Man Overboard

Acceptance is beautiful. Today I washed my favorite poison from my life, and could not be more pleased with my decision. I've been through every step with this bad habit of mine, except acceptance. Until today I have continuously failed to recognize the situation for what it was; toxic. I have hemmed, hawed, and stalled to the best of my abilities waiting for the circumstances and bad attitudes to change. Coincidentally, it was words of wisdom from tattooed miscreant Ronnie Radke that saved me today. "So save yourself! Because the tide is rising high... It's sink or swim. It's hit or miss. What will you pick? So take some action! Don't let the undertow grab hold. It's sink or swim. It's hit or miss. Man overboard. I bid farewell, to you fairweather friend. I know someday you'll get what you deserve. And after all the bridges you have burned, I forgive you for the things you have done. I bid farewell." I will finish with some words of my own. You will poison my life and darken my doorway, no more.

Napkin Poetry

Stuff like this belongs predominantly on napkins. These are some thoughts from the other day.

Breathe in for Luck

My words are usually poignant and pointed, sharp as the pencil I would use to write them if we didn't live in an age of keyboards and cursors. I never sit down and attempt to write down what I'm thinking or feeling unless I feel moved to do so, tonight is one of those nights. I recently felt a shift in the universe. Everything I thought I knew made a violent and sudden jump to the side, leaving me uncertain and confused. One of the pillars holding up the sky to the world I live in suddenly cracked and splintered, threatening to bring everything to its' knees. I'm sure everyone has had an experience like this. The question is, what do we do when this happens? Do we reach for the duct tape and rubber cement and hope that the pillar will remain structurally sound under the weight? Or do we go underground and wait while the world above is rebuilt? This is of course a hyperbolic metaphor, I do not entertain any notions of becoming a mole-person. But I would like the answers to these questions. How do we know what is worth fighting for, and what is worth throwing away and trying to rebuild? Keri Russel mentioned once that, "Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever." This scares me almost to death. It makes me afraid that every decision I make may lead me down a different path and towards a different end. There are specific moments in time that I can look back at and think, "Yes, that microscopic decision in my past changed my entire future." I live in constant fear that my next decision might be a terrible one; That the next person I meet might have some sort of significant impact in my future; That the next person to walk out on me might ruin my life. It's an interesting feeling knowing that the pillar has a crack, when the pillar keeps painting itself trying to make you think everything is going swell. "A tiger can smile, a snake will say it loves you. Lies make us evil." Wise words from Chuck Palahniuk, the master of mayhem. Am I being lied to? Who's doing the lying? Me? Them? The world? Everyone? We will never know. All we can know is that we are doing our best. If I am doing my best, I want to believe that everything will work out. I want to believe that there is some good in the cosmos that will let me have what I want if I want it enough. I'm counting on a combination of honesty, hard work, and respect to pull me through any rough situation that may arise in any aspect of my life. Once again however, my thoughts are jumbled and I digress. I guess what I'm getting at is I want to have hope. I've never been a big fan of the idea, but that's all there is left. Hope; I guess we'll give it a shot. Here goes... Breathe in for luck, breathe in so deep...

Here It Is

This is a new beginning. It’s the first words out of my pen onto this page. This is for driving around with the stereo up and the top down rolling lyrics out of your mouth. This is for the smell of the dorm room from your freshman year of college, makin’ out and stackin’ knowledge. This is for that fight with your ex that starts out in flame, but ends in the cloud of I still love you the same. Here it is. This is for the moment when the text rolls through you’ve been waiting for all day, they like you too they feel the same way. This is for the cold side of the pillow. This is for the brand new headphones that pump the bass straight into your bones, here it is. Here’s for the kiss that makes your heart drop, the love that makes the world stop, the poem that takes you straight to the top of your mind. This is it. Here’s to the perfect honest man who never succeeds, the gorgeous girl that sits at home alone and reads, and that quiet lonely person that only needs your attention. This is for you. This is for you and this is for me and this is for all the people that can never be as smooth or as quick as they want to be. This is for us.   

A Summertime Requiem

My summer is over. School looms on the immediate horizon, and my current week is to be consumed by work. This summer was one of the most interesting I've ever had, and filled with the most lessons. I met so many new people and had so many new experiences, it almost feels like a dream in someone else's life. The daily grind turned into my own blown mind with the plethora of diversity I surrounded myself with. The banality of my activities may bore my readers, but it was some of the best four months of my life. Cliche man-time things such as going to the gym, tanning, and maintaining a constant flow of beautiful women became the norm for me and my companions. I'm about to embark on another adventure, one just as great as the last. I've already got a great group of people to spend time with, a stable job that I'm good at, and classes that I will do great in. My hope for myself is that I will have a successful semester with a positive outcome. It's approximately four o'clock in the morning, the time when nostalgia usually grips me with a firm refusal to let go. I have to be to work in an hour. My thoughts are all over the place, but I'm determined to make this my first post in which I don't insist on eloquence. I'm ready for what's coming next. I'm meeting it head on with a great attitude and a great team behind me. As the summer dies and my friends move away, I just want to thank everyone that took part in the awesome time I had. All the trips to Vegas, the lake, and the river, performing at Jazzy Java, going on long drives, staying up way too late, going to the gym too much, and watching way too many bad movies has been awesome. Who knows where the winds of change will blow me now? An intelligent man once said "I can not change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination." That is exactly what I am doing now. I am adjusting my sails.

My Future at a Glance

Opportunity is a strange thing. Blink once, and a golden chance may be lost. There have been many such chances in my recent past. There have been times where I have been staring at the ceiling, waiting to fall down that dark rabbit hole we call sleep, wishing that I had seized opportunities that had the potential to be great. It was during one such sleepless night that I had an epiphany. If I were to take every event and treat it like it had the same importance as the one before it, there would be no regrets. My only question is this: where is the line? Where does something that might be trivial to one person become an important event to someone else? I think this is where the time-honored saying "to each his own" comes into play. Maybe this is just my inner existentialist coming out thinking that things are more complex than they really are. Maybe I just enjoy a roundabout way of thinking. Either way, I am now taking every chance that I can. So far I have only had positive experiences. Took a chance and reached for her hand in the dark? I found that she was already reaching for mine. Help negotiate a deal for Richman Grand Marketing? I find I have a knack for business and a fairly lucrative side job. Aristotle said, "All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion and desire." I've decided that this is definitely a great list of actions to add to my daily routine. I will continue to take chances, believe that nature has a way of helping things work out, be compelled to be great, form good habits, have excellent reasons for my actions, be passionate about everything I do, and desire to be a better man every day. Life is a funny thing. Who knows where I will end up tomorrow. 

A lot of people don't believe in luck. Most just chalk it up to a superstitious frivolity. While I don't believe in keeping a horseshoe upright or carry the dismembered limb of a helpless animal to stroke in times of distress, I do believe in the general concept of luck. I honestly believe there are some people in this world that things just work out for, and there are some people that will constantly draw the short straw. Fortunately for me, I happen to be of the former. Maybe it's my personality, maybe it's my Irish heritage; of the reason I am uncertain. But things just seem to have a way of working out. It was only when I realized things were going well that I had an epiphany. Maybe things work out because I want them to. My new philosophy is that we can all make our own luck. If we want something and we work hard enough, we can have it. Most people consider it good fortune because they have been given something good. I consider it the positive outcome of a job well done. So is it ever really luck? Or are we just being given what we deserve? A four leaf clover is indeed rare, but not if we could breed our own special strain of them. I guess the bottom line is that we can all have what we want if we're willing to put in the time. If I can do it, you can do it too. Breed your own four leaf clovers. Make your own luck.