Clear vision, shaky lens
It's 2am, you're driving home after catching a late flight and your GPS is hemorrhaging minutes as you speed home on an empty highway, high-fiving yourself the whole way for having the for fore site to drive home at this hour. How smart you are! Up ahead, you notice an orange sign with a few... Continue Reading →
“Not all those who wander are lost.” J.R.R. Tolkien
When was the last time you lived a nomadic lifestyle where you were constantly on the move with scarcely a moment to rest your head in the increasingly familiar place you fondly referred to as home? A good guess would likely revolve around the last time you moved from one place to another. Perhaps it was moving out of your parent's house when you left for college or when you finished college and moved based on a (hopefully) a great job. Or, if you have no roots, maybe you ARE a nomad and you call is your home!
Whether you are a nomad or a not, the key is to be content with the lifestyle you lead. If you are always living out of a suitcase as you hop from place to place out of necessity, and not choice, you are likely to feel unhappy and continually uprooted. Of course if you choose to be a nomad and staying in one place for too long feels icy hands around your neck that slowly squeeze the life out of you well that is equally discomforting as being an forced nomad.
Living the good life, however you define it, needs to revolve around choice. All of us are conditioned to want control over our own lives and being able to have it allows us freedom--why else did you rebel against your parents? It isn't always easy to be in full command since love, family, friends, jobs (ahem, MONEY) and other desires/circumstances impact your life's direction but what is? Seize control, wield the power whenever you have it since you never know when, or for how long, you'll be somewhere.
If you're like me, you want the best of both worlds so hopefully you have opportunities to be a temporary nomad while always having a home to go back to---if you're lucky. I think Tolkien understands me but if you're like my wife, who does not prefer the nomadic life, you'll probably connect more with following sentiments:
“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese
Be you Kwai Chang Caine or Mr. Rogers, all the best on your journey!
Exercise log:
6:30am - 5.25 mile run with Lex (downtown Hburg)
It is hard not to watch the Olympics without being impressed by the sheer passion and athleticism that each athlete brings to their respective sports. The ability to excel in a specialized event on a global stage while representing your country must truly be a special, indescribable feeling. Giving your all in precious few moments... Continue Reading →
Are you currently the best you that you've ever been? Take a minute, or more, to think about it since it is a loaded question but an important one to ponder nonetheless. If you answered yes, think about why? Are you wiser, smarter, holier, wealthier, healthier, better-looking or better off than ever before? And/or do... Continue Reading →
Everyone loves to spend time in the sun, especially when at the beach, but NOT everyone likes to get burned by it hence the Lord invented sunscreen. Whether you choose Banana Boat or Coppertone, SP30 or Bronzer, it is important to put on the 'screen to protect your skin. The potential for skin cancer awaits... Continue Reading →
"And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow." Gilbert K. Chesterton
Is there anything more depressing than rain? Like bullets dropping from the sky, rain just blows in and snuffs out the sun leaving behind a darker world. The sun has retreated in defeat while the rain marches on crushing the spirits of beach-goers, drivers, hikers and bikers alike in prolonged victory. If you look closely, you can hear the rain rub it in as it tap tap taps on the windows of your covered fortress as it mocks you incessantly. Rain 1, your world 0.
It is possible that a beautiful rainbow might emerge but it won't bring a pot of gold with it that gives you back the outdoor time you lost. Your day is dreary, your mood is foul and your possessions are wet yet a rainbow will make it all better? Try band-aiding a broken bone and see if that helps (it won't) or other such futile endeavors that will leave you broken and depressed. To be blunt, rain sucks.
And yet, does it really? I have always been enamored with rain because of the wonderful gift it gives me: time! Rain creates little pockets of precious time that helps with productivity, relaxation and indoor comfort. Gone are the expectations to go for a run, mow the lawn, run errands or work in the garden or any such thing. In it's place you'll find that moment to read, write, drink tea, cook and on and on and on....
There is no perfect reaction to rain since the often incorrectly predicted action can come at inopportune moments but remember that the live-giving substance gives you the ability to react as you like so take full advantage and embrace it (not literally though that would be funny). Enjoy your parade as best you can and, like with Skittles, taste your rainbow!
Rain, rain, don't go away...
Exercise log:
? - Insanity
The 2012 Olympics continue to be tremendous fun though it is becomingly increasingly in spite of NBC. The continuous coverage is great when you have a)all the cable channels, b)time off to watch live events through out the day, c) no internet so the 'primetime' events are spoiled and d) e) f) etc. See more... Continue Reading →
"Well, guilty as charged" Dan Cathy
A rundown in baseball, also known as a pickle, is anytime you have a base runner who's between bases, with defenders on either side, who are trying to chase you and get you out. What happens is they throw the ball to one defender, and then the base runner runs the other way, and at some point, they try to get it closer and closer to where one of the defenders can tag you out. Typically, the defenders win hence the term, from the point of view of the 'stuck' runner, pickle. It is safe to say that Chick-fil-a is firmly in quite a pickle.
Humans are not moths or butterflies (duh) so the likelihood of life after death, afterlife aside, is not possible. We do not live as one physical being, go into what biologist Bernd Heinrich calls "a deathlike intermission" and miraculously morph into another. Unlike the worms and caterpillars that transform from ground crawlers to air fliers,... Continue Reading →
Mikethatmiller 