Category: happiness

Get Honest and Get Answers!

On By Papa TonyIn happiness, Thought, thoughtsLeave a comment

14533-woman-fake-smile-mask-happy-sad-wide.1200w.tnI have never been a big fan of going to the doctor. I suppose I don’t like my fate resting in the words or expectations of a medical provider. Yet, when I find myself at the doctor’s office, chances are I have some medical malady that is not going away on its own. I’ve probably already diagnosed myself  with several incurable diseases compliments of WebMD and decided in desperation to give the local Doc a try. I’m looking for good news so I agree to disclose only 30% of my symptoms. “Just say the right words Doc and I will be out of here!”

The aforementioned scenario, though silly, approximates how humans deal with their lives when fear is involved. Fear stops people from being honest. Fear predicts a dreadful outcome so the less a matter is discussed, the better! Fear stops you from getting the results you desire. Fear hides out in your thinking and prefers to remain hidden through a myriad of distracting variables. Fear does not wish for you to finally get honest with yourself because it knows when you do, you will be well on your way to finding solutions. But, get honest you must!

This is going to sound like a crazy thing to ask, but when was the last time you were completely honest with yourself? I’m talking take your shoes off, loosen your belt, lay it all out honest! When was the last time you admitted to yourself that something was actually wrong with your life and needed to be repaired? When’s the last time you told that great doctor of your own soul ALL of your symptoms without fear of what it might mean for your life? No-one is a greater fan of positivity than your’s truly, but that doesn’t negate the need to acknowledge when something has gone wrong. If your leg is broken, it’s broken and no ridiculous amount of a good attitude is going to fuse the bones back together.

A common method of thinking nowadays seems to encompass the notion that if you are being positive, you cannot give space to anything negative occurring in your life. This seems especially true for the believers. It’s as if acknowledging something has gone astray means you are no longer renewing your mind to be a positive person. Well, here’s a shocker, believers aren’t instructed to change every negative thought to a positive thought. They are admonished to renew their minds to what the Word says is true. Negative things are absolutely going to happen to you. You are going to be deceived off course. You are going to find yourself pushed and pulled in various directions. At some point you might even discover that your life is totally sucking right now and you are in desperate need of some divine guidance! That’s life folks, and to think otherwise is not being honest with yourself! You are not going to get better until you can finally get honest with yourself once again…

Where in the world did you ever get the idea that admitting something is wrong is some kind of testimony or predictor of the future? Unless I’m missing something, every aspect of life has the potential to go wrong at times. It’s not whether or not you ever get off course. Success is in recognizing you’re off course and getting back on track. Your life; your one short go round is immeasurably important for you. Who convinced you that your own personal happiness isn’t worth a discussion, or that you have to smile about everything no matter what? Honesty expects a change. Honesty demands a different result. Honesty lays the damn issues out there no matter how they look and keeps them out there until something positive enters the picture to remedy the situation. People are so desperate for an answer that makes sense; one that fills the void in their hearts, that they resort to all kinds of distractions to avoid the pain. Some drink to excess. Others fill their lives with a never-ending stream of activities. Some seek the perpetual mind loading of social media. For others it’s an escape to drugs or sex or anything powerful enough to numb the reality of unhappiness down at the heart level. The solution? Get honest with yourself!

Our fast paced world of today doesn’t have time for your problems. When asked how you are doing, you must reply with “fine” as anything further takes too much time! We’ve been arm-twisted into thinking our personal issues are selfish and to spend time discussing them with anyone is an “all about me” attitude. How difficult it becomes to pretend you always have it together and have need of nothing else. How absurd it is to ask people to serve and to help others when they are all bogged down, submerged in some personal dilemma! People today, more than ever, needs answers to the difficulties going on in their lives. They need a little light to shine in on their darkness. But before that can happen, someone has to admit to having a little darkness! Be honest folks…

I find myself at times playing the same little shenanigans with God that I play in the doctor’s office. Twenty or thirty seconds into a discussion with God about some grating issue, I quickly chastise myself for not thinking properly and then change my mind into everything is okay mode, while my leg remains obviously broken. If my leg is broken I don’t need a frikkin pep talk, I need for my leg to be healed! If something isn’t right in your life, you don’t need to just decide to be happy, you need the mother&*%*(ng answer! Haha there’s always an answer; a solution if God is involved! Your job is to be honest with Him and lay it all out there. He sees through our bullcrap anyway, so it makes perfect sense!

Most of us have been talked into letting things go and concluding that is just how life is… Well, that’s not how life is and the moment you quit settling for garbage or hand me downs and start expecting the best, the sooner it is going to arrive. Be brutally honest with yourself and with God. Call a thing a thing (thanks Iyanla)! You have absolutely nothing to lose except fear. If you are suffering in some capacity or feel stuck and trapped, know this, God is never stuck and has the life you’ve been waiting too long for and is most willing to share it with you. That is if you can step down off the pedestal of “I already know” and ask for a little help. Be honest my friends and live the life you still dream of living…

Just some good thoughts…

 

 

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DNR ~ Diminished and Reduced…

On By Papa TonyIn freedom, happiness, new beginning, Thought, true doctrine, vitalityLeave a comment

ekg-001-an-electrocardiogram-heart-monitor-pulses-on-a-blue-grid-loop_r4m_frdh_thumbnail-full01I see depressed people. I see them everywhere. You can easily spot them by their lowered vitality; their lack of activity; that dimness in their eyes. They think that is just how life is and have settled into an existence that isn’t painful but isn’t pleasant either. They have unknowingly become diminished and reduced and need to be resuscitated!

The reason people reach this level in their thinking and let’s be honest, many, many people have, is because at the core of things, at the most elemental level they have been talked into believing things that aren’t true. It sounds simple and cheesy I know, but the things in life that appear complicated are often more simple than you think. Wrong thinking leads to wrong believing which leads to a sucky life! And to add insult to the proverbial injury, you are struggling against a force you can neither see nor discern absent spiritual insight. There is something, whether you believe it or not, that is actively working against your best interest, seeking to bring you down to some level of defeat or mediocrity or loss.

Your opponent is spiritual in nature and works within the systems of the world to bring you down to misery or frustration, to take away the life God has given you, to steal away your energy and passion for living. He does not work alone, but controls a vast network also hidden from view, hell-bent on feeding you some wrong conclusion! It’s called the systematizing of error and it’s damn effective! It’s a cause and effect where the effect did not come from the cause. It’s H2O minus an O. It’s 2 + 2 = 5. It’s an argument where the starting premise was wrong. It’s a scientific formula with an unaccounted for variation. In short, it’s a lie that needs to be challenged.

You may have noticed in your life, in those moments of clarity where you sort of “wake up” to some reality, that as soon as you begin to take steps to remedy a situation, you are besieged with challenges or distractions that take you right back to square one and back to your familiar, yet painful sleepy life! You can tell you are living mesmerized by this deceitful drug by the things that run across your mind. You ask yourself, “Is this all life is?” “Is this my lot in life to get up and go to work and come home and go to sleep?” The answer to these questions is hell-effin no! You’re just being hoodwinked, that’s all! You are being systematically talked out of things that matter. You are being fed lies, albeit minutely subtle lies, that reduce and diminish your existence.

Often, you’ll find that the things you once enjoyed have been taken away one by one without your consent. Or, something convinced you there was something wrong with those things you enjoyed and suggested you give them up. Have you noticed in today’s world, that someone is always telling us about the potential dangers of something we enjoy with suggestions that we curtail what we like to do? Don’t eat this! Don’t touch that! Watch out for those people! Be cautious! Don’t try that because it’s already been done! Pretty soon the whole world will be living on dry chicken breasts and zealously guarding against anything with a little flavor. Don’t you see it? It’s all part of a universal scheme; a system that seeks your personal liberty and enjoyment for life. And, it happened to us because we believed the lies!

The only solution to this world-wide dilemma is to get back to what is true. Stop allowing other people to define your life for you. Stop accepting the things that run across your mind as some kind of gospel. Just because you thought something, even many, many times doesn’t guarantee it is truth. In fact, those thoughts; those wrong beliefs are the source of your difficulties. You are limited by yourself and yourself alone! If you believe you will never have enough money, you will never have enough money, but that’s your sucky choice not mine! Choice – you get it? In your mind, in the secret places, you are making choices day by day. You are gathering information and making a choice. You just have to make sure that what you chose is actually true and not a lie. Anything that diminishes you, anything that reduces you, anything that boxes you in or closes you off is a LIE!

The truth will resuscitate you and bring you back to life. Your Creator is the author of life! As life’s source He will always open the doors and make a way for you! He’s not the god of religion, He is the God of life! He does not seek to take away and limit and reduce, He seeks to give and expand and offer you life more than abundant! You can break out of your rut; your depression; your less than abundant life simply by opening your heart to the truth. God already knows how much life has been sucking for you, so why not let go of everything you think you know and get back to life? You didn’t begin your life depressed and you don’t have to end it that way. Choose vitality. Choose energy. Choose life!

I don’t know about you, but I’m not signing that DNR!

Just some good thoughts…

 

Alignment and Harmony…

On By Papa TonyIn God, happiness, ThoughtLeave a comment

factom_harmony.width-800Many moons ago I learned about this thing called, “alignment and harmony.” Basically, staying in alignment and harmony refers to your relationship with God and you, the variable, doing your part to keep your head in the space that God occupies. Remaining in alignment and harmony is where all of the believer’s joy and happiness come from in this life.  Being out of alignment with God is the number one source of misery and defeat, and leads to an inability to tap into God’s power or to get your prayers answered!

It has been my experience, as sad as this is to say, that most Christians seem to be living a fairly miserable life. They’re usually submerged in sin-consciousness, overly concerned and focused on the so-called rules for Christian living. They’re born again and have God’s spirit within them, yet they lack the power promised by God to make their lives abundant. The reason for this is that through either ignorance concerning God’s Word or wrong teaching regarding God’s Word, they are out of alignment and harmony with God. You can be uber-religious and totally out of alignment with God. You can tell if you’re out of fellowship with God by how you feel. If you are full of anger and frustration, you are out of alignment. If you have no love for yourself and other people, you are out of harmony. If your mind is filled with bitterness and complaining, you are out of fellowship. If you spend your days working hard to make yourself approved and righteous before God, you are in the wrong place and will suffer as a result of it. You are not in alignment and harmony with God.

This old world works night and day to get you out of that good space where love holds first place. It seeks to make you negative and chips away at you day by day with subtle and not so subtle attacks on your thinking. It wants to fill your mind with worries and fears. It presses you to focus only on yourself and have little or no concern for others. It wraps your mind into various media events hell-bent on dividing and causing angst. Then, as you indulge it, you get further and further away from God and your own happiness, joy and contentment.

Your personal relationship with God, your Father, is your most important relationship on Earth. As such, you cannot allow misconceptions and wrong ideas to cloud the beauty of that relationship. You are on this Earth to find out who God is and how to get His spirit within. Then, to learn how to operate that spirit producing power and joy in your day by day life. You have to cut through the error of religion and see God for who He says he is. A lady reported the other day, how God uses people and often has them doing things they don’t like! To which I responded with a hearty “bullshit!” It’s lies like this that keep people away from God. The only being that uses people and makes them do things they don’t like is the devil and his host of evil companions. When things people tell you don’t make any sense, they’re probably not true.

Staying in alignment is no more complicated than deciding to walk in the light. It’s recognizing when you have gone south, for whatever reason, and getting back to the light. It’s not days spent in guilt and condemnation begging God for forgiveness. It’s simply a recognition in your heart that you may have misstepped and a decision to get back to the light. Walking in the light isn’t following some strict creed of rules for living, but rather keeping your mind in the right place. It’s deciding to love and be kind and patient with people and to love, and be kind and patient with yourself. It’s cultivating a tender heart like God’s heart and through modifications to your thinking, keeping your heart soft and pliable. A hard heart doesn’t show up overnight, but comes from years of wrong thinking and unresolved issues.

Alignment and harmony is really relationship advice. It starts with God, of course, but applies to every relationship you have. Husbands and wives can get out of fellowship with one another. Carrying resentment and refusing to forgive lead to walking in darkness where there is no sweetness of living left. Thus it is your duty, for God’s sake, to get those relationships repaired if you can and be the one who initiates the light. Married couples, out of fellowship with one another, have no power with God and miss out on a golden opportunity to believe together for great things!

Perhaps the worst thing; the most dastardly of all, is when the darkness persuades you to  be at odds with yourself. It’s when you are no longer in alignment with your very own self. If you are not even for yourself in this life, what chance could you have at happiness and fulfillment? Those harsh words and negative ideas about yourself do not come from God. The accusations, the perpetual reminder of past missteps, the questioning of your character and goodness are weapons in the enemy’s arsenal that he has been using for years on mankind. Don’t believe it. Get your head to the light, where God is and see if that doesn’t completely revolutionize your life!

Being in alignment and harmony with God is the greatest thing in the whole world! It’s an unparalleled sweetness and joy like you may have never experienced before. It’s walking with confidence and power knowing that God will answer your every prayer. It’s being so tight with God that nothing can make you afraid. It’s riding in the high places of the Earth! It’s God’s will for His children in order for them to live the more than abundant life He promised them. It is the way, the truth and the life!

Stay in fellowship…it works!

Just some good thoughts…

 

How to Be Unhappy…

On By Papa TonyIn happiness, ThoughtLeave a comment

There are many things you can do to make yourself perennially unhappy. Unhappiness isn’t something for amateurs to mess around with as it takes a serious daily commitment. So, if you really want to win at the game of losing, then this blog is for you!

If I wanted to be unhappy, I would start my day out past the time I wanted to get up, laying in the bed thinking about all of the things I did wrong yesterday. I would mentally rehearse where and how I went astray. I would berate myself for how fat I had gotten and question whether or not my hair was thinning. Then I would hop out of bed with barely enough time to get ready for work. Because I didn’t give myself enough time, lots of things would go wrong and end up making me late. Where’s my damn blue tie???

On my commute I would feel agitated and distressed. I would pretend like the highway was mine and speed along cursing other drivers having the audacity to get into my lane and not go at the speed I dictated. Up ahead there is a car in the fast lane going less than the speed limit, so I get as close to their bumper as I can without actually hitting them and cuss them out in their rear view mirror! They flip me off in response to my behavior and I fly into a blinding rage. Just as I calm down, I notice someone was trying to merge next to me, so I speed up and tailgate the car in front of me, to make sure the bastards couldn’t get in, no matter what.

Once I got to work late, I would head into the office with a sour, foul attitude. Mentally, I would point out which staff were ugly; which ones were fat and which were ones were just plain stupid! When one of my co-workers came into my office, I would spend almost half an hour discussing how incompetent the leadership were followed by some juicy gossip about one of the employees. Later in the morning at the staff meeting, I would sit quietly at the table mentally comparing myself to the other leaders. I would lament on why I couldn’t speak as intelligently as Bill and get angry over why everyone always laughs at Steve’s silly jokes. I would literally grit my teeth anytime someone said something complimentary to the boss, effin, brown-nosers!

After lunch, I would dedicate myself to screwing around until the ‘already too long’ day was over. I would Facebook and Instagram, followed by a healthy dose of Amazon shopping. Hey, the stupid work can wait until tomorrow! Someone would call over to check on something I promised to get done, but I would explain in a highly frustrated tone why I didn’t have enough time to accomplish things!

After another long commute, filled with slow traffic and my usual railings and flip-outs, I would get home and immediately dump a load of mental garbage on my family. I would corner my wife’s ear and complain and fuss until dinner time. At dinner I would be sure to point out anything that wasn’t quite cooked correctly. (I mean she needs to know if the chicken is dry, right?) Then, after having a few drinks to unwind, I would pick a fight with her and begin to extol how I unhappy I am with my life. I wouldn’t take any responsibility for any of this because none of it is my own fault. If she didn’t treat me the way she did, I could have been somebody! In fact, I never seem to catch a break like other people. I don’t have enough money to do what I need to do and I’m ten times smarter than the wealthy people I know. And, that’s not my damn fault either. The cards have been stacked against me.

I wake up on the couch several hours later angry with myself for my behavior earlier. I pour myself into bed ready to begin the cycle anew tomorrow. I cannot wait for the weekend, when I can finally do what I want to do. But until then, everything sucks, everyone sucks and I guess deep down, I suck!

As I lay in bed trying to fall back asleep, I begin to question all of the decisions and choices I’ve made in my life. I fantasize about how things might have been if I married this person and moved to this state. I don’t consider any of the good things I have accomplished because it doesn’t matter as I could have done so much more! I know I’m deeply frustrated but it just doesn’t seem like there is anything I can do about it! I remember the other day when some guy tried to talk with me about God, but I don’t need that religion bullshit! I mean what could God do to help me with my crappy life? Doesn’t He have big things to deal with like world peace and the starving people? I begin to drift off to sleep, exhausted and sad…

This ladies and gentleman is how you make a career of being unhappy. Don’t take any responsibility for anything and for goodness sakes don’t change what you have been thinking and doing. And if by chance, there comes a point in your life when you want to choose happiness, then simply choose the opposite of this! 😉

It’s your life…

Just some good thoughts…eventually.

Just Another Blog on Finding Happiness…

On By Papa TonyIn happiness, Thought6 Comments

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Of late it has become more and more apparent that many of our notions of finding happiness don’t really lead to happiness at all. Happiness isn’t some target destination you can reach or some feeling you can acquire by your determination to think about being happy. In fact, the consideration and contemplation of happiness seems to cancel out its positive effect. And while happiness is greatly influenced by your thinking it generally comes more from doing than from thinking at all…

There is, I’m sad to report, such a thing as too much thinking. This modern-day notion we have learned from the self-help, motivation and positivity age is that we somehow have to closely monitor our thoughts and then quickly change every thought over into a positive one. On the surface, this all sounds fine and dandy. However, when you stop your thinking and subsequent doing in order to evaluate and monitor, you sort of cease being and switch over to evaluating or judging. Now you, as yourself, are looking at yourself and making a determination about yourself. And, how often are those self-focused, interior judgments good? Constantly checking in on yourself to see if you are okay is counterproductive to being okay.

Have you ever been completely absorbed in something like work and noticed how good you felt afterwards? Generally, it seems, the more focused you are in the present moment and what it is you are doing in the present moment, the better you feel. In these moments of ecstasy and bliss you don’t have to turn on your mental oven monitor to check if your happiness is ready. It just is and you have the pleasure of enjoying it. How many times have you been worried about some scenario and just couldn’t get it out of your head? That is until you decide to mow the lawn and voila, just like that you feel better! Sure these are simple examples, but they do point to an awareness that the best use of our minds is to accompany the activity we are engaged in, in the moment called now.

The polar opposite of simply being and doing is thinking and thinking and thinking. No-one’s life ever got better from over-thinking and analyzing and judging. Yet, we engage in it as if it is a responsible way to behave. The result of it is always “to do” lists for self-improvement and/or decisions to get up earlier, read more, drink less and the like. Hidden behind those noble efforts of goal setting and life betterment lies a subtle message that you are not okay just as you are. In the same way that religion questions your worthiness before God to control you and get your money, the self-help industry offers to improve you and make you okay as long as you buy the book, attend the seminar and buy another book! How can anyone ever simply “be happy” if they live perpetually in a state of “I’m not okay?”

In truth, it’s not the analysis that is the issue, it’s the judgment. It seems a person is the happiest when they can choose for themselves what they will and will not do. How many people really do what they want to do? Things are always modified and changed to fit in, be accepted, please him and satisfy her. We spend our days in anxiety ever trying to live up to some rules that someone else set-up for us to live. We don’t trust ourselves and our judgment and thereby severely curtail our own happiness. Our minds become chock full of things we should do, shouldn’t do and must do! It might be okay if we determined what those things are, but most often we are still living out someone else’s rules for acceptability. Don’t you just love and admire the people who do what they want to do and are not ashamed of it? Happy is the man who doesn’t condemn himself for the things he enjoys! Indeed, happy is the man…

The essence of finding happiness is not in looking for happiness at all. Rather it is choosing to live in the moment, enjoying your choice of activities, accepting yourself just as you are and doing your own life! It’s in making plans and pursuing dreams. It’s in being fully present with the people you love. It’s in flexibility, spontaneity and whim! It’s in getting out of your own head while refusing to judge yourself, analyze yourself or berate yourself. It’s in finally choosing to live your life rather than choosing only to think about it and judge it.

Happiness isn’t elusive or hiding from you. Rather it is waiting for you to let go of all of your controls and ideas and simply let yourself be. It’s all around you waiting for you to notice its presence. It’s at your job, in your home, in the yard and at the store. It’s in each moment of life spent doing and being and living. It’s hoping you will set aside all of your judgments and comparisons and analysis long enough to notice, “I’m here” and “How happy I feel!”

Just another blog on finding happiness…

 

Your Dream Life…

On By Papa TonyIn belief, believing, goals, God, happiness, intentional life, life, Thought, thoughtsLeave a comment

dream-life-text-Favim.com-354813As I sat on my porch this morning, sipping my coffee and reveling in the beautiful sunlit morning, I thought how incredibly privileged and blessed we are to be able to live any life we desire by first envisioning it, then deeply considering it in our minds and hearts. God has given us the complete and absolute freedom to dream and then bring those dreams into reality. Every person living their dream life lived it first in their own mind. The question isn’t whether or not you can still live your dream life. The question is have you taken the time and effort to even know what your dream life is and can you see it in your own mind.

One of the hardest things for people to understand is how intimately connected their present situation is to the thoughts they think most habitually. Your struggles, your pain, your difficulties are not found in unfair circumstances, poor upbringing, other people’s influence or unexpected events, but rather found primarily in your own thinking patterns and then brought into your reality by your unknowing persistence with those thoughts. In the precise same manner, your dreams, your visions of how you want to live, your ideal life, all await your thoughts to come in line with your expectations. The things that mean the most to you, you likely have already obtained in some capacity. Yet however good your life may appear, the “natural” tendency is to limit and compromise, as if God had a limited supply of good and there was the possibility of having more than your fair share. Goodness, blessings, success are not meted out and divided between people, but instead follow with perfect accuracy the believing and expectation of your heart. Those who enjoy more, positively believe more. Those who enjoy less, negatively believe (fear) more.

Many times people compromise their dream life by the limited value they place upon themselves. They treat others with respect, but don’t respect themselves. They admire the work of others, but see no value in their own work. They understand how others can live such a fantastic life, but cannot see themselves living a fantastic life because of “_______________” ~ you fill in the blank! I can assure you, your dream life isn’t based upon how good or bad you are, it is based upon your expectations for yourself. And you control your expectations! Hiding behind the fear of people finding out who you really are is nothing more than evidence that you have been talked out of your own self-worth. Anyone living a mediocre existence does so because that is their expectation, despite their heartfelt cries to the contrary.

The dream life isn’t found by treating it like a giant wheel of fortune, whereby if you can get lucky enough to have a few spins, you can win the life you want. Nor is it a lottery ticket producing an unexpected, life changing windfall. It sounds silly, but many folks approach their life this way. Ignorant of their responsibility to choose and shape their lives, they sort of float around in neutral hoping not to hit anything along the way. They drift into destinations they “didn’t” choose and complain like hell about being there. If you’ve never had a goal or an aspiration for something better than you have, how could you reasonably expect something better? Or, if your targets are so low they take no effort on your part to achieve, then don’t wonder why there are a million others living just like you are, unfulfilled. Everyone knows there are no fish left in the local fishing hole, but if you commit to a longer drive, they are there in abundance. Your dream life won’t just happen to you or show up one day. Instead it will arrive in smaller pieces, evolving as you evolve your thinking and act upon your most important visions for yourself. Your arrival at your dream life won’t come as surprise to you, but instead will be in full alignment with your expectations and the most natural thing in the world!

When you take away all of the facades and apparent complications of life; when you remove all of the distractions and time stealers; when you get back to approaching this life in its purest essence, you will begin to discover that you had access to the remedy within your heart all along. God didn’t give you life with the intention that you would hobble and struggle and limp along the way, hoping to accidentally stumble upon something good. Instead He gave you a mind and a heart from where your believing emanates with the real intention that you would learn who He is and what He has already provided for you. His desire is that you would learn how to control your thinking and guard your heart from where your entire life flows forth. He wants you to know the score!

You have been given the greatest possible privilege to ensure your life is filled with blessings. You can learn how to believe rightly and get to that dream life you have been dreaming about. It’s right here waiting for you. Make time to vividly picture the life you want, not the life you don’t want, and see how amazing and life altering is this glorious, true way to live!  I would expect nothing less from God who is only good, always! Would you?

Just some good thoughts…

 

When Your Problem Becomes Your Problem…

On By Papa TonyIn believing, God, happiness, healing, life, new beginning, success, Thought, trust1 Comment

ProblemAlerts.jpgBy nature, in order to have a “problem,” means there is some aspect of your life that you find yourself incapable of solving. You’ve done your best thinking. You’ve looked at it from every angle. In short, you’ve devoted yourself 100% to it and yet your problem remains. You may have even resigned yourself to a life with the “problem.” However, there eventually reaches a point where your problem becomes your problem!

We all have bad things happen to us. Some things that happen to people are so indescribably evil, there are no words to explain it. Other people just sort of get stuck with some dilemma they find themselves living a lifetime trying to escape. Catastrophes, extreme losses, losing it all, all have the potential to take away your lifeblood and reduce life to mere existence. Lower down the scale many find themselves a victim, not to something that happened to them directly, but to the repercussions of some grand mistake; some error in judgment; some momentary lapse that became the defining factor in their lives! Again, the apparently inescapable problem became their life problem.

No matter what may have happened to you or what insurmountable problem you may face, there is always a solution. The trouble permeates when it becomes your sole focus in life. You can spot someone suffering in this way immediately because it is the only subject on which they speak authoritatively. They unknowingly dwell in it; they breathe it with every exhale; they consume it and drown themselves in it. Instead of being a problem from which they can still escape, it becomes their reason for living, their red badge of courage.

Ironically, the way to escape it, is the exact opposite of what appears. In the words of a wise man, “Dwelling on the darkness won’t bring forth the light.” Dwelling on what went wrong, what you did wrong, why something went wrong, all serve not to remedy the situation, but rather to affix you, the sufferer, deeper and deeper into the problem. And sadly, if you remain fixated on the darkness long enough, your chances of escape become slimmer and slimmer. You are never, ever going to out-think the darkness by remaining in the darkness. Instead, like all people in the dark, your task will become more and more insurmountable. The reason people are locked into some tragedy or failing that happened twenty-five years ago is because they never let it go. You cannot overcome unless you eventually let it go. In fact, you aren’t going to begin to solve your problems now until you finally learn to let them go.

Life was never intended for you to be the party of the first part, the second part and every other part. You are a human being for God’s sake and much of life escapes your control. When the doctor says you have an incurable disease there’s not a damn thing you, the human being, can do about it. You are fighting against spiritual powers of which you may know or understand very little. Instead you, the finite human being, are supposed to eventually admit you do not know what to do and beseech the help of the One that knows exactly what to do. Absent God and left to your own limited devices, you are simply going to lose. But, if you can get to the place where you wake up, you hand those life-long issues over to God and let Him do what He promised He would do all along!

Goodness knows that some of the things that may have happened to you are awful and painful and arduous at best. That’s not to minimize their grave impact on you at all. You’re stuck because your problem is beyond your human capability to deal with it. Your solution is to let it go. Give it to God every time it lands itself back in your lap. Stop thinking it, fearing it, rehearsing it, addressing it and embracing it. The inescapable problem is bad enough without giving over your entire life and mind in defense and admiration of it. Your problem is not the supreme thing in life. It is not to be your primary thought in every situation. It may have become that but it doesn’t have to remain that. God is supposed to be your supreme thing and your primary thought in life. Dwelling on God and what He says is dwelling in the light. In the light, the solutions become clear and obvious. Maybe your solution is healing. Maybe your solution is to finally get past a terrible event. Maybe your solution is a radical change in your thinking and manner of living. Whatever your solution may be, it can only be found in one place and one place only – the light!

Darkness is a slippery character and is well schooled in how to defeat a human being. Evil and wrong don’t just hit you with a sucker punch you never saw coming, but instead seeks to take away all that is important to you. It’s goal, like trapping a bird in a cage, is  to snare you into some mode of thinking that guarantees more and more trouble will replicate itself in your life. For this reason, you need something bigger than yourself to set you free.

All of us, at one time or another, have found ourselves trapped in some grand dilemma. Everyone of us has had a problem whose solution escaped us. We’ve all been stuck, distracted and caught up into some thing that has been gaining more and more power over us. And like a rodent we seek to remove from our situation, in order to rid ourselves of it, we have to remove its food source. Literally, you have to stop feeding it! You have to steadfastly resist your human tendency and ego that is striving to figure it out and choose rather not to give it any space in your thinking. It’s not easy to do, but is required if you want to win. You have to seek God’s help and continue seeking God’s solution until you realize it in your life. God is faithful and will provide what you need, but you have to do it His way. Every time your problem presents itself to you by knocking on the doors of your mind, you have to give it back to God where it belongs. God will deliver you my friend, with the duration dependent entirely upon your faithfulness to keep your mind fixed on the light! It can be done. It will be done!

How do you prevent your problem from being your life’s problem? Make your problem God’s problem and let Him figure it out. There is no other way…

Just some good thoughts.

The Good Life…

On By Papa TonyIn happiness, ThoughtLeave a comment

Good-LifeThere’s something out there that all humans are after. It’s something often talked about but rarely found. It’s the inner heart desire of every person that draws breath. It’s a goal, an experience, a journey and a destination. It is the pursuit of all pursuits, the good life!

If you’ve lived any amount of time, you know there are as many theories on the way to get there as there are people. One man’s good life is a nightmare for another. One woman’s unacceptable is another’s acceptable, and even more, a victory. For some it’s money. For others it’s family. For some it’s solitude and quiet space. For others it’s opportunities for learning. Truth is, you have the privilege to decide your good life yourself. But, there is one consistent thing that underlies all variations of the good life. It is  the most glorious and delicate balance in life. It’s called self-control…

If you’re like me, you tend to bristle up when that “control” word shows up. Nobody likes to be controlled. And, sometimes it’s tough to control yourself, especially when that controls involves the things you love. But, and you cannot find a larger but, self-control is truly the essence of life; the good life. Here’s the paradox, the more control you exercise, the more free you become. Now, before you get besieged with sadness, self control doesn’t mean refusing happiness or good feelings or good things.  Self control is more about enjoying your happiness and producing good feelings and maintaining your good things.

Have you ever had the experience of finally deciding to control some aspect of your life? If you were successful, i.e. lost the weight, stopped a behavior, brought some ‘out of control’ aspect under control, how did you feel when the job was done? Conversely, those areas that are out of control; those aspects of you that drive “you” nuts, the things you do over and over and over again and despise yourself when you do them, how do they leave you? You see, your feelings, though not 100% reliable, are trying to tell you something. They’re telling you that you need to get a grip on you! And, sadly, you know it’s true.

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Fun is always fun, but there is a ‘too much’ fun. Wine, the great mood enhancer, has an end point where it changes from a sparkle to a sedative. Tasty food is delightful but the Thanksgiving gorge is over the top. Discomfort is the tell-tale indicator. Bad feelings are the barometer. If you really think it through, there should be no down side to a good thing. But the downside sometimes applies not to the thing itself but the quantity of the thing.

In every realm of life, there’s an expectation of control. Control keeps you healthy. Control protects your finances. Control enhances your experiences. Control makes your highs higher and mitigates your lows. Your life depends upon your willingness to control it. I would surmise that whenever you observe someone who seems to be living the good life, behind that life is some element of control; decisions you maybe never see.

Life is always about staying in balance. Work is good unless you work too much or too little. If you work too much, you allow it to compensate for other areas it was never designed to cover. It becomes a consuming force and begs for remedy. If you work too little, the penalty is found in dissatisfaction and angst. Even a day at work where your focus is not on work but quitting time, makes for the longest day ever. If you’ve ever lost your job, you know that time off is not really time off when your responsibilities aren’t handled. But, how sweet is your vacation when the work preceded it?

Life requires both the things you have to do and the things you get to do. If all you have is things you have to do, you’ll live your life in misery. Likewise, if all you do is things you get to do, you’ll soon be found wanting. A lawn must be mowed before you can enjoy the patio. The bed must be made to make the night’s sleep that much nicer. Food is eaten on clean dishes. Work comes before play and play is made possible by work. The weekend comes at the end of the work week, not before it. The balance is the beauty of it all.

I think you may discover one day that the good life you were after was right there for you all along. But instead of being found in fame and riches, it is found in a thousand little choices; choices you make in defense of yourself. Choices that don’t always feel good, but always feel good if you know what I mean. The ability to sometimes say no, to yourself… The sublime, inherent ability to finally take command of yourself; your elusive self! That, my friends is the sure steadfast definition of the good life – getting and then staying in control of yourself…

You don’t know where to start, you say? Begin the next time you start to do something you really wish you wouldn’t do. Listen to the gentle urging inside you when there’s a decision to be made. Pay attention to that thought back there telling you something you have been trying to ignore. You already know where the control needs to be, you just need to make up your mind to do it. And when you do, notice how that feels and see if you cannot get a glimpse of the good life yourself…

Just some good thoughts…

 

 

Doing It Right!

On By Papa TonyIn happiness, intentional life, living in the moment, peace, ThoughtLeave a comment

869722f0785de9af467bcc8720d2d668Doing things right may bring a lot of things to your mind, most of which probably involve drudgery and compulsive adherence to rules, laws and religious dogma. Since me and rules are fairly incompatible, you can relax because this aint that! This is really about doing your life fully, completely, thoroughly; doing it all the best according to what is needed next. It’s about satisfying the just demands of the moment.

I recently watched the movie, “The Intern.” An interesting movie for sure, but the appeal to me wasn’t the clever story line. It was Robert De Niro’s character, Ben Whittaker. However, it wasn’t Ben’s desire to get a job or be relevant or even his patience in working with a pack of young folks. It was the orderly way he lived his life. It was his care for the little things. It was Ben’s full attention to the moment he was in and the demands of that moment. It was his attention to detail. It was his lack of hurry in favor of what should be next. It was beautiful and clean and crisp in a way I can’t yet put into words, but I’ll try.

The modern day laissez–faire notion of life implies that any desire to keep things clean and maintained is obsessive. Demanding to have things put in the proper place is categorically over the top. Organizing desks, closets or anything presently in a chaotic state stifles your ability to live and breathe.” Just let it go man!” “Why are you so OCD?” All this talk about instituting order is taking away my freedom to “just be.” And, like so many things in this life, you sort of end up with the exact opposite of what you were after. Instead of feeling relaxed and unrestrained you feel anxious, hurried and stressed. Well, there’s a reason…

The One who invented life is supremely organized and orderly. His attention to detail is breathtaking. Everything matters and there is nothing made that does not have an intended purpose or use. The reason that nature has such an appeal to you is because there is a fantastic intricacy behind it. There’s no rigidity or straight lines (because that obviously aint it-get it?), but there is an unparalleled order; a beauty; an exquisite symmetry.  How about your human body? No matter how it looks outwardly, there’s no sloppiness back of it. In fact, it’s so well done you can abuse it for a long time before it starts to break down.

Order not chaos is the dominating principle of the universe. And, the more you put your life in order, the better you will live. Fighting against and resisting order may feel good in the moment, but, as all illusions do, will never last. What you gain in momentary expediency, you’ll lose in sustained happiness. Your relaxing won’t be relaxed and your letting go won’t let anything go. Everything you walked past remains fixed, perpetually occupying your mind as undone. The coat slung on the banister requests action every time you see it and in ignoring it, it beckons the louder. The candy wrapper in the driveway calls out each time you park. The light in the bathroom whispers to be shut off. Your junk drawer in the kitchen serves as an harassing evil, assaulting your thoughts when brought to light. Order is seeking you, not for itself but for you.

Being a Bible fan, I often think of the account when Jesus was raised from the dead. After the incredible miracle of being raised from the dead, there’s another point of interest you may have missed. In the custom of his culture, Jesus was wrapped from head to toe in grave clothes, sort of like a mummy. When they came to see if he was risen, they noted that he wasn’t there and that the the mummified grave clothes were still there untouched with the napkin that covered his face neatly folded on top. Who do you think folded it? Well, Jesus did of course. Compared to the magnanimity of the event apparently folding a napkin mattered as well. Jesus was and is a perfect man. So, you put that together…

There was a time when people sat down together for dinner, with carefully planned place settings and matching dishes. There was a time when people put their work items away carefully in their custom briefcase. They hung up their suits after the office toil or put their boots in the mudroom for later. People took time to make matches in the sock drawer. They dressed with care and nothing was wrinkled or too worn. Dress shoes shined and grooming was impeccable. There was a time when the details mattered and folks took the time to do things right.

The frenetic pace of today has thwarted man’s ability to take care of business; his business. Distractions exist all over and steal away our time. We have so much to do that we don’t have time to do things right. But, I’d guess you have the same time today that the Ben Whittakers of the world had back then, only minus all of the distractions. You might be surprised to learn in the great by and by, that God will reward you just as much for washing your car as He would for recognizing your service and love to your fellow man. Doing things right extends to every category of life and like any behavior that mimics your Father in heaven, has its own blessings that you can enjoy today.

Doing what you know to do; that which is required in the moment, the clarion call to order, will bring you a peace and a satisfaction that is unequaled in this world. The time it takes to do so will multiply back to you in ways you have not yet imagined. There’s no pain in doing things right. The pain ensues from letting things go. Do it right!

God is not the author of confusion, but of peace…

Just some good thoughts…

 

Religion and How It Ruins Your Relationship with God…

On By Papa TonyIn goodness, happiness, healing, relationships, spiritual, Thought, thoughts2 Comments

6a00d834515f9b69e20168e5c36718970c-800wiIf you are born again of God’s spirit, your relationship with Him should be the sweetest thing this side of heaven. However, for most, it seems, it is just the opposite. Well, there’s a reason for this and that reason is called, “religion.” Sounds like quite a contradiction, I know, but being religious and having a vital relationship with God are often miles apart.

The issue isn’t the sincerity of the believer or their heartfelt desire to walk with God. The crucial issue centers around what the believer “thinks” is required in that relationship, which, when religion gets involved, contradicts the Bible on every front. Religion, in its thousand-fold forms always, always, always put the emphasis on what man is or isn’t doing. Conversely, true Christianity’s focus is always, always, always on what God has done and will do for you, the believer. Now, just let that simmer for a minute…

Look, I aint trying to bash your religion, whatever that might be, I’m just trying to tell you some stuff that I know is true from the Word of God, which if you dare to believe and understand it, will completely change your life and your relationship with Big Poppa!

First and perhaps most important, God is not following you around monitoring your behavior. He’s not condemning you, making you feel guilty or convicting you by the holy spirit (whatever the hell that means)! Surprise! God already knows your behaviors and thoughts aren’t always righteous and as such made a way to make you righteous before Him without it being based on your (and my) ever fluctuating behaviors. His son, Jesus Christ (who, by the way didn’t have a sin nature in his blood) walked perfectly by his free-will, so you wouldn’t have to! Your job is to believe in his sacrifice for you and thus God reckons righteousness unto you, because you chose to believe! Come on now, do you really think your sincere commitment not to cuss or smoke would really make you righteous in God’s sight? It’s just silliness; a silliness promoted by religion that ever seeks to make it all about YOU and not all about God! Note* Insert whatever foolishness you’ve been taught in place of no smoking and no cussing!

Who in the world wants a Father who constantly abides to criticize you and point out what you aren’t doing and should be doing or are doing that you shouldn’t be doing? Lord have mercy, do you do that with your kids? Well, if you do, stop it, because that crap is evil. There is someone who is accusing you day by day, but he isn’t God! And, just for the record, almost the entire book of Romans focuses on this issue because it’s that big! (Book of Romans…in Bible)

Next, I have to address the Facebook meme frenzy, whereby God is doing some dastardly sh*t to you to make you better, somehow, someway! Like… God saves the toughest challenges for His strongest people or God’s testing you to make you better or anything that implies that God does negative stuff to make you worthy or humble or whatever! This, my friends, is a lie from hell! God doesn’t need the stupid adversary or evil to perfect you. Where did you ever get that insane idea? From religion, that’s where you got it. It comes from a lack of understanding regarding evil and in that ignorance attributing everything that happens back to God. What possible purpose could God have in causing a disaster where people are killed? It’s nuts, if your brain works, but somehow acceptable in religion. You know, God is mad at the ______ (insert who you are mad at today) and that’s why that happened. Again the focus is on what? The people and what they are and aren’t doing! What a fantastic delusion! Get rid of the source of the problem, blame it on God and totally screw up the sincere believer.

God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. No darkness…at all…ever! Just for the record, supposedly giving people sickness is darkness. Killing people is darkness. Making life generally hard and annoying for some vague, unknown lesson is darkness. Threatening people with a life lived in perpetual torture called, “hell” is darkness. There’s no hell as described afore, in the Bible. Who the hell (pun intended) would run it? So, who told you all that garbage? Religion did, that’s who! To help you, you ask? No, to control you! It has nothing to do with your relationship with God and everything to do with your relationship with the people who seek to control you! Maybe that’s too blunt for you, but by God, it’s the truth and if you are ever going to feel good about your relationship with your Heavenly Father, you need to know the truth!

Time fails me to speak of bead counting, chanting, lighting candles, repetitious prayers, going without, kneeling, going to this place at that time, avoiding that place, sacrificing, not drinking, cussing, smoking, no sex, no caffeine, no medicine, no, no, no, no – arghhhhhhhhhh, misery! No wonder you don’t want to talk to God except on Sunday when it’s required! No wonder the mention of His name makes you uncomfortable. No wonder you don’t share your heart with Him, after all, He might figure you out! Newsflash!!! He already knows all about you (duhhhh) and still loves you! He is God, for God’s sake! Do you really think there is some aspect of your humanness of which God isn’t familiar? Really?

Religion really is the opiate of the masses, but unlike other opiates, doesn’t make you feel better. You have to give God more credit than that! Seriously? Beads? Chanting? Saying the same crap over and over again? Would any of that bless you as a Father? Mother? I think you really might be after, above all else, their heart! Well, it may surprise you that God is after…..wait for it…your heart; your free-will; unforced or coerced; just because; for love’s sake; heart… God wants to give all His greatness to you! He wants to help you and heal you and restore you and make you smile. He desires to give you life and that you have it more abundantly!

Like I said, I aint mad at your religion, or whatever your allegiance is to, or what your folks taught you or what your pastor said. My aim is ever and always your freedom to live and enjoy this life. I didn’t make this stuff up. This is God’s Word of “religionlessness” for you.

Just some good, free thoughts…