Don’t lose your cool man.

That phrase is a flashback to the ’70’s I know, but sometimes we do just that - we lose our cool. It is so easy to get impatient when we put ourselves first.

So three tomatoes were walking to the store: The father tomato looked back and saw the junior tomato just dawdling, so the father tomato walked back, stepped on the junior tomato and exclaimed, “Ketch up!” 

WE want to get something done, WE want to go somewhere and “that bothers ME”, GIVE ME… Focusing on ourselves can cause us to become increasingly impatient.

To change our focus, we need to look at what the other person is doing. We need to see what they want or need to get done, where they want or need to go.

Now, none of us are perfect: yesterday we discovered that our daughter lost her $850 Nikon camera, that we gave her for her birthday. She was being nonchalant about the whole thing, and my wife and I were all up in arms. We lost our cool big time. We lost our patience with her, because she maintained her cool. Was this a justification? No. She knew it would be found, and as it turns out, she left it on the bus. It was returned and so was the calmness  

So you might be saying, “OK Thom, how do I do this - when you can’t even do this?”

We have to look at patience like tending a garden. If you start the garden with seed, plant it, water it, weed the garden; after that first day is over, you still will not see harvest until the plant has finished growing.

Patience has to be planted, you have to tend to it, just like a garden, and then you have to wait. Getting patience does not happen immediately: ironically enough, it takes patience to get patience.

You cannot just assume you will have patience just because you want it, you have to work for it, you have to cultivate it, and when you “Lose your cool man,” that is just a weed, so take it out.

My wife use to say she prayed for patience, and so we had our first three children in our first five years of marriage: She kept praying and we kept having kids. Those kids did test our patience, but we grew and so did our patience. 

Patience is also part of love. My wife is so patient with me, but that is because she loves me - and the feelings are reciprocated. We love our children, so we patiently wait for them to get where we need them to go.

Pet peeves kill patience

Now I know we all have those pesky pet peeves that make us lose all concept of patience. I use to hate it when people rubbed their nails, or used a nail file. It would literally set my teeth on edge, and I had to leave the room. I can remember several times where I would get irate at someone who was doing this. As my daughter use to tell me: I was feeding my pet.

Then I married a nail tech, and I had to get use to the noise. Now it is no longer my pet peeve.

My youngest son hates people chewing. My wife hates it when people hang up without saying goodbye. My oldest son hates limp handshakes. These are all things that can separate us from those around us if we let our pet peeves build walls, we will never get to know our neighbors, no matter where they are geographically.

Can you learn patience? Most certainly you can.  Is it difficult and sometimes painful? Most certainly it is. Is it achievable? Without question – anyone with a little patience – can become more patient.

Be more patient, enjoy people and stop feeding your pet (your pet peeve that is, please keep feeding your dog, cat, bird or fish).

Be Considerate

If we take the simple definition of this phrase as: Be careful to not cause inconvenience or hurt to others. How can we, as a community, make sure we are not inconveniencing or hurting others? 

We all could sit around this global campfire, and chat about how we have not been shown consideration, how we have been wronged and how we have in someway been injured by others. This is very easy to do, we like to shine a spotlight on ourselves and sometimes show our wounds.

I could fill several blog pages with my woes, and my injuries; I could talk about my family, my friends, my coworkers, my job or that little blue Kia that cut me off on the way home, but I won't, because I am no saint: I have caused inconvenience and pain to others. I believe it is human nature to try to elevate ourselves, and that means sometimes we walk on other people to get to the top.

When we are striving to get to that pinnacle, How do we do that without climbing over other people? 

In the post Excellence, I mentioned that getting to the top is great, but where do you go once you are there. The only way to go is down. There are some people that live on the pinnacle,  but to me not advancing or declining is stagnation, and that - I believe - is worse.

I believe the best way to be the best you can be, it by helping other people, and surrounding yourself with people that help people. I have such people in my Google Plus family - Adele Archer, Jeremy Crow, Nael Noaman, Matt Banner and Luna Darcy just to name a few. These people are very positive people and they always offer a kind word of encouragement and an uplifting message.

The opposite to causing hurt, is encouragement.

I was nominated for the Liebster award. This encouraged me: encouraged me to do better, to write more and let me know that my voice was being heard. This was consideration. That is what I am taking about.

What I see on Google Plus, is people encouraging people. Now that is not to say that I haven’t seen the opposite.

I was going through my feed, and there was a picture of a woman straddling two truck beds. She was wearing shorts and a t-shirt - nothing pornographic. Usually I don’t stop and stare, but a comment caught my attention. Someone commented on that picture, “You look stupid.” 

Why was this necessary to say?

When I was a child, there was a saying, “If you can't say something nice, don't say it at all.” 

I remember, there was a kid in my neighborhood, and we did not like each other at all. He was always saying things to me, and I was always saying things back. One day I saw a group of kids down at the end of the street, and they were encircling something or somebody. Being inquisitive by nature, I went to check it out. 

There was CJ, talking smack about me, and I entered the circle. He looked at me and said something about my mom, and I said something in return, and quite frankly I don't remember what I said, but I got punched in the face: I ended up on the street, and CJ walked away. Lesson: say something mean, get punched in the face.

I am not saying we should go around punching people in the face, just because they say something or do something we don’t like. CJ and I were both in the wrong. What I am saying, and what I took with me from this experience is: We need to be considerate with everyone, we need to consider everyone’s feelings without regard to our own, and that will reciprocate. 

Where am I going with all of this? We need to be nice to one another. Remember, when we take our eyes off of ourselves, and stop putting ourselves first, and we start building others up, and helping them along the way - we will be built up. When we give others hope and we encourage others, we will have hope and encouragement too.

Well I was nominated for the Liebster Award by the incredible and wonderful Adele Archer, this took me a while to fill out - so sorry about that.. Adele is a wonderful blogger, writer and from what I can ascertain a terrific person. So here are some questions which I was asked by Adele, so here it goes. 

1. Where does your blogging inspiration come from?

As I have stated many times in my blog, my blogging is mostly cathartic. I feel when I see something that bothers me, either in myself or others, I need to write about it. Right now I am inspired by the idea of peace: people getting along with other people. I want to direct people to love, not hatred. With all the hatred in the world today, if we could just reach out in love to our neighbors next door and around the world, we would have peace.

2. Is your blogging simply a hobby? What kind of dreams do you have for it?

I came back to the blogosphere, because I missed writing. I had written before with motives that were not exactly pure. I wanted to make money - that went exactly nowhere. When you write with your mind on your wallet, and not your heart, you will not be satisfied. Remember most men carry their wallet in their back pocket - Write from your wallet, and guess where you write from? That’s right out of your…

3.  What is your support system like and who are your biggest supporters?

I will have to say, my family has seen me at my worst with writing, so they are a little gun shy about my ventures. They know I have been disappointed in the past. My biggest support has come from the many page view this go around. I will say, however, my wife has always supported me in what ever I do, and when I fall to pieces, she is there with the superglue to put me back together

4. What are 10 random facts about you?

1. My wife and I have been married for 28 years and we have five children, two  grandsons and a granddaughter on the way
2. I always wanted to be able to fly, not in a plane, but with my own wings - is that too random?
3. I have always been a story teller; My grandfather use to call it lying.
4. I believe in Ghosts, UFOs, The Loch Ness Monster, The Yeti and Bigfoot - But I believe Elvis is dead.
5. I have a double crown, which makes it look like I am balding in the front.
6. I am double jointed.
7. I had brain surgery back in 2013.
8. I love people, and their diversity, but I only like vanilla ice-cream.
9. I was awful in English class in junior high and high school. 
10. I believe I am harder on myself, then anyone else - unless you ask my youngest children, then they would say I am harder on them

5.  What do you enjoy most about blogging?

I enjoy taking a simple thought, and expounding on that thought. I take examples from my own life, and I apply it to writing: I love writing.

6. What do you do when you feel overwhelmed with too many tasks at once?

Take a nap. 

Really, I do try to prioritize. I do have to remember that “A little sleep, a little slumber and a little folding of the hands to rest; Then your poverty will come as a robber And your want like an armed man. Proverbs 24:33-34

7. What would you do with a large sum of money given to you?

I would pay off all of my debts, pay off my older kids debts, buy the twins a car, and invest the rest of the money.

8. What was one of the most moving books or movies you have ever seen?

“The Berenstain Bears’ Moving Day” was the best moving book I’ve ever read… Oh wait that wasn’t the question. 

I guess the movie that has stayed with me, was “Chariots of Fire.”

Book: Dean Koontz Seize the Night - I read it about five times.

9. Where would you like to see yourself in the next couple of years?

In the mirror - sorry I’m a bit of a smart …

I would love to ditch my “Brick and Mortar” and work as a Free Lance Writer

10. Do you have a bucket list? Name 5 things on that.

I don’t have a bucket list, I don’t want to get to the end of the list, and then have to wait for me to kick the bucket.

11. What is your single best piece of advice for someone starting out in the blogging world?

Write from your heart, find your niche, read other blogs, work on your writing, don’t stop writing and most importantly NEVER EVER GIVE UP!

I get to nominate 11 awesome bloggers! Here are my nominees in no particular order:

Adele Archer

Jeremy Crow

Nael Noaman

Helen Mathis

Fredie Bateman

Alisha Trost

Matt Banner

Rebekka Arnold

Kerri Henry

David Doo

Vicky Wright

Each of these bloggers are worth your time to go and check out; they all have things to say, and a voice. 

So my nominees: This is your mission - if you choose to accept it. Answer the 11 questions above in your own blog post and nominate 11 bloggers who have 200 followers or less (I am sorry, some of my nominees have more than 200, but only slightly - I just enjoy their posts, so I included them).

If you decide to make your own questions for your nominees, please feel free: or do what I did and use the ones above - they do seem quite comprehensive.

Leave a comment on your nominees’ blogs so they would be informed about the nomination and so they can decide if they want to participate or not. Make sure you include a link back to your blog post so they can have an example.

This is a great way to increase the readership of our fellow bloggers, and also increase our own personal followership. 

Happy Writing!

Open the doors

We are a global community, and that means we have a lot to get over, before we can get down to the love stuff.

I remember when I was a child (when dinosaurs roamed the earth), we knew our neighbors, and what was going on in our little corner of the world, but we did not know anyone outside of our sphere of influence.

A friend of my parents had a HAM radio, and they could talk to people from different countries. They would sit in their “Radio Room” and talk to people around the world: I wanted to do that. I remember them saying there were certain places we could not call, they were off limits.

But we all were duped.

We only knew what was on the media: Russians were evil and they tortured cats (OK they did not say they tortured cats), they were despicable humans and they wanted to kill Americans. Mexicans and the Japanese were trying to take over our jobs. The Chinese were amassing huge numbers to invade the rest of the world, etc. There was communism and capitalism, and neither the two shall meet.

I remember when the wall came down, and the first American Photographer was allowed in the former Soviet Republic, he took pictures of people; they weren't ugly, spiteful, cat killing war mongers, they were people just like we were.

The media was wrong, movies were wrong and we had all been fed lies from the very start. It was funny to hear, but their media portrayed us similarly.

This opened our world, but where are we now?

With the Internet, our vision becoming wider – the whole world is open to us, but we have other problems we must face. I speak to some of my friends in the UK, Australia, Europe and Asia , but I don’t speak to my neighbors anymore. This global closeness has in fact created a distance between us and those in our own physical community.

I propose – we need to get that back, we need to be close with those around the world, and those next door.

But how do we do that? The people on the internet – they don’t scare me.  The people next door, they are far too real. If I don’t want to talk to someone from Portugal, than I don’t have to respond, I don’t have that freedom with my neighbor: If they come over, you can’t just turn off the computer and they go away.

That is what the problem is; we are too much in control of how we deal with each other.

This is where the rubber meets the road: we need to be open, which means we will be vulnerable – nobody likes that.  However there is strength in vulnerability.

It takes courage to be vulnerable, because when you are vulnerable you have nowhere left to hide, you have to stand out on life’s stage and face whatever is coming at you.

It is hard, we don’t want to be vulnerable, I don’t want to be vulnerable – I will be totally honest with you, but when we become vulnerable, we will let people into our lives. Yes, they might cause pain, they might cause heart break, but it also will create love, and we need more love in this world

Kick off the training wheels

Last night my oldest son, his wife and his father-in-law, met us for a Garth Brooks concert. This is Garth Brooks' World tour, and let me tell you it was amazing. I have only gone to a handful of concerts in my life, and all I can say about this concert was WOW: we really enjoyed ourselves.

Garth Brooks played a song “People Loving People” off of his Man Against Machine album released 2014. I enjoyed the song, but it got me thinking. How am I facilitating “People Loving People?”

Short Answer: I’m not.

On my first blog, I said I was writing about myself, and I even made a nerd joke by naming my blog “Captain’s Log,” because my last name is similar to the last name of Patrick Stewart’s character in Star Trek the Next Generation. But that morphed into what I have now.

I am writing blogs about writing blogs, which is still very important. But this is the question in my mind: Is what I am writing creating a better place? 

Am I really creating a difference or am I just another voice in the wind?  Please don't misunderstand – encouraging people to write correctly and share their voice with the world is very important.

So today, I am kicking off my training wheels. Today starts a new chapter in my blogging life: I must move on.

So there are two things I am going to be doing:

First, I am going to start making my blog matter. I need to write engaging articles for my readers, but also to make a difference. If I can make a difference in just one person's life, than I have succeeded as a writer.

Second, I started a WordPress Account, and I am going to start writing short stories for now, and maybe that will culminate into something bigger. This is just so I can get my creative juices flowing again.

This ride is far from over, and this came to me this morning while the house was quiet and everyone was sleeping.

I do want to apologize at the very onset, if I get a little too preachy, I am sorry. I am not a preacher, and if I come across that way, please let me know.

As always I am grateful for all of my readers: Happy writing.

Diligence

If we practice diligence in everything we do, we will avoid causing ourselves additional problems and pain.

If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?

John  Wooden

I want to preface this post by saying, I am not writing this for sympathy – instead this is an object lesson for diligence.

My wife and I are on a “diet” of sorts, we are actually changing our eating patterns, but twice a month, we allow ourselves to go a little off the rails as it were, and splurge: Friday was that day.

I left my “Brick and Mortar” for lunch to go to one of my favorite eating spots. I enjoy Mexican food, and so there is this semi fast food restaurant near where I work, which I enjoy frequenting.

I hopped on my bike, and headed out for the restaurant and as I was crossing traffic, my bike lurched forward, and I fell off my bike in traffic, and hurt my foot.

I got up, and started for the side of the road, and noticed the nuts that hold my wheels on were loose; I do maintenance on my bike once a week and I make sure everything is secure and in working order, and I usually check my bike, but that check is done first thing in the morning. Friday, I realized my diligence should have extended to every time I get on my bike. 

Now it is unclear if someone loosened the nuts on my bike, or if some magnetic gravitational force loosened the tightened nuts on the wheels: The point is I need to check each time I get on my bike, so I don’t have an accident.

When we write our blogs, an article for a client, or letters to our friends; we should remember that we are writers, and we are held to a higher standard for our writing. In other words we need to be diligent.

So many times, when I read a blog from a new blogger, or even from a seasoned veteran, I see glaring mistakes: Sometimes looking back on my own work I see glaring mistakes. 

The point is we must be clear in our translation of thought to page, and it should be… no it must be void of errors.

We cannot and must not become lax in our writing, because as writers we are expected to communicate efficiently.

Look at what you create with a critical eye, look at it fresh. I have to admit, I write a post a day or two in advance, I then read over the post and save it. I come back to it an hour before I post (sometimes a half hour) and I read it again. After I put it in the blog, before I post it, I read it aloud again just to make sure there is clarity of thought: Then I publish it.

How can you be diligent in your work? What works for you? Share in the comment section, because I enjoy reading from my readers and learning what they do. Everyone has something to offer. 

Choices - Decisions that molded who we are.

There are many things that have created who we are. The decisions we make, create who we have become; Good decisions as well as bad decisions - culminate to dictate our existence.

In my personal life, when I look back on the decisions I have made, and even though they might not seem to be sound decisions, they have led me to where I am today.

I suppose the first real decision I needed to make was to tour with a rock band right out of high school or to stay where I was. 

There was this band called the Darrell Mansfield Band, their bass player was leaving the band, because him and his wife were expecting their first daughter. I was offered the position after a concert by the leader of the band, I would have left that night and we would have gone on the European tour and ending up in Israel for a video shoot. 

I looked at my girlfriend and I could not imagine not seeing her: I was 18, and she was still in school. Without hesitation, I declined Darrell’s offer. A year later The Darrell Mansfield Band disbanded, 28 years later I am still with that same girl.

Yes my life could have changed, I could have gone on to tour with other bands, and Kelly and I still might have been together. But the life I chose gave me five wonderful children and two wonderful grandchildren; we are expecting our third grandchild - the first granddaughter.

That was a win!

 

My second big decision was only a few months later. We were living in a small town, where my parents lived, and they hated Kelly. To protect my wife (we had been married less than a month), I wanted to move us out of that small town.

I had the day off from my job, and my best friend, who had enlisted in the Navy, said he would take me to the recruiting office; I always admired the Navy, but from afar. Kelly told me to not sign anything and we should talk about this when I got home.

I came back a sailor.

My other choice would have been to go to college, and get my degree, instead I moved my wife The Pacific Northwest, where my two oldest children were born.

Not a loss, not a win either.

The next decision I needed to make was where to go to school. In the late - 80's schools where as prominent as pimples on a teenager's face. My wife saw an advertisement for this school, and so we went to check it out. We agreed upon entering the building: we would talk about the school before enrolling. 

I don't know what happened - I believe they hypnotised me, because I signed up for a four year program to be completed in two. However, at the end after I took the finals: The school closed their doors forever. I didn't even get to graduate. 

That was a big loss.

I had smaller decisions, some of them I chose correctly, some I did not. Most still haunt me.

The next big decision was should I re-enlist or go into the reserves. This time Kelly was instrumental - she did not want to be a military wife any longer, so I was not going to make her do that. I left active duty.

I could have been retired by now, but I would have been in two wars, and who knows how many deployments. I do sometimes feel like I have sold the cow for magic beans, but on the other hand Jack did have an amazing journey. 

That was a Win again!

I guess I have been taught to lead with my heart. Whenever I did, I believe I chose the path that made me happier in the end; albeit sometimes the path was harder, I cannot imagine a life without my wife.

What would your story be? What choices did you make, and how did that form who you are?

It’s All About Heart.

Billy Joel wrote It’s all about soul, which is one of my favorite songs, and the last chorus says: 

It's all about soul

It's all about joy that comes out of sorrow

It's all about soul

Who's standing now and who's standing tomorrow

You've got to be hard

Hard as the rock in that old rock 'n' roll song

But that's only part, you know in your heart

It's all about soul

I don't want to argue with one of the greats, and I think Billy Joel is one of the greats, but I believe it is all about heart.

Stripping yourself bare and standing in the spotlight and showing all of your faults - It’s all about heart. Creating a picture with words; holding what you know to be true and being not only true to yourself, but true to your readers as well - It’s all about heart.

In my previous blogs before I started this blog, I was concerned with only two things: 1) I wanted to make money; I was money driven and I was trying everything to get a paycheck from writing. 2) I wanted notoriety - I wanted people to flock to my sight, but they weren't coming, why? Because, I seemed to have forgotten it’s all about heart.

Looking back on that time, I can see I didn't have heart. My writing was so flat it only had one side. Sometimes when the motives are not right, it can seem fake and forced. When writing from your heart, it should be free and unrestrained.

“Who’s Standing Now and Who’s Standing Tomorrow”

I watched a lot of television when I was growing up, and we loved watching the TV show M*A*S*H. There was this one episode where Corporal Klinger was starting a newspaper. and he was able to get people to subscribe to his paper. One day, Colonel Potter asked Klinger where his paper was, and Klinger - excited - put the paper under the door. Colonel Potter used it to wipe his paint brush.

Klinger was not accepted as a writer and he folded up his newspaper enterprise and went back to being a corporal (this happened after his drag days).

I have noticed, some of the people I follow, especially the ones who needed some extra encouragement for their writing, no longer post in their blogs - this makes me sad.

It is sad, because these individuals took the time to explore the field of writing - they thought they loved writing and they really tried, but either it wasn't for them, or they became so discouraged that they folded up their tent in shame and walked into obscurity. 

How do we make it so we are standing tomorrow?

We need to write engaging articles from the heart. We need to dig in and hold on, because there is a story to be told. If you believe in your heart what you are writing - you have something special.

The point was that Klinger was not doing it out of heart, he wasn't even doing it out of duty; Klinger was doing it to be a “newspaper man.” If he poured his heart into his newspaper, and really had engaging articles, he would have been the newspaper man he wanted to be. What kind of blogger do you want to be? 

Write with heart, and you will be here on tomorrow’s tomorrow. 

The Anatomy Of My “Brick and Mortar” or Why I Must Go To Work – A Rant

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a man below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The man below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 42 degrees north latitude and between 58 and 60 degrees west longitude."
"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.
"I am," replied the man, "but how did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost."
The man below responded, "You must be a manager."
"I am," replied the balloonist, "how did you know?"
"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are exactly in the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."

I constantly bemoan my position at my “Brick and Mortar,” because as it turns out I hate the job. I use to love people and this job has introduced me to the most critical, ungrateful, insensitive, unforgiving, socially backwards and ignorant lot of them all – and those are just the ones I work for.

Why do I stay? 

There are a couple of reasons I have been at this job that I did not even want for four years.

I am a mid-forties white guy, and so far there have not been any jobs that I can take advantage of, so I keep looking and mark time here.

I think what Jeremy Crow at http://lifewhacko.blogspot.com/ said it best; it is all about pride. I wanted to try to make a difference.  I wanted to be the best at what I do, but unfortunately, that will not fly at my work; their position is to “fix” the customer – then address the problem. This is all well and good, but my customers aren't calling a psychologist, they are calling for technical service,

In my job, I do technical service for an American manufacturer of computer products and personal electronic devices (I cannot say their name, but if you made a pie out of their product, it would taste worse than their namesake): However, I do not work for them directly, I work for a company that provides outsourcing for them – which is worse: Same job, less pay.

So let me explain the path the customer has to get, before getting to me. They call technical service, because they are already distraught about their device that is no longer working: I work for the personal electronics division.

After going through the IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system, they speak to an entry level advisor. If the entry level advisor cannot fix the situation, or they really muck things up, they put the customer on a hold for sometimes thirty minutes. After that hold the customer makes it to me. How do you think that customer feels at this time? That is what I deal with on a daily basis.

Why don’t I just quit?

I would just quit, I think I’d be happier. However, the money this job provides – all be it very little – does keep our heads just slightly above water.

Why don’t I just shut up then and keep on keeping on?

As I have said many times, my writing is cathartic – I need sometimes to vent my frustration. I do that with writing, I do that with sarcasm and jokes about management. One of these days I will find something that I really enjoy doing. Maybe I will finally get that job as a writer, and then I can kiss my “Brick and Mortar” goodbye.

Perhaps you are in the same spot, you are in a position you don't like. Sometimes we have to be where we are until what we are meant to do becomes available. Sometimes there are things we need to learn - so that we are useful to others with our experience. I suppose the best phrase for this is, "What doesn't kill you, will make you stronger." 

Thanks for reading 

What are you afraid of?

I ask myself this question quite a lot. What am I afraid of? Why am I afraid? Lastly, How can I get over my fear?

What am I afraid of?

Since I became an adult, I do not really fear much. I am not saying I am fearless; I just don’t fear much. I have encountered many things in my 46 years, and I know there are no monsters in the dark.

However, I do fear some things. 

I have stated in previous posts that I want to be a freelance writer. This would require me to put myself out there, and to be completely honest - putting myself out there is very terrifying. I feel completely naked, and that is the most uncomfortable feeling ever.

Just the other night, I received a request for bidding for a job. I was very interested in the job, so I clicked on the link, and it took me to a bidding area. All of a sudden thoughts filled my head - “Who do you think you are, you’re not good enough.” 

I hesitated, and missed the opportunity. I would say another will come along, but that is not the first time I froze.

Why am I afraid?

There are many reasons to be afraid, and logically they are to keep yourself safe. I have been told this is programed into our genes; when we were living in caves, we would try to keep from getting killed from all sorts of dangers. That is our “Fight or Flight” responses.

What I am afraid of, I believe, is failure. I don’t wish to fail at writing.  So this feeling of insecurity is me not wishing to fail - however, by not doing anything at all: I fail.

I see this a lot in other things as well. Some people don’t like to self promote. As a writer, self promotion is a very difficult skill to master. We don’t like to put ourselves out there, because there is the chance of not being accepted.

Once we can get over the feeling of people rejecting us, we can move forward and concur.

How can I get over my fear?

I already touched on this, but lets look at this a little closer. 

When we don’t promote ourselves, we demote ourselves. We become our worst enemy. If we aren’t for us, nobody else can be for us. We need to be our best friend, and we need to promote ourselves.

How do we get to that point where we can get over our fear. I know in previous posts I was talking about my dad teaching me to dive off a diving board. The first time my older brother was to jump off the diving board, he stopped, shaking in fear, closed his eyes, folded his hands and started to pray. Then he would jump in. 

He stopped and prayed every time. But he always jumped. 

Sometimes I need to live by his example. I need to stop, embrace my fear, close my eyes, fold my hands, pray and then jump in.