Month: June 2015

Your Life… Your Beliefs… Your Results!

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

factory-1Warning! This blog post may offend you, but my hope, of course, is that it will enlighten you! So here goes… The life that you are presently living is a direct reflection of your beliefs. What you believe will happen in your life is exactly what happens in your life. If you are enjoying success, you have believed for and are experiencing success. If you are struggling and not living the life you want, you have believed for that also and are experiencing the results of your beliefs. Life is not random. There are no accidents and there are no coincidences. A belief on the positive side produces a good result. A belief on the negative side (fear) results in a negative result. So the point is, if you are presently struggling and not enjoying the life you want, it is your own fault! Now, before you go batsh*t crazy on me, hear me out…

All of us believe something. I’m not talking about your religious beliefs, I’m talking about belief in its basic essence; the things you believe to be true. It does not matter at all if what you believe isn’t really true, because what you believe is what comes to pass in your life. All humans, good and bad, manifest into their lives the results or fruit of their beliefs. You can whine, revile, complain, argue, fuss and fume, but that is how God set this whole thing up (see Bible). Getting angry with God over some negative circumstance in your life is as futile as whipping the dog for some food you left out within his reach. Bottom line, he’s a dog, he always seeks food, and, YOU LEFT IT OUT! When things are going poorly in your life, you left something out – belief!

Let’s say you have been struggling financially. You know you need more money than you presently have. Truth Newsflash: The amount of money you presently have is exactly, precisely, mathematically as much as you believed you could have. The problem isn’t the economy, your lack of education or degree, your upbringing, or the company for which you are presently slaving! The problem is you, more specifically your belief concerning money. We all probably want more money, but we don’t all believe we can have more. That belief, which for you is true, is the source of your problem. You want more, but if you are honest, don’t believe you can get more or simply think (or have been conditioned to think) that money is hard to come by, doesn’t grow on trees, etc., etc., etc. Can’t you right now think of someone who has minimal education but makes a fortune? Don’t you know that guy that is by all accounts, dumber than a box of rocks, yet still makes a lot of money? Ever asked yourself why? Wait no, I get it. He is just lucky… Definition of luck? That which happens by chance. Definition of chance? See luck. Haha you are smarter than that…

This isn’t a criticism of anyone. Rather it is a reality that you have to understand. As long as you think that life is random, full of scary twists and curves, is as long as you will be twisting and curving. Belief, positive belief, puts an end to it. If we only knew that, right? As humanoids we have all been carefully conditioned and trained to believe everything that our five senses minds promote. However, belief is not based on what it looks like or what the circumstances are promoting as true, belief is based on a decision that you make. You might not think you made a decision, but you did! All belief is a decision. The trouble is you made a decision based on faulty reasoning. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a duck right? Not in the spiritual world from where the secret of life resides. This old world is run by the enemy of good times called the Devil. He didn’t start out as its ruler, but he’s ruling the joint now. His only mission, because he is still pissed at God, is to steal and to kill and to destroy. Every time you believe something negative and suffer defeat, he stole something from you. Every time! And that ol’ bird knows how much you rely on your five senses as your only avenue for learning and with that, works you over like a sieve.

You and I (for that matter) have to be completely honest with ourselves about what we really believe. True belief, positive belief is the end of the struggle. Not that you won’t be challenged again and again, but by believing rightly can overcome any hurdle that is thrown in your path. It is time to get serious about learning how and what to believe, then putting it into practice.

Just the other day I found myself struggling with how hard it was to get what I wanted and how the open doors didn’t seem to be opening for me like they were opening for others. Then, thank the good Lord, it dawned on me. “Tony, if you don’t really believe you can get what you want, you aint ever gonna get what you want!” You see the problem was me, oh Lord. Prayer was never supposed to be an exercise in futility. Prayer must be backed with believing or NOTHING is going to happen and then we are just back to getting angry with God! How silly…

I challenge you right now, today, to ask yourself what you are struggling with. Then, ask yourself what you believe about your situation. Be honest because no-one is listening except you and God maybe. Your honest answer and I mean brutally honest answer is your current reality. But the good news is you can always, always, always change your reality. When you believe, nothing is too hard for God and I don’t care what the doctor said! Nothing!

Quit believing (fearing) what you don’t want and start believing for what you do want. Don’t give yesterday another thought… It is your one life, they are your beliefs and they are producing your results. Open a new factory!

Just some good thoughts…

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The Woodbridge Warrior Experience…

On By Papa TonyIn Thought4 Comments

308637_2447771115536_271758092_nWhen I was a youngster, I had the most fortunate experience of my dad being transferred to Bentwaters/Woodbridge twin air bases near Ipswich, England. I was a 6th grader, highly impressionable and terribly concerned about being accepted by others. Like any military brat, I was learning how to move away from everyone and everything I knew and start fresh again. I always viewed it as a blessing that would teach me how to get along with anyone and give me an opportunity to reinvent myself again and again should the need arise. (Stateside kids never had it so good!)

Shortly after we arrived, I noticed there was something different about this place. Everyone seemed to get along. There were no apparent color lines or class distinctions. There were no cool kids vs. nerds, jocks vs. scholars, loners vs. socialites! We were just all there, all together and all loving every minute of it. In my later years I often tried to figure out what made the place so special. Was it because almost of our dads had the same employer? Was it because there was an absence in disparity of pay? Was it because we all seemed to occupy the same base housing? Was it because we were all mostly Americans living in a foreign land together, where the foreigners actually spoke our language?

Whatever it was, and I have some deeper thoughts, the effect produced by the place was almost universal. I thought I was the only one that loved Woodbridge so dearly, before I stumbled upon MySpace and Facebook. But then, to my surprise, almost every person who lived there had a similar experience. I mean folks who were there when I was; folks who lived there before me and folks who arrived after me. How many of my dearest friends have told me that it was still the best experience of their lives? How many of our parents said the same thing? How many wished they could have lived there forever? How many? Now I know why I wept so heavily when it was time for reassignment… One of my earliest memories of talking to God was me telling Him tearfully, well it’s just me and You again…

I look back with great fondness at walking through the woods to get to school. I remember what seemed to be the greatest teachers on earth. I practically lived at the AYA, playing ping-pong and foosball everyday. And wow, what about the dances? What about the music at the dances? God, how I looked forward to those dances! I remember me and Matt Howell putting on our super clean threads, stacks and heavy doses of Hai Karate aftershave. I remember playing truth or dare on the busses to other base dances and french kissing a girl named Terry for the first time amidst a game of spin the bottle. If it wasn’t Boone’s Farm on the bus ride it was MD 20-20 in the woods. I’m still proud of playing on the soccer team wearing our England National Team jerseys via Coach Booty. I played baseball for the Eagles and went from being an also ran right fielder to the starting first baseman for the All-Star team traveling to Germany. I hit a thousand balls on those tennis courts. I gave the pinball machine at the bowling alley every quarter I ever got! I dribbled that basketball at the gym and was in awe of Darrell Stacey and Big O! I was inducted into the stud-club by Dino Moya and then met Rico and Darren(2) and Ricky Love. Tony Lombardo was also in the club. I had girlfriends, whose names I will leave off for all the right reasons. Man, what a childhood!

So now, many years later in adult retrospect, I still ponder what it was that made that place so wonderful. It couldn’t be that I was only in my formative years because my parents felt the same way. It wasn’t the love era, but love was very present there. It couldn’t have been living in a foreign country because almost all my friends were American. So what was it? I believe it was God. I think He sent me to a haven where I could learn to love people and be protected from the things that jade other folks. I believe He taught me love and tenderness there that would be the precursor of the man I am today. He showed me a little slice of the Earth where your color, your money, your status didn’t matter. He showed me how life really should be with people living together, loving each other and seeking the best from each other.

You may disagree with my conclusions and that is certainly your right, but how many of my fellow Warriors for Life love God? Maybe some don’t, but they still were blessed to live in the haven!

Words probably cannot express how thankful I am for having grown up there. That place changed me in ways I can’t even describe. And since then, I’ve never lived in a place so sweet. Don’t get me wrong, my experience there wasn’t my best until this day, because that God I whispered to many years ago, introduced Himself to me in the most profound and lasting ways. I found the perfect wife and have the best family ever. I’m living a dream life! But good ol’ Woodbridge certainly ranks as my number one place to grow up!

Thank you God for allowing me to grow up as a Woodbridge Warrior!

Signed,

A Warrior for Life

Unfulfilled? My Little Pretties…

On By Papa TonyIn Thought2 Comments

Heavy-Duty-Warehouse-Trucks-in-MiamiMany people nowadays are suffering from feeling unfulfilled. In other words, you feel as if your life isn’t going in the right direction or is lacking in one or more categories. You aren’t sure what exactly the remedy is but you do know that you’re stuck. So, the question of the day is, “What causes us to ‘feel’ unfulfilled?” Is it something that happens to us, like life? Or, is it something we are doing to ourselves? Is there a problem with our expectations or our perceptions? Is it permanent and terminal? Or is there something we can do about it? Hopefully I can answer these and many more questions if you will just stick with me ~ my little pretties…

Picture that your mind is a like a large warehouse. It’s your own private storage place for your thoughts. There’s temporary storage for certain thoughts; longer range storage for important thoughts and beliefs, and permanent storage for things that you never want to lose. It is truly a marvelous thing ~ your mind. I mean think about it, how many thoughts do you think in a day? A conservative estimate is 50,000 thoughts a day, 350,000 a week, 18,200,000 a year. And if you are 54 like me, oh Lord, don’t even do the math!

Now, of those 50K you are working on today, of how many are you even aware? My guess is very few. And to take it one step further, if you are not even remotely aware of them, can you tell how many are entering into your warehouse? Sure, it would be all peaches and roses if they just went away, but they don’t just go away. They enter the shelves (unmarked of course) and seek to work their way into the more glamorous and important longer range storage. From there they can take up residency as your beliefs and slowly but imperceptibly start controlling your life. Then you get all down and dissatisfied with the warehouse you control. You blame God and life and your spouse, your lack of opportunities, yet remain ignorant to the reality that the warehouse still belongs to you!

Day by day you think, “What am I doing with my life? What’s the point of this? Why even bother? I’m never going to be anything or do anything!” Then, you think that over and over and over again. The more you entertain it, the more evidence you start to compile that seems to confirm it. Your friend Bill is doing so well. In fact, everyone is doing so well, except for Sally. I’m at least better than Sally (smile). Your storage unit is alive with a multitude of new clients. But, you didn’t know they were coming, much less invite them. But, there they are, seeking advancement. You see, you’ve almost unknowingly thought that stupid stuff for so long that you are starting to believe it. And to add insult to injury, while you are simmering and brooding, you aint doing a damn thing to change the situation! After all, what’s the point?? So, I’m wagering that very often it isn’t your life that is so unfulfilling, but rather your thoughts toward it…

Fulfilled is defined as to be happy or satisfied due to fully developing one’s ability or character. That’s worth thinking about a little deeper (50,001, 50,002, 50,003). Who the hell is ever satisfied these days? Your life is something your ancestors would have died for (and many did), yet you need more, more, more. It seems that another potential cause for feeling unfulfilled is never being satisfied about what you already enjoy. I know, I know, our American culture sort of did that to you! But good grief, stop pursuing every once in awhile and take time to enjoy for a bit.

However, you may not be caught up in the more, more, more club. (More, more, more, how do you like it, how do you like it?) You may just recognize that you have so much more ability to develop. Now track with me here. If you know that to be true, it seems your focus should be on further developing your abilities! Storing up a multitude of bad thoughts of frustration and dissatisfaction serve only to halt your progress. Where should you start? What are you good at now? Start there and get busy developing. Did you catch that? The definition refers to you fully developing, as in a process that doesn’t just happen tomorrow. Work on it now. You may be a good distance from your goal but you are working on it and thus can feel fulfilled. What is crazier than whining about not feeling fulfilled and yet doing nothing to become fulfilled? It’s your warehouse, by God!

I think you will find out quite quickly that the nagging in your soul is an urge to start doing something now! Don’t worry about how it is going to end. Instead focus on enjoying the journey. You will always be develop-ing so you may as well enjoy it. I’m sure when you are 85 you won’t be angry with yourself for not reaching master perfection status, but you will regret never even having tried.

Feelings of frustration, discontent and not being fulfilled come from the 8 million little bits of data you didn’t notice or resist. Don’t allow the mindless ways of today rob you from accomplishing all you could accomplish. You may not be able to control every thought, but you can dang sure confront the little liars and set them straight! Imagine what your warehouse might look like if most of its storage was thoughts that actually helped and encouraged you.

Feeling unfulfilled is not a terminal condition. It can and will change as soon as you decide it will, because my little pretties, it is your warehouse…

Just some good thoughts (50,004, 50,005, 50,006)…