Tag Archives: write

Rolling with the punches

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20

The thing about it is you never know what the next year will bring.

12 years ago I was on my computer trying to create an algorithm to figure out the powerball numbers for the coming week. I was sure that was the only path to success because the path I was on seemed to be only downhill.

At 28 years old I was working at Wendy’s, my first job in the fast food industry. I walked to my job each morning because my car had been taken. I’d like to say it was the lowest point I’d been at, but the truth is I’d been lower. I’d come to realize that life doesn’t have a lowest point or even a highest. It’s life and life can be a fickle termagant.

Everyone talks about The Big Break, the moment it all turned around. In truth, for the normal human, there’s not a single turn because life is a crazy road that winds its way until the next day.

I believe in the next day, just like I believe in the next year. Sure I still play powerball, a guy can dream about winning the lottery right? But golden paths were made for dreams and life isn’t a dream.

It just is.

-OM

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Daily

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12

The new place is coming along!

In the rental there was one thing I absolutely loved in her home. She had these giant crystal chandeliers that made a huge statement when you walked in. I loved seeing the sunrise and sunset hit them like a disco ball and had to have some.

What I didn’t realize until opening the big boxes was that I would have to manually put the lights together! I ended up having to redo one ring of crystals and needless to say the whole process was painfully slow. I’m very proud of them though! They turned out perfect and only took me about three hours per freaking chandelier…

I mean if you pay that kinda money you’d think they’d come put together and not be an IKEA sized project!

-OM

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Blogging

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24

In my 7 years of running this blog I have traveled the world and never lifted a foot. I’ve visited countries I’ll probably never see, spoken to people I’ll never meet and will never touch, but I hope I’ve touched them somehow.

We live in a remarkable time when we don’t require a contract and loads of money to bind our words and have them seen by others. You can be seen and more importantly heard, if that’s truly your desire.

You don’t need to spend money on a wordpress class on gathering an audience.

You don’t need to study graphs and figure out when your “peak time” is to post. There’s always someone awake and even those that don’t speak your language can read your language in this amazing age.

I’ll admit I get some amusement over these new emails from the overlords asking for eager new bloggers to pay them for their courses on blogging. Teaching the very lessons that at one time some of us were vilified for. I suppose if the silver is right anything can be overlooked.

I view the blogosphere like a street.

And on that street you have real people, not links to click on or avatars to smile at.

People

Moving fingers with moving stories, index fingers with snapping photos. Everything in the world in my small world of view. I love it.

It’s the true bloggers that keep blogging simple and pure. Maybe we won’t be famous. Fame is for the fortunate and unfortunately most blogs will never be seen.

But we can try to be heard.

-Opinionated Man

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Checks and balances

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7

Life really isn’t about checks and balances, at least not to me. I view it more like an actual board game and sometimes the only move is to check and check and check till it’s a stalemate and you get some time to breath.

People often think being overly aggressive or always on the move is a bad thing. For many of us that incline to this nature it is more about not finding ourselves stagnant and comfortable. It’s when you get comfortable and think that nothing can touch you that the storm normally appears.

I’m finding that applies a lot to my current work life. It’s a forever game of catering to the idealism that I need to constantly prove what I’m worth. It’s a tiresome weave of doing and proving you are doing that really wears most people out. Some might say that’s corporate life, but I believe it’s really about how that corporation wishes you to live. You cannot thrive and grow in an environment where you are always wondering if you aren’t good enough. Eventually you lose the checks and balances mantra and start to only go one way or the other. Then it is either retreat or check, check, check till you are checked out.

One begins to wonder if it is worth it.

-Opinionated Man

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Personal

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14

Sometimes good things come to those that believe. But even more than belief, when we set our actions upon the backs of our hearts and strive to make our dreams come true we can accomplish anything. Through the struggle we learn to appreciate why we struggle and life becomes that more important.

Then we truly live.

-OM

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I could

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5

I could count the rays of the sun, but why would I want to steal the light. Reminding myself of folding night, I look for the darkness from above. Considering the missing heartbeats between a thought, a glancing moment from the start. Trying to appreciate what moments are. From end to end, new beginnings and more.

-OM

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