Probably honesty, no one likes being lied to and I’m no different. I treat people like I want to be treated so it’s very simple, do unto others. I have very few friends, but the ones I have are priceless. All of my childhood friends are long gone, not by design it’s just life and there’s no very few friendships that last a lifetime, some people, like me move away and we try to maintain a relationship, but the reality is very few are able to do that. I had to learn how to make friends in my forties which was so much easier than in my teens or early twenties, it’s a no nonsense time in our life so we can be straight forward without fear of hurting anyone’s feelings. Life is simple, but it’s a constant struggle to keep it that way, for some reason we feel the need to complicate it.

I was raised Roman Catholic and practiced for all of my youth into my late teens, but after that I just went on living without then need to go to church every Sunday. When I started studying martial arts I was introduced to Buddhism which I related to much more than Catholicism. After all I was an adult at the ripe age of 21 years old I was struggling to go my own way, but my parents kept pulling into their way. I never tried to educate them on Buddhism I knew they would never try it, but I didn’t get the same respect, there was a lot of negative, hurtful comments that only divided us and it remained that way nearly their entire lives. Ironically after all the BS after my dad passed I met a woman from Thailand who is a practitioner of Buddhism and my mother loved her. We got married and are both active in Buddhism.

Do I?? It was the greatest, I mean we got to talk to people face to face even if we didn’t want to we had to in order to get something done, like grocery shopping or clothes shopping or showing up to work. I was born in 1960, we had a black and white box T.V. That got 3 channels that we only watched in the evenings mostly the weekend. When we were entering our teen years we worked towards getting our drivers license saving our paper route money and odd job cash money from birthdays Christmas’s wherever we earned it until we were able to afford a car. We bought what we could afford, by 16 we were pretty mechanically inclined from fixing lawnmowers, snow blowers and mini bikes the skills we learned from our fathers definitely helped. Saturdays or Sundays we would drive until we were lost, sometimes a little most times very lost like 3/4 hours of driving into the unknown lost, but we always found our way home. We had a built in GPS a magnetic pole or genetic compass that helped guide us home. We trusted our instincts listened to our gut feeling had a far deeper connection to our fellow human beings and Mother Nature. We learned from our parents and grandparents, our teachers loved their job and did it with pride and dignity. Our parents rarely knew where we were, but knew we were capable of doing the right things because they raised us with love, compassion, respect and understanding. One dream of mine today is that the internet and everything connected to it be destroyed eliminated so we can go back to how we were meant to live.

I know what I’m not good at more than what I am good at. Many people have said I was good at something I was doing that just seemed to be second nature to me, but more often than not something I didn’t enjoy doing. Whatever talents you have in your youth doesn’t necessarily mean you will carry them into adulthood, as a child I loved performing for people, playing make believe and wanted to pursue a career in acting and the arts, but the real world is entirely different and finding success in that realm is impossible… that’s what my parents told me. “You need to get a job that pays “ is what I was told by my parents so that’s what I did. Not a career type job just a paying job with little chance for growth or advancement. So I became good at settling for less, and continued to do so my entire life, which is far from over, but I have lived longer than I will. I have had many different jobs enough to say” Jack of all trades master of none” I have never had a job I was passionate about, but I am good at many different jobs… just not great.

Having time to pursue my interest with someone who shares the same interests. Having a nice home small enough to manage yet big enough to entertain. To not have to worry about money. Our dream is to be able to fly first class or business class, but the price is so ridiculous it doesn’t make sense for us. We are healthy and very happy in our lives and marriage I would say we have it all now. I am just a couple of years away from retirement and will have more time to travel mostly to Thailand where we have a home as well as here, and from there so places we want to see are closer. I guess for me having it “all” is what I have now.

I feel life is is full of sacrifices, some are good others not so much. As a young man, mid teens or so, my mind was full of dreams of a life filled with travel and adventure learning new and exotic cultures in which I wouldn’t have a mailing address just kind of roaming around the world until I got to where I wanted to be, wherever that would be. I had a plan it was most likely unrealistic at best, I would enlist in the navy or Air Force and stay for maybe two re-ups learn a trade or skill that I could hone and master and begin to think about settling down in my mid thirties or so, I would know when I got there. Instead finished high school found a job and stay in town, which made my parents very happy to the point where my father hired me to work for him as soon as he could. I would spend the next 16 years there, it was a wood shop and I would become a craftsman in skills I still use today. I would get married have children just like my parents and all 3 of my brothers, unlike my parents and brothers I would throw it all away after being married for ten years I was done living a lie, living a life someone else wanted me to live a life I had no control over. I divorced which was the worst experience filled with anger hatred and resentment, but I had been dying inside myself for so many years it was worse than having cancer and one day I just died inside there was nothing left I was a shell of a human being. So I sacrificed the love of my family altered both of my sons lives by leaving not knowing how nasty my ex had become. So I left with no plan I was too old to join the service and had zero resources because I lost everything in the divorce, a friend invited me to go live with them in Florida and I did and I have an amazing life, but it came with a huge amount of sacrifice the kind that gives me nightmares even today 27 years later. The journey has been filled with ups and downs but isn’t that what life is?!?! You bet it is.

I proudly subscribe to being both. It is extremely difficult to be just one all the time I don’t believe our ego can truly handle being one all the time. Anyone who is the most successful has had to walk in both shoes at some point.

Taking better control of my mind. Over the past 10-12 years I have tried and have had some success with controlling my thoughts, emotions, anxiety and how I respond to people and situations. I work to be a better listener when in conversations with others. I try to only give my opinions when asked and to respond respectfully. I simply take a beat, sometimes 2, but before I speak I consider the affect of my opinion and words will impact the person or people I’m speaking with. It’s not foolproof and I have struggled with it constantly, but then I realized what I needed to do was surround myself with like minded individuals and avoid the negativity of others. I have found myself walking away from many situations where I didn’t want to be in, which turned into a great way to manage my weight due to all the walking I’ve been doing.

Being able to live the life I want to live within the reason of the law of the land. To be able to exercise the rights that were given to me by the country I live in. To be able to pursue careers that enable me to be the best version of myself. To be able to earn enough to have a home a family. As a baby boomer I can tell you we as a society have had so many of our freedoms taken away from us by the very people we elect to protect our freedoms it’s sickening. I don’t know exactly when it happened maybe the late seventies early eighties, but it did the gradual removal of our rights and freedoms and we allowed it like the obedient sheep that we are. I myself am disappointed with our government, country and society today, our own government has been burrowing up our ass and in our lives for the past fifty plus years, and we let them. Our government is so big now it is impossible to dismantle it, we allowed them to make laws that cost us hard earned money to support them, they pass laws that allow them to be career politicians, they break the very laws they make right under our noses and we let them. They control the way we live work and play all in the name of protection, from who?? And who is protecting from our government??

Well, I am 3 years away from retirement and my wife and I are planning on moving a little further north and start a new business. My wife was a CPA for over 20 years in her native country, she has been a server here for the past 7 years. Now we are going to start an air B&B cleaning and repair business as well as working with local realtors. We have already been in contact with 6 different realtors who are interested in working with us. We can also do the same business in her native country which is where I would like to spend a far amount of time there.