I promise this isn’t just another one of those rants and raves from the far right or the far left. Given the subject matter, how can I avoid that?  Because I’m not talking about the cause of it, I’m talking about the result of it. If we take a step back and look at what this partisan divide, Pro-Trump vs Anti-Trump period in our history has done, not just to the country, but to each of us, it’s not only amazing, but devastatingly sad. I’ve lost friends as I’ve seen them disappear over the edge of one or the other side. Sadly, maybe you have too. Once there, there is no compromise or learning or admonition of wrong ideas or conclusions, whether correct or not. You’re either with us or you’re the enemy. Ugh… At that point, a conversation simply isn’t possible because they think, no check that, they knowthat they are right, and no display of facts matter or can persuade them! I’ll say that again, NO DISPLAY OF FACTS MATTER! I’m not naïve enough to believe that deep divisions weren’t prevalent in our country before all of this. But, I never believed that I would see the day when one side, or the other would simply not believe in the facts. My whole life, and yours, too, has been brought up around facts. From our earliest learning, facts have been there taking us from point to point in our lives. 2+2 = 4. Right? So how is it that almost half of us now believe 2+2=37 because that’s what I want it to be!?! The fantasy land of “It is so, because I want it to be so” is taking over an alarming percentage of folks in the land of the Red, White and Blue. The difference between “They didn’t win the election because I don’t want them to win” or “He is bad because I don’t like him,” is a distance that is so great, i wouldn’t begin to know how to measure it. In one way or another we have all been touched by this divide. We see it in our business and the businesses we visit. We see it with our friends and their thoughts and ideas. We see it within our own families be-they close or extended. Sadly, we see it so much… that in some cases we don’t even see it anymore. By not seeing it and not seeing them, we ignore that part of life and just move on. That is a very bad thing. As I was writing this, I just wrote that this must change, but erased it because I’m not sure if it can! I’m not sure that it will! If we canturn it around, it must be a “ground up” change. Any change must start with us, you and me. That’s the only answer. The question of will it change, well that’s much more concerning. The trouble with living within a fantasy is that it gets very comfortable, very quickly. So comfortable, that it becomes more and more and more difficult to one day step […]

Pain is something that in one degree or another, within ourselves or on the faces of others, we deal with everyday. Pain, whether it is physical, mental, spiritual, understood or misunderstood is one of life’s most intimate experiences and runs the gamut of “Aw shucks, taint nothing” to “I just can’t handle this,” all while stalking us all the way from stubbing our toe to breaking a bone to a lifetime of chronic pain. From the tears of sadness to the anguish of not knowing, to finally knowing and sometimes wishing you didn’t.  Something all of us must realize is pain is different for each person! Even seemingly having the same pain, one person might barely notice it while another is brought to their knees. And yet no matter what, pain is real, no matter who the victim is. Pain is simply just that, real. Because pain is so individual, I’m writing most of this from my own perspective and my own journey, (So you’ll notice the word “I” a lot.) from my experience and based on the things I’ve done to get me to where I am now. Some worked, some didn’t. Some were immediate and some are still unfolding. Let’s get one thing straight, I can’t tell tell you how to lessen your pain, but I can tell you what I’ve done to lessen mine and the lessons I’ve learned in the process. My hope is that might be at the least a starting point for you. Pain is like being trapped in a huge building with all the lights out! You know where you are—kind of. You know it’s where you don’t want to be. You can’t see any way out. And yes, pain is very scary… Pain is something that others might be able to help with, but even after their help, ultimately it was up to me to walk through or walk with the pain. Ultimately it was up to me to check and see where that switch is and then, time after time, summon the courage to see if I can flip it and “turn the lights on” and the pain off or at least down. One truth about pain is that the pain that I imagine, is usually much much worse than the actual pain I’ll endure. Lets say I’m laying in bed dreading getting up because I’m imagining, I mean in my heart I “know” how much it will hurt to move, to sit up, to get up and then stand up, but once I finally do get up, oh it still hurts, but not nearly as much as I’d convinced myself it would. In other words, pain doesn’t exists on just one plain, it exists on all of them! The physical, mental and spiritual plains of life. Pain feeds off itself and morphs from an already scary monster into one that, if we allow it to, is unconquerable! That is unless we call it’s bluff! As if to scare me even […]

Words matter! There is not a statement more true, that so many seem to forget so often. There are many words and phrases we should use more often in our lives. Words and phrases that improve our lives and the lives of others around us like – Love, Hope, Thank you, etc. However, there is one word that surprisingly we should completely remove from our vocabulary. I see it as the most dangerous word we have in our daily vocabulary. What is it? TRY… Yep, that little 3 letter word that denotes that we might or might not do whatever, we might give 100%—80%—47%—9% of effort or maybe none at all. This is one of my favorite quotes of all time. I’m sure you’ll recognize it… “Do or do not. There is no try.”  …YodaThat pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? Thanks for reading this A Common Man’s Wisdom. Please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. It dawned on me one day, how many times I said or would think the word “try”. “I’ll try to be there. Try and get that thing done. I’m trying, I’m trying…” and so on and so on and on and on. Look, nobody wants to try. We want to DO, just as Yoda said. So for me, the best way to DO that, was to make a conscious decision to replace the word “try” in my life.(NOTE:To do this or to make any change in your life, you’re going to have to make a conscious decision to commit to it! It’s so hard to do. It’s also so worthwhile when it happens.)  ===================================== Step 1 We must consciously decide to remove the word try from our daily lexicon and stop using it in our conversations.  Step 2 Figure out its replacement.  ====================================== Believe it or not, one phrase jumped into my head almost immediately. More importantly, it jumped into my heart, seemingly from my soul and I’ve used it ever since. Instead of saying “I’m going to try” I began using… “I’m going to do my best” It sounds like a very simplistic change doesn’t it? Well, it is. But simple doesn’t mean it can’t also make a massive positive impact on your life. Think of it this way, you ask someone to come over to your house and if they say “I’ll try,” that tells you they might or might not be there or for that matter and they might or might not care about coming over. But, if they say “I’ll do my best” that gives the impression they’re making a real effort to be there and they do care. Even when you’re talking to yourself, the phrase, “I’ll do my best” or “I’m doing my best” is a real motivator because of the positive words you’re using in that conversation. As you might have seen in this week’s Weekly Affirmation, every morning I write the following phrase on a piece of paper, “Today, I will do my best, to do my best.” Has doing that made any difference in […]