You stumble because it’s more about the path than the end goal.
Today is another day. It is full of potential, possibilities, and other great stuff.
If that’s how you perceive your reality. For some, today is another day. But it’s full of fear, distress, uncertainty, woe, and other awful stuff.
Both these perceptions are on the personal level. I’m not even going to go into the high-level happenings (such as the inauguration).
YOU get to choose — every single day — how you expect the day to be. …
I would love for you to read my stuff. But how do I get you interested?
I have been writing for most of my life.
My first illustrated, sci-fi book was written when I was 9. The next, when I was 13. Then, on and off, I continued to write various fictions.
In 1998, I started what would evolve into my fantasy series — The Source Chronicles. As I worked to go the traditional route for publishing, I had my first professional edit.
My first editor cost a lot of money — but taught me so many things about writing choices, editing, perspective, and more. …
Tolerance is insufficient — but acceptance is empowering.
When it comes to differences among people, the word tolerance gets thrown around a lot.
Tolerance gets applied to tangible differences, like skin color, hair color, body type, sex, and so on. But frequently, it gets applied to intangible differences. This includes sexual orientation, gender, religion, nationality, politics, and the like.
Tolerance, however, is insufficient. Why? Because it implies negativity. As in — “well, I don’t like that — but I’ll tolerate it.”
Why is the judgment included in this? Therein lies the problem with tolerance. …
When it comes to science fiction, for example, plausibility is an interesting question.
For the most part, the fiction I write is in one of three genres. Fantasy, science fiction, and Steampunk.
When it comes to fantasy, I get to make shit up. The worlds you create can operate with nary a thought towards certain scientific laws. What’s more, you can have fantastical creatures, other humanoids, and powers that don’t exist in our world and need ZERO plausibility (save connecting to your reader and their invested suspension of disbelief).
With Steampunk, it’s largely about the aesthetic. Gears, steam-powered contraptions based on ideas of a bygone age, and steam-powered engines. Some give this a fantasy element with whole new worlds (which has been my approach) while others do an alternate history — giving the Victorian era incredible technologies they didn’t have. …
This is my life. Hence, all accountability for it is on me.
The people in your life who say things to “help you” or “guide you” out of love may mean well — but their efforts might have the opposite effect.
This is especially noticeable when you are taking a leap of faith or choosing a path against the grain. When you are doing something unusual that can cause people to “warn” you “for your own good” and the like.
Why is this the case? Because we live in a society riddled with paradox. Be the best that you can be — but don’t leave this box. Strive for achievement — but don’t get “too big for your britches”. …
Accountability empowers in so many ways. The world needs more accountability.
I used to be really good at the blame game.
It was super-easy to blame this, that, or the other thing for all the faults I saw in my life. I blamed this for getting fat and out of shape, that for costing me the job, or the other thing for my ongoing dissatisfaction.
Blame is particularly easy when it’s everywhere. Spend just a few minutes online and you’ll see someone blaming someone for something. It gets ridiculous VERY quickly when you look for the blame.
Why is blame so prevalent? I think that we have this false belief that blame removes responsibility. If you blame someone or something YOU cease to be accountable for it. …
Just because my way is mine doesn’t mean we can’t find some common ground (within reason).
We are closing in on having 8 billion people on this planet. Let me write that out — that’s 8,000,000,000 people.
Let’s say you know, personally, 100 people total. Maybe not well, but for the sake of argument, it’s a good round number. That means that you know 0.00000000125 of the total number of people on this planet. That’s a SUPER small number of people.
Each of those people has their own way of thinking, feeling, perceiving, and experiencing life. That’s one hundred unique points of view and ways to be. Now — multiply that by eighty million (80,000,000) times. …
It’s all too easy to overlook the importance of reading in your life.
For many people, their job entails a lot of reading. However, there is NO pleasure taken in that reading. They are reading facts and figures for data input; customer comments and complaints; technical manuals; online materials; and other similar, largely uninteresting bits.
For many people, all their reading is done to glean info. This includes the aforementioned manuals, news, social media to keep up with friends and family, and similar. Largely not things that do much to stir the mind or spark the imagination.
This, it turns out, is a really easy trap to fall into. You get caught up in reading only for very specific purposes and don’t desire to read anything else. …
There is huge positivity in giving tangible and intangible things — giving empowers via a two-way street.
A lot of people think of giving in the material. Giving time, money, donations, and other energetic matter.
But giving is just as powerful — if not, in some ways, more powerful — when it’s immaterial.
You can give immaterial things. This includes smiles, compliments, helpful (solicited) suggestions and advice, and other things that cost you nothing.
But the most powerful thing you can give is gratitude.
All of these and more don’t just empower and increase positivity for other people. Each and every one of these notions come back to you. …
Perseverance and patience are the keys to getting where you desire to go.
Patience has never been my strong suit. That’s why, after 24 years, I finally named my primary fencing sword Patience.
This is important because it is a reminder that it takes not only perseverance — but patience to get anywhere with anything. When I was healing after getting hit by the car, I persevered and worked my ass off to recover as quickly as possible — and though I was not patient enough for the timelines my doctors gave me — I employed patience to do the necessary work.
Despite being unathletic, overweight, and otherwise unbalanced — I determined I would not suck at fencing. While I am by no means one of the best at my game — I have built a great deal of skill through perseverance and patience. …
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