Living Proof

Are you a control freak? Sometimes, you just gotta say, "I'm OK with it," and move on. There are so many things we want or need to control that it just overtakes our ability to see the message that's being sent. As cliché as this may sound, maybe it was just meant to be. Maybe God removed something in your life to give you something better. Or if you didn't see what the "better" was, then maybe He was trying to test your strength and endurance, especially your faith. Years ago, when I didn't get what I wanted, I'd turn into a huge crybaby, kicking and screaming like an undisciplined kid in a supermarket. But the more I fought and cried over the situation, the worse it got. My worrying, my tantrums, my crazy episodes weren't going to make anything better. To even top it off, sometimes I would get so upset over something that I had no control over, that my uncontrolled emotions would give me severe chest pains. So now, I had another problem...

As a blogger, I read quite a lot of other people's blogs. As an author, I read lot of other people's books. As a musician and guitarist, of course, the same applies. Isn't that how we learn and how we get new ideas or perhaps even opposing ones? When you're half awake, maybe sipping on your first cup of joe and reading someone else's blog, the first thing that needs to be embedded into your noggin is that blogs are simply opinions or facts taken from other sources. I have seen so many people get riled up over activists' posts and articles that are written to do just that --- stir the pot. While taking everything with a grain of salt, we sometimes fall under a 'thought-to-be' personal attack that we think is either uncalled for or unnecessary. Simple "X" out and move on. Read it like a bad article in the newspaper. No nasty comments can be thrown at the author. But people want their voice to be heard. And why not? They want their opposing opi...

There are people who write and there are people who aren’t able to express their feelings onto ‘paper’. Maybe it’s not about being “able” to write or express themselves; maybe it’s more about fear. Have you ever come across a person who writes poetry and you ask to see their work and they get all shy? What about blogs that keep getting deleted by the author? People are so afraid to get it all out there and the one word that comes to mind is: vulnerability. Nobody wants to be critiqued or ridiculed for what they think, what they feel or how they express themselves with words. They hate rejection - we all hate rejection, but if we don’t receive the criticism we need, then how do we become better writers or artists? Opinions are like assholes - everyone has one. Why let a few bad eggs ruin your ability to be brilliantly open and creative? Not everyone is going to like what you write or do artistically. And the truth is: that’s okay. But who can say that they can keep pushing thro...

With tons of hobbies that people are able to do, the one I find we all have in common is the ability to write or to speak our minds. As for the people who blog as well as myself, we all want to be heard. Isn’t that the reason why we write in the first place? We want our beliefs, opinions and stories to be out there– we want to make a point. That’s why we think this way or that’s why we think that way. We agree with some and we disagree with others. Sometimes our beliefs come off as the ‘truth’ and we disregard the views of people who comment. Now here’s my opinion about bloggers. I have a few of them. Okay, okay- I have quite a few! 1. Bloggers are people who wish to be published writers. If you really think about it, whether or not they’ve published an article in a magazine or have published their own book- they're published regardless, due to them hitting the ‘publish’ button on the blogger option once completed with their post. So, we’re basically all published authors. We ha...