Elegant? Worth living?

It does not ring up an image of a fancy care-free life.
Or the beautiful dance of a tip-toeing ballerina across the theater stage.
I guess that depends on how you personalize the definition of elegant and making the life you live worth living.

My life has always been a crazy up and down lifestyle.
May it be a positive or negative both life changing and the everyday norm.
One parent, two sisters, and one hell of brain classified and diagnosed as ADHD. Obviously, life is an interesting mix of elegance and chaos.
Even though finding the beauty in life is sometimes found in the most chaotic of situations.

Take a video many may have watched and happens to come to the forefront of my mind when something reminds me of having faith/no faith in humanity.
In the video, a man’s leg is suddenly caught between the subway train platform and the train currently halted there.
Freeze, the momentum in time before being launch into the next scene.
Soak in the fear in this outwardly dangerous scene sending your mind racing.
My leg is stuck the train is minutes away from leaving.
Imagining the worst possible scenarios running through your mind…
Now back to being stuck, an entire leg  between a hard place and a metal made thousands of pounds train.
One man notices and tries to help the individual out of the dark situation. As the situation looks hopeless others rush in to help.
To everyone’s wonder and amazement the people onboard the platform.
Gathered and pushed the train enough on its side to free the man’s leg.

If that doesn’t move you even a little in your heart you might just need to take a self-reevaluating test of character.
To find that small warm center that makes you happy to be human even just a little bit.

Here is a little quiz you can take to figure out where you stand on your empathy towards others.

http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/0073381225/student_view0/chapter3/self-assessment_3_5.html

Hopefully light shines in your darkest place even when you can not turn around to see it standing behind you.
Stop, turn around and look back at the sun, because somewhere along the way you became worried.
That someone was following you and looked backwards at your own shadow.
Someone is and was your old life, the past exists within your shadow.
Instead of resting assured you were indeed safe in the light.
You began playing with your shadow maybe a little self-pity, some old “fun” here and there, and maybe it is just easier to stare at the dark then the sun.
For what reason you may have turned back it is only you who knows, I encourage you to turn back and embrace the warm feeling in your heart.
If you focus hard enough you’ll find it sitting where you thought you may have never felt it would be.

I don’t have much for this post as I’ve said before life is a beautiful mix of elegance and chaos.
Wish you much hope and enjoyment.
As we all know very well life is short, but that leaves us with endless possibilities right at this moment…
Now, what are you going to do with it?

You’re Nothing!

 

1. What goes through your mind as you read that title? Does it compel you and takes you in. Or does it repel you as your thoughts flash through the list of people who have said so to you? Maybe it wasn’t them, but someone who you compare yourself to.

• Just writing this brings me back. Oh, does it bring memories to the front of my mind. Maybe the kids who teased and bullied me in school. The idol of someone you wish to imitate. My strongest memory would be the uncle I lost… He inspired me not with words, but with his actions and then later his stories.
• Well guess what! We are Star Dust formed by the nothingness of the universe, caused by the big bang/black hole from the collapse of another  dimension. And the many millions of years of galaxy formations and the evolutionary lineage which led to the known universe. Sounds remarkable right billions of millions of years to create today as we know it.
• Here I’m sitting O Shit….. I was slightly depressed about the fact I’m not anywhere as tall as my six-foot-something uncle Kenny nor his weight. Neither did it seem I would reach anywhere close to as handsome or good-looking as him. The only dates I could ever seem to get in my school days. Were the girls who were newly out-of-town or those I met outside my small AZ town. Rightly a total loser compared to the ideal women’s man/boy I tried to picture myself as.
• Standards of a test set by myself, by others, the mindset of a truly “typical boy”.(“typical boy” going through  some ladies’ train of thought. I can just imagine it in my mind “boys want nothing, but sex. Go figure!”) What makes me truly upset at myself is I didn’t even know it, but I was living it everyday. I’m a 23-year-old young adult and have been living  a life set by my standards of the test set by my twelve/thirteen-year-old mindset.

Now the cheat to this is simple almost completely mind blazingly simple.

 YOU ARE ENOUGH.

 

Introduced by Marisa Penn in a video called the greatest disease effecting humanity is the thought “that I am not enough”. I can’t tell you how much it has changed my out look on life within a week. I’ve become more confident in myself, honest with what I truly want, and it has revolutionized this soul of mine.

This one phrase I would encourage you to write it everywhere, say out loud, and pass it on to another. The phrase strikes the very core of ourselves that we see in ourselves. That down deep one reason we act a certain way towards people, buy the things we do to “keep up”, and maybe the reason you let someone walk all over you.

 Wrapping it up simply comes down to two simple cheats to help manage life.

One you are made out of so much more than failures, losses, and success. You are made out of more things than any one person can imagine possible. Stardust has the possibility of being formed into anything you put your mind to.

So don’t let anyone nor yourself damage what you truly are in this universe. A being who can literally change the very foundation of their universe.

Two remind yourself every day that YOU ARE ENOUGH. Do it for yourself, because you know it to be true and you want it to be true. Being enough is more than just being you, but deep down knowing you are and have always been enough. That applies to everyone who is of a religious lifestyle and those who do not live one. Admit it, take the time to accept it, and search every day to live it.

Thank you test taker, now challenge yourself to do it!

 

Ty Thomas

A fellow and forever will be a test taker

Night Flight

Redeye to New York from San Francisco. Somewhere over the midwest, I pull the window shade down and stare at the constellations. A bright clear night, slight patch of clouds. Below, pockets of scat…

Source: Night Flight

I bet you can’t figure it out

http://coolpicsbro.com/

Realization

Memorial day…..

Missing my brother and sister who died

They sacrificed by
Commitment of life
Laid down in defense
At personal expense

I play songs in remembrance
In defiance of the sadness
Which threatens to embrace
My little world

Salute their memory
Share some tears
Smile faintly
Laugh a little

Brother, Sister
You will be missed.

Dedicated to Nate Sartain & Kcey Ruiz
RIP 2015 October

Direction

I wanted to address what I want to do with this blog it has become a obstacle to my thought processes. How to proceed to give value to what I write, to gift something of value to my readers. Honestly I want to be myself a open, honest, and intellectual person. In the back of my mind I’m tested by my self doubts, my fears, and those who I love. They whisper words of discouragement with: “Your not open you hardly share your feelings”, “What are you going to do if you lose your job, this blog isn’t going to save you”, and “Goofy and silly and small minded is what you really are, nothing, but a pretty eyes with a smile”.

I’m going to enjoy this blog. It is one of the small things I have planned to do with my life. I need to focus too on working towards a career in automotive engineering. I hoping that I will physically put my dreams into reality. To shift my life on to a track that was always in my control, but I let it slip from my fingers to rest in other people’s hands. This is my life and I will live it better everyday it is time for me to step up.

Stress and a Glass

View post on imgur.com

Getting my idling brain going

I would never say a idling brain is a brain ready for action.  At least not the action packed movie with exploding bombs nor the dramatic romance novel ready to leap on the page. In experience it is just another brain procrastinating. To even get start on the real deep work of following through on that creative idea. The work which makes you dig deep into all your resources allowing your mind to freely flow. A never ceasing flow of creativity and hardcore focus onto the subject of which one would fixate their core being upon.

It is just amazing at what you can do by just letting it go (yes, I just said letting it go…). How I could just type here at this keyboard for days. That drive which is necessary to immerse yourself into that creative world. Where ideas flow like water for which we thirst for and the images which hover as mirages in our mind. Mirages made real as you pluck them from their little niches in the desert of your mind. Making them real as the words and feelings that you pour into them entering through the portal. Portals for which could literally be anything doesn’t matter what it is as long as you use it to express those thoughts those ideas. Paper and pen, dance floor, and even sports can be all different ways to express those. Isn’t just thinking of the many ways you can express yourself is riveting down deep in the core of your being. Almost no one person can take that away from you.  They can’t snatch those thoughts and mirages anymore then they can see your brain without opening your skull. You can be the one person though who crushes your own ideas through low self esteem, mental illness, and negative perspective of oneself.  I would encourage you to think about this one small fact in life. Out of every animal on this planet humans have created and innovated ways to express ourselves. Beyond just flashy feathers, grunts and barks, and mating rituals, etc…

The full body of Flow as discussed by Steven Kotler in his book The Rise of Superman. Gives you a more in depth look of what Flow is and how trigger the Flow State. But, for those who are similar to me and those who may want a broken down version. Check out this link below to read more about the Flow State at Art of Manliness.com.                                                           http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/03/04/live-life-at-the-limits-how-to-hack-your-flow/

And don’t forget just cause life’s test is hard and some times we fail at one thing. It does not mean you have failed at “The Test” we call Life as a whole. Also remember that someone is always there for you and your not alone No Matter what might be going thru your head. Feel free to reach out to me through this website or if you see me on the streets and maybe your a friend I haven’t talk to in awhile. Stop for a second in our proactive lives and lets talk.

Growing a little each day

I have been doing a list of things to grow a little each day: reading online articles, meditating on the daily, and listening to podcasts. All of these things and some individual counseling have helped me learn a lot about myself.

Using Evernote I have gone so far as to take notes on the articles I have read.  Mostly from Art of Manliness.com which has been very eye opening in many degrees of my life.  As an good example it has helped me to put my depression into more of a tool to help me in life.  Not something to just shove through and struggle with, but to seek help for it instead. I’ll save the depression for a more in depth look at my life for another post.

Meditating has been pretty simple it’s just about keeping it consistent daily and at least more than five minutes. To be honest it feels wonderful to do it almost invigorating and deeply mentally and not quite deep down spiritually, but I don’t doubt the positive effects. I haven’t felt them after the fact, but my energy during the day has increased without a normal workout routine.

A podcast I listen to recently was “Waking up with Sam Harris”.  It challenged me to think twice about my thoughts on the role religion plays in our everyday life.  I would encourage an open mind while listening to the podcast.  I would sat personally that my knowledge of the world increases as I continue to listen to each of these podcast. Greatly encourage you to check out each of these podcast and see where they take you in this test of life.

Here is a list of the podcast underneath ranging from intellectual to just entertainment.

THE ART OF MANLINESS

THE ART OF CHARM

THE MINIMALISTS

WAKING UP WITH SAM HARRIS

LEAGUE OF AWKWARD UNICORNS

THE MIND PALACE

MYTHS AND LEGENDS

SERIAL

TED RADIO HOUR

WTF BY MARC MARON

VERY BAD WIZARDS

THE ROBCAST

BULLETPROOF RADIO

THE WAY I HEARD IT WITH MIKE ROWE

My short bio

Small town Arizona kid living in the middle of nowhere joins the military.  That’s my life in one sentence simple to say, but to me carries so much in one little sentence.

I hope this blog can be a way to spread experiences, views, and a rally point for others as well as myself.  “To give something valuable to others,” I want this to be one of many driving values in my life.  Starting my own blog to contribute in a way beyond what I could simply do sitting face to face with others.