The last couple of weeks have been filled with so many events and happenings that are life altering. From another tragic school shooting to a power shifting election, a criminal indictment of the once most powerful man in the world, rockets shot into Israel and their promise of retaliation, Evan Gershkovich being kidnapped and held hostage by Russia and devastating and dangerous weather here in the US, (just one of these) can be cause stress, worry and heartache in your life. So I thought this might be a good time to remind ourselves of two things. •Be aware of what’s going on but only be concerned about what we can control. •Even our biggest challenges are only IN our lives, they are NOT our lives. I remember as a young man my dad told me “If you want to control what’s happening in the world, first you have to control what’s happening in YOUR world.” So for instance, if you want more kindness in the world, be more kind in the smaller world around you. Be more kind to the world within you! Bad things will happen both in the world and to us. The path we’ve laid out will sometimes be blocked. Our mood will sometimes not be what we hope for and the same will go for our outlook. We have experience with this kind of things. These are all things that have also happened to us in the past. The bottom line though is that we made it through those challenges in the past and that’s what has gotten us to here! Find a way to remind yourself of and to be proud of your resilience and gumption. (A word I did not envision using when I woke up today. If you’re under 45 you might need to look it up.) Take a breath. Enjoy the things around you that most people won’t. Make a plan to make things better. Smile. Allow yourself to be the person that you were made to be. People like you make this world better. Keep that in mind as you keep taking care of yourself. Keep searching for the important things in life, then share them so others can find them too. Peace       …..Gregg

If there was only one nugget of gold in the entire world, how much do you think that would be worth? If there was only one diamond in the entire world, how much do you think that would be worth? Well there IS only one you in this world and when you think about it, you are much more complex than either of those other two. You are much more intricate than gold or diamonds. You are capable of so much more than either of them, so how valuable are you? YOU ARE SO VERY VALUABLE!!! You can wish, speak and listen things into existence. You can wrap your arms around others to sooth their souls and feel the warmth of another soul when they do that to you. You can think and create and love and be loved. You can move forward, make some mistakes and bounce back from them and much more. You matter and you are valuable! The problem is that sometimes we just don’t feel like we’re valuable. It happens to all of us. It doesn’t matter who you are, how happy or sad you normally are, where you live, what you do for a living, how much money you make or how old you are. Sometimes you just feel like you don’t matter. The solution is to remember that it’s OK to sometimes feel like that and more importantly, it’s OK to ask for help. It’s more than OK, it’s enviable, necessary and courageous. Perspective is also part of the solution. Use that perspective to realize that we all have problems and that problems and challenges are PART of our lives but NOT our lives themselves. So the next time you find yourself feeling kind of low, think about that nugget of gold or the diamond that we talked about earlier. Do all that you can do to remember just how valuable you are. That all those scars you’re carrying are vivid reminders that you are still alive! Be proud of that and of yourself. Be grateful and proud that everything you’ve been through has brought you to here and now. We are! Peace      ……Gregg Thank you for reading A Common Man’s Wisdom. This post is public so please share it.