Tag: Dreams

Work Hard, Play Hard – You’ve Earned It

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is starting off well.

I’m taking a rare day off in the middle of the week. I’d like to say I just felt like it, but that’s not quite true. I just don’t like to use my paid time off without a pretty good reason. I’d rather save it up for something fun. If I take off sick, halfway through the day I’m bemoaning the fact that I burned up a day of vacation time to sit around the house and feel bad. It’s just never been my thing.

I guess I got that trait from my dad. I remember asking him once if we could put the boat in the water and spend a day fishing. But Dad’s job required that he worked weekends, with two weekdays off. I remember saying, “Just call in sick. You’ve got all that sick leave anyway.” He said no and told me, “You never know when I may need that sick time for something real.”

Well, not too many years later, that premonition came home to roost. After a massive heart attack that almost ended his life, he had to spend the next three months going through corrective procedures and recovery before he was able to return to work. And he had enough sick leave on the books to cover every single day of that time. Message received, Dad.

Last year as I faced surgery, it was comforting to know I had enough paid time off on the books to cover the time before short-term disability would kick in. And, even at that, I still ended up having to sell back some vacation time because the company wouldn’t let me carry over more than 140 hours to the next year. I’ll have a balance at the end of this year as well.

Now, all that sounds good and responsible, right? But you know what else it is? It’s exhausting. There’s a reason companies don’t let us carry over an unlimited amount of vacation time from one year to the next. They want us to use some, because they know all too well the effects of burnout. It robs us of productivity and, left unchecked, can lead to some pretty serious health issues.

In my posts, I talk a lot about work and effort and getting things done. And those things are important. They keep our mind and body active, and that helps keep us alive. But there’s also a time to step away from work and enjoy a little of what you’ve been working for. Whether that’s a family vacation, a weekend outing, or just some quiet time at home, we need it.

Make no mistake, some of the healthiest and most vibrant people I know are the ones who always seem to be coming back from vacation in places most of us only dream about. And it shows in their productivity on the job. It’s not hard to put in a little extra effort when you’re well-rested. It’s also not hard to put in that extra effort when you know there’s something enjoyable coming.

I’ve mentioned a few times that I keep a picture of a motorhome on my desk. It’s not there to keep me from forgetting what it looks like. I can see them every day on the road as somebody else motors down the road, living my dream. I keep that picture because it reminds me every day of what I’m working for. It’s why I do the extra things I do. It’s what makes that extra effort worthwhile.

A song in the 1980s suggested that everybody’s working for the weekend. I think that was more a reference to short-term romance, but it raises an important question. Are we all just working to get through the week and take two days off, or do we have something bigger in mind? Is there something other than Friday that motivates us to get out of bed every day? I sure hope so.

We all have to earn a living and, for most of us, that means going to work every day. If you have dreams that your job won’t quite support, you may have to put in a little extra work on the side. But if you don’t take time to rejuvenate, and don’t have a reward waiting at the end, it’s just work. Do that for 45 years and you’ll see firsthand why some people grow old way before their time.

If you’re going to work, make sure you know what you’re working for. And take a little time along the way to sample the lifestyle you hope to achieve. The break will do you good. And the people around you may thank you for it as well.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2019 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

When You Know the Destination, the Path Will Present Itself

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a great start.

Have you ever walked through an airport and seen people lined up for a plane going to someplace you’ve never had any desire to visit? In fact, you’ve never even heard anybody talk about going there. You think, “Is that the best they could afford?”

But what we never seem to think about is the fact that, for a good number of those travelers, the plane’s destination isn’t their final stop. It’s just a place to stop and change planes for someplace better. And, if you look a little closer, you can usually pick up a few clues. If they’re wearing short pants and sandals, it’s not likely they’ll be spending a lot of time in Detroit.

Sometimes, we find ourselves on a journey we never thought we’d take because it leads us to someplace better. I mentioned a while back that, when I was in high school, trash collectors in New York City were being paid $30 an hour. Now, that’s decent money today, but imagine how much it was forty years ago. It would be the equivalent of more than $130 an hour today.

Now, I seriously doubt that when the kindergarten teacher went around the room and asked the class what they wanted to be when they grew up, that a single person said, “I want to drive a garbage truck!” More likely, they saw an opportunity to do a job most other people weren’t willing to do, and to make a lot of money doing it. Do that for a few years and you open up a lot of options.

Likewise, none of us took on our first job in high school with the intent that it would be our lifelong career. I made okay money bagging groceries, but it was more about having a little money in my pocket without having to cut grass in the south Florida heat to get it. It was simply a way to get closer to the path I really wanted to be on … you know, being a rock star.

Now, how exactly does bagging groceries prepare you for life as an internationally-acclaimed recording artist? It doesn’t. There were a dozen other jobs I could have done, from fast food worker (been there) to pumping gas at the service station (yes, I really AM that old). It was simply a way to get from point A to point B, with point B involving some extra money to buy stage equipment.

Along the way, my career changed. Several times, in fact. If anybody had told me as a teenager that I’d end up as a business analyst for a health insurance company, I’d have fallen down laughing. If they’d told me I would start that journey as an electronics technician, with detours in long-haul trucking and stand-up comedy, I’d have never believed it. Yet, here I am.

And you know what? This still isn’t the final leg of my journey. I love the job I have today, but let’s qualify that statement with, “If I have to get up and go to work, I’m very happy with the job I’ve got.” But it’s not what I want to do every day for the rest of my life. At some point, I’d like to step back, hand over the reins, and see what all these retired people are so happy about.

And you know what? It takes money to retire, just as it takes money to buy stage equipment. I’ve been building a business on the side so that, instead of having to divide my savings by the number of years I hope to live, I can maintain an income through retirement. Financial experts call that “diversification.” I call it survival.

And, if you’d told me forty years ago that, of all the businesses out there this is the one I’d have chosen, I wouldn’t have believed it. But when we’re looking at the destination, it’s sometimes hard to know the path we’ll take to get there. You go to the airport and tell the ticket agent you want to go to Tahiti. Next thing you know, you’re on a plane for Detroit. Who would’ve guessed?

If you know your destination, how you get there becomes a little less important. You don’t mind doing something you hadn’t imagined beforehand, as long as it takes you where you want to go. And, it’s not like anybody is asking you to ride in the back of a dump truck. There are lots of ways to get where we want to go in relative comfort and ease. We just have to pick one.

It’s when we close our eyes to possibilities that the destination becomes harder to achieve. The quickest path to that destination may be the last one you’d have considered. But once you’re on that plane, it doesn’t matter where you stop next. All that counts is where you’re going.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2019 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Excuses Are Free – And Worth Every Penny

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Monday! I hope your day is starting off well.

Okay, so for those of you who may be wondering, I’m not going to dodge the issue of all the work I was supposed to do this weekend and talk about puppies and butterflies. Both are a lot more enjoyable than the work I had on my list for the weekend and would be my usual go-to when I missed a goal that I’d already told everybody about and had to come up with something quick.

I don’t have to. I did exactly what I said I’d do this weekend. My office now occupies a freshly cleaned space in the basement and the old office is now a bedroom. And, because I know my cousin won’t let me off the hook on this, I got the new toilet seat installed. Now I need to go to work so I can get some rest.

Once I got started, it didn’t take all that long. Don’t get me wrong, we were still working on it past 10:00 last night. But that’s how things seem to go. You put it off until there’s no other option, and once you get started you find energy you didn’t know you had. And all those interruptions that previously kept you from working become just another part of the job.

I guess it’s normal to put off something unpleasant, especially when it cuts into our “me” time. But one look around my basement and it’s obvious what that kind of procrastination creates. (If I made you think the whole basement is cleaned, think again!) The work we need to do never just sits there and waits. It multiplies. Meanwhile, we’re just delaying the inevitable.

And I won’t lie. At the start of the weekend, I had a mental list of reasons that maybe this wouldn’t be the best time to get that work done. My wife must have sensed my lack of enthusiasm, because she started making excuses for me. On the other hand, that may have just been a built-in defense mechanism. It’s hard to get upset with somebody for being lazy when you gave them permission.

Now, as I face the coming week and the things I need to get done, excuses pretty much go right out the window. Especially when it comes to those seemingly minor tasks I always seem to avoid. You know, the ones that nobody is paying me to do, so nobody can complain if I wait another day. Nobody, that is, except me.

There are things I need to do for my personal goals, aside from my job and cleaning and moving heavy furniture up and down a flight of stairs. Those things will always be there. And, I can always use those things as an excuse when I don’t work on my personal goals. Come on! I’m tired! Is a little rest too much to ask? Besides, it’s not like I can’t do it tomorrow! Sound familiar?

And, the truth is, it really can be done tomorrow. Or the day after, or next week, or next month. But meanwhile, that dream sits in a corner and collects dust. Or worse yet, it waits for somebody else to come along who wants it more. And we’ll find an excuse or two along the way. But not one of those excuses will get us any closer to our goal.

I’ve mentioned before that I have a picture of a motorhome hanging over my desk. I’ve seen it up close. I’ve sat in the driver’s seat, reclined on the sofa, stood in the shower, and checked out the fridge. And, in my mind’s eye, I’ve seen those miles of open road and beautiful scenic views unfold through the windshield as we explore yet another new destination.

I want that motorhome. I want it so bad I can taste it. But what I have to decide is which I want more … the motorhome, or the excuses. Because I can’t have both. Just like I couldn’t have an office and a third bedroom occupying the same small space. In the end, it all comes down to a choice. Which is more important?

You have dreams. If there’s something you need to do in order to accomplish those goals, then do it. This book I’m reading points out that the purpose of working toward a goal isn’t as much to accomplish that specific goal, but to turn you into the kind of person who can accomplish any goal. Likewise, doing what needs to be done turns you into the kind of person who gets everything done.

More often than not, the things we need to do aren’t monumental. They’re simply a series of small tasks that, taken in succession, lead to success. Find those small tasks and start knocking them out. The results may not be immediately visible, but with each step you’re that much closer to your goal.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2019 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Make Every Day Your Special Day

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a great start.

It’s Monday, and you know what that means. A whole new week to get out there and get closer to your dreams! What? Did you really think I was going to remind you that it’s a new week at work? You already knew that. And just in case you didn’t, there are plenty of people there who will be happy to remind you.

Monday is one just another day of the week, but it sure seems to get a bad rap. Ask somebody how their day is going, and the common answer is, “Not bad, for a Monday.” I guess if you set your expectations low enough, it’s not hard to measure up. Funny, you never hear anybody say their day is going pretty well for a Friday. I guess Friday gets a free pass based on its position on the calendar.

But it’s all a matter of perspective. If your goal is to just get through the week as quickly as possible, Monday is an obstacle and Friday is the reward. The other days just go by without much fanfare. Wednesday gets a little extra bump, simply because it’s the halfway point. It’s “Hump Day.” Thursday is “Friday Eve”, and Tuesday is “Well, at least it’s not Monday.”

It would be comical if not for the fact that we go through the same ritual every week. Unless you’re on vacation. Those are the weeks that fly past despite our best effort to make the days drag on as long as possible. Have you ever heard anybody on a cruise ship say it’s an okay day, considering it’s Monday? It’s more like, “What day is it? Monday? Wow, this week is going by fast!”

The key to making any day special, something you look forward to, is having a personal goal for the day. I’m not talking about meat loaf night, which would certainly be high on my list of things to make the day special. I’m talking about a goal that, once you’ve accomplished it, puts you closer to an even greater accomplishment that you can truly celebrate.

In my early days of stand-up comedy, we had Blue Monday at our local comedy club. Tuesday night there was a local open mic show, Wednesday was showcase night, and so on. Every weekday it seems, I had opportunities to get onstage somewhere and work on my set. Weekends, on the other hand, were reserved for those who had already paid their dues. The rest of us just sat and watched.

Back then I went through most weekends looking forward to Monday. Sure, I had to get up first and go to work. But I had a personal goal for each day during the week, something aside from just getting through another day at work and getting one day closer to a weekend when I’d have to sit there and wish I had something “fun” to do. As I said, it’s all a matter of perspective.

I’m once again in a position where I look forward to Monday, and each day of the week. I’m working on a goal that requires being around other people, interacting with them, and sharing ourselves with one another. Every day is a prime day to work toward that goal, but weekdays are best because people are just generally more accessible. On weekends, they’re all off doing something else.

So, I wake up each day during the week with a goal, something I want to accomplish before the day is done. And achieving that goal is as simple as doing what I said I was going to do. I don’t need instant results to validate that effort. It’s not about seeing how quickly I can reach my ultimate objective, but just doing what needs to be done to get there. The results will come.

When you look at the day in those terms, every day takes on a whole new importance. Maybe you’re into cross-stitch, and you’re trying to spend an hour each day working on your next creation. Maybe you’re trying to write a book and your goal is three new pages each day. Every day becomes yet another opportunity to put you closer to your goal.

We can spend our days just trying to get to bedtime, to the weekend, through the month, and through the year. Ultimately, that’s just a beeline to the other end of life, and often with nothing more to show for it than a tired old body and a lot of unfulfilled dreams.

Make each day special. Define your dream and decide what you need do each day to get closer to it. Commit to the effort, then follow through. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time – just enough to put you a little closer to your goal. Do that, and you’ll look forward to every day. Even Monday.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2019 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Every Failure Brings You That Much Closer to Success

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Monday! I hope your day is starting off well.

You know that feeling when you’ve been working away at something day after day with no visible results? You know what needs to be done, and you’ve been doing it, yet none of it seems to have moved you any closer to your goal. For all practical purposes, it seems you end each day right back where you started.

I imagine it feels that way for software developers. You write line after line of code, for days on end, with a simple goal in mind – you want to turn on a computer, press a few keys, and see things magically happen. But until that last line of code is written, you have no way of knowing for sure if what you’ve done will yield any measurable results. Everything in between is just work.

It’s that way with a lot of the things we do. We work and work and work, and waiting for the visible results can seem to be an eternity. This is especially true with raising kids. You put forth the effort every day for years before you find out if you did the job well. Oh, we’ll get little indications of success along the way, but it can literally take a lifetime to see the full impact of our effort.

Still, every little thing we’ve done contributes in some small (or not so small) way toward the overall results. We may not see the results immediately, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. When you’re on a cross-country trip, you probably don’t celebrate every one of those mileposts along the way, even though each one is getting you closer to where you want to be.

But when the road is closed, and a detour takes you several miles out of your way, you breathe a big sigh of relief when all those twists and turns finally put you back on the highway you were on. The goal is that much closer, and you set the cruise control with a feeling of accomplishment at having navigated unfamiliar territory without getting lost in the process. You da man!

For the past several weeks, I’ve been putting forth a fair amount of effort in one of my personal goals without any visible results. It happens. My mentors, people who have been where I am and have gone far beyond where I hope to be, all keep telling me the same thing – just keep doing what needs to be done. Put forth the effort on a consistent basis, and the results will come.

Well, they were right. Over the weekend, some of that work paid off and I was able to celebrate a win. It’s a small win in the overall scheme of things, but one of many that will lead me closer to my goal. And, for that very reason, it’s a huge win. Because every step in the right direction validates not only the effort, but the self-confidence that got you moving in the first place.

As challenging as it can be to succeed, it’s even more challenging to work through those times when things just don’t work the way we’d planned. To be certain, some of those times actually put us further from our goal than we were to start with, and it takes that much more work just to get back to where we started. After a while, you begin to wonder if it’s even worth taking that next step.

But sometimes we have to find out what doesn’t work in order to find what does. Mom used to say there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and she was right. But for everything that gets the job done and brings you closer to your goal, there may be hundreds of approaches that won’t work. And in the very act of eliminating those that don’t work, we move closer to the ones that will.

Those software developers know exactly what I’m talking about. If any of them ever tell you they’ve never written a faulty line of code, and that every one of their creations worked exactly as planned on the very first try, don’t trust them in a real estate deal.

Creation, of any kind, is a process of trial and error. You have to be willing to fail in order to succeed. And when those failures come, you have to be willing to dust yourself off and keep moving. Because what you’ve experienced isn’t truly a failure – it’s just another step along the path to success.

Decide what you want and then put forth whatever amount of effort is required to get you there. Remember these words – I will, until. You’ll make mistakes, and you’ll experience setbacks. But as long as you keep doing the things you need to do the results will come. Stay focused and keep moving. Success isn’t just possible – it’s inevitable.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2019 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Fill Your Brain With Something Worth Remembering

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a nice start.

Have you ever awakened in the morning with a song stuck in your head, one you haven’t heard in ages and you’re wondering why, of all the songs in the world, you woke up to that one? And then, later in the day, as you’re driving to or from work, that same song comes on the radio. And you wonder, was it premonition or just a strange coincidence?

It happens to me all the time. I’ll be thinking about an old movie, one I haven’t seen in several years. I’ll recall a certain scene, or maybe just a memorable line from the movie, and then in just a day or two, it’s on TV. I get a chuckle out of it, and usually watch the movie just because it’s on my mind now and I have to.

Now, I don’t make any claim to supernatural abilities. More than likely, I’ve heard the song somewhere, maybe just on a commercial or in the background music of a movie, and that’s how it got stuck in my head. And television networks advertise movies a few days before they air, so it’s possible I saw a commercial for the movie and just didn’t remember it.

The same thing happens sometimes with my writing. Those of you who have been with me a while know I like to read motivational books. Go figure. To me, there’s nothing quite as intriguing as a book that tells me I can succeed at anything I want and enjoy the life of my dreams. Call me what you want, but that’s the kind of stuff I want to read.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve written a post in the morning, and then read a passage in one of my books that very evening that makes the same point. And I’m sure some of my friends who are reading the same book (we’re reading it together) wonder if I’m picking up ideas from another writer. To me, it’s just amusing. You know what they say – great minds think alike!

But it lends credence to a theory, which is that none of us has a truly original thought, and everything in our conscious mind is simply repetition of something that’s in the subconscious. We’ve seen or heard something in the past that’s buried deep in the brain, and a conscious thought comes along and goes digging for something in the subconscious to back it up and make the point.

Now, if all I read were murder mysteries or romance novels, I’d probably have a hard time coming up with words of inspiration each day. Nothing against those books – I think reading is good for the mind, and if it’s entertaining to you, go for it. But we should also balance that out with something a little more positive.

The mind is like a sponge. It picks up everything that comes along and keeps it forever. There’s a reason people with dementia can’t remember the names of their own children, but they can remember the name of their first-grade teacher. Anything that’s in our long-term memory is there for instant recall, and we can remember it like it was yesterday.

People always say things like, “I’m not good with names. I can’t remember what I ate for dinner last night! My memory just isn’t very good.” Yes, it is. You can remember names, and you can remember what you ate for dinner last night. You’ve just got too many other conscious thoughts racing around to let you dig into the subconscious.

But, like a sponge, those thoughts in your subconscious will make themselves known at some point down the road. Pick up a sponge that hasn’t been used in a few days, and the smell will turn your stomach. At that point, you have two choices. Throw it in the trash (and fill up a new sponge with the same kind of junk) or refill it with something a lot more pleasant.

We need to be careful what we allow our minds to consume. The words we hear, the songs we sing, the books we read, the places we go, the people we spend our time with – all of these things create memories that your brain stores forever. And when you least expect it, those thoughts will again rise to the surface. Stir up a bucket of mop water, and the whole thing turns muddy.

With each conscious thought, every new idea that comes into your brain, it automatically goes searching for something in long-term memory to validate or repudiate that thought. So, make sure your brain has a sufficient number of positive thoughts to choose from. Fill it with the good stuff and top it off regularly. Your brain will always have something to say to you. Make sure it’s something you want to hear.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2019 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Freedom is a Choice You Make

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Friday! I hope your day is off to a great start.

Well, the weekend is finally here. For most of us in the U.S. it’s a three-day weekend. More than that, it’s a weekend to remember and honor those who laid down their life for this country, and the families they left behind. Having spent twelve years in the Navy, I know the risk our service men and women face every day, even in times of peace. It’s a dangerous job, and we owe them our respect.

Freedom is a word that means different things to different people. We often think of freedom in terms of the Constitution – freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom to do just about anything that doesn’t infringe on the rights of others. In fact, one of the founding principles of our country was the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

But there’s more to freedom that we don’t often think about, simply because it goes against what we’ve been conditioned to think is “normal.” We learn at a young age, mostly by watching our parents, that life consists of getting up every day, going to work, coming home tired, and only taking time off on weekends or when the company says we’ve earned a vacation.

Worse yet, we’re expected to do that until we’re too old to keep working that way, which means we’re too old to do much of anything else except sit around the house and wait for the grandkids to come by. Maybe we take a long-overdue European vacation, but instead of climbing the 768 steps at Germany’s Ulm Cathedral, we’re left to gaze up and wonder what we’re missing.

I guess it’s no wonder young people are so heavily in debt, because the one lesson they’ve learned is if you want something in life, you’d better get it now. If there are things you want to do, you’d better not wait. And they’ve learned this, not by listening to their elders, but by watching them. Who wants to work every day for 45 years just to end up sitting on the porch watching squirrels?

That’s not freedom. Oh, we had the choice to do it that way and that’s the route most of us take. But we also have the freedom to choose something a little more fulfilling. I watched a TV show about RVs and the people buying them and was amazed at the number of young couples who decided to forego the traditional brick & mortar house with a fixed address and just experience life on the road.

You see, freedom goes way beyond the freedom to go to college, pick a major, and interview for the job we want. It goes beyond buying whatever house we can afford in a location that’s close to where we work. It goes beyond deciding what to do on our week or two of paid vacation. Freedom is the ability to decide if that life appeals to us at all and, if not, to enjoy life in our own way.

Granted, most of us will never enjoy that life. Not because we can’t, but because we never made it enough of a priority to do something about it. Sometimes it’s easier to just follow the crowd and do what everybody else does. Blazing a trail of your own takes courage, and the willingness to put up with a lot of naysayers along the way. But it also can lead to a life none of them will ever enjoy.

We’re taught at a young age that it takes money to buy food and pay the bills. That’s true. What we’re not told is that there are hundreds of ways to earn an income besides punching a clock every day for 45 years. And there are just as many ways to supplement our full-time income by doing something extra on the side so we can have the freedom to enjoy a little more along the way.

As you celebrate freedom and the people who made that freedom possible, remember that it goes well beyond a set of laws that tells you what you’re allowed to do. Freedom is the very personal choices you make each day, and the extent to which you allow others to make those choices for you. It’s about enjoying your life, in whatever way you choose. Most of all, it’s the courage to accept that freedom and make the most of it – today, and every day. It’s your life. Live it!

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2019 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Happiness Rocks!

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is starting off well.

Have you ever met somebody who just always seems to be happy, no matter what? They work all day, sometimes in a job most of us wouldn’t care to do. They put up with petty people whose only goal seems to be making everybody else miserable. They go home to a family that doesn’t appreciate them, or maybe to no family at all. And yet, they never seem to let it get them down.

Sometimes you wonder if they’re living in a fantasy world. Or maybe they’re just “not all there”. It happens. Some of the happiest people I’ve ever seen have developmental handicaps. They may never be able to complete a crossword puzzle, solve a complex equation, or do any of the things most of us take for granted. Yet they find inexplicable joy in the simplest of things.

I’ve often looked at some of these people and wondered who has the real handicap – them, or me? We think we’re better equipped to “make it” in life, but we’re the ones grumbling all the time and they’re the ones smiling.

Sometimes the perceived handicap isn’t developmental, but simply situational. Maybe they’ve had a run of bad luck over the years that would have brought most “normal” people to their knees. Whether it’s job losses, family losses, poor health, or a dozen other things, they just can’t seem to catch a break. Yet some of these people are the happiest. Maybe they’re just delusional.

I guess that would be a simple enough answer, if it were true. But the more likely answer is, they’ve learned that the secret to true happiness is to stop looking for something or somebody else to make it happen. I’ve often said it’s not what happens to us that makes us miserable – it’s our reaction to those events. We choose, in the moment, whether to brush it off or give misery a permanent home.

And if we believe that, we must also believe that happiness works the same way. We can’t make people do things that will make us happy. We can’t make the sun shine, we can’t control the lottery numbers, and we can’t make heavy traffic magically clear a path just for us. Life happens. The only thing we can control is how we react to it.

We can always point to any number of reasons we shouldn’t be happy, about a particular situation or about life in general. And yet, nobody ever says, “I had a choice – and I chose misery.” It’s easier to blame somebody or something else. And when we’re happy, we never seem to accept credit. We always point to some other person or event as the source of our happiness.

But, as most of us have been told our entire life, happiness comes from within. Bad things will happen. Unpleasant people will try their best to ruin our day. We can’t control any of that. But the moment we decide to dwell on it, we embrace the misery that comes with it.

Mom used to always say, “Shake it off.” What’s happened has happened. You can’t change that. It’s forever written in the history book of your life. And it’s natural to be unhappy, maybe even devastated, about some of the things we’ll experience along the way. Some of that pain never goes away, and happiness doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten. It just means we’re not letting it define us.

We can find misery in the fact that we’re not living our dreams or find happiness in the simple the simple things in life. We can find misery in the things other people do or find happiness in our ability to do better. We can find misery in the behavior of a rebellious child or find happiness in the memory of all those hugs and kisses in the past.

And, no matter what, we can find happiness in the future, because the future has not yet been written. We can’t change what’s already happened, but we change or at least influence most of what’s yet to come. There will be bumps in the road, to be sure. And one day this journey will end. We can’t change that. But we can choose to make the most of every experience along the way.

Choose to be happy. It won’t work every minute of every day. But the more we practice, the easier it becomes. And when that day comes when we need to pull out all the stops and make use of every trick we’ve learned along the way, we’ll be that much better equipped to handle the situation. And that, my friends, is happiness at its very best.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2019 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Recharge, Then Get Moving!

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Monday! I hope your day is off to a great start.

To follow up on Friday’s post, I left the hospital later in the day and got to spend the weekend at home. I’ve got some follow-up appointments with a couple of specialists, but they pretty much confirmed what my wife already knew – I’m a little dizzy. But in my defense, she knew that years ago and married me anyway. Go figure.

I spent most of the weekend resting at home. I did a few things, including some of the cleaning and reorganizing I’ve been putting off, and I did a little work for my business. But I also spent a fair amount of time in a recliner just relaxing. It seems to have been the perfect mix.

We all need to recharge our batteries. Even those things we love to do, the things that excite us the most, still take a toll on our energy. And every now and then, we have to slow down long enough to build some of that energy back up. But a battery that spends its life on a charger isn’t of much use to anybody. It just sits there doing nothing all day. Sound like anybody you know?

The key is knowing when to turn the charger off and put that energy to use. It’s all about balance. The harder we work, the more often we need to recharge. But the more we just sit around and recharge, the less we’re able to get done. And after a while, sitting around becomes a drain of its own. When you need to get up and do something, the energy just isn’t there.

Do you remember the old nickel-cadmium (NiCad) batteries? They were the original rechargeable batteries, and they did an amazing job. But they had one inherent flaw – if you recharged them too soon and too often, it reduced the amount of charge they could hold. Manufacturers called that “battery memory.” After a while, the battery was just incapable of holding a full charge.

We’re not so different. When we let ourselves drain down too far, we slow down and our ability to perform is significantly weakened. Do that long enough and we just stop. But if we spend all our time on a charger, rejuvenating after every little bit of effort, there comes a point where that little bit of effort is all we can do. Some call it laziness. I think there’s a little more to it.

When you exercise, you strengthen muscles and build endurance. Do that regularly, and a few things happen. At first, it hurts. You go home tired and the next day you wake up sore. But after a while, it just becomes part of your day. Your body looks forward to the workout, and rewards you with more energy during the day and the ability to work longer and harder without wearing out.

Your mind is much the same. As the old saying goes, use it or lose it. A lot of what we do during the day isn’t entirely physical. In fact, even when you’re exercising, you’re thinking. But thinking about what? Are you focused on how tired you are and how bad you smell? Or are you thinking about the good you’re doing for your body, and the great things you can do once you get back in shape?

Sitting around isn’t an entirely bad thing. But put that time to good use. Turn off the TV and read a good book. By “good” I mean something that’ll rejuvenate your mind and spirit. There’s nothing wrong with a good romance novel if that’s your thing. But balance it with some positive reading as well. Every bookstore has an entire section devoted to self-help and motivation. Pick one up.

Or just sit quietly and think about your goals. What will it take to accomplish those goals? What do you need to do first? What’s standing in your way, and what can you do to fix that? Talk it over with someone who shares your dream. Two heads are better than one. You’re still resting your body, but you’re keeping your mind active. And an active mind can solve any problem that comes along.

And when the rest is over, get up and get moving. You do it at work every day. They don’t mind you taking a little break now and then, but they expect you to get back to it when the break is over. Do the same for yourself. Your job will reward you with a paycheck. But you can reward yourself with so much more. And after all that work, don’t you deserve it?

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2019 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Adversity May Come, But the Dream Lives On

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Friday! I hope your day is off to a great start.

I’m writing to you from the last place I expected to be this morning – a hospital bed. We’re not really sure what’s wrong, but every time I sit up or even roll over in bed, I get extremely dizzy and try to pass out. But, I’m in good hands and we’ll get to the bottom of it.

Funny thing is, if I can sit for a minute or two I’m okay. This started when I woke up yesterday morning and I made it through the whole day, working, walking around, even driving. But the doc sent me here because of past heart issues, and the first time I tried to get off the bed for an x-ray, the dizziness hit again.

So the problem isn’t sitting up – it’s changing positions. I guess until we figure this out, the answer is that I need to learn to sleep standing up. Horses do it, so it’s not impossible. Okay, if you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re taking life way too seriously, and that’s something I try not to do.

But sometimes we have to take it seriously enough to make the necessary changes. When I got the news about my brain surgery last year, that was a real wake-up call. It was a reminder that life keeps moving whether we’re ready or not. Those plans we made for “someday” won’t wait forever.

I started the week mentioning that I have a goal with a tight deadline. That deadline is coming closer by the day, and things like an unexpected hospital stay can really get in the way. But we have to pay the hand we’re dealt. My goal hasn’t changed. All that’s different is the playing field.

Adversity comes to us all, and it never checks to see when would be a good time to visit. It just barges through the door and makes itself right at home. We can either drop everything and cook adversity a nice hot meal, or just shove it to the side and keep doing what needs to be done.

I have little doubt I’ll be out of here later today. I’m sure there will be some more tests before I go, and some may not be all that pleasant. But the bottom line is I’ll do whatever needs to be done and makes the necessary adjustments going forward.

We can plan life to the smallest detail, but life doesn’t always respect our plans. What’s important is that we stay focused on the goal and never let anything stand in the way. The more we do that, the more those plans tend to come our way. We don’t need everything to work exactly as planned. We just need to make the most of what we’ve got.

Lots of things will come your way today. Some planned, some unexpected; some good, and some not so good. But as long as you stay positive and focused on the goal, none of those things can ever stand completely in your way.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2019 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved