Freedom

We live our life's searching Freedom
We want to just live and enjoy life and do what we want to do when we want to do it.
It starts in our teenage years, we can’t wait to get out on our own and seek the freedom but here’s the thing that is when we actually begin to lose our freedom.
We get our first job and earn money and with that our next goal is to get a car so we can have more freedom, then we want more, more clothes, more date nights, more more more and to get all this we need more money so we need to work more and here we go losing more of our freedom.
Keeping a job and “ moving up” means we can start thinking of apartments or houses in order to gain more of that must needed freedom and we continue to lose our freedom because we need more money and cannot afford to go backwards in pay or lose our job.
No matter how much you make you always tend to live above your means, you borrow , you buy things on credit and you have a day full of “ have too’s“ which means you are doing less of what you really want to do.
We do it all to ourselves!
In order to seek that freedom we wanted way back when we couldn’t wait to get out of our parents house and because we want more and bigger and newer we lose that very freedom and have a very tough time fighting our way back to the day that we do whatever we want to do, when we want to do it.
Less is more people!
Separate Need and Want - do you need that vacation? Do you need that new pair of pants or shoes? Do you need that big new car?
The more debt you have , the more time it will take to earn your freedom back.
Enjoy this wonderful world around you , just take a walk , go on hike and enjoy nature- that is free.
Enjoy your life’s- this is not a trial run and it we never know when the ride will end.
Freedom!

Something to look forward to

The Power of A Something to Look Forward To: Why We All Need Something to Look Forward To

We all need something to look forward to in life. Anticipation of something positive or, a healthy sense of “anticipation” can often help energize our lives, and even help us get through tough times.

While living in the present is a very beneficial thing – sometimes the present can feel a bit annoying, frustrating, tedious, or intolerable.

When we find ourselves in those less-than-ideal present moments, having something to look forward to in the future can give us the motivation and persistence to keep moving forward even during those difficult times.

The most simple and common example of this is having a bad week at work, but you have some fun plans for the weekend and that keeps you focused on fulfilling responsibilities until you can finally reward yourself.

Interestingly, in a recent study published this year in the journal eNeuro, it was found that when pathological gamblers were asked to think about a future experience – such as an upcoming vacation – they were better able to curb their impulses and choose long-term gratification over short-term gratification.

This study illustrates how anticipating a future situation (especially a pleasurable one) can sometimes help us to get through a difficult present situation. By giving us something positive to “look forward to” in the future, we can build up the discipline and motivation to tolerate temporary pain or frustration.

A healthy amount of “anticipation” can be a very powerful emotion that has the potential to improve our lives. In the rest of this article, I will provide some tips and advice to show you how to build “healthy anticipation” in your own life.

How to Build Healthy Anticipation In Your Life

In the most basic sense, “anticipation” implies a future reward – and in general, rewards can be a very powerful motivator in life (especially in behavioral psychology).

For example, if you’ve ever heard of habit loops, then you know that most habits follow a common structure of “Cue → Routine → Reward.” The “cue” is what triggers the “routine,” and that leads to some type of “reward” (or pleasurable experience).

We can often change certain behaviors by either focusing on “cues” (such as avoiding triggers in our environment that lead to certain behaviors) or focusing on “rewards” (such as pursuing a new behavior that leads to a new reward that is just as satisfying).

From the perspective of “anticipation,” we are focusing only on the “rewards” aspect of this habit equation.

The key idea is that by creating new rewards in your life – or by actively looking for things to look forward to – you can build more discipline and motivation in any area of your life where you are lacking.

Common examples of rewards that create anticipation:

• Looking forward to a lunch break during the day.
• Looking forward to your favorite TV show that airs once a week.
• Making fun plans for the weekend to help you get through a tough work week.
• Treating yourself to a piece of cake after a week of dieting.
• Planning a vacation for the summer.
• Treating yourself to a new car at the end of the year.
• Planning a wedding with your fiancé/fiancée.
• Looking forward to seeing your kids or grand kids.
• Looking forward to getting with friends.

As you can see, we can anticipate both “small” and “large” rewards.

Simple things like lunch breaks, having dinner with your family, or watching TV are all tiny rewards that we can anticipate to help us get through each individual day.

Other rewards like vacations, music concerts, or luxury purchases are bigger things that are often spread out over longer periods of time.

Both “small” and “large” rewards can be a healthy way to build anticipation and motivation in our lives. And I’d recommend that we focus on creating a mixture of both.

The Positive Experience of Anticipation

On a fundamental level, anticipation can be a very valuable and positive emotion to experience. It might even be necessary to living a truly happy and satisfying life.

When we have something to look forward to, it makes it easier to get through rough, frustrating, and annoying times. But even more than that, “anticipation” can often be a stepping stone to “hope.”

As human beings, we need things in our future to be excited about and optimistic about.

Imagine if you had nothing at all to look forward to in life. You’d likely be very miserable, upset, and even depressed. It’s very hard to find a “will to live” if you can’t imagine that there’s anything positive waiting for you in the future. What would be the point?

We should always have at least one thing to look forward to.

So take a moment and think about it: “What are you currently looking forward to in your life?” It could be anything “large” or “small,” but it’s important that you find something.

Perhaps you look forward to spending free time with your children at the end of the day, or going to a bar with friends on the weekend, or checking out that new movie that’s coming out soon.

It doesn’t matter if it’s something that is meaningful or trivial, as long as you have something to help give your mind a positive view of the future.

If you find it hard to think of something to look forward to, then why not create something to look forward to? Make plans: get tickets to a local music show, schedule to meet up with an old friend, or start a new hobby on the weekends.

Overall, we all need something to look forward to. Find something to make your future look a little brighter and happier – and relish in the anticipation of good things to come.

Lola

Lola was our family dog for close to 14 years and yesterday we said good bye.
It was our second family dog and they certainly become part of your family and they give you unconditional love every day and when the day comes that you lose them you lose a bit of yourself.
For the past three years I have worked from home and I preferred to Lola has my co worker and she kept me company and only asked to go for three walks every day, one first thing in the AM which for me is around 5:30 and another walk between 10 and 12 and one more around 4:00. I always kidded that she had a doggy watch because somehow she knew that it was around that time and she would round me up to get outside. Those walks forced me to push away from work and to catch my breath a bit and the exercise helped too, the walks also provided me a way to meet my neighbors and say hi and they all loved her too.
Family dogs are very special and I miss her very much , she would come over every once and a while  to where I was sitting to just be pet and to kinda say hi and enjoyed the love.
My youngest grandson Luca was really close to her, Lola was the fourth word she ever spoke, when Luca was a baby me and him was outside alone with Lola and she walked around the side of my house and I was calling her and out of no where Luca called her name to- Lola... and they had a special bond. When Luca came over Lola and he would run to each other and in the middle of the room they would both extend their faces to kiss, Luca would always ask for her when he called us and want to see her on the phone.
Lola was my co worker and friend and my company especially during the day when it was just me and her, as a puppy she was very rambunctious and ate my cushions on my couch and the wooden legs on our chairs and she could jump over and under any fence. My wife walked her when she was young and Lola was very string and loved her walks with my wife and as soon as they left the house Lola would run up the hill where we lived with my wife in tow , I watched from our picture window and laughed every time.
Lola was a very smart and sweet dog and we are blessed to have had her in or lives and we will cherish her memories and try to remember how she loved people and loved life.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs dies a billionaire, with a fortune of $7 billion, at the age of 56 from pancreatic cancer, and here are some of his last words... 👇👇👇

“At this moment, lying on the bed, sick and remembering all my life, I realize that all my recognition and wealth that I have is meaningless in the face of imminent death. You can hire someone to drive a car for you, make money for you – but you can not rent someone to carry the disease for you.

As we get older we are smarter, and we slowly realize that the watch is worth $30 or $300 – both of which show the same time. Whether we drive a car worth $150,000, or a car worth $2000 – the road and distance are the same, we reach the same destination. If we drink a bottle worth $300 or wine worth $10 were drunk

Five Undeniable Facts 💥

1️⃣ Do not educate your children to be rich. Educate them to be happy. – So when they grow up they will know the 

value of things, not the price.

2️⃣ Eat your food as medicine, otherwise, you will need to eat your medicine as food.

3️⃣ Whoever loves you will never leave you, even if he has 100 reasons to give up. He will always find one reason to hold on.

4️⃣ There is a big difference between being human and human being.

5️⃣ If you want to go fast – go alone! But if you want to go far – go together.

12 Steps

Keep your head down

The “ Keep your head down “ mentality in the work place.

Do you work for a company that may be in turmoil or that has a “ throw em under the bus” philosophy when things go wrong ?

Does leadership come in and shut their doors to their office and by doing so shut out the voices of their employees?

In order to try to make profit is your place of business always looking to shave their work force?

If you answered yes to one or all of the above then you most likely have developed the just “ Keep your head down” mentality.

By laying low and staying quiet you get to keep your job, that is until the bean counter announces he needs another head and once again you hope it is not you.

Because companies develop and foster this new culture -employees do not grow and participate in creating a better work place , a more profitable workplace , a workplace where people enjoy going to work, their business suffers therefore it becomes a vicious circle, less profit and less efficiencies means they must have to cut more people and when that is the atmosphere people keep their head down and keep quiet.
Crazy huh ?

For people and businesses to thrive they need to continually change and learn and adapt and in order to do so you need to listen and reward those that speak up and want to change or advance the process or identify the inconsistencies in order to fix them.

 When you come in shut your door and shut all that is good about a workplace, you shut out teamwork and the feeling that every voice matters and is essential and you become the loser.
Again it develops another vicious circle, the leader who comes in and shuts out their people will always fail and they do not want to lose their job so they yell and demand without ever really knowing or appreciated what their employees do or listen to them on what may need improvement.
Everyone loses !

Here’s an idea- keep your door open or better yet take the dam door off it’s hinges!
Sit in the bullpen a few times a week- LISTEN !

Foster a real TEAM !

Stop being defensive and angry and open your eyes , you will not only feel better about yourself you may actually start to create real change then attitudes will change and people may even enjoy going to work and that is when the real magic will happen and you will do things that you never thought possible.

Develop a “ Keep your head Up” mentality!!

Loving Life

Lyrics from Zac Brown -

Yeah, I'm king shit, that's what I thought when I was young
I knew everything 'til my know it all found out I didn't know too much
So I had a big piece of humble pie, and bought a ticket to a show
I found a new perspective, some brand new friends, and I found my first real home

We all put our pants on one leg at a time
Oh, struggle's real, so here's the deal
Ain't no one gettin' out alive

So we dance all night (dance all night)
A little pickin' too (a little pickin' too)
We take the weight of the world and lift it right up off of you (that's what we do)
Oh, you got a broken heart, just need a getaway for a good time
I got good news
That's what me and the boys in the band were born to do

You could spend your whole life however you see fit
Writin' at a desk, diggin' in a ditch, who's ass you gotta kiss?
So come on now, jump right in 'cause life goes by so fast
How many summers do you have left before you pushin' up the grass