The Man In The Mirror

I have been talking to someone very important to me about life. Work, kids, home, dreams, wants, needs, you name it. One thing that has become a more visible component of our talks is how I view the world. I was sitting here this morning brainstorming my feelings on life and wow it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I no longer like the man I see in the mirror.

For almost my entire life I have been proud of who I am. The person I was deep down. When nobody was looking I was still me. And Grandma was proud. I was a man I wanted my children to grow to be like. Positive. The glass was more than half full and if it wasnt enough I could figure out how to get it filled to the rim.

Lately though it seems like too many waves are crashing on me and I cant stand against them. I don't know when it started but I see a short temper. I feel tired of the fight that I didn't pick. The fight I don't need and certainly don't want. I don't think I am the aggressor but I clearly am overly defensive when the old me would have smiled and walked away. I am not who I was. Grandma would smile and love me but she would not like what she sees.

How did this happen to me? When? What in the world am I thinking when I let the things that truly are NOT important to me just knock me off my feet and upset who I am? At the end of the day are these things of any value? Did I put all I had into a losing argument just to be upset and bitter? Worse yet, how much life and love am I missing out on because I let these things control me?

Is Susan Powder in the house?? Remember her? Her message was simple. STOP THE INSANITY. Take a measure of yourself and stop all the things that are undoing who you are. Make decisions based on fact and value, not on knee-jerk reactionary impulses that hurt our image far more than winning a meaningless fight would help it. In the end winning the fight will cost us the war. Because those we love the most will not want to be around us. They wont want to be involved with the man or woman it made us. And when we lose that, we lose everything.

Let me tell you it is not easy sitting alone and saying to yourself "wow, you really have changed. I don't like who we have become" Being that honest with yourself is hard. We want to justify everything. Its this reason, and that. And if this wasn't going on...please. Stop the insanity. Dig down and find your core. Decide to rebuild. Start being the person you remember you were. Start being the person you once loved. The person you were proud of.

HEARTWORK: Brainstorm the person you project to the world. If you were on the outside looking in, would you want to be this persons friend? Lover? Soul mate? If you answered no then get out the scalpel and start cutting out the parts you don't like. Get back to being the person you respected. Get back to being the person you wanted your sons or daughters to be. Get back to being the person others loved and wanted to be around. Be him again. Be her again.

BrainstormingLife@yahoo.com