Category: Happy

It is a part of the human condition that we lose things.  Friends will move away.  People we love will die.  Our bodies will quit working right.  TV shows will get cancelled.  Loss is a part of life.  Sometimes something cool happens a while after loss.  Sometimes things come back.  Regaining something we have lost, or thought we had lost, that is a feeling that brings overflowing gratitude. 

I have lost many things in life.  Some of those things I got back.  Some just dropped back into my life.  Sometimes I fought to get them back.  I’m glad there have been so many things that came back to me.  Getting more of something we use to love.  THAT is one of the most beautiful things that can happen.  It is truly a gift from God.

I am almost giddy and laughing with joy at the things I realize have come back to me.

With the new Picard series, Jean Luc Picard has returned to Star Trek.

Star Wars came back with Episode 7, none of us thought we were getting more Star Wars.

My friend Grant came back, he emailed me at Purdue, I had not seen him in a couple years.  Then we started hanging out again, he came back and with him a friendship I don’t even have the words to explain.

I broke myself with injury and couldn’t workout hard, was weak and had to have surgery.  Then afterwards I came back.  I was able to set some personal records again.  I fought hard to get that back.  I only got it back a short while, but it was worth it.  I grew so strong out of it.

There are so many other things I have had come back to me in life.  It’s so wonderful to get to do them again.  It might only be for a short while, but sometimes one more time is enough.  In those moments I really feel the love and grace of God.  Some of these things that have come back to me that I lost, there is no way to think of them other than gifts from God. 

I don’t think we should hope that things come back.  A lot of things in our lives are gone for good.  I think when God brings them back to us though, we should experience them with the gratitude, love and passion they deserve.  Losing things and getting them back, that experience should change us.  I know for me that is a path to more joy, more gratitude, and more love. 

Knowing how to do a thing has very little to do with doing a thing.  No one starts out knowing how to do anything.  We all start off at zero.  Then we learn and adapt.  Being at zero is a dangerous place, because it can trick us into thinking we can’t do things.  Most of us can do most things.  I am grateful I don’t let not knowing how to do things stop me from doing things.

I have done a lot of things I didn’t know how to do.  I didn’t know how to build websites, but I did.  I didn’t know how to make database driven apps, but I did.  I didn’t know how to write a book, but I did.  I organized and hosted events even though I had no public speaking experience at all.  I just did these things.  I didn’t know anything when I started doing these things.  I am grateful I took these leaps.

I haven’t always taken the leaps.  I still often let a lack of knowledge stop me.  I really shouldn’t, I should just do things.  I’m grateful for all the times I did hard things even though I didn’t have a clue how to do them.  It is from these things I have learned the most.  I’m grateful we get to jump in and do things, even if we don’t know how to do them.  If this wasn’t true, I wouldn’t have gotten much done in my life.

“There are more of us.” – Lando Calrissian, The Rise of Skywalker.  I love a good Star Wars quote and this is one of them.  Lando says this when it looks like the Resistance is about to fall to the Evil Empire/First Order/Last Order (Whatever they call it, the movie was a bit…scattered?)  In horrible situations we can forget that there are more decent people than there are evil people.  I am grateful we have a few more good people than horrible people out there. 

There is a lot of evil at work today in the world.  Without some massive resisting force, things will get really bad.  I don’t pretend to know what way things will go.  There are a lot of evil, horrible people out there.  There is still hope because there are more of us than there are of them. 

It’s all a numbers game and that is where the hope is.  All it takes for things to be better is us decent people to keep being decent and fight the nonsense.   All it takes is a bit of effort on the part of us decent folks.  We can’t be lazy I know that much.  There are more of us than there are of them.

Fresh blueberries might be my favorite food.  When it is blueberry season here I buy 10 pound boxes of them, and eat every single one.  I also freeze them for the rest of the year, because frozen blueberries are fantastic.  I have a serious blueberry obsession.  Today fresh blueberries were cheap at the store, they are out of season right now, but they are cheap and available today.  I am grateful to have a supply of fresh out-of-season blueberries sitting in the fridge. 

I am pumped that tonight, I will be eating a fistful of these awesome berries.  I am quite literally excited about this.  This is an odd thing to be excited about, but I am going to go with it.  They are giving my day a little boost, that is never a bad thing.

This little boost makes me think there is something more to this spark.  Isn’t there something wonderful about getting things out of season?  It could be food, it could be music, it could be anything.  Maybe that’s why summer league basketball is fun to watch, after a couple months of no basketball I am ready for a little dose of ball again. I watch a lot of basketball in the winters, but then there is a long gap of no basketball.  I’m all for things being seasonal, it is the nature of things.  It is still nice to get a little taste of something out of season, it is a little spark of magic I think.

I think maybe this is magic we can use a bit more.  We can get stuck doing things we like seasonally.  Well there is little reason to hold most things to a single season or time.  Ice cream is still good in the middle of winter, and soup is pretty good on a hot day still.  Maybe doing things out of season can be a little touch of spontaneity and fun to break up monotony.  There is magic here that we can all wield.  This post stops here because its time to go eat some blueberries. 

Thinking is a hard thing to do.  Some people refuse to do it.  Some people cannot do it.  Some people are too busy to do it.  The power of thoughts and ideas are unmatched.  I am grateful I am capable of thinking about things. 

My brain can think, that is something that I am not nearly grateful enough for.  I can think my way to solutions and out of problems.  I think that is about all a man can ask for in life.  I think that is all I need to make all sorts of dreams come true.  I forget this sometimes.  It blows my mind that I forget this kind of thing. 

I listen to music while I work.  I spend a lot of time working in public places, so a little music to drown out the world is a wonderful thing.  In this context of work, music is a tool to me.  The music I use as a tool can be different than the music I might listen to for fun.  I am always on the search for new music and genres that help me get into a good work flow.  Time and time again bluegrass music keeps coming up as one of the best.  I am grateful that bluegrass music exists and that I have access to it.

I remember the dark days before the internet.  Before the internet we had music we bought and the radio, that was it.  In the past I would have never really had much access to bluegrass music.  Sure country radio would play a bluegrass song now and then.  Radio just isn’t near as conducive to work as internet radio.  Traditional radio has too many commercials, too much talking, and too many interruptions.  I can get a far better flow from the internet radio and music options. 

If I have a lot of writing or coding to do, bluegrass radio on Pandora is my go to music.  It helps me get into flow a bit and anything that helps with that is awesome.  It is not a big thing, but anything that helps me be better, that is something I can be grateful for.

Where we grow up can really influence the person we become.  I grew up in a small town, so that colors everything about me.  More specifically I grew up with a woods behind my house.  The woods was small, just one of those woods you end up getting inside a town, but to Young Nehemiah it was a world of mystery and fun.  I am so grateful to have grown up with this woods and real nature to be in.

This woods was perfect for building forts, for sledding and the general use of imagination.  I spent a lot of time out there when I was young.  I think there is an age where a young person needs some nature to play and explore in.  We weren’t far from home in the woods, but parents couldn’t watch over us too closely out there.  We got to be kids out there and play without the aid of screens or other civilized comforts. 

I can’t tell you that this woods made me the man I am today.  I can’t tell you that this woods gave me so many benefits.  I can tell you that this woods made my childhood a bit richer, more fun, and that is enough.  I think its good as kids we had a little space to be kids.  I am grateful I had a chance to grow up with such a nicety right out the back door.

We all need a little help now and then.  Some of us need more than a little help.  We’re likely to get help from our family and close friends.  There are times that we get help from people we don’t know real well too.  I am grateful for all those people I barely knew that helped me.

In the gym so many people have helped me lift better.  Some have spent so much time helping me become better.  I didn’t even always know their names.  They just helped me.

I was given a job by a guy I barely knew with barely an interview.  I needed a job bad at the time and that helped me out so much and helped my career. 

A kid a barely knew welcomed me into his crew when switched schools.  I had barely to that point talked to anyone at the new school.  I was at that point welcomed in as a friend for no reason I can really determine.

A guy I haven’t talked to in over a year helped me edit a book I’m writing.  He pretty much just said “sure I’ll take a look.”

I don’t know why these people were kind to me and helped me.  I’m sure if I thought long and hard I would come up with many more examples of people I barely knew doing good things for me.  This kind of kindness can really give a guy an optimistic view of the world.  It does make me wonder how I measure up to their examples.  These people have really helped me, but I wonder how I am helping others.  I know I should help more people, whether I know them or not.  I’m grateful I have gotten help from these people, they are examples to follow in my own behavior.  These folks provide both an example and a hope to me.

The hope I get from these people is that if these almost strangers helped me in the past, it is likely to happen again.  These people helped me in some deep ways.  This has to lead me to believe that the help I need with current and future struggles could come from anyone.  This is a beautiful thing to think that the help we need can come at any time from anyone.  We don’t have to know where the source might be.  Not having to know everything is something I can very grateful for.

I am a meathead, I like lifting weights.  If I could hangout in the gym all day, every day, I would.  I’ve gone a bit deeper than the average dude with my lifting too.  I have read a lot of information about lifting.  I have always tried to learn more about getting strong and getting big.  I have found many great teachers in my quest for knowledge, injury has been one of the greatest teachers. I am grateful for everything I have learned through the injuries I have suffered to my body. 

My body has suffered its fair share of injuries over the course of 20 years of lifting weights.  I have torn both pectorals, one horribly, one not so horribly.  I have lower back issues.  I have torn my calf.  I have had what I would guess is tendonitis issues in both Achilles’ tendons.  I have issues with one bicep tendon.  I had a stretch of several years where my left arm would have random numbness.  I have had inguinal hernias on both sides, I am still waiting to fix the one.  I think that covers most of my injuries, to be honest that is not a horrible slate of injuries, but I have been through a few.  All of these things have been great teachers.

These things have taught me so much because I never quit lifting any longer than I was forced to.  When I suffered my major pec tear, I was training my lower body the next day.  I just kept coming back and had to overcome all these things.  This is where injuries really teach us.  They force us to learn how to overcome.  These are fantastic lessons. 

From a training standpoint injuries really flip the script on us.  As I accumulated these injuries I couldn’t just go into the gym and bang and clang the weights like young dudes like to do.  I have to learn a lot about warmups and recovery work to keep my body from breaking any more.  I learned how to bench press 300 pounds again after tearing both pecs, which forced me to learn a ton about bench press technique.  I could no longer just lay back and press.  Injuries force us to be smarter about our training, in many cases we can still do cool things. 

In addition to all the lessons I have learned about the nuts and bolts of training, injuries have taught me a lot of mental things.  I have learned how to emotionally and mentally overcome problems.  Every single time I was injured I found a way to come back just as strong as before.  This teaches mental fortitude.  I have also learned so much about pain through injuries.  Overcoming injuries will often mean pain, sometimes lots of it.  Now a lot of times, walking into the gym means I am walking into pain.  I think being able to walk into pain is a skill for life.  Injuries really do offer to teach us so much.

Since injuries have taught me so much, I also have more to teach others because of these experiences.  I plan to do some personal training and strength coaching in the future.  I will be a better teacher after all these exercises.  I am far wiser about when to push and when to back off.  I know more about staying healthy.  I can pass these lessons onto others and help them in so many ways.  A meathead of 20 years with a few injuries under their belt just has a better perspective than someone who has been lifting 2 years and has not yet suffered PAIN.  I hope I can pass my lessons onto others save them some of the problems I have created for myself through injuries. 

Injuries happen to everyone, whether they workout or not.  They are a part of life.  Learning how to overcome them teaches so much.  I am glad I have learned these lessons.  I didn’t seek these lessons out but I accepted them when they were presented to me.  I am grateful I know these lessons, even if I can say I hated the teachers.