Dad’s Guide to Life: Life is Chaos If You Ignore The Quotes of Those Who Came Before You.

I really need shorter titles, right? I mean, this is getting out of hand. Anyway, before I trail off on some journey of dad brain, let’s get to today’s lesson. It won’t be total chaos, but if you don’t have a guide to lead you, you may find certain things to be chaotic without a reference. I don’t know how good my references are boys, but references nonetheless.

Our world has had many great men and women blink in and out of existence. Our world has also had it’s fair share of very evil men and women as well. All of which have something in common, the more good, or evil, or crazy they were, they were quoted and forever changed history.

All too often, we are focused on our own existence, our own here and now, or worse, our own past and future. (which, by the way, thinking of our past or future is a futile, unimportant gesture, unless you are comparing yourself to yesterday so you can be better today). There, that’s a quote you can share from Jay DiMare, and many other’s before me, that …”looking back at the past and ahead to the future is futile, unless you’re comparing yourself to yesterday, so you can have a better today.” That’s not a great quote, and I stole it from a billion people and mashed it into something that makes sense to me. Let’s move on.

We forget that there’s two generations before us still living, that have seen more than us, know more than us, and have forgotten more then we have ever remembered. More often than not, they’re lingering on a park bench, or in the back room watching the 7 o’clock news, forgotten where no one visits anymore, or laying in a nursing home, wandering the halls, sick, with no one to talk to. These are the people that are the source of such wonderful stories, inspirational quotes handed down from generation to generation, passed on to us, so that we may heed their words, and learn a thing or two about life. And if we don’t talk to them, the quotes we live by, will die.

So, it is important to remember the wise, the old, those that came before, the great philosophers, psychologists, political heroes, warmongers, military leaders, and as many lives lived as you can reach, and the good news, the power of the internet age, which you will be growing into it’s glory days, you will have access to countless wisdom from those that have come before you.
So, listen to adults. They’re more than willing to teach you something personal that they have learned.

So where does all this fit into the excessively long title of this particular column? Well, I’ll start with my quote of the day, that I leave for you. “If you do not learn from at least one person who came before us, you may live a very chaotic life. You will have no references in dealing with the unfairness of life, and react poorly, because someone who dealt with what you’re facing, was not able to teach you your first steps in tolerating the suffering.” That’s the purpose of this diary, in fact. I’m not, nor will I ever consider myself an “old wise man”, or someone worth quoting on the internet, but I am a guy that trudged through everything you’re about to walk through, from the time of this writing, from age 4 and upward. Same goes for your brother. You came before, so you have 3 and half years of wisdom on him, so you’ll be teaching him some stuff.

Now we’re going to talk about some quotes I picked up along the way, that I am still absorbing to this day from wiser humans than myself, that I wrote down, in a very random and unorganized way about life from those who came before me, that helped light an otherwise darkened world view.

I preface these quotes by saying, you in no way, are obligated to feel the same way I feel about them. Take it or leave it. I would also say this, inspiration could be found in good people, and evil people. Following inspiration from evil, or good, is simply following inspiration. It does not make you either good nor evil.

Let’s get started.

“The real strong have no need to prove it to the phonies.”

What does that mean? Who is it from? Well, its meaning comes from within you, to me, it means that I am who I am, and I don’t have to prove it anyone that I am me. If they seek proof, they will get no such satisfaction from me. I am who I am for me and me alone. Charles Manson said that. Charles Manson is no hero of mine. He was crazy. He lead his family to kill people. In my own perspective, killing people is wrong. But he was right about that one thing, real people don’t have to prove themselves to anyone, and only fake people who lie to themselves will always ask for proof.

Ill do one more bad guy quote.

“I call on you not to hate, because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair, and it(hate) makes you blind, and closes all doors of thinking.”

Ill be honest, I looked this up on the internet while I was writing this, because I don’t have a ton of quotes from evil people. But in this moment, this man was right, don’t hate, because hate erases fairness, and it blinds you and closes your mind the possibility of loving something or someone who is different then you. That man is Saddam Hussein. A military dictator of a middle eastern country named Iraq. He was captured the U.S. Military during the Iraq war after 9/11/01, and hung by his people in the streets for war crimes. He attacked Kurdish Iraqis in the early 90’s, his own people with chemical weapons. Estimates say he is responsible for the death of over 500,000 human beings. He had been committing crimes against humanity since the 1970’s, biggest being his invasion of Kuwait in 1991’s Gulf War, in which American came to the aid of Kuwait, and when the Kurds rebelled against Saddam after that, Saddam crushed them in response to listening to American leaders to rebel against him. He was in fact, a very evil man…I do not support an evil military dictator. I believe in freedom. But I use it to prove a point, all humans, of varying notoriety, have said something wise or inspirational at one time or another.

So, to help prevent me from living a chaotic life, the following words from the following people, or anonymous sources, paved the way for me to un-chaos my life, and have a path to follow when I reached a road traveled before by a person who came before me.

“A life without love, is no life at all.” — Neale Donald Walsch

This is very true. Luckily, there is no way to live life without love. So fill yourself with love for nature, love for yourself, and love for all things in this universe. Love freely. Love often. Fall in love as much as you can. Love yourself most of all.

“What would you do, if you knew you could not fail” — Neale Donald Walsch

If you knew, with 100% confidence, that failure did not exist. (which is true, by the way) Would you attempt to reach your highest vision for yourself more freely? Would you make more attempts to accomplish your dreams? Well to me, failure is impossible, there are only situations in which you gain more information. Ben, one day we were playing outside during the COVID19 pandemic of 20–21. You were throwing a baseball at your swing set over and over again trying to get into one of the openings on the side. You kept throwing higher and lower until you got it into the hole you wanted to get it in, and you were happy when it happened. You, of limited mental capacity at 4 years old, had no idea, that there was a word to describe not achieving what you wanted to in totality right away. You simply knew your objective, and the actions you were taking to accomplish it. You just kept throwing the ball different based on the way your threw it before. So adopting that mentality into adulthood is CRUCIAL to being everything you want to be in life. I wish I saw it sooner. I had the quote in my head, but I didn’t have the mantra, if you will in my soul. I didn’t understand it fully until now. To have no concept of failure, but to just envision your goal, make attempts, and when the goal is not reached, make adjustments based on the information learned until the goal is reached. YOU CANNOT FAIL. Each attempt is simply information. Keep going until you reach your goal. Then, make a newer, higher goal!

“Creative flies freely on gentle breezes, sours proudly on strong winds, and rests contently in soft rain. Creative makes things that bear the stamp of self. Creative is strong and brave. It looks for possibility where others see nothing. Creative lives outside the expected and is comfortable there. “ — Anonymous

If you go through your day, letting your creativity guide you, you will find joy in all you do. I once wanted to be a rock star, musician, writer, movie maker, and so on and so forth, the list goes on and on. I knew I wanted to create, and before the internet, there were fewer ways to accomplish that then there are today. But I was never happy, because I never put everything into the stuff I wanted, because I was too busy following the customary path of life, go to school, get a job, meet a girl, get married, have kids, die. I didn’t even know that I had to work so hard to accomplish my dreams. I figured it was just going to happen on day. So in 2009, I started making a movie I was working on for years and years, and I felt AMAZING once we started creating. And when it all “failed”, I felt lost. I lost my direction. So I spent years trying to figure out how to reattain that feeling. Finally, in 2018 or so, I decided just to figure out how to edit video again and made a couple videos and I started to get that old feeling back again. Creativity was guiding me. This is why in 2020, you’ll find me vlogging on youtube, writing a blog here, journaling in an actual book, and doing anything I can do to create content of some kind. Creativity is happiness. So create. Don’t think you have to be popular or famous, JUST CREATE.

“Faithful knows tomorrow will always come”.

This is important. Have faith, in the face of adversity, that tomorrow will come. A new day, a rebirth, a new opportunity. You have to believe in yourself if you’re ever going to make it through life. You have to understand that not everything is going to go your way. You have to have faith that you can try again tomorrow. The opportunity to achieve whatever you wish, want, are striving toward, could be waiting around the very next corner every single day. It could be surfing in on the next wave of endless ocean. All you have to do, is “keep breathing”.

“You never know what the tide will bring. I have to keep breathing. I have to keep going.” — Tom Hanks in “CASTAWAY”

“There are only two ways to live your life. One as though nothing is a miracle, and the other as if everything is a miracle — Albert Einstein.

Here’s the thing about Einstein, he was brilliant, and he knew about life. This man studied the universe, where all of LIFE was created. He understood that we, humans, LIFE, this planet, is a very RARE and miraculous event of COSMIC proportions and that we were from star stuff. He knew that we LITERALLY were a miracle, as well as EVERYTHING in our reality, as well! And he’s right, if we treat everything as a miracle of COSMIC proportions, even the bad stuff, we can live a much better, more educated life.

“The first step of the journey, is to lose your way…” — Galway Kimel

Ill be honest, I have no idea who this person was, but I know this, the best time of my life, was when I recognized that I was completely lost, and that I could now go wherever I wanted to.

“Life is not a process of discovery, but a process of creation” — Neale Donald Walsch

Everyone will tell you that you need to find yourself. You need to discover who you are. Well, they’re wrong. Yes, ALL OF THEM. You ARE creation. Yes, you are CREATION ITSELF. You came from an exploding star. Everything that made the universe, the planets, the stars, made YOU too. Therefore, you are creation. You dont need to find yourself, you already exist, you simply need to create who you are in the moments of your life.

“What you do in your greatest trial, will be your greatest triumph.” — neale donald walsch

This one really resonated with me and helped me reign in the chaotic turbulence that was my life. It helped me realize that we will all face hardships throughout every stage of life, and when it comes to it, you can either run or face it. If you run, or quit, that is the true definition of failure, because you didn’t even try, but if you face it, and win, you will have achieved an amazing success beyond any you could have imagined.

“Do not worry, but it would serve you well to be observant.” — neale donald walsch

Do not worry about things you can’t control. It is senseless stress, because you literally cannot change or affect it. But watch closely, in case you have the opportunity to get involved and change the world for the better. If you stress about things that are out of your control, it is a complete waste of energy that you could have used to change your reality.

Let’s do a few more.

“If you aren’t in the moment, you are either looking forward to uncertainty, or back to pain and regret” — Jim Carrey

There’s no other truer words in my opinion. Focus on today. The past is regret, the future is uncertain, now is TRUTH.

“People try to limit me, but I don’t limit myself” — Jim Carrey

Boys…I CANT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. Life is FULL of people who will try to stifle you, limit you, stop you, slow you down, because they themselves aren’t capable of achieving what you can achieve, and they know it, and they will do anything they can to slow you down so they can make themselves feel better about themselves. It’s not their fault, it’s just the way they were taught. You can do, be, and achieve ANYTHING, and you need to go after it with all of your existence, no matter who stands in your way, find a way above, below, and around everyone who tries to stop you, because they will, and if you let them, it’s your fault you didn’t get where you wanted to go. Go where you want to go, no one can stop you, but they will try. Rise above it.

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them” — Mother Theresa

I mean, this is obvious boys. Don’t judge. ANYONE. You don’t know what kind of experiences they’ve had. You don’t know the struggles they’ve gone through. It goes back to only comparing yourself today to the you of yesterday. Don’t compare yourself to others. Everyone has a story, and every one of them unique and special. Do not judge anyone by the color of their skin, but of the moral of their character. — (paraphrased) — Martin Luthur King Jr. Don’t judge people, everyone is made of the same stuff, and we are born, live, and die the same. We all experience this world a little different in the blink of our existence, so it’s important to understand, that everyone is a little different, and everyone has a quality we can find to love about them.

We can write all day and all night, until this column is 5000 pages long with quotes that change the world. But I don’t want to do that to you, or anyone else reading this. So I leave you with one more from my new favorite guy, Jordan Peterson. I urge you to write down quotes that change your perception of the world, and pass them along to your kids someday when I am gone.

“What is your friend? The thing you know, or the thing you don’t know? There are a lot more things you don’t know. The things you don’t know is the birthplace of all new knowledge. So if you make the “things you don’t know” your friend, then you’re always on a quest in some sense. You’re always looking for new information in the off chance that someone who doesn’t agree with you will tell you something you couldn't figure out on your own! It’s a completely different way of looking at the world. It’s the antithesis of opinionated.”

ALWAYS participate in civil discussion with those who don’t agree with your world view. You might just learn something. Always seek knowledge. That is the true definition of wisdom. Always seek to learn new things from those who live a different path then your own, and you will find, that even people who disagree, may have knowledge that will help you on your own path. Learn from each other. And never fault anyone for viewing the world different, enjoy their knowledge.

Good day boys.