What would you do. Some of the things I would do is I would buy a motorhome so I could travel and see my grandkids more often.

I might buy a campground or resort so I would always have somewhere in warm weather where I know I could camp.

I would give each of my kids a million dollars (provided I won enough). You hear that! Start praying kids!

What would you do? Leve a comment and let me know.

You never know, If I win, I might use one of your ideas. If I win enough, I might give you some of it for giving me such a great idea! (Don’t hold your breath for that one!)

Life can turn to crap so fast it can make your head spin! When it does, you have two choices.

One, you can let it destroy you.

Two, you can learn, pick up and move on.

I pick door number two!

Recently, things in my life have turned to shit. People who I thought were friends, turned their back on me. Work I thought somewhat secure, disappeared.

Does it make me happy?

Hell no!

Am I going to let it destroy me?

Hells no!!!

I may get a little drunk tonight, but then I gotta keep movin’.

Here’s the thing.

Don’t let life kick you in the teeth and then win the fight.

Get back up again and fight back.

Will you win every time you get back up? No, not every time. If you don’t, however, you are guaranteed to lose every time.

Okay, so that’s it for today. I’m going to go soak my head in a vat of beer and then jump up and kick life right in the nuts!

Join me?

Is there something you’d like to do, but it seems it just isn’t going to happen? Maybe you want to start a business, but all the indicators say that this is a bad time! Maybe you want to make some life change, live in a new area, whatever, but everyone says that selling your home right now is a big mistake.

Who stops you from doing what you want?

We have a tendency to blame others, but the truth is, we stop ourselves.

When I first started running barefoot, I was embarrassed. I thought if anyone saw me, they would laugh at me. I hate criticism as much as the next guy!

What I found out was nobody cared. The few who have done much of anything just smiled or gave me a thumbs up. One guy wanted to know if it didn’t hurt and why I did it. When I told him, he was interested. I doubt he’ll become a barefoot runner, but you never know.

I did have one woman ask me where my shoes where. I just told her they were home where they belonged and that was that.

The point here is that there were times when I didn’t run because it was too late and people were up stirring. I was afraid. Who stopped me? It was me. Once I got out there, I found it was no big deal.

When you have something you want to do, do you listen to your fears and doubting self talk and chicken out? Do you stop before you even start?

The first step in doing anything is to understand that it is only you who stops you. Sure there may be outside influences, but you are the one who stops.

Think it over!

One of the major ways I’m working at getting back in shape is by running and walking. Unfortunately, it’s raining and I can’t do either without getting wet. Yeah, I know, I could carry an umbrella and walk, but it just isn’t the same.

No matter what we do, interruptions come into our lives. They interrupt our exercise, they interrupt our meals, they interrupt our work. They even interrupt that sweaty wild monkey dance you had planned!

There are some things you can do about it though.

Before I get into that, let me ask you this. How do interruptions affect you? Do you get angry? Does your blood pressure go up and you feel like your day is ruined? Wouldn’t it be nice to not feel that way?

Okay, so here’s a few things you can do when interruptions screw up your day.

Look for the opportunity.

There is an old saying that goes something like,

“God never closes a door without opening a window.”

Now whether you believe in God or not, there is something to this. Whenever something happens, there is always something else you can do.

Right now, I’m watching my granddaughters. I would be doing something else if I wasn’t, but I am. Now they are watching a movie and so I have a perfect time to write this post. If they weren’t here, I might be outside pulling weeds or something.

There is always something you can do when you didn’t get to do what you wanted! I didn’t get to run this morning due to the rain, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do something else to get my exercise later on.

Try to see the humor!

Okay, so this sounds trite! The thing is, if you can’t see the humor in the interruption, you’re just going to get pissed off. Being upset gets you nowhere. This was usually my first reaction and I have to admit, it still is sometimes.

What does getting upset get you? Nothing. You spend the time you could use implementing the first suggestion, looking for the opportunity, by feeling sorry for yourself. Nothing gets done other than blaming the situation for your own lack of control. Is that what you want?

Seeing the humor in the situation allows you to not lose control and to see what else might be done. It is the catalyst for action.

Let go of the attachment to whatever goal you have in mind.

This is probably the hardest for me. What I mean here is to do whatever you want to do with all your might, but do it for the joy of doing it, not for the end result.

In our goal oriented culture, this seems like a big no no. We are told over and over again that we have to reach our goals. Letting go of the results doesn’t mean we don’t try, it just means we are open to how things turn out.

Think of all the times you have tried to accomplish something and it didn’t turn out the way you intended. You felt upset and angry. You felt like a failure. All the while, something did happen. Something did turn out as a result of all your work. The problem is, you are so distracted by being upset that you miss the result.

Letting go of the results means you work toward your goal and accept however it turns out.

I know this is a hard concept and it is even harder to do, but it really works for the best. Next time an interruption comes, let go of the goal, see the humor in the situation and then look for the opportunity.

Interruptions are inevitable. What you do when they come is up to you.

I just got back from a week long trip to Acadia National Park in Maine. I thought I would share a bit about going whale watching, which we did.

How to enjoy whale watching!

We had to take a different day than the ticket were for due to bad weather. I can’t imagine what it would have been like out there on a stormy rainy day.

We stopped at some little island and took a few pictures of a light house and everything was good. Then we went out to find the whales.

The lighthouse before the barf storm

Here’s my major tip on enjoying whale watching.

Take the largest recommended dose of dramamine an hour before you go on the boat.

The boat must hold close to a hundred people and I would guesstamate that over half of them threw up! We were in the top cabin, just behind the captain’s bridge. There were maybe fifty people in there.

Once we started hitting the larger waves out to sea, most of those fifty people in the cabin where hurling up their breakfast! Imagine the fart scene from Blazing Saddles only with barfing instead.

I wasn’t really sick, but the sound and smell of that may people vomiting all at the same time got to me. Our Granddaughter was with us and she didn’t look too good either so I, magnanimously, offered to take her out to get some fresh air.

Once we got to where the whales were, it was more interesting and easier to take your mind off the fact that any where from five to twenty people around you were holding full barf bags.

Hard to see the size, but this was maybe fifty yards away.

We did see some whales and it was pretty impressive. I never gave it much thought to the size of those animals, but when they are no more that fifty yards or closer, it became pretty evident!

Non-Porsche whale tail

I am happy to say that the trip back to Bar Harbor was easy and everyone seemed to feel better.

Remember, I don’t care how macho you are, take the damned dramamine! It may well save you from leaving your lunch on the deck!

Do you have the art of living?

You may wonder what I’m talking about. Living doesn’t have an art. You get up in the morning, you go to your job, you come home, you go to bed and start the while thing over again. Right?

At one time, I would have agreed with you. I still live that way some days. The truth is, there is an art to living; at least living a truly enjoyable life.

• A truly artful life must have passion.
• An truly artful life has attitude.
• A truly artful life must have purpose.
• A truly artful life must have joy.
• A truly artful life must have health.

Without passion, you life is dull and listless. There is nothing to get you out of bed in the morning.

Without the proper attitude, you will never fight off the negative forces that will continually try to beat you down.

Without purpose, there is no point. You look at all that goes on around you and you wonder where you place in it all is.

Without joy, the passion is false and the purpose has either eluded you, or gone sour.

Without health, mental and physical health, you struggle each day just to remain alive. The purpose, joy, and passion are shoved to the back burner.

What is artful about your life? What is there in your life that could be more artful?

P.S. You need not be afraid of leaving a comment. I really am rather friendly!

Recently, I have begun barefoot running. I’m still in the building up stage. I am building up my endurance, building up my strength, and building up the soles of my feet.

What started out as being able to walk to the end of my driveway and back has turned into running barefoot for a mile and a half in about twenty-one minutes. Not fast by any stretch, but for me, something close to a miracle.

The reason I run barefoot is because I have had a terrible time with pain in my knees and back. Why barefoot running is good for these problems is the stuff of another post or podcast.

This podcast is about why you should not let fear stop you from living your dreams.

Recently, I was talking to two women about running barefoot and the benefits. Both of them have had problems with knee pain and I can attest to what barefoot running has done for me to greatly reduce the amount of knee pain I have.

The biggest issue for both of them was fear, fear of what they might step on or in.

I assured them that the road or sidewalk was not strewn with broken glass and the droppings of various animals, but they were not reassured. One of them actually said, “What if someone spit there once?”

I bet there is not a place on this earth where you could step that someone has not spit there. It might have been a hundred or a thousand years ago, but they did. Should I be afraid to let my bare foot step there? I don’t think so.

When I see a place where an animal has crapped, someone spit, or broken glass, I don’t step there. It’s pretty easy! I enjoy different textures. Mud feels wonderful, dog poo squishing up between my toes not so much. Should this stop me from an activity that I enjoy immensely and has provided me with a level of health that I have not enjoyed in nearly twenty years?

The fear these two women had was, to my way of thinking, irrational. It was robbing them of the possible benefits of an activity.

How many times have you stopped yourself from doing something because you were afraid? Fear is not a good motivator!

Living your life in fear of things will tend to produce a life that is mind numbingly boring. Living your life in fear will tend to make you paranoid of everyone and everything. That isn’t good!

Fear has its place. If you are hiking in the woods and come face to face with a bear, fear is probably a good thing. The fear that you might see a bear and letting that fear stop you from ever venturing out into the woods or even from you home is not.

I remember when I was in high school having the fear of asking a girl on a date. I would agonize over what she might say and how I would deal with the rejection. I worried about it so much that, often, I would just give up and not ask. I’m sure I missed the opportunity of many good times with girls and never got to know because of that fear.

I can remember times when I was asked to do things and I nearly let my fear rob me of the fun.

I remember a living in an area that had a bridge that spanned a large body of water. There were often kids there jumping off the bridge. It was maybe twenty feet to the surface of the water. Kids had been doing it for years and there was nothing down there that was a danger. The biggest danger was giving yourself a terrible belly flop.

Once, I went with some friends and they began jumping right away. I wanted to! I stood there wishing I could find the nerve. After about an hour, I finally gathered up the courage and stepped off into space. The drop to the water took only a second or two, but it felt like much longer. The exhilaration was amazing!

When I surfaced, I wished I could fly back up and do it again. The swim to the shore and climb back up seemed to take much too long! Fear nearly robbed me of that.

Fear keeps us from living! We are afraid to enjoy the things that we dream of. We are afraid to live the life we want because of some imaginary situation that will probably never happen.

Mark Twain supposedly said, “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

When you look at your life and your dreams, what are you afraid of? What are the things that hold you back from doing amazing things? Are they based in any sort of reality? Are the things you fear simply possibilities that may never happen?

Why let fear stop you from living your dreams?

P.S. Leave a comment. Let me know what you think!

I wanted to talk a bit about why it’s important to question authority.

You can probably tell by the no hair and grey beard that I’ve been around a while. I grew up in the sixties. I was a hippie and all that jazz. Now a lot of people today will say that the baby boomers have ruined the world. I don’t know, maybe we have, but I don’t think so.

The biggest crime that the baby boomers ever committed was that we gave up our ideals and our values. As we used to say back then, “We sold out to the man.”

It reminds me of a political cartoon I saw a long time ago. It showed a young man with long hair and the goofy stripped bell bottomed pants, wearing a piece sign. Then it showed the same guy years later, with a bald head and a fat gut, hmmm, sounds like me. Anyway the piece sign and turned into the Mercedes symbol.

You know, we cashed in all our hopes and dreams, for a paycheck. That’s a terrible thing.

Why it’s important to question authority is that if we never questioned authority, we’d still be living in a cave with some guy holding a big club who called himself chief, telling us what we could and could not do.

Every time a people have been oppressed, they have risen up and fought against their oppressors. They questioned authority. The problem is, most times, the people waited until things were so bad that there was a big revolution. If they had questioned authority, if they kept asking why does it have to be this way, then things might not have gotten that bad.

When I say question authority, I don’t mean if you get stopped by a traffic cop, you should punch him in the nose and drive away. That’s really a bad idea. Don’t do that.

What I do mean is, question the rules and the laws. When people say that things have to be a certain way, ask why.

Now driving eighty miles an hour through a school zone is not a good idea. Even then, question that. Why do I have to slow down to twenty miles and hour in a school zone if the school is not loading or unloading children, or the school sits back two hundred yards from the street. Why do I have to do that?

Maybe there is a good reason.

If you don’t question, then nothing changes. If you don’t question the government, or if we don’t question the corporate world, who really runs everything, then it’s the same as staying in that cave with the guy holding the club.

Is that what you want out of life? Do you want to be in subjection to somebody who holds a bigger club or has a louder voice? Is that what you want out of life?

It’s not what I want and I don’t think it’s what you want either.

Now if you start to question authority, then you might get a little upset, but that’s okay.

It’s better to be pissed off than pissed on.

Well, that’s my rant.

Why is it important to question authority?

It’s how we make progress in this world.

It’s how things get better.

It’s how things get done, and that’s what we are about.

P.S. Leave a comment! Tell me what you think. Don’t be afraid! Sign up for updates. It won’t kill you and you’ll get something out of it!

Do you want to know the secret to life? Here’s a story about how a king found the secret.

Once, many years ago, in a land far, far away, which is always the case isn’t it, there was a king. The king was a very studious man and wanted to learn everything he could learn. So he called all his wise men and advisors and told them to go out into the world to find the secret of life.

Some came back in a month, some took longer. He asked each one if they had found the secret to life. Each one answered that they had. One told him it was to have a lot of money. Another said it was to have the right relationships. Another said it was to make the wisest decisions.

The king knew this wasn’t right. There was still one wise man left and the king waited. When the last wise man came back, he came with an assistant carrying a large tray with two huge books on them. The king asked the wise man if he had discovered the secret to life. The wise man said he had.’

The king asked what it was and the wise man said that the secret was in the book. The king asked for the book and the wise man handed him one of them.

The book was very large. It was leather bound with jewels on it. The king opened the book excitedly and started to look at the pages. After turning several pages, there was nothing on any of them until he came to the very last page.

When he came to the last page, there written in beautiful calligraphy where these words.

“There ain’t no free lunch.”

The king said, “You’ve got to be kidding me! Is that it?”

“Yes it is,” The wise man answered.

“Isn’t there anything else? What’s in the other book?”

The wise man handed the book over. The king, with a suspicious look in his eye, opened the book. Just like the first time, there was nothing on all the pages until the last page. There, written in beautiful calligraphy was written, “And there ain’t!”

The secret of life is, “There ain’t no free lunch, and there ain’t.”

Whatever it is you want to do in this life, whether it’s an online business, a brick and mortar business, a relationship, whatever it is, it’s going to cost you.

Sure there is lots of people out there who buy lottery tickets. The reason they do is because they want something for nothing! Now I have to admit that I enjoy the gamble of getting something for nothing, but that isn’t how life works. Your chances of winning something like that are millions to one.

Everything that you want to do in life is going to cost you something. In the business world it’s called the cost of opportunity. If you want to do one thing, it’s going to cost you something. It’s going to cost you effort, time or money, something.

So remember, the secret to life is, “There ain’t no free lunch, and there ain’t.” Whatever it is your life to do, it’s going to cost you!

So figure out if the cost is worth it. Figure out if it’s something you want so badly that you are willing to pay the cost, then go out and pay it!

That’s the secret to life.

P.S. Don’t forget to sign up!

Okay, so you’ve worked for years. Now, either because of the economy, or you’ve retired, you no longer have the nine to five.

The first day or two might seem kinda nice. You sleep in, wander out to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee, stay in your PJ’s until noon, and then go back to bed to take a nap.

On about day three, that gets old and you begin to wonder how you’re going to pay the bills. You ask yourself one important question.

Is there life after work?

Maybe.

If you want to sit around a hope something comes to rescue you, then life becomes dull at best and terrifying at the worst.

Not a good idea!

My suggestion? Get out and do something. Sure you can look for another job, but those aren’t real plentiful. You could start a business, but since you aren’t working and you are wondering how to pay the bills, money is going to be a problem.

So, what to do?

First, take stock of what you have and what you are willing to let go of. If you have a big house in the suburbs with a pool and a gardner, are you willing to give that up?

The answer is yours to make. Some people would say yes and others would say no. There is no right or wrong answer. It’s what you want.

The thing is, deciding what you want to keep and what you want to give up determines what you do next. If you want to keep the house and the gardener, then you best get busy trying to replace the income you had. In this economy it won’t be easy, but that’s the choice you have.

If you don’t care about the house or the gardner, well, you care about him, but let him fend for himself, then there are other options.

I’m going to guess that you are willing to give a few things up.

Second, decide what you really want to do. Now is the time to take out those dreams you used to have and dust them off.

Decide what is behind the dream. If you wanted to be a millionaire so you could travel the world, then traveling the world is the real dream. The million bucks was the avenue. There are lots of people traveling the world on a lot less than a million bucks.

Once you know what is really behind the dream, you can start making plans on how to go about getting there.

There are volunteer organizations that you might join that would take you to the place you want to go. Perhaps your career history would allow you to gain employment in a different country. Perhaps you cash in that retirement fund and use it to do whatever it is you want.

(Probably not the best idea, but it is an option!)

My favorite, and I’m sure it is no shock to you, is starting some sort of online business. There are so many options here that I won’t even try to mention them in this post.

For those over forty, this might sound intimidating. It doesn’t have to be! According to the Pew Foundation, older people are the fastest growing population of internet users. It ain’t that hard! I’m in my sixties and I taught myself how to use the net, to write code and set up a blog. Now you may not have to do all that, but…

If I can do it, you can do it!

There are tons of blogs out there that will give you free information about how to get started. Just be careful of the get rich quick folks. Nothing about this is get rich quick.

The good part is it’s mobile, and the opportunities are nearly limitless.

Is there life after work?

Damn straight there is!

Let’s get to living it!

P.S. get up there to the side bar and give me your name and email address. I’ll send you updates to help you get your dreams!