency manifests itself in later life; it’s simply not usually part of a kid’s make-up.
But the world of ours can be great even for any adult as well.
This business about thinking is critical; it is the key which unlocks the universe.
Surely you’ve grown weary of hearing those age-old references made to that which is ‘physical’ versus whatever may be characterized as ‘mental.’
You know stuff like, “85% of running a marathon is mental.”
Or, “pressure is putting food on the table, not hitting the game-winning free throws with no time left (or knocking in the winning run in the last of the eighteenth inning in a steadily increasing rain).
No pressure; no such thing.”
It’s all a matter of how you look at it.
Everything is a matter of how you look at it, of perception.
Good can be found in most anything if you look hard enough for it.
Most anything; it might be a bit of a stretch to find ‘good’ staring down the barrel of a terminal illness, I grant you. But even then there are those who would choose to think that they’ve had a good life and regret nothing, harboring no resentment, bitterness or ill will.
Throwing off the shackles of negativity can never be underestimated or undervalued. It’s unburdening, an enormous relief and release, and gives you an indescribable sense of freedom.
It really is the way to live, if you can convince yourself to do it.
One way to stress positivity is to get outside of yourself and turn the tables.
Make it about others.
And the most productive, fruitful and rewarding way to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is to help someone else.
Every day in one form or another you should make it a priority — your duty — to help another human being. I’m not referring to pomp and circumstance here. No grandiose gestures. Hardly. How about something as simple as a kind word? A thoughtful and caring response or suggestion?
How about just listening?
(But really listening, implicit in which is not talking simultaneously or too much).
Everybody has problems, tales of woe, difficulties of varying degrees. Nobody emerges unscathed.
Not part of the deal when you involuntarily signed on by being born, regrettable as that may be.
The sooner this inescapable truth of life is recognized and acknowledged, the better.
The idea is to accept this fundamental verity for what it is — a given — and move forward to position yourself to achieve your own, personal happiness hopefully without hurting others.
And helping others offers an express route and is one of many required ingredients in the recipe for happiness.
Because it’s right and it feels good. It makes everybody feel good or at least better.
And what is that exactly?
It’s about your perception. It’s (all?) ‘mental.’
We have but two choices to make while we rent time and space on this planet.
We can choose to be happy or not.
I don’t care to drown in a sea of bilious negativity.
Rather, I would prefer to let the clear-as-crystal cooling and comforting spring waters of positivity engulf, embrace and uplift me.
It seems rather basic does it not?
