Tag Archives: creativity

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Thursday Night Ramblings – 10/14/21

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Obviously, I haven’t been blogging much. Mostly because I stay so busy but also because I just haven’t had much to say. Those who know me best are probably snickering at that last line, but it’s true.

For those who are curious, a few years ago, I started a tree service/landscaping business. Given my circumstances, it was the best option for me. I love the outdoors and have always enjoyed that kind of work. Today, I have a growing LLC and serve most of East Tennessee. It’s not as “glamorous” as writing or as “prestigious” as teaching, but to paraphrase Booker T. Washington, there’s as much dignity in plowing a field as in writing a poem. Besides, I’m happier today than ever before.

I’ve been considering rekindling this blog with glimpses into the jobs I do. If I can build back a little following and have decent interaction, I might do it.

Overall, life is good. My body is sore but my soul is unencumbered. It seems like each week I add a new piece of equipment or a new client, and no two days are ever the same. I wish I could impart to other creative people that using your skills for utilitarian purposes is so much more rewarding, both financially and emotionally, than creating self-indulgent crap. Ah, but that’s a different post for a different day.

Until next time, Dwarven Nation.

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Saturday Afternoon Ramblings – 6/22/2019

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There are elements in this world you simply have to avoid as much as possible. If you allow them to, they will drain away all of your time and energy, leaving you little for your own prosperity.

First are the professional victims. These people are never at fault for their own failures. They always find someone or something to explain away their shortcomings. These people never grow and develop properly because they never learn to evaluate what they did wrong that caused them not to achieve their goals.

Closely related are the victimization enablers. These people, who come from every band of the political spectrum, tend to develop elaborate theories for why a particular socioeconomic group is struggling. From conservatives blaming immigrants to liberals blaming white people, the enablers dismiss personal accountibility and engender negativity. If you want to find internal peace, you must remove the victimization enablers from your reality.

Another form of energy leech is the constant complainer. Nothing will ever satisfy these people. If you give them soup, they prefer steak. If you give them steak, they want pie. No matter what you try to do, you will never satisfy their needs because their misery is deeply rooted. Your best course of action is to limit your exposure as much as you can.

To me, the most important people to avoid are the naysayers. These are the people who said that flight was impossible, that computers would be a passing fad, that we would never reach space. Naysayers will pick apart and scoff at any idea. If you aspire to create anything new, to start a business, to ponder fresh ideas, you will have to teach yourself to tune out the naysayers and listen to the animal spirit inside you. At some point, you will run up against an obstacle, and the naysayers will be quick to say I told you so. That’s when you will have to tune them out even more and trust that virtually every success follows a handful (or more) of failures.

That’s all for now.

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Wednesday Afternoon Ramblings – 6/19/2019

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One of the most important lessons I have learned in life is to stop worrying about the things I cannot control. I have zero influence over politics, so I no longer give politics my energy. That change alone has made me so much happier and healthier than I was back when I was plugged into the “daily outrage machine.”

I have no control over other people’s actions. The only thing I can effect is my reaction to their actions. After losing so many friends and family members, I had to teach myself to let go and move on. I simply cannot dwell on what others think of me, no matter how close we may have been. There are people I miss, of course, and from time to time I reminisce about our friendships, but overall, those people are quite simply dead to me and are not welcome in my present reality.

I cannot control overall market forces. I can, however, pay attention to and anticipate how those forces will affect my life. In terms of risk management, I try not to put myself into volatile situations. From being at the very bottom, I learned that there are always jobs out there that people don’t want to do for whatever reason (hard labor, dirt, danger), but they will pay someone else to take care of it. In that regard, the market for my services is relatively stable, as long as I’m willing to and capable of handling it.

I can’t control what memories or emotions bubble up on a daily basis. I can control my reaction to them. If anger comes up, I let it pass and move on. I can’t let anger consume me. If I have a twinge of self-pity, I push it aside as quickly as possible. That won’t help anything. Every single day, I make a concerted effort to focus on the blessings and positives in my life, and that focus has done more to heal me than anything else.

That’s all for now.