It’s “Black Friday” 2018 as I type this. Thanksgiving is a pleasant recent memory and we can finally justify all of the Christmas commercials and music we’ve been seeing for the past two weeks. Alongside the early commercial push for “buy buy buy!” I’ve been hearing friends talk about how the holidays were going to…
Nearly every day of my life I hear someone say, “Karma’s a bitch,” or, “Watch what you do; you don’t want Karma visiting it back on you.” Both of these statements indicate a belief in a higher power, even though most of us don’t think of it that way. We tend to talk about karma…
“Only a Sith deals in such absolutes.” Obi-Wan Kenobi. I couldn’t help myself. I had to open with that. The entire Star Wars franchise depicts the Sith as evil and selfish, so when I started thinking about these two words that express absolutes – always and never – I immediately attached them to “the Sith.”…
There are many different kinds of energy, and that’s not even getting into the existential discussion about Einstein’s theory and how all mass is also energy. No, I’m talking about the energies each of us contains: physical energy, mental energy, emotional energy. We also have spiritual energy although some would argue that’s just a combination…
This is always a good conversation starter: Do you believe in ghosts? The answers vary from, “Nope. They don’t exist,” to “Yes, I’ve seen one!” What’s funny is to listen to the conversation, always inserting just enough input to keep it going, and realize how many different ideas there are of what a “ghost” is….
Almost daily you can hear someone complain about their life, their day, some part of their job or something else. The commonality across their statements is that something is wrong somehow and they’re not happy. Stop and take a minute to consider what they’re complaining about and most often you can recognize a common cause…
NOTE: This blog isn’t being written, or even approached, with journalistic structure or professionalism in mind. The topic is suicide: awareness and (hopefully) avoidance or reduction. The statistics and data listed are gleaned from various sources and listed at the end. The rest of this is the result of input and comment from family, friends…
Just this morning (as I type this) I enjoyed a quick back-and-forth conversation on social media and then via email with a man I consider of reasonable wisdom and maturity. He is a hard worker, husband, father and motivated employee of the same company I work for. He has a quick wit and a good…
One of the most important parts of communication is understanding or at least attempting to see and understand the point of view of the person you are interacting with. The ability to do this makes the difference between taking everything literally or taking things as they are potentially meant. The same statement can have a…
From dictionary.com, the definition of “Warrior:” A person engaged or experienced in warfare; soldier. A person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness, as in politics or athletics. I would submit to you that all too often in today’s society the term “warrior” is too narrowly applied to a profession and inadequately…
As happens with most thoughts we consider to be deep or memorable – worthy of remembering – this one came to me in the middle of the night, as the result of a dream I had woken from. In the dream I had been discussing religion with an older gentleman and he had been sharing…
“The eyes are the window to the soul.” A quote attributed to a great many people and we’ll never know who really said it first. But if the eyes are the window to the soul, then OUR eyes – the eyes we see others’ with – are a reflection of our perceptions. If that’s true,…
One of the greatest compliments I’ve ever been paid was when a longtime friend of mine posted on a social media site that I had inspired him. I hadn’t, until that point, considered that I might inspire anyone to anything, but reality is that we ALL inspire someone to something. If we’re jerks, we might…
Every year around this time, as all law enforcement professionals know, suicides and suicide attempts seem to climb in number. The stress of the season, for whatever reason, seems to outweigh the happiness and good cheer that (seemingly) all of us are trying to spread. The challenge is that not ALL of us really are…
Just recently on Facebook I saw a meme that was a joke. In essence it said, “Shoot for the stars because even if you only make it to the moon… you’ll still be thousands of miles away from me with your motivational BS.” I had to laugh and share it with my friends. I wondered…
Across the span of the past few decades of my life I’ve heard a great many analogies that compare something to “my house.” The most common ones have been federal financing (compared to a home budget to make it easier to understand), the nation (discussing illegal immigration) and others like that. Recently I saw a…
We have all heard the story of the hare and the tortoise; the rabbit and the turtle. We’ve heard how the rabbit was just SO sure of himself that he dawdled and wasted time while the turtle kept on making slow and steady progress. That story is where the phrase, “Slow and steady wins the…
Success, as defined by Dictionary.com means: the accomplishment of one’s goals; the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like. Those definitions align with what most of us have been taught throughout our lives, as we grew up, as we worked to attain certain goals in school and then as we moved into our lives,…
Most of my friends and family have heard me quote the Serenity prayer or some version of it (because I can never remember it exactly right) repeatedly through the past couple of decades (quoted below). One of my all-time favorite quotes is from Baz Luhrmann’s song Everybody’s Free. “Don’t worry about the future. Or know…
I was at lunch just the other day with four men who I consider friends. In fact, two of them I consider brothers. One of those brothers I have trusted with my life and I’d trust the other three with my life without hesitation. The one that I HAVE trusted with my life I’d happily…