A New Tattoo, Meditation, Understanding the Victim Mentality

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
— Mark Twain

Good morning my friend, how are you? Things are well here on top of the mountain. My dog is chewing on a bone, sitting about a foot from where I’m making this soup.  The sun is beaming over my right shoulder, the coffee maker is singing her morning song, and a fan is keeping my wife cool upstairs.  I realized this morning I have a hierarchy of coffee cups.  I have my favorite, and if that one is dirty, I have my second, third, and so on. My favorite cup is a large white cup that says, DAD.  My daughter gave it to me; I love that mug. 

We had some contractors come out and repave our driveway.  It looks fantastic, and our neighbor is going to have his done as well.  We just met our neighbor for the first time after three years; he does not live there full time; he lives in FL in the winter and stays here in the summer.  We exchanged numbers; we will check on his house when he’s back in Florida. 

We headed to meet our friend Blair in Golden for a nice hike; we arrived at the trailhead, and she shared she was at the trailhead. So, assuming there was another trailhead on the path, we started our climb.  After about 10 minutes, I sensed something was wrong; Blair was nowhere to be found; I texted her and realized we had each went to a different trial head after some back and forth. So we decided to just hike on our own and meet up another day.  Pro-tip, when walking with another, the first to arrive should share their location. Parker Van Halen was along for the hike; it was a challenging trail with a couple of rock slides,  but the views were fantastic.

We left there and headed to get some lunch at the well.  We had a couple of drinks and a brat; they now have fresh produce every Saturday; we bought a bunch of fresh goodness and brought it home to use in this week’s chef specials. Finally, we came home and cooked; I made some spicy pork using some hot peppers we purchased earlier, and my wife made some sides for our dinner tonight.

We will head to have breakfast with some friends, then come home and work around the house; we have company coming over around 4:00 to deliver a new piece of custom furniture we had made for our entryway. So we will hang out with our friends,  we will dine like royalty.  We’re very blessed to live the life we live.

So how about you, are you living a life of love, joy, and happiness?  If not, why not?  You are in charge of yourself; you can’t blame others for your position, where ever you find yourself, look in the mirror, that person is to be thanked or blamed for your current situation.  But there is hope; whatever you don’t like about your life can be changed, you are free to do life as you see fit.

I am learning about the victim mentality how some like to blame others for their plight. Although I was taught personal responsibility as a child, I have used that as my guide, but I think many missed that class.  I don’t see how one can blame others for their current situation; agreed, that person did something terrible, move on, look forward, not back. I took a test recently to determine my amount of victimhood; I scored a zero.  

I did score high in the stickler sector.  I like order, and when order is not happening, I tend to get a little out of sorts.  My new training teaches me when my stickler appears and how to manage those feelings of WTF better!  I’m learning cues and ways to overcome those thoughts and redirect my mind to view each occurrence as a gift or opportunity.

I think life is full of gifts and opportunities.  Everything you experience can be used as one or the other; I can look back on my life and recount some shitshows that brought me to this place; I would have never made it to our mountain top without the shows.  So when something negative happens, use it as a teaching moment, take the lesson and move on, be thankful for the teaching of SBTM.

Well, it’s about 7:00; I’ve been up about an hour, we got another fantastic night of sleep; if there were an award for sleeping, my wife and I would be in the running for the gold. Instead, both of us have found ways to tire our bodies and minds, and thus we sleep from 9 to 5 every night. 

It’s another beautiful day here, sunny, about 70, I would guess.  It stays pretty cool up here; it’s about 10 to 15 degrees cooler than down the hill.  I saw a mother and two baby deer yesterday, beautiful creatures, part of our zoo family. This week we had deer and a fox; the bear has been staying away, but I’m sure they will make an appearance soon.  Our neighbor had a bear enter their home through their dog door twice, with no significant damage, but imagine coming home to find a bear in your home.

My mind’s whiteboard is clean; I’ll now have a fresh, clear mind to take into my morning meditation.  I’ll sit outside and listen to the airplanes, the birds, and all those other sounds I never heard before undertaking the practice of meditation.  I have never been able to meditate before, my mind is a pinball machine, but this program has taught me how to sit and not let my mind drift, just focus on the now.  I strongly recommend meditation, it’s been a good practice, and I now can control my mind in any situation.

The hummingbirds are thick this year.  I was sitting outside this week and had my eyes closed and could hear a humming about 2 inches from my head.  I had on my RFN hat.  The letters are red; hummingbirds love red.  I was able to keep my eyes shut and let the creature buzz as long as they wanted to investigate my red letters.  I think we have decided to get a tattoo.  It’s a small one; I think on the back of our necks or maybe our wrists, it will simply say RFN.  It will be a daily reminder to live right fucking now.  And if you think about it, that is the only way one should be living their life. 

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
— Mark Twain