Drowning In Sorrow But Powered By Intuition
Janss_Steps,_UCLA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Don’t ask me to tell you what that headline means because I don’t know if I understand it. What I know for certain is limited and what I hope for hasn’t yet arrived so I can’t speak to that yet either.
What I can tell you is that twelve months ago I wasn’t in the place I am in now. I don’t really know if it was better than this one but sometimes hindsight colors our vision and consequently that is what I see.
Better. It was better, but I could be wrong about that.It is possible that my frustration with the lack of progress in some areas is coloring my view and turning bright colors into dull shades of gray. There is no doubt that life is not what I want it to be but there is also no doubt that I am doing all that I can to make things change.
The Grass Is Always Greener
My son plays for the school soccer team. We had an away game today against another private school. It is a beautiful campus that sits upon a hill, or should I say multiple hills. It is really more of a compound. You’ll think I am name dropping because I am, but it is where the Beckhams send some of their children and it is where lots of other famous people send their kids.
I don’t think that I would send my children there. I know parents who do and it is supposed to be a fabulous education but I don’t think it is for us. We don’t rent out studios and aquariums for birthday parties nor do we have drivers take our children to school, but that is neither here nor there.
Last week I watched my son play his best game of soccer ever. His coach named him player of the game and I couldn’t have been prouder. Today I wanted to see how he would follow up on his success. I wanted to see if he would play hard and he most certainly did.
I looked across the field at the parents of the other side and spotted a retired NBA player. He went to UCLA for college and when I was a boy I saw him play there. I thought he was huge. He still is. The difference in height isn’t quite  two feet any more, but he still is around a foot taller than I am.
His son wasn’t hard to pick out. He was the tall kid with the mop of hair. He isn’t a foot taller than my son, but he has six inches on him. I watched them compete against each other and thought about how different their lives are in some ways and how similar they must be in others. At least I think they are similar. His father was there watching him play as was I. His father sent him to private school to get a better education, as did I.
His dad is a famous NBA player and my son has a father who is a famous daddy blogger, or maybe not.
Drowning In Sorrow But Powered By Intuition
I am not really drowning in sorrow. While I am sometimes sad that is not my defining characteristic. I think I laugh more than I feel sad but frustration is a consistent, if unwelcome companion.
Powered by intuition refers to my doing many things based on my gut. Some of them aren’t necessarily things my head says to do, but I have felt the need to try a different way, to take a different path. The old way hasn’t been working so well so might as well try something different.
So I am building my newsletter list and asking people to sign up. You can find the form to subscribe on my Facebook Fan page or at the bottom left of this page. I am working on writing my ebooks and doing all that I can to create opportunity.
The story that I am working on continues to grow and develop. I keep hearing good things about it so I guess it is fair to say that many people like it. And I just joined two more tribes on Triberr. In theory that pushes my reach to more than a million people on Twitter.
If it works out the way I want it to it will be because I created opportunity and changed where I was going. Right now I am going to bed. It is almost 1 am and I stayed up to write one more post so that I could participate in Just Write.
Jens P. Berget May 1, 2012 at 8:39 pm
I wonder if I’d remember that NBA player. I used to watch NBA all the time, but that was many years ago. Now, I can hardly name two players. Life has changed. That’s for sure.
I just read your newest post, before I read this one, and I believe that they are connected. The newsletter needs to be planned and you need to have a goal. For instance, if it’s all about writing, and receiving feedback, that’s one thing, if it’s about selling a service, that’s another thing. But, no matter what, I wouldn’t be asking for a call to action on the first two weeks. That’s my experience.
Jack May 1, 2012 at 11:28 pm
I’ll email you. I bet you’ll remember his name.
I think your advice is solid. It is kind of funny to me to talk about plans and to say that I have a very rough one for the newsletter. I am not entirely sure what I am doing with it, but I have a strong enough idea that I am confident I will figure it out.
penneyfox May 1, 2012 at 2:51 pm
LOVE IT: There is no doubt that life is not what I want it to be but there is also no doubt that I am doing all that I can to make things change.
Amen to that line ….
And I agree with the frustrations but when I compare where I was this time last year (personally and professionally) to where I am now – its like another world. But its true, it is a ‘consistent and unwelcome companion’ but maybe its that thing we always need to keep us pushing forward. I’d say you’re doing something right to be reaching over a million. Rock on Jack!
Jack May 1, 2012 at 11:23 pm
Hi Penney,
I sometimes visualize life as a series of different worlds that we have to experience and trave l through. Progress is what I hope for and when I see it I tend to be much happier than when I feel stagnant.
Growth and forward motion motivate me.
bridgetstraub.com May 1, 2012 at 7:47 am
A million people is good! I should be doing that. As for name dropping, it’s hard in LA not to name drop. My daughter is on a basketball team that includes the daughter of a former NBA player. You wouldn’t believe how many times he could drop Magic’s name!
Jack May 1, 2012 at 11:38 am
Hi Bridget,
Not surprised to hear that at all. At my old gym I used to play ball with a bunch of guys who would spend all day telling you about who they knew/played with. It can get kind of old.
Jayme Soulati May 1, 2012 at 4:40 am
My friend. You rock always in my book. I’d let you help me raise my child any day.
Jack May 1, 2012 at 11:00 am
Thank you lassie, much appreciated. 😀
Stan Faryna May 1, 2012 at 2:04 am
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
– Robert Frost
Jack May 1, 2012 at 10:58 am
Brother there is only one way to live this life and that is to take the road less taken. Of course I don’t really know how to do it any other way. 😉 Hope you are having a great day.
Harleena Singh May 1, 2012 at 12:50 am
You are doing great Jack!
Keep up with the tempo and you are surely going to go places 🙂
We love what you share on the blog, which is just you and simple as that – with all that you undergo that makes it possible for us to connect with you in a better way. Yes, we all do have our ups and downs and those are part of lives, but then don’t we come out of those? It’s just a matter of time….:)
Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Jack May 1, 2012 at 10:55 am
Hi Harleena,
Thank you. I am just like everyone else, another parent doing the best I can to make a good life for my kids and something interesting for me. The ups and downs in life are always going to be around.
I just try to remember that the down moments don’t last and that they pass just like everything else does.