Road to Redemption: How to Overcome Feeling Sorry for Yourself

Feeling sorry for yourself, and you present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have.

-Dale Carnegie

What can we do about this, how can we change our own outlook on our own life? How do we stop feeling sorry for ourselves, stopping the self-pity and self loathing?  What can we do to save ourselves from ourselves?

Some points to consider:

• Only you can make you feel bad
• Only you are in control of you
• Only you can fix you
• Only you can do it

We are in control of our own lives, this is a basic and true fact, nothing can change this basic fact. However, being human, being of a fallen nature, we are prone to failure, we are prone to self-doubt we are prone to self-destruction. So how do we change this, how do we get past our fallen human nature? What can we do to become a better person, a person of confidence a person of integrity and person of character?

We can teach ourselves to over come our fallen nature, we can grow above and beyond that, it is achievable, it is with-in our grasps, all we need to do is trust, trust in God, trust that He will provides the graces we need to archive our perfection.

Trust in God does not mean we sit back and do nothing, quit the contrary, trust in God means we buckle down, place our nose to the grind stone, work our fingers to the bones, what ever cleaver little saying you choose. Trust is God is not the easy road, but it is the road less traveled. It is the road to perfection and happiness, it is the road to freedom and salvation, it is the only road to our own personal redemption.

God is our ticket to liberation, liberation from self-doubt, liberation from self-hatred, the two self-defeating attitudes that create the conditions necessary for self-loathing and just plain old feeling sorry for yourself. God and His graces, His love for you and all your imperfections, our ability to accept His love, to use His graces, that’s the way to freedom, the road to liberation.

Sounds easy, who would not want Gods love, who does not want the graces God bestows upon us? Ask almost anyone, and they would tell you, Yep, I want Gods love, I want His grace, not many would out-and-out refuse it. Some do, but most would be more than happy to accept the freely given gifts. So why that do we have so much pain and suffering, why do we have so many people who are full of self-pity and self-hatred?

Because the gifts and love are given freely, but we must be open to and willing to accept them, and simply saying yes, simply using words, dead words, is not enough. Action is required, God wants us to fully participate in His divine plan for ourselves, He wants us to be active, not just a vessel to poor His love and graces into, but an active participant in His love and grace.

What good are gifts, given freely, if we do not use them, what good is love, given unconditionally, if we do not accept it? A gift is only as useful as it is used, otherwise the gift is of no value. We can receive Gods love all daylong, but if we do not open ourselves to this love, if we do not partake in this love, the love is of no value to us. Yes God continues to love us, regardless of our acceptance or not, but the love goes unused, it is not returned nor is it give to others. The love of God is not meant to be buried like a secret love, but to be received and displayed for all to see, and to be given to others as freely as it was given to us.

The act of receiving is not a passive act, it is an act that requires us to participate fully. Consider this, have you ever given a gift to a friend or loved one, a gift that you gave out of no obligation, no requirement, no special occasion. You gave the gift just out of love, given freely, expecting nothing in return. But the recipient was not receptive to your gift, they may have accepted it, they may have even opened it, but they were not receptive. They showed no sign of joy in the act of love, they showed no sign of rejection, they just accepted it. We, the gift bearer, leave feeling rejected, feel that our love was neither accepted nor outright rejected. We think to ourselves, I would rather have them say I reject your gift, I do not want it, than to just accept it with no emotion at all. The act of receiving is active, it requires work on the part of the receiver. It is the same with Gods gifts to us, He freely offers His gifts, He will not force them upon us, we must freely accept them, and just saying yes is like the friend that opened the gift you offered with no emotion, no reaction, just nothingness. The gift, although given was not truly accepted, it was discarded, not with words, but the lack of action.

So what actions, what is required of us, nothing, we are not required to accept Gods graces nor Gods love, just like we are not required to accept gifts on our birthday or at Christmas. We can choose freely to participate in Gods love, just as we choose freely to accept Christmas gifts and attend birthday parties. But once we choose to attend, action is required, input and output are part of the interaction of any social gathering, so is the case with God, He provides the input, and we provide the output. He gives us, freely, His love, the input, and we actively, through our works, provide the output. Notice, God gives freely, and we work actively, it is through the active works we perfect the graces and love of God is fully realized.

So how can God help us get over our self-hate, our feeling sorry for ourselves. What must we do to actively participate in Gods graces and love given freely. How do we perform the work to  fully realize the gifts God has given. For each of us God has given the gifts that we need, the gifts that are unique to us, so for each of us the works are also unique, but here is a list of a few things all of us can do to help us realize the full potential of our gifts.

• Pray daily, offer up 30 to 60 minuets per day to God, talk to Him, but more importantly, listen, be still, be quiet, and listen to the loving voice of God. And do not worry if you don’t hear Him  the first time or every time you pray, like everything else in our lives, it take practice. So just pray, daily and know and accept that some days will be better than others.
• Read daily, anyone who has read my blog before knew that this would be one of the point, it almost always is. But reading is important, reading opens our minds to new possibilities. Read the bible, read a good solid spiritual book or read a novel, just read and let your mind go, let your mind enter into the story or passage. Let the author take you along for the ride. Read at least 15 minutes per day. God often times speaks to me through the books I choose to read that day, the passage I decide to look up or the magazine I choose out of the stack on my coffee table. God uses the everyday items about us to communicate to us, God comes to the place we are, He does not wait for us to arrive at the place He desires us to be.
• Journal daily, write about your day, write about what you see about you, write about your prayer life, write about what ever you choose to write about. This blog is my journal, it allows me the opportunity to clear my mind, to put down on paper (well in this case, electronic paper) what is on my mind, allows me the opportunity to clear it, to visualize it. God uses these opportunities to speak to us, often times I just sit to write, no idea what I want to write about, just feel the need to clear my mind. It is in these moments that I feel God guiding me more that any other. So journal daily, allow the Holy Spirit to guide your hand across the paper, or in my case the keyboard. Use your time journaling as a time of communion with God.
• Learn daily, learn about your faith, learn about your life, learn about your country learn about wine or basket weaving, just learn, never stop learning. God created our minds to grow, to learn to expand. In the process of learning, we are using one of Gods greatest gifts to us, the gift of knowledge. So learn something new daily, try something new daily. I try to make it a point to learn something new daily, be it a simple fact or a complex idea. Learning about this world, our self, our nation or about basket weaving is learning about God, for through the ordinary we find God.
• Think one positive thought daily, when you are in the mist of a bad day, stop yourself, and think about one positive event that took place that day. There is always one, no day is completely bad. Even Good Friday, the day our Lord was killed upon a cross had a positive moment, the moment He offered His life for our sins. So stop and think, seek out the shinning spot among the darkness of your day. It is in the moment, that spot that God will be found.
• Thank someone daily, always give thanks to all around you, but find someone who needs your thanks more than any other, we find God in our fellow-man, and they find God in us, give freely of your Gift of love from God, by returning to others.

Our works do not purchase Gods love nor are the required, God gives it freely, but our works bring the fullness of Gods love to light. Through Gods love we will learn to love the self, and only through our works will we fully realize that self-love.

 

God Bless

 

Paul W Sposite

Guided Insight Life Coach

Related articles

• Freely Given – Freely Give (eworth2011.wordpress.com)
• The Gift of Embodiment (dreamprayact.com)
• What Is Love??? (parlaadaltavoce.wordpress.com)
• God’s Love Will Never Fail Us, No Matter Our Weaknesses (chronicillnesspaindevotionals.wordpress.com)
• Why do people become Christians? What’s all the hype? (raymondjclements.wordpress.com)
• Good Person? Wrong Question (thetwowings.wordpress.com)
• The Fullness of Love (joyofspa.com)

 

Approval of Obama

With Obama half way through his first (and I hope and pray Last) term as President, lets see how well he is going

Over all its 46% approve and 44% disapprove, basically a tie… But looking at the party lines, I think we see more of the picture, only 14% of republicans approve of Mr. Obama and his White House. The Conservative base is unhappy… If you factored in the RINOS (Republicans in name only), or should I say factored out the RINOS , the percentage would be in the single digits.

We are optimistic about or future, only because we know we only have a until November of 2012 to put up with this inept White House. But the American people, as the numbers show, are growing inpatient with Obama and his policies, a drop of 16 points from May of 1999 to January of 2011, that’s a big drop.

But Obama and the democrats have our backs, they know what America needs, High Speed Trains… Ya, that’s the ticket…

President Barack Obama will ask Congress to approve a six-year, $53 billion program to construct a national network of high-speed rail. (source)

Umm… I think not…

The world’s passenger rail systems consist mostly of "ordinary" passenger rail, which operates at average speeds between 50 mph and 85 mph. Some systems include a few genuine HSR lines. In the United States, passenger rail (Amtrak) is the most heavily subsidized of all passenger travel modes, requiring a federal subsidy of $237.53 per 1,000 passenger miles, compared to $4.23 for commercial aviation and $1.50 for intercity busses.[3] Rail subsidies in Europe are just as high, if not higher. (source)

For what benefit? I would love to take a train to Detroit, not have to worry about parking, or concern myself with if I have a drink or not. But…. And this is a big BUT… I don’t want the next generation paying for it…

To go from Detroit (I would have to drive and park there) to Chicago  is $53.00. No including parking and other public transport once I am in Chicago (if needed).  To drive the 261 miles it would take me a little under 5 hours. With gas currently at around $3.10 per gallon and 21 miles per gallon it would take about 12 gallons or about $38 dollars. Not for one person, the train would be cheaper, not considering the parking. But for a family of 4… $212.00, but in my car its still under $40.00, or less than $10 per person.

So even with the American government tossing is $237.53 per 1000 passenger miles, on the old Amtrak system, its not cost effective. Whit an new system, new rail lines and trains, I would have to figure that Uncle Sam would have to foot more of the cost, just to keep the prices down at levels most would be willing to pay.

U.S. taxpayers spent about $32 subsidizing the cost of the typical Amtrak passenger in 2008, about four times the rail operator’s estimate, according to a private study.

Amtrak operates a nationwide rail network, serving more than 500 destinations in 46 states. Forty-one of Amtrak’s 44 routes lost money in 2008, said the study by Subsidyscope, an arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Leading the list was the train traveling between New Orleans and Los Angeles – the Sunset Limited – which lost $462 per passenger. Taxpayers subsidize the losses to keep the passenger train service running. (source)

 

Amtrak lost $1.1 billion last year (source), so do we really want yet another government run rail system. If it was needed, and wanted, some smart business person would have already done it. I say privatize Amtrak, and lets see what becomes of it. If, lets say Delta Airlines, were to buy Amtrak, they would run it to make a profit, and not depend on the Government to subsidize it.  If it failed to make a profit, then they would close it down, or at least close the stations that do not make money.

The American government does not know how to make money, they only know how to take it and spend it. With great ideas, such as High Speed Rail, coming out of the White House, no wonder most Americans are not happy with our current President. Mr. Obama, the sooner you learn that Government is not the answer but is the problem, the sooner we will recover and grow.

God Bless

Paul

Related articles

• "Amtrak Joe" Biden, in Philly, Announces New Plan for High-Speed Rail (dc.streetsblog.org)
• $53 Billion for High Speed Rail (minx.cc)
• High Speed Rail: We Can’t Afford to Pretend We’re Europe (dakotavoice.com)
• The Obama Administration Fights for High-Speed Rail (time.com)
• Obama’s Big, Bold Bet on High-Speed Rail (time.com)
• $53 billion Obama plan could put high-speed rail on track in state – Chicago Tribune (news.google.com)
• Obama Budget Seeks $53 Billion for High-Speed Rail (businessweek.com)
• US unveils $53 billion in high-speed rail plan (reuters.com)
• Culture of corruption: Who’s policing Amtrak Joe Biden’s $53 billion rail boondoggles? (michellemalkin.com)
• Obama seeks US$53B for high-speed rail (financialpost.com)

 

Mr. President, your pint of blood is ready…

Image via Wikipedia

Strange days indeed… A quote from John Lennon from:

Everybody’s talking and no one says a word
Everybody’s making love and no one really cares
There’s Nazis in the bathroom just below the stairs
Always something happening and nothing going on
There’s always something cooking and nothing in the pot
They’re starving back in China so finish what you got

Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Strange days indeed — strange days indeed

Everybody’s runnin’ and no one makes a move
Everyone’s a winner and nothing left to lose
There’s a little yellow idol to the north of Katmandu
Everybody’s flying and no one leaves the ground
Everybody’s crying and no one makes a sound
There’s a place for us in the movies you just gotta lay around

Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Strange days indeed — most peculiar, mama

Everybody’s smoking and no one’s getting high
Everybody’s flying and never touch the sky
There’s a UFO over New York and I ain’t too surprised

Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Strange days indeed — most peculiar, mama

(Nobody told me ~ From Milk and Honey~ By: John Lennon) (Video)

 

Well this morning I knew exactly what John was talking about. I was listening to FOX radio, the Allen Colmes radio show. Allen was interviewing the first announced 2012 presidential  contender, Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey. Yep, The Impaler…

This had to be one of the strangest interviews I have ever heard, here are some high lights:

• The Impaler is 44 years old
• He dates 16 and 19 year old girls
• He considers himself a vampire
• He drinks blood “Donated” to him from his 16 to 19 year girl friends
• He wants to go back to “medieval” form of punishments
• He wants to force congress to repeal abortion laws and would use force, the army, to do so if needed
• He is a devil worshiper

The above are just the high lights, the 15 minutes of airwaves used up to allow this man to speak was filled with one strange comment after the other. It was, in a strange way, entertaining. The Impaler takes himself seriously, that’s the truly scary part, and yes, he wants to run on the republican ticket… God save us all….

Don’t believe me select the link  (The Impalor)

I could not make this stuff up, its to good. But I must say it does sound like a story from Stephen King… Maybe I should contact Mr. King and offer him my idea, I wonder if I would get a thank you check for my great idea?

I am use to hearing such crazies running for office in the UK, or even maybe San Francisco, but I don’t ever remember one for president.  Odd is to kind of a word for what this was.

Has American politics come to this, were we would even consider a vampire for president, maybe a council member back in some small, odd town in California, or maybe even a cabinet position in the current White House, but not the presidency itself. I don’t know, the interview just hit a cord with me, that even a nut could run for the most powerful office in the world.

Well lets hope that disenfranchised Obama voters don’t decide that a blood drinking, teen dating, devil worshiping alternative grabs there short attention spans. With the current interest in all the vampire movies and TV shows, this nut case has a built in voter base. Scary stuff indeed…

Well the 2012 election session sure got off to a bang… Any one got a cross handy or a silver steak and mallet…

God Bless

Paul

Related articles

• Meet Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey, The Vampire Who’s Running For President (mediaite.com)
• Vampire for President? (abcnews.go.com)

 

Ring in the New Year with the good ol’ Bush Tax Cuts

A lot of press has been used on the Bush Tax Cuts, they were set to expire today. The liberals rang out with the same old “Cut’s for the rich” mantra, yet if you took the time to read the facts you would see that this is just not true. The Bush Tax Cuts did shift the burden of taxes, but not to the poor like many liberals would claim, but to the rich. 

In 2002 the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more than one-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but reported roughly one-third (30.6 percent) of income.

The share of taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers will fall from 4.1 percent to 3.6 percent.Source: U.S. Treasury, Office of Tax Analysis (read article here)

I get so frustrated when I try to have conversations with the liberals about the tax cuts. There are two main points that upset me the most. The first is just the simple fact that the argument that the tax cuts hurt the poor and make the rich richer… The facts just don’t prove it, as the two bullet points above show. It is just an out-and-out lie. Yet the media and liberals keep saying it. And many just keep believing it.  The first argument is fact, the second argument is not.

The second argument is based on ideology. The liberal ideology goes something like this:

It is wrong for people to make more money then others, it is unfair that there hard work should be rewarded off the back of their workers.

There are several variations of that ideology, but the basics are all the same, it is unfair…. What is unfair? Is it unfair if one baseball team earns more on ticket sales than an other? Is it unfair if one CEO makes less than another? Is it unfair if one child gets an “A” on their report card and others only get “C”s? Fairness has nothing to do with equality. A baseball game is fair when all the rules are the same, a grade a student receives is fair when each student is afforded the same opportunity to receive an “A”. (Fairness)

the other part of the argument is based on the idea of “To Much”:

They just earn too much, the profits that company made is grotesque.

Who determines what is too much and what is not? What is the standard that is used? Does the scale change based on were you live, the size of your family or the type of work you do? Or is it just a value the liberals toss out when every they want to rally the troops?

At my place of work we have one benefit that was not removed from us that most other companies have, free coffee. Yep, I can drink all the free coffee, tea or hot coco I want and they provide free filtered water. Too some this may seem a bit silly to even bring it up, but trust me I have a point. At my place of employment we also receive bonuses every quarter and they just placed a ping-pong table in an old unused classroom. So yes, my company tries to make the work environment fun and relaxing. Now I do drink the coffee and get the bonus, but I do not use the ping-pong table. Such is life, I don’t play ping-pong. Now if it was an air hockey table I would be in their playing, but it’s not so I don’t.

So what does all this have to do with fairness and the bush tax cuts… I’ll tell you, I work with a young man who sees the free coffee as unfair, he don’t drink it, and there for he gains no benefit from it. In-fact he sees it as a loss to his bonus. Yet he does play ping-pong and see nothing wrong with that. Now some may think he has a point, the coffee has to be replenished yet the ping-pong table is a one time fee. Yep, he tried that one on me, and he is correct, it is a one time fee for the table, but the room it takes up, the old classroom, does cost the company each and every month in rent. I am willing to be the rooms rent is more than the coffee per month.

You see, fairness to him, was only what he thought effected him negatively, when I brought up the fact that the room rent was more than the coffee, well lets just say he decided he was only “joking” about the coffee. If that is true, that was the longest joke I have ever heard, because we have worked together for over 8 years and for most of the 8 years he was complaining about the “fairness” of free coffee. Now I don’t hear that so much. Hmmm, interesting isn’t it…

The two arguments that the liberals use to scare people about the Bush Tax Cuts are nothing but lies and a screwed up definition of fairness… All will benefit from the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts, yes the poor as well as the rich.  The liberals need to stick to the truth, they need to base there fights on facts, not on their own skewed view of the world. Fairness and equality are not the same thing, It is fair to offer all the same chances to achieve wealth in this great nation of ours, but the results will not, and should not, be equal. Some will work harder than others to achieve wealth, and yes some will just have dumb luck and stumble in to it. Me, I say “God bless them all” and “Good Luck”. And yet others will work just has hard and achieve nothing and some will lose it all. To them I say “God Bless” and “Keep working at it”. Is that fair? Nope it’s not, but such is life, was that equality at work, Yep it sure was, each and every one of us has the opportunity to achieve greatness, yes some of us may have to work harder than others to achieve it, be we all have the same opportunity to pursue happiness, that does not mean we will all arrive at it.

So may this New Year bring you all the opportunity to achieve greatness, and may you, be it through hard work or just dumb luck, find it.

God Bless

Paul

Related articles

• Analysis: A look at tax deal’s pros and cons – Houston Chronicle (news.google.com)
• Polls: Thumbs up to tax cut deal (seattlepi.com)

 

Vacation plans

Image via Wikipedia

I am doing something I have never done before, I am going on vacation to Germany. Sure I have been there many times, for work, but never just for vacation. I leave in 2 days, and the days can not move fast enough for me!

This is a trip of a life time for me, I am going to fly into Koln, visit a few friends and than with a good friend of mine and his wife we will be driving to Berlin. So not only am I going to Germany for vacation, I am also meeting up with my good friends! Life is good!

But truth be told, the timing is, well lets just say it could be better. When I book my vacation I expected to be an “empty nester” so to speak, but as plans work out, this was not to be. The one who was to be off at collage ended-up staying home (and for that I am truly happy, but that’s another posting). Not only do I have my one, but I seemed to have gained another. And I am grateful for this, but the timing is less than perfect.

As many may know and some may not, I am currently in bankruptcy, so the planning of this trip was difficult under the best situation, but doable… My flight was free, all miles earned from work trips, the stay in Koln and Berlin is free and the expenses in Germany minable. So it was a perfect trip…

I should have known….

Child number one, who was to be off in Texas, well lets just say, the best laid plans don’t always work out. He was to go and live with his dad and attend school there. I was never for this move, his dad is well, not truly a father in any way shape or form. But he was dead set on this move, so moving was what was to happen. Thru Gods graces, his did showed his true colors and the move did not take place. That was ok, my plans were still doable. But than his did truly shined and refused to sign for his student grants…. BAM! Money spent I did not plan for…

But my trip was still on, the ticket was printed and waiting…

Hit number two came in the form of a 17 year old looking for stability, and choosing to find it in my home… Gaining guardianship was hit  number two… BAM!

Both my boys are truly blessings to me, and I would not change a thing… But the timing was just off a bit… Such is life…

This trip will be what it will be, and the bills will get paid, maybe late a few days or so, but paid and the boys have a safe and happy home. Life is good!

I just wish their was a way I could have know all this before I booked my trip. But knowing me, I would not have booked it, so maybe in the long run it all worked out for the best. God knows me well and he knows what I need and when I need it.

So Koln and Berlin, here I come!

Until I return, September 20th, I wish you all the blessings of heaven and earth.

 

God Bless

Paul

Berlin (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

John 14:23“Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” Brought to you by BibleGateway.com. Copyright (C) . All Rights Reserved.