As with all things in the world, everything must come to and end.
It was a niggling though in my head, but I have decided to close down thehonestone blog. Or should I say I will not be writing here anymore. In fact I have moved the posts to and they will live there from now simply because there is a lot of content and you are free to sift through it and read at your leisure.
I want to say thank you for reading and interacting with me. I wish you all a happy new year and simply a note to believe that you can do what you need to do in life.
There comes a time when one just has to face the changes and stop trying to keep up with all things. I feel it is the right time to move on to things that are more real and engaging.
Feel free to connect with me in person over a coffee or lunch. Or simply if you want to chat.
I will be doing stuff over at The Fresh Space, but the site is not live yet and will take a while to get going.
It has been a fun and deeply enlightening experience writing my thoughts down and getting involved with some people through this medium.
A soldier takes many years to prepare and get his mindset and physical state ready for war. And soon the day arrives when the sirens go and that soldier is called into the war zone…
Guns, rifles, machine guns, tanks. Bombs going off, bullets zipping by your ears. Death is knocking on your door, danger lurks around every corner…. You have to be on guard all the time. Sleep with one eye open is the norm.
But there comes a day when you have to return to normal life. What happens then? No bombs going off, no danger around every corner. Death is still there, but knocking right now. It’s not like you can just flip a switch and turn off your senses. They have been trained to be alert. But its not needed anymore.
I guess that is why soldiers end up with P.T.S.D. It is just a traumatic experience to transition from war to normal life. You simply cannot just let go of all that you have seen. The state you have to get your mind to in order to survive. And then suddenly you back with the normal people who in general probably have never even seen someone being killed.
We do this in life as well. We grow up in a bad environment, meaning actual area, issues in the family, bad people….the list goes on. And we develop defense mechanisms to help us cope with the rubbish happening either around us or to us. And it works, we come out the other side.
But now we are grown up and we are able to handle life now. The threat is gone….
But the walls are still up and we still react as if we in the war zone.
The walls that once saved you, are killing you now. You still at war, but the war is over. You still protecting yourself even though no one is trying to harm you.
Only you know if this is true in your life.
It comes across as strength when people see it, but its not true strength. Its a fascade.
It will take some work to get out there. Nothing that is truly valuable in life comes easy. And maybe you will have good people around you that are willing to take the beating it takes to help you remove those walls. Although you are the only one that can ultimately break it down.
To think, speak then act is probably an automated response in the human experience. You think I want to go out, you tell someone you going out and then you go out. Simple…..
I think the greatest divide is caught in the difference between those three separate processes.
What we think, I mean really think, we never say. What we say, we hardly do. What we do is sometimes not what we thought. We never thought we would ever do that.
How could I think that?
Why did we say that?
I never meant that….
A lot of things happen in life and we believe a lot of things. The trouble is most of it is an illusion and not real. And we seem to be okay with believing that illusion because it gives us a feeling of security. We tell the people “whatever you have to believe in order to get things done”. Because getting things done is the top order of the day in all cases.
But the truth of the matter is, that what you do is ultimately what you really believe. Whether that is based on actual truth, mmmmmm we would have to check that. Results in any particular area does not always define the truth to be so. You could be very wrong and still get the outcome you wanted.
This is often why many just plod along, they get what they want….. money, the husband, the girl, the wife, the job, the promotion. As long as they don’t know its fine. Well at some point you will have to face the truth….you will….it takes either a short time or a very long time to come around, but you will have to face the truth.
Just “eat that frog”. Get it out of the way. Life is simply too short to keep running and avoiding the truth and being honest.
Scripture says the truth will set you free, but honesty will give you rest on the inside. I mena rest to live from the inside out. Facing what you want to be and making your actions match up is probably the hardest thing, but would you rather be a snake oil sales person?
Its a weapon in your hands. Knowing that people act what they believe rather than what they say. Colleges, universities, schools, and various institutions are filled with people talking and convincing you to learn their ways. You pay a huge sum of money to be there and listen and theorise. You discuss concepts, ideas and then you leave.
Now if what you thought and said were all that counts, success would be granted immediately from that point would it not?
Yet half of those graduates end up as employees that are very unhappy in their careers. On the other end of the spectrum people who hardly even complete their studies, get and idea and just do it. And they make it.
I don’t mean that thinking is the poorer option or education. Discussion is also good. But if these things do not match up to what you do, then you really don’t believe it. And the true change in this world is always made by those that believe and do.
There is a question that roams around on the inside of every guy. It is one that has to be answered, but it cannot be answered from inside. It is one of those things that simply has to come from an external source.
It is that question. “Do I have what it takes?”
Its a tough one, since if you don’t get that answered as a child by your father…. You will always seek it. I can only speak for a guy in this case. I can only try to reason what that question would be in a woman’s internal dialogue.
Maybe “Am I beautiful?” or “Am I wanted?”
These are questions only outside sources can vouch for. Self image and love for your self is important. But this question every human needs answered. And if it is not, it will haunt you whether you realise it or not.
In my case I think the first time I made a fire and cooked meat on that fire was in my late twenties. I never felt like I could do it before that. It is a mundane thing yes, but it was a milestone for me. For years I silently wondered if my father thought I was good enough to handle these things. I battled silently and eventually just got to the point internally and just sort of threw caution aside and jumped.
For most of my school days, I would come home with a B and the question would be, “Why is it it not an A?”
Yep, not good to have both parents as teachers hey ha ha ha. But it creates a thought pattern that grows and it slowly creeps up in your self talk. Is what I am doing good enough…..
It is not easy to venture into the world with all the questions one normally gives an ear to. But none is so dangerous as the do I have what it takes. It will lead young men down a path of trying to prove it in all the wrong places. Its how gangs are formed, how women get abused, how children are made to live without fathers…..
“Do I have what it takes?” echoes in the head. And the young man zips off to the next conquest. Because he is not sure he can do this father thing. Joins that gang, because here are guys who think I have what it takes and I have proven it to them….
Young lady, where do you find yourself? Trying to answer that question…..”Am I beautiful?” This very question will lead you to a very dark place if you don’t find that answer. You always ask it until you believe it.
“Am I wanted?” well that is another question that gets twisted and turned into a world of hurt for a young lady who does not find this from her mother and father.
I know we live in a very broken world, and life does not afford all to live in a stable loving home. Life is not fair….
But I assure you that as much as there is the bad, there is the good. Just don’t give in to the idea that the bad is all there is. Keep searching.
For the ones who had it good and right, help the others. “But it is not my issues” you say. Well time to take things a bit more personally than that. Whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not. We are all in this together. Sometimes people just don’t know what they don’t know.
What it comes down to is this. Whether you have asked those questions out loud yet, know that they are always there in the undertones of life. They have to be answered. Find good friends, find good people and talk it out. And then go change the world….
I leave you today with another one of those videos. I hope you are watching or listening to them…
You arrive at work, you get your morning coffee, grab a quick bite to eat… You have a meeting to get to, you going to be a few mins late. You gulp the coffee, you enter the room all eyes are looking at you. You still reeling from the argument you had with your spouse this morning, you forgot something about the children…….. You quickly brush that aside and get on with your day.
The day ends, you prepare your head for the long commute home…..traffic…. You get home and the questions get hurled at you, you manage to wade through that and you eventually get some time to yourself, 1 min 2 min 3 min…..”Suppers’s ready!”
You still have work to do, you wait till they all asleep….finally peace and quiet. You work till your eyes cannot handle it anymore…
You wake up 5am……
repeat….
You arrive at church, the praise songs have started. You manage to get the family seated and the baby is crying. You grab the baby and get out. There goes your time of “focusing on God”. The music stops, announcements, you think “Maybe this child will quieten down and I can make the sermon at least, my husband is already giving me the look”.
There goes the worship music, the sermon, and it’s over….
Ah well, I will get the next one.
Next sunday….
repeat…
Is that really what life is meant to be? There must be more.
My question to you today is, why are you doing what you doing?
What you are busy with today is really what shapes your tomorrow. And we forget that sometimes.
We tell ourselves that we need to pay the bills, and we just need to pay this off and that off. The years pass by and you wonder how on earth you got here…. more debt than you started with, same problems just bigger and you never worked on the things you meant to.
I really cannot be okay with the idea that we are meant to live on earth to make do. Pay the bills and get on with it….
There has to be a reason why we are here…..
I also think that deep down we all know that we need to do something specific, but we kill it with stuff we don’t need and then use that stuff as an excuse to not do what we need to do. You are not meant to be normal and average, yet so often we simply want to blend in. We hate the trauma that comes along with standing out and making a difference. We put those that do on a pedestal and say that they are different and talented and therefore it absolves us from doing something that counts…
If you believe that you have a specific purpose, what are you doing now about it? Is what you doing now contributing towards your purpose? And I do not mean goals. I mean that sensing internally of which you know you feel you need to do with your life.
Once you know that, what do you do?
Stop what you doing?
I don’t think so. Not wise to do that. I think the best situation is to straddle. By that I mean you keep doing what you doing, but you start on what you need to do. Because too often we blame the reason for not starting on things because we so busy now.
Yes it takes time and effort, but you don’t have to do it now do you? You could keep doing and going the way you going. Keep paying your bills for the things you think you need and keep going to the places you think you need to go to.
Its just that sensing will never leave hey. When you lay at night and doze off…. the feeling that you not doing what you are meant to do. You are tired and burnt out trying to keep all things together, but find no satisfaction at all. No rest, I mean real rest….
That is when you know that your purpose is calling you.
This is not about making money or making it big. You tell yourself “It is just until I get the promotion, until I get the house paid, until the children are out of school.”
STOP. I assure you that you will never get where you think you need to be. Until you grasp this thing we call purpose.
It is when you start doing meaningful things and it just clicks and just know this is what I am meant to be doing. It resonates with your very being. Anything less won’t do. It’s when you willing to give up things that just don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
I find that when I get away from the noise of life things become easier to see and hear. And I am very good at creating noise to create distraction.
And that is one of the enemies of purpose….distraction.
Another big killer of purpose is……you can guess…..fear of failure.
Here is a bit of motivation to get back on the horse again…
Confrontation is not always the easiest thing in life. I know its not easy for me. It always feels like I lose something in that process. Yet its necessary to confront things and people at least periodically.
You remember that series? “Dear John” ” by the time you read this letter I will be gone….” and the rest of the series was John dealing with life all on his own.
It seems so unfair on John in the series. Life on his own and all the questions…
Has someone ever walked out on you? And I don’t just mean a spouse. A friend, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a colleague? No explanation, just gone……
Other than the issue of you on your own, you are left to wonder why? All on your own….
I know it seems like one is saving the person trauma, but it really comes down to the “leaver” being selfish and not wanting to confront things head on.
I remember a time when I was in college and a close friend just never pitched up the next semester. No explanation, no communication……just gone….. I suppose she never owed me an explanation, but it would of helped I think.
I guess it comes down to value and the ability to correctly place that value on the correct things and then act.
If you value freedom and people in life, learn to confront things and people. It will only help in the long run.
I make a point of always letting people in my life know where they stand. Sometimes too much and sometimes I slip up. But honesty is very high up in my list values.
Its not easy, nothing of value in life is. Your business, relationships and family will change.
In fact I see it a lot in companies as well. Instead of dealing with the actual person who causes problems, companies create blanket rules for all. How cowardly…..
Churches do it too… People do this all the time. No one loves confrontation. There is always a loss, but there is a gain as well.
I am always fascinated how people remind me of my faults. Like its news to me. It may be news to some, but I am not that young and naive to not know mine.
Which makes me wonder about how we really view strength in life. How are the two related?
Good question.
After much obseravation in and around my life. By this, I mean watching people go through and action things. I realise daily that true strength is not actually a common thing. In fact I would go as far to say that true strength is not even celebrated or embraced anymore.
What we call strength is really…….
I know our perceptions rule us, that is a given in life, but what we call strength is really just intimidation and illusion. I see it around me all the time. And the really cunning use this to their advantage. Which is not a good thing, but what do we expect? Life is not fair and as someone pointed out over facebook the reason for the unfairness is us. We often mistreat people and want our own way to the detriment of others around us, and get most upset when that in turn happens to us.
What I would like to state though is that true strength, and I mean genuine strength only comes from knowing your what your weaknesses are. As in the picture. It appears that the wall is brick and has the strength of bricks, but really its wood and does not contain the strength properties that brick and mortar has. But if you simply took it at face value you would expect it to give support and take the knocks that brick walls can take.
Of course you will be rudely disappointed won’t you? I see in business how the fast talkers and those who “shoot from the hip” succeed. But never for too long. Because as Bob Marley says
“You can fool some people some times but you cant fool all the people all the time”
? Bob Marley
I watch women go after guys, that appear to have what they want……. Only to be largely hurt and extremely disillusioned a few months/years after that.
The reason?
Could not determine what real strength looks like. I am not saying one must wallow in your weaknesses, thats just dumb. When you are broken or have been broken down by something, its then when you discover true strength. And when you can build on a proper foundation. If your strength and sole strength comes from intimidation and illusion, you will thrive….. for a while.
I see guys run after women and after a while they wonder how they got themselves into that one…. They saw strength or at least they thought they did. Only to discover a false wall, called intimidation and illusion.
Because this world is broken and those that can manipulate and present themselves “properly” can deceive you.
But I assure you over time, true strength comes through. It is something we hate, because you simply cannot see these things at a glimpse. It takes time.
Simply because its pure and has the right intentions.
So how do we recognise true strength? Let me leave it with a quote that I am sure you can adapt the meaning to this topic.
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” Ernest Hemingway
In my opinion, people who can never admit to having weaknesses, you should be on guard rather than marvel. I am always waiting for the lightning to strike. So I walk a few steps behind them. Lol…..
What I would like to leave you with is simply, what appears to be the right thing is not always the right thing. And what we are completely convinced of is not always the real thing. Take a look into history and see how people were persecuted and ridiculed for what they believed to be true and were willing to stick to their story. They paid huge prices for that beliefs. Some even lost their lives. Today we celebrate that truths and even the people. They were strong, really strong, but then it looked like weakness……..
It is my opinion that very few people know the difference between a want and a need in life.
I will let someone who IMO, got it correct.
Just some stats for you to ponder on:
– Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population.
– The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.
– The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world.
– Seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years.
– The richest one percent increased their share of income in 24 out of 26 countries for which we have data between 1980 and 2012.
– In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom 90 percent became poorer.
There are many people that realise the imbalances of the economic scales that are in place. The almost hatred, towards capitalism, the underlying and often underground guys, seeking to apply a communistic regime.
What one needs to realise is that everything that affects the world on a macro level (global) starts and affects things on a micro level (national/local) and I would go as far to say on a minute level (individual).
Let me start here….. You work hard to get the bills paid. You buy stuff and live in a space that you pay for, maybe a car or two. You have children, you pay school fees and clothing is a necessity. And you pay taxes and maybe you save a bit, and the list goes on.
Yet all of those are wants. You want to live in a house or space that you call your own, you want a car, you wanted children, you want those children to have a chance in life, you therefore send them to school. You want to beautify your life and space and spend the necessary to make that happen. You want to live in a country that has amenities that make life comfortable.
Homeless people still manage to get by…..without all that. Conclusion. Many before us and currently do not believe that those are necessary to qualify as a life. So they are at their core just wants. You do not need it.
The trouble with us is that we get caught up in looking around and you have to admit….. its all very tempting hey.
But the thing that fuels the world and the markets and the economy is ruled by the 2 most base human trappings…. Fear and Greed.
I don’t want to make this too complex.
I could create lists of what we want versus what we need, but let me simplify.
I think what is a real need in life is that people should find purpose. Yes that is not always tangible, but purpose supercedes wants in every area. Like you need air and food, purpose is the most gone and forgotten element in life as I see it.
We end up on the hamster wheel without it. We take every opportunity we can thinking it will better our lives, only to find the circle bites our behinds and we end up with higher bills, new worries, and more stress. We don’t need a lot in life. But if you ever wanted a lazer sharp focus in life. Find your purpose. That in itself will help you shake off all the crap you don’t need.
Yes the world is unfair and a hard place, but you do not have to comply with everything.
I am sure you have been approached by some form of insurance broker in your life. If not, its only a matter of time before you have that privilege.
And you will get the whole pitch of how you need to invest and put money away. And they will pull out a chart and show you how over time your money will grow and this is the possible outcome. And just as your eyes light up and you about say “Where can I sign up?”…….
You get the disclaimer, that past performance is not indicative of future perfomance…..
And somehow they show you a chart of what? The past. I always chuckle when they do that. They showing you past perfomance in order to sign you up. Bu the disclaimer just does not get your hopes up does it. There are no guarantees with markets. And they are correct, there will be no sure thing when it comes to the markets, or we would all be wealthy right?
The thing is, what other information would people accept? Surely they cannot come to you and say, “Hey, are you willing to throw some cash in this fund and we will see what the markets do?” Not very convincing is it?
Yet that is more true than the chart. We really do not know, we can guesstimate, but no sure thing exists there.
We do the same in life, when a situation arises and we have to choose, we go with what we know to be true. We pretty much use our past to determine our future in its most simplest terms.
My question that I pose to myself is how that has worked for me. Since I may want different to what I have now, surely I cannot decide based on the past. Unless of course I am content here and don’t want different things.
Children don’t do that though (for obvious reason since they do not have anything to gauge it against they only have to try it). I think there is a bit of wisdom in that.
Now I am a proper skeptic in life hey, and I never jump both feet in. I always consider all angles…..
But getting back to the point, on paper all these things look good, but real life can often shock or surprise you. Life, markets, people are not dead things, are not one dimensional either, there are curve balls and many factors to consider. In fact they impossible to predict.
Its a frustrating thing to a predicter, a planner like me. One has to find that balance though.
I am not saying throw caution to the wind… that would just be dumb. But if you want something different then surely you cannot make a decision solely on your past. Since that got you where you are today. You want to be wealthy, but currently not…. Need I answer that one?
The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result.
Its good to look at the charts, its good to do your homework, but it will amount to nothing if you never take a step out of where you are.
I know how hard it is, I have forced myself many times to shut that little voice inside. But I can’t live with myself if I don’t try.
So my disclaimer is that by no means am I meaning for you to signup with the insurance broker. You can if you want, but first ask them how they amassed their peronal wealth. If they not wealthy……..well then don’t.
But if you want to have different things in life, do different things. Hang with different people, change. Take a side step. After all its not working now is it….
theHonestOne 