The Ramblings of the Titanium Don

Crossing the Bridges: What Inspires Me

One of my favorite books is The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho.  I have read it more than once, and listened to it countless times (the audio book is brilliantly narrated by Jeremy Irons). Nothing I have ever read has resonated with me like The Alchemist.  Doesn’t matter if we’re talking fiction or non-fiction, this book speaks to me like no other. It is not a long book.  But it is very, very deep.  Although it is a work of fiction,

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It’s unhealthy to ignore the outside world completely. We need to be aware of what is happening in the world.  While there is something to be said for the bliss of ignorance, knowledge IS power. The problem is, it can be very hard to stay focused when you are inundated with a barrage of upsetting information.  How do you find and maintain a happy medium between knowing what’s going on, and being completely drowned in data? The mistake I keep

Crossing the Bridges: Affirmations and Mantras

Last week I came up with a new mantra for my life and my goals: The fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.  I gain more than I lose when I act upon my dreams.  Fear is the mind killer, and I am not afraid.  Do or do not.  Remember that there is no spoon. I have managed to memorize this, but truthfully it’s a tad long. I believe that I have mentioned previously that I have hired

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I will do what I have to do when and if the time comes. In the meantime, I cannot live my life anticipating possibilities.  In especial, focusing on worst-case scenarios.  There’s a terrible idea – get fixated on awful, no good, scary things, and consciousness creates reality. We are now living in particularly uncertain times.  We are witnessing an unprecedented situation in America due to our President-elect’s vast unpredictability, and his particularly vulgar, hate-spewing supporters (I am being specific here

Crossing the Bridges: Fighting my Fear

What am I so afraid of? This is the question that has haunted me for most of my life.  Unlike many of my fellow Americans who can point to this thing or that which they live in fear of, I fear a number of intangibles. Since this is my more personal blog posting, let me get personal here.  I have been in and out of therapy for most of my life.  My parents divorced when I was 5, and this

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What do you do when you reach a dead end on the path you’re traversing? This doesn’t happen too often, but from time to time you may find that the path you are on has not only forked, but actually ended unexpectedly. Why?  How does a chosen path simply come to an end?  The universe works in mysterious ways.  You get laid off from the job where you were seeking that promotion; or you wreck your knee and need to

Crossing the Bridges: Planning and Doing

Sometimes I am far better at the planning than I am at the actual doing. “Don’t plan the plan if you can’t follow through.”  – Dr. Horrible. The thing about plans is that they are nothing but words.  Without action they are nothing but ideas.  I can plan until I am blue in the face, but unless I take action I have nothing but ideas here. This is why I began to take New Year’s Actions, rather than resolutions.  What

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We are not in competition. I have written about this before, but given the monstrous, and seriously ugly, conclusion of the race for the Presidency, it bears repeating. We all got swept up into this thing.  Whether because we read the news and supported or didn’t support a candidate, or if we were simply drawn into the current by unavoidable conversations, posts on social media, and so forth, we all found ourselves looking differently at one another.  We found ourselves

Crossing the Bridges: Knowing the Path vs Walking the Path

Frequently I have claimed to suffer from ADOS.  ADOS = Attention Deficit…Oooooooooh, Shiny! (I do not claim this phrase as my own, someone else I know put it out there, not me – but I use it rather a lot). This is not so much a medical disorder, as it is an inability to focus or keep one’s eyes on the prize or to get pulled in a million directions or… Be right back.  Something else has my attention at

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There are always going to be days where it feels like it just does not matter.  But they are a lie.  It matters.  YOU matter. I have those days when I get out of bed, and no matter how much sleep I have gotten I am still feeling totally wiped out.  And no matter how much coffee I consume, I still feel like I would much rather crawl back into my nice warm bed and sleep more.  Of course, this

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