Friends vs Acquaintances

 I don't have any friends... hold on, wait! Hear me out. When you think of friends, what comes to mind? It's someone who has been in your life for a while, someone who shares some common interests with you. Someone who loves to hang out with you, and visits regularly. Someone who you strongly feel in your heart and soul will be there for you in an emergency. 

Now on the flip side. When you think of acquaintances, what comes to mind? It's someone you know regularly, they and you know of each other's existence. Such as people you know at work and other social situations. But that is about it. now there may be a few times you may hang out after work etc. but that does not put them in the same category as a friend. 

Now this is all just my opinion. If you don't agree that's fine. We all have our definitions of what friends and acquaintances are.

This is mine. 

As I think back on my life I have noticed one big thing, I've never had a real friend. Now I take 100 percent responsibility for this. I have always been a very awkward introvert, not knowing how to do small talk has really hurt my chances at friends. Still, at 48 I watch people just talking up a storm about anything and everything. Personally, I have to go through this whole scripted monologue in my head before I even feel somewhat comfortable talking. 

I would give my left nut if someone would be 100 percent honest with me and tell me what is it about me seriously that people feel the need to avoid me and not truly try to know me. I've got to be doing something off-putting for people to not want to truly engage with me. I've asked a few of my "acquaintances" in my life that I thought would be straight shooters but they just told me things they thought I wanted to hear. Anywho, moving on.

Don't get me wrong I love some of my acquaintances in my life. I think they are the best. But none of them ever really try to be in my life. To me, if they know about me being introverted and being an awkward person, and yes they know because I always tell people so they know up front that I'm not being rude or anything by the way I am. Even with them knowing this I feel as though they think I should always be the one to call or text first. Or the one to plan outings or get-togethers. For some of my acquaintances, I can go months without talking or texting. And somehow when I bring this up, it is always my fault. Please make it make sense. 

A true friend would make an effort a real effort to be friends with you. I've made the effort and put myself out there and made myself uncomfortable for the chance to make a solid friend. But then I am back to the part where I must be doing something off-putting to run them off. As I come to the end of my thoughts on friends vs acquaintances I have strongly come to the conclusion that I will never have a friend only acquaintances. Which is saddening. If anyone ever feels like having the balls to tell me what I need to hear and actually help me, I welcome it. And if not...

It is what it is and I said what I said. 

Jack

This is for you

    For some strange reason as I get older I am developing an addiction to journals, I keep buying new ones and then scared to write in them.  However, I'm not much of a writer but I think my subconscious is telling me I need to write.  So for the past couple of years, I've tried just that, writing. But sadly I get upset and frustrated with my writing skills and the content of the subject along with the pain in my hand.

    I will write a few pages then my hand is on fire and I look at the sloppy writing and the subject and I flat out hate it so much that I tear it out and as a result, I ruin the journal.  I've ruined a few in the last couple of years but it wasn't until one day it finally occurred to me what my problem was.  Most of my life I've been criticized for almost everything. Being quiet, shy, awkward, standoffish, negative, complainer, loner, etc. The biggest thing has always been the way I talk and get things off my chest. I never considered myself as complaining or saying my issues were worse than others. I just want to say how I was feeling. But sadly the way it sounds coming out gives everyone the idea I'm complaining.

    So after years of hearing people saying stop complaining and everyone has issues etc. that now when I write and when I read what I wrote that's what I hear. And that's why I always hate what I write.  Until one day I thought to myself "This is for you". And just like that I realized I'm not writing for others or their approval, I'm writing for me.  So that's what I going to start doing.  Going to start using those four words every time I write to remind me it's for me and me alone. If others don't like it that's their problem, not mine.

    Not sure where writing is going to take me, don't think I'll be a famous novelist but I hope to leave behind a few journals for others to see what was going on in my life if they choose to.

This was for me,

Jack



   

Memento Mori

Full Disclosure: This was written by the Daily Stoic Website. All rights belong to them. I just thought this was worth sharing. Please visit their site for more awesome insights. www.dailystoic.com
- Jack

“Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. … The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time.” Seneca

At a Roman triumph, the majority of the public would have their eyes glued to the victorious general at the front—one of the most coveted spots during Roman times. Only a few would notice the aide in the back, right behind the commander, whispering into his ear, “Remember, thou art mortal.” What a reminder to hear at the peak of glory and victory!

It is reminders like this one that we desperately need in our own lives—a thought or an idea that we’d rather ignore, do everything to avoid and pretend is not true. Most often, our ego runs away from anything that reminds us of the reality that sits at odds with the comfortable narrative we have build for ourselves. Or, we are simply petrified to look at life’s facts as they are. And there is one simple fact that most of us are utterly scared to meditate, reflect on and face head on: We are going to die. Everyone around us is going to die.

Such reminders and exercises take part of Memento Mori—the ancient practice of reflection on mortality that goes back to Socrates, who said that the proper practice of philosophy is “about nothing else but dying and being dead.” In early Buddhist texts, a prominent term is maraṇasati, which translates as ‘remember death.’ Some Sufis have been called the “people of the graves,” because of their practice of frequenting graveyards to ponder on death and one’s mortality.

Throughout history, Memento Mori reminders have come in many forms. Some, like the aide behind the general, were there to humble. Others were invented to inspire zest for life. The essayist Michel de Montaigne, for instance, was fond of an ancient Egyptian custom where during times of festivities, a skeleton would be brought out with people cheering “Drink and be merry for when you’re dead you will look like this.”

To us moderns this sounds like an awful idea. Who wants to think about death? But what if instead of being scared and unwilling to embrace this truth we did the opposite? What if reflecting and meditating on that fact was a simple key to living life to the fullest? Or that it was the key to our freedom—as Montaigne put it, “To practice death is to practice freedom. A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.”
 
In his Meditations—essentially his own private journal—Marcus Aurelius wrote that “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” That was a personal reminder to continue living a life of virtue NOW, and not wait. The French painter Philippe de Champaigne expressed a similar sentiment in his painting Still Life with a Skull, which showed the three essentials of existence — the tulip (life), the skull (death), and the hourglass (time). The original painting is part of a genre referred to as Vanitas, a form of 17th century artwork featuring symbols of mortality which encourage reflection on the meaning and fleetingness of life.
 
Meditating on your mortality is only depressing if you miss the point. It is in fact a tool to create priority and meaning. It’s a tool that generations have used to create real perspective and urgency. To treat our time as a gift and not waste it on the trivial and vain. Death doesn’t make life pointless but rather purposeful. And fortunately, we don’t have to nearly die to tap into this. A simple reminder can bring us closer to living the life we want. It doesn’t matter who you are or how many things you have left to be done, a car can hit you in an intersection and drive your teeth back into your skull. That’s it. It could all be over. Today, tomorrow, someday soon.

The Stoic finds this thought invigorating and humbling. It is not surprising that one of Seneca’s biographies is titled Dying Every Day. After all, it is Seneca who urged us to tell ourselves “You may not wake up tomorrow,” when going to bed and “You may not sleep again,” when waking up as reminders of our mortality. Or as another Stoic, Epictetus, urged his students: “Keep death and exile before your eyes each day, along with everything that seems terrible— by doing so, you’ll never have a base thought nor will you have excessive desire.” Use those reminders and meditate on them daily—let them be the building blocks of living your life to the fullest and not wasting a second.

My Confession and Thoughts

         I must admit after 40 years of being a worry expert and self-doubt master, it has been a very hard change for me to take on a new philosophy of the stoics. It has helped me in small ways but I still have a long way to go. Getting the self-doubt and self-criticism under control I think may help me break through years of bad living. It's no joke it's hard very hard breaking a 40-year-old habit is not an easy task.  But I love the way the stoics make me feel.  Gives me hope and wonder. I've spent the last 8 months or so in a stupor. After the ordeal with my wife and problems at work, I pretty much hit close to the bottom and now I'm trying to get back up on my feet. But it's not that easy for me. My current situation is that I am so down and out my depression and self-doubt are stopping me from pushing through the haze that covers me every day.

         One of my biggest regrets in life is I never listened to my parents or step-parents or any adult when they tried to teach me something, now as an adult, I am pretty clueless as to how to handle many adult life decisions. All because I didn't listen when I was younger.  I should have gone to college but I was too lazy and hard-headed. Only when I it my twenty did I start taking things seriously. But I still made so many bad decisions that got me nowhere.  Now I'm 41 years old with no real skill sets or college degree as of this moment in life I am a glorified mail boy. And from my experiences in job interviews, I will be a laughing stock to them. The only thing I have going for me is that I am a very loyal employee I do have old school work ethics (never late, never call out, etc.) but in today's world that is flat-out use less. I own I home and a car that is slowly fading away and I have no clue how to handle it.

        The thing about depression is it makes you contemplate suicide often, and in the last year I have come very close to biting the bullet, or since I don't own a gun maybe an overdose on pain meds. However, I can't kill myself due to a promise I made to my dying grandmother as she faded away. And anybody who knows me well knows I am OCD about keeping my promises. My grandmother was a genius even in her last few hours she knew I'd be tested in life. And that I would want to end. She knew how much she meant to me she knew I would keep my promise. And I always will. I feel if I can overcome the obstacles in my life I'll be a better man for it. Plus I really want to go back to school but sadly I am unable to afford it. Because I got so much I have to pay. (Full Disclosure) In the last year I finally after 40 years developed an addiction. I never in a million years thought I'd be an addict. But here it goes... I'm an online shopping addict. I couldn't seem to stop buying things even though I knew I had no money. But on the flip side as of June 2017, I finally stopped, it was hard and still is. But now I have a bill of 1500.00 due to PayPal and my credit card is around 300.00 at the moment so now I'm stressing about that.

       Yesterday my car's brakes started to act funny and now I'm worried my brakes will go out and I'll wreck and maybe hurt someone or myself. So now I'm scared because I don't have money to fix it. I am so unsure of what is to come of my life, scared I may lose my ride and not be able to make it to work in turn can't make money for bills then may lose my home or worse. I am so lost right now. I read every day to help me take my mind off things and gather hope from what I'm reading. I reread a lot of Marcus Aurelius writings and Epictetus and Seneca as well, they help calm me down and I really like it. Just wish I could obtain the skills and knowledge of being a real stoic and a real adult and know how to proceed in my life, right now I feel like a stupid teenager still.

       I know this is a lot of complaining and most people in the world will be like stop complaining....everyone has problems with them I say fuck you! Don't you think I know that!  I know quite well that others around this world are way worse off them me. So why are you always coming at me with such judgment? I don't judge you not even one ounce because it's not worth my time. I write this today to simply get it off my chest and for the ones that really care about me maybe they might want to help. Please understand I don't want your pity or handouts just advice or help me find ways to improve my situation.

       One last thing my health in the last year has gone downhill and I may not be around much longer but I want everyone to know I love them and always will. Not sure if anyone will ever read this. But if you do just know I did not kill myself! I ask that everyone be strong and go on with their lives its what I want everyone to do.  Love you all!

     Jack

      

Thoughts of the day.

          I've read a few books in the last few months, a couple are from authors from 50+ years ago and I find myself wondering if the principles they laid forth are able to be applied into today's era?  I'm currently reading Dale Carangies book on how to win friends and influence people. So I read the topics he writes and wonder would that work on someone in 2017? Some parts of me think not but I surely will not know until I try. I love his principles in the book and I'm going to apply them the best I can and see what the outcome is.
       
         I've known my whole life that I had learning disabilities all through schooling but I didn't realize until after I started reading how much and how many words I don't know how to pronounce or their meanings, I have to stop myself from calling myself stupid and all. I knew for a fact that math was my worst subject but now I'm learning that I didn't learn so much in English as I thought I did. I've always told people that I have more common sense than book smart and it's true, however, I really am trying hard to change that.
     
        However, the new philosophy that I've adapted and started to apply to my life is really helping me feel better in so many ways, The Stoic Philosophy is amazing if you really study it and understand there meanings. It for one has helped me stop worrying so much and that's great in my eyes. Every day I learn a little more about the Stoics and I couldn't be happier with the choices I've made in my life in the past few months due to the Stoic belief. Just think 7 months ago I wanted to die I begged for it even prayed for it and I don't believe in prayer that's how bad it was.  I hated myself and my life. But one single video on Facebook changed my life, for as long as I have left on this planet I will always owe my life to Mentorbox, you may find it silly and that's ok. But years from now if someone reads this let it be known to them that Mentorbox saved my life for the intended reason of their company, simply put in their name Mentor, I needed a mentor 7 months ago and I found one/many in Mentorbox. That was their sales pitch in one since.


JLH

Ponder This....

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity. said Albert Schweitzer

People stopped caring a long time ago.  People always want to say that they had it worse than you, how do they know it was worse than yours.  Why can't people put their lives on hold for a few minutes to help someone else?  People are so greedy by wanting all the attention, that they will walk all over you and not even blink an eye.
This is why the world will end.  People are going to kill each other with hate, negativity, lies, and greed. They say the world is going to end in 2012, they get their information from a calendar of all things.  I think the world will go on but I think somewhere around 2030 or 2040 people will turn on each other with mass riots driven by hate, greed, negativity, and lies.  I try not to worry about the end, instead I like to focus on the present.  Because I can control things here in the present. I can't change what happened in the past, and I can't predict the future, but as long as I have a breath in my body I have a say in what happens in the present, that being said, I'm going to enjoy the rest of life however long I have left on my terms.

I refuse to be torn down, pushed aside, or controlled by someone else's rules, beliefs, thoughts, or wishes.  I have my own brain, heart, and soul. I'm sick and tired of fearing what people think of me.  That brings me to my next point.  Why do people fear what they don't understand?  Why do people fear what people think of them?  We were all born with our own brains so wake up people and think for yourself.  Think about this we were all born alone and we will die alone, what we do in the meantime is up to us.  So live for yourself and not others.  The people of the world have taken peer pressure to a whole new level.  Peer pressure is so big and powerful that I think it is really the world president.  I call him or it President Fear!   Because we all live in fear.  Scared to go to school because you are wearing hammie down clothes from goodwill or scared to read your term paper out loud in class because you have a studder problem.  I lived in fear for 31 years because I was different, I was shy and scared to speak afraid of what people around me would think of me inside their minds.  I always feared what they thought of me to themselves.

I say it's time to stand up and speak up, rise up and conquer your fears time to overcome the dark cloud that has been raining on your life. You can get your life back.  Fear is a powerful thing but there's something else far more powerful and that's you!   But here's the kicker, It all starts with a choice.  You either choose to live in fear or you choose to overcome it.  It's not easy, It's not fun and it's no picnic, it's life and we only get one shot at this life.  I choose to overcome.  So I've overcome my fears, but it wasn't easy let me take you on a tour of my brain for the last five years.  There was death, there was pain. I lost my father to a man with a gun,  I lost my Grandmother Monroe to a bad heart and a sorry hospital.  I quit a good job I had for three and a half years because I feared it was going under, got another good job only to lose it to a Massive Panic Attack (that caused me to blackout), and then I was jobless for five months.  I lost my home and became homeless, sleeping in my car for two weeks, I've lost four good friends and I've been single for the last seven years.  Are you depressed yet?  Reading all of that would make anybody sad.  So tell me how does one overcome such sadness and heartache?  Do you think it's God or maybe it's drugs, how about alcohol?  Nope, it's none of the above.  Think about this: "I understand that it's hard for everyone, but one cannot give in to emotions... we'll have to draw lessons from the current crisis and now we'll have to work on overcoming it." said Boris Yeltsin

I'm not going to sit here and tell you what your problems are, I'm no doctor.  I'm just a guy that wants to help.  I'll tell you what helped me,  It was my Grandma Horne she's been dead for the last 27 years so it's not like I asked her for advice and she gave it to me, no.  I sat down one day by myself and I asked myself what kind of man would she want me to be?  Then I cried, cried so hard.  It felt good to cry because I hadn't cried one tear in 27 years for nobody.  People used to say I was cold and heartless because I didn't cry at funerals.  After all that I have overcome in the last five years, there still remains one fear. It is my biggest fear and that fear is, I fear that when I die I will not spend eternity with my Grandma Horne.  If you are still confused my Grandma Horne was my life.  When she died 27 years ago all the happiness in my body died with her on that hospital bed.  Still to this day, that is why it's so hard for me to find happiness, I know it's possible and it's out there I just haven't found it yet.

   So happiness is hard to find and life can be challenging sometimes, love can kick our asses like nobody's business.  But that's no reason to fear it or hate it.  Take what this life gives and make the best of it. We all come into this world crying and everyone around us is smiling, live your life to the point that when you die, you are the one smiling and everyone around you is crying.
So I'm choosing to overcome my fears and live my life to the standards I choose, not the standards of people around me.  I choose to use my brain and my heart to make decisions to best suit my life.

What do you choose to do with your life?

 JLH

I've Tried

I've tried ..... two little words that mean so much but they carry no weight to them in the ears that hear them.
Trying to fit in these days is not so easy anymore.  People are so judgmental now. I've seen so many changes in the world, when I was 15 I never thought that there would be cell phones because when I was 15 Pagers had just come out and it was the thing back then.  I even remember the famous Pong, the first-ever video game console.  We've come along why since then, people are no different.  People used to be somewhat nice 15 to 20 years ago.  But in the last 41 years, I have witnessed a lot of hate, violence, and death.  I've kinda had enough of death in my life.  So why it is those two little words (I've Tried) are overlooked when you try talking with someone about something that is bothering you?

As I mentioned in my last blog (Ponder This) I said that people nowadays think they are the only ones with problems.  Ask yourself this when you approach someone about a problem you're facing what is the first thing they usually say to you?  Does this sound familiar? (You ain't the only one with problems) Yeah, that's the kind of people we are all turning into.  "My problem is bigger than your problems. Kind of people." I thought only guys said shit like that when we were in the locker room talking about the sizes of are dicks. OOO Fuck!  We are turning into teenage boys haha.

So what in the world is it going to take to make people listen??
I've tried to help you understand,
I've tried to help you see....  Me,
I've tried to help you see....  You,
I've tried to fix what needs fixing,
I've tried to make you happy,
I've tried to make myself happy,
I've tried killing myself twice,
I've tried asking for help,
I've tried until I couldn't try anymore...

Then I asked myself, what would my Grandma Horne want me to do with my life?  The first thing she would have said is that killing myself would be the coward's way out, and I wasn't a coward and then proceed to pop my ass one good time for thinking such nonsense.

So I promised her that I would never ever try killing myself again because you know what they say third time the charm.  So since then, I have been just floating around in this life with no real direction. When I was around 31 my father was kidnapped, robbed, and murdered.  He worked as a cab driver for Gold Star Taxi and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I tried to put on a brave face for a few months but behind closed doors I was devastated, it hit me like a Mack truck.  In court one of the guys that were involved in my dad's demise said he heard my dad say (why why) after they shot him for the first time.  Then they shot him two more times in the back of the head just to make sure he was dead.  I think that bothered me more than anything else.  I tried to hide my tears and grief from everybody, because my dad told me as I grew up that crying was a sign of weakness and only girls cried, told me men are not weak.
But as the weeks and months passed after his death, I became more and more upset to the point I had to talk to someone, but then I found I had no one to talk to. Let me point out one thing here when I say I didn't have anyone to talk to I am saying I really didn't have anyone I felt comfortable talking to.

     My being upset all the time turned into me being pissed off all the time.  I have always been upset and pissed at myself for not ever making anything of myself.  But now I'm majorly pissed off all the time.  Then that didn't last long until I started the I don't give a shit attitude.  At this point in my life, I was so unhappy with my life that I went to bed every night praying for death, I prayed that I would die in my sleep and every morning I would wake up and start the cycle all over again.  One night I dreamed I was having a heart attack it was so bad it woke me up and my chest was hurting so bad, I couldn't breathe and the left side of my body was numb. The very next night I had another dream. Still, this dream was very calm, peaceful and almost beautiful, it had bright white light then it was my Grandma Horne standing there and she said one word to me and it was "Live"  Since then I have been getting better and trying to enjoy life because that's what she wanted me to do.  Life for me these days is still hard and I still get into my moods, I still have to fight away the bad thoughts in my head. In fact, I am a little happier these days. So in closing, what I have learned is giving up is never the answer, and pushing forward is.
Keep trying things until you figure them out, Things will always work themselves out so in the meantime be calm and relax.  I used to tell myself that dying was the only way I could ever get anybody to listen to me, but then I realized I have a tongue, so I decided to start using it.

JLH