yippie-kay-yay
"John McClane: You know what you get for being a hero? Nothin'. You get shot at. You get a little pat on the back, blah, blah, blah, attaboy. You get divorced. Your wife can't remember your last name. Your kids don't want to talk to you. You get to eat a lot of meals by yourself. Trust me, kid, nobody wants to be that guy.
Matt Farrell: Then why you doing this?
John McClane: Because there's no body else to do it right now, that's why. Believe me, if there were somebody else to do it, I'd let them do it, but there's not. So we're doing it.
Matt Farrell: Ah. That's what makes you that guy. "

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Omnia Causa Fiunt

AAA FootballThat’s Latin for “Everything Happens For a Reason”

I’m a firm believer in that saying. Call it fate, call it faith, heck call it dumb luck. But I do believe that everything that happens to us, good and bad, happens for a reason. If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. Why do we fall? So we learn to pick ourselves back up. The cliche’s are endless.

Today’s world is full of distractions. There’s temptation around every corner. There are endless reasons to just sit down just suffer in the sorrow in your heart. To feel sorry for yourself. To blame it on something or someone else. But the truth is, you do control your own destiny. We always forget that.

Sure, sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. And yes, sometimes things are out of your control on one day or another. But there is always a tomorrow. Sometimes we find ourselves waiting for tomorrow to come find us. Its been known to take a few days, weeks, months, years, and sometimes, it never comes.

But who’s fault is it if all you do is sit and wait?

To wait for a better tomorrow to find you? Wait for that good news you were waiting for to just show up on your doorstep? Wait for that motivation to get off your ass and make something of yourself, to better yourself?

You get stuck in a rut. Same old day, in and day out. Get up, go to work, go here, go there. You’re just going through the motions. You are merely a passenger in the car that is your life. Watching, waiting. Never doing something to change the course of your own history.

I’ve been in one of them ruts lately. I think there are lots of reasons that it happened. Work, politics, personal. Everything played a part. But only because I let myself be complacent. In fact, now that I can see clearly, I think I’ve been in it a really long time.

Life is a roller coaster. There’s always ups and downs.

omnia causa fiunt

I’ve been on a bit of a soul searching venture the last week or 2. Trying to figure out some things. Felling sorry for myself, the whole bit.

Today I had someone who knows why I’ve been down, ask me something that I thought was weird at the time. They asked if they could pray for me. I thought to myself, “why do you have to ask?” I said sure and forgot all about it. As the day went on, I felt better. I felt the weight lift. The clouds lessen. My mind clear.

I came home to the empty house and instead of pouring a drink, firing up twitter, and turning on the TV, I went downstairs and worked out.

I had a little near death experience with the weight bench while bench pressing (bench collapsed). I’ve made countless excuses not to work out for years. Was this just another one? Should I just walk away again? But I went to the exercise bike. Its been a few years since I used it and forgot how to set the program. I figured in my current shape, 20 minutes would do, but I got stuck with 30 minutes. I figured I’d just quit at 20 minutes….

While riding, I thought back to when I was younger. When I’d just keep running, keep going, no stop, no quit. I pushed through tonight and finished the whole 30 minutes. Endorphins, adrenaline, what ever it was. But while doing so, I was reminded of the good old days of my youth when I’d do 2 hours on the toughest setting on an exercise bike and then go play basketball or lift weights or tennis at the Moore Lake club.

An old picture of me popped into my mind on the bike. Its the one above.

That was me back in my Junior year at Mounds View High School. Twenty years ago now, how time flies. I played inside linebacker. I called the defensive plays for the JV team and got playing time on Varsity. In fact, somewhere in the boxes of crap I’ve shuffled from one place I’ve lived to another, there should be a “Letter”, although I never bothered to get the jacket.

I was thinking about the past this week – months, years, decades. It seems I just keep jumping from one thing toanother. One crisis to another. Dad gets sick, I come home from Duluth, and he dies. Friends have come and gone. Women too. “Their loss!” You can tell yourself that all you want. But in the end, chances are, maybe if everyone leaves, the problem is you.

Eventually, when you plan your personal life around TV shows, and want to make sure you know what is for dinner every night…..

That guy up there in that photo is me, but am I still him?

As I was going through my photo box to find that one, I stumbled across this other photo. Truth be told, I really don’t have many pictures of me. But I remember everything about this trip to the Boundary Waters with my High School church youth group at St. John the Baptist. It was about the same time as the photo above.

AAA BWCA HS trip tent

That’s me, Gary, and John pretending to pee on a tent. We did it to annoy one of that gals on the trip who was extra specially deserving. Those details are for the AAARF auto-biography. This was us recreating when we pretended to pee on her tent the night before when she went to bed early one evening. It was really funny if you were there. Everyone but her laughed. Look at that old me, looking back to ham it up for the camera. Smiling. Making people laugh. Well almost everyone. :)

Or was it so that Cerns snapped that picture? That someone would give me a copy so I would stuff it in my picture box? A box that would sit there for 20 years waiting? Waiting for a time when I would need to see that “old me” again?

omnia causa fiunt

Wow man, back then me and the guys didn’t give a rip. Had fun. Laughed. Made people laugh. Played. Goofed around. man those times were good.

What happened to me?

I used to have hair and be skinny. Athletic. Fun loving. Adventurous. Carefree.

You can’t act teenager forever. I get that.

omnia causa fiunt

A year ago, when I went to have coffee thinking it was my turn to get something, I had some person I barely knew step in front of me. I thought they had no experience or clue. They ended up getting what I wanted…. and it was for the best.

It was almost one year ago exactly that I felt another rug got pulled out from underneath me. Later that year, me and that person got to know each other and became what I consider friends. We ended up doing great things together. A year later, they did something that seemed so innocent, but affected me, changed me, and made me realize that its time to stop waiting.

I prayed tonight. Honestly, its been a while. Its not that I don’t believe anymore, its just I was questioning whether it was worth it. The good news is that I think I still remember how to do it. I didn’t pray for what I want, I prayed for what others want. Well, I prayed for someone to do what would make them happy however that affects me.

You know, sometimes life gives you lemons. Its probably for a good reason and it may be just that they make you pucker up and realize that lemons by themselves taste gross so that you find something else to do with the. like if you grind up the rind  to make “zest” and smear it on a turkey, it tastes wonderful.

Now I know I will never get my hair back, but I will be getting “me” back. Its time. I can’t go on this way.

The Lord works in mysterious ways. One simple little gesture from someone I met a year ago that I was angry with at the time, ends up changing everything today.

Would you be okay if I prayed for you

A simple text message that changed it all.

But I guess the truth is, that it probably wasn’t the question that changed my attitude and outlook. It was my answer.

 I’d appreciate it.

I opened my heart and mind up to the Lord.

Tomorrow is a new day. Another clean slate. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always going to be another one.

I know this post is somewhat cryptic, that’s the point. Some of you will get the vague details, others will hopefully go dig out some old photos of themselves and wonder if they are still that fun loving playful spirit they used to be.

I hope we can all remember to take a moment and remember that sometimes, its good to take stock of ourselves.

omnia causa fiunt

I got jolted to remember the “me” of yesteryear. Hopefully its not too late. But if it is, it will make me stronger to move on and more prepared for the next opportunity.

Ask yourself, am I still the best man or woman that I can be?

Because, I can say that I have not been, but tomorrow, look out world because I plan to change that.

I may not be able to rebuild bridges burned, friends lost, or hearts broken. Maybe they weren’t meant to be. Maybe they were just another in the long line of life lessons. But I’m done taking life for granted.

Carpe diem!

God bless.

AAA

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 12th, 2013 at 1:07 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.