Author Archives: Dave Gardner

Daily Ramblings – Thankful Thursdays – Family

22 Thursday Aug 2019

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Our nephew visited this last week for a few days. It was great having him here. We went out to some restaurants, hung out on our deck, watched some shows on Netflix, and got in a little Xbox gaming. He got plenty of face time with Mom and Dad and we all enjoyed his stay. He headed back yesterday to get ready for his senior year at ASU, which started today. My sister also came up for a few days. While she was here we binge-watched Mindhunter Season 2 on Netflix. If you haven’t watched the Mindhunter series, it is worth your while.

I have been working with my wife to help her get ready for her teacher’s certification. We have been burning the midnight oil every day for the last few weeks for a few hours each night. It’s nice to help her get ready.

I am thankful for all the opportunities to spend time with family. I am blessed that I could be in the situation to spend time with my folks during their senior years. It was great seeing the nephew this week. It is also nice to spend time with my wife, while she pursues her career in Arizona. I am so proud of her.

I am also grateful for the new followers this week. Daily Ramblings is slowly creeping toward the goal of 1000 followers this year. It is nice to see new followers when I check into the Daily Ramblings blog site on WordPress. Thank you to all who have opted to follow my blog.

Over the next few days, I’ll be on a religious retreat, so Friday and Saturday postings will not happen. I’ll be too busy with the retreat and will not have time to get something up on the site. I’ll see you all on Monday!

I hope all of you have a great weekend!

Until next time…

Dave

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Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Riding the Wave

21 Wednesday Aug 2019

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Image by Doug Wilmerton from Pixabay

What is wisdom? Wisdom is what we gain when we learn the hard way. When we tackle something new, we discover problems, challenges, and resilience. This applies to everything. The greatest learning happens when we are struggling.

Sometimes we can avoid the heartache of learning about something we don’t know anything about by reading about a person who is going through the same thing. Other times we stumble across a good piece of advice when we ask others to help us with a problem.

None of us goes looking for trouble. It just sneaks up on us, when we think we are on track or think we have something figured out. We learn that what we thought we knew, we didn’t. Interestingly, we discover that the things we depend on are typically the things that cause the most pain when they break. Think about the last time your car broke down. Totally unexpected right?

Last year I had a huge problem with tires. I went to visit my sister to attend a comedy show in her neck of the woods. While we were on our way, we hit a huge pothole and blew out a tire. A month or so later, coming home from my sister’s I ran over a shock absorber that was left behind by a semitrailer. It blew out two tires simultaneously. Three tires in a matter of months. Not only was it expensive to repair, but an absolute pain in the butt because the second time delayed me for 4 hours. Needless to say, I try to avoid driving through Detroit (because of the horrific state of the highways that run through there).

One of the wisest things I’ve discovered is the beauty of taking little steps each day toward a goal I want to achieve. You’d be amazed how many books you can read in a year by reading one chapter a day. You’d be amazed by how much you can write if you write a little each day. This can be applied to anything you do. I tend to like touching a whole slew of items each day. It keeps things fresh and it allows me to diversify my attention to many things, instead of focusing on just one thing. I do not multitask; I monotask. I focus on one thing at a time, but work across numerous areas each day. I write, meditate, exercise, read, take classes, run errands, and so on. Each task I accomplish contributes to a life-goal or a short-range or medium-range goal. That’s me. You may not like hopping and skipping around. You may not have the time.

When you are setting up your day, evaluate your productivity. Are you moving forward with your goals or spinning your wheels? Maybe you’ve taken on too much or you are trying to focus on something that just isn’t right for you right now. You also have to take into consideration that there will be days you can’t do anything because of outside circumstances. My nephew was in town this last week. He only visits once a year, so I wanted to take advantage of him being here by hanging out and doing things with him. This weekend I’m scheduled for a religious retreat. The retreat starts Friday and does not end until Sunday afternoon. Needless to say, this means that my priorities will take a back seat to this event. This is one thing to consider as well. You have to prioritize what is most important and put some of your daily to-dos on hold to take advantage of rare events that have a greater impact on your well-being.

Today’s article was spurred by the article I have referenced below. Give it a look. It’s a short one and will only take a few minutes to read, but it’s worth it. It caused me to think about wisdom in a new light. We really do gain when times are hard or our schedules are thrown into a tizzy. We have to improvise and adapt. This comes when we have developed the wisdom to realize that some days you just have to “ride the wave”.

Until next time…

Dave

Reference

Cohut, M. (2018). The road to wisdom runs through hardship study finds. Retrieved from: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320996.php

Daily Ramblings – Ted Talk Tuesday – Victor Vescovo

20 Tuesday Aug 2019

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Image by Sabine Da Silva from Pixabay

If you are a fan of exploration, you’ll love this short video talk given by Victor Vescovo about his submarine, which can get to the bottom of the ocean. Take a look. I hope this blows you away like it did me.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Workout Routine – Pilates

19 Monday Aug 2019

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Workout:

  • The Saw
  • The Hundred
  • Criss Cross
  • Swimming
  • Shoulder Bridge Right
  • Shoulder Bridge Left

I’m enjoying the Pilates workout on my 5MHW (5-minute Home Workout) app on my phone. It’s terrific learning new exercises and for a guy with a history of back surgery, the workout routine focuses on the most important muscle group–the core.

Have a great Monday, folks!

See you at the finish line!

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Motivation Monday – Why?

19 Monday Aug 2019

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Happy Monday!

My nephew is visiting, and it’s a great time. We are catching up on things that are happening in Arizona and enjoying his company. My Mom and Dad are thrilled he is here and enjoying the time with him.

This week I’ll be writing, exercising, meditating, programming, reading, and learning. I’ll also be doing some stuff with my nephew and getting ready for a religious retreat this weekend. It’ll be a great week!

I was pondering the reasons why I do what I do. I do the things I do because I enjoy them. I like to write because it helps me clarify my thinking, organize my thoughts, and express myself. I like to exercise because it provides a sense of accomplishment and I feel good after I’ve completed it. Exercise for me is a daily battle but one that I typically win. I try to exercise early in the day to get it done. It sets the tone for the rest of the day. Meditation is a no-brainer for me. The benefits of consistent meditation is just too good to miss out on. I enjoy the mental clarity that comes from meditating, along with the focus I am able to achieve. Learning and programming have always been passions of mine. I am currently working through a Python course and taking a writing course. Both are ways for me to improve myself and learn something that I can use for an income. Reading is always a joy. I enjoy reading because I learn from the authors I select and it is entertaining.

I like having a format to my day. I like waking up and looking at my to-do list, the bulk of which is recurring. There are always things that I need to do that pop up now and then but for the most part, my schedule is pretty consistent.

What is your why? Why are you pursuing what you are pursuing? Why do you have goals? Why do you want to achieve them? These are great questions to ask, particularly if you are finding that you’ve lost interest in what you are doing or need to alter what your game plan is for the day. I tend to do an inventory of these things a few times a year. Sometimes I get burned out on taking courses, so I’ll take a break from them. Sometimes I enjoy reading multiple books at once. Other times I enjoy one book. My exercise fluctuates from going to the gym every day to doing a home workout. My meditations use an app some days and do not use anything other days. I keep my days fresh by redoing my inventory of doing things once in a while. I never drop my goals, but I do change what goals I am focusing on, just to avoid monotony.

Most of my goals now are bucket list items. These are the things I want to accomplish before I leave this Earth. Writing a book or two, attaining and maintaining a certain weight, writing a mobile app and a computer app that I can sell are also bucket item lists. These are long-term goals. I have some short-term goals (yearly), like taking so many courses, reading so many books. I also have some indefinite goals or things that I pursue all the time that do not have a finish date or final state of being. Goals like weight loss, eating healthy, and maintaining my financials are ongoing, never-ending goals.

Take a few moments to understand why you have the goals you have. Are you making progress? Are you driven to attain them? If you find yourself resisting goals you want to achieve, try to understand what is driving you to achieve that goal? Maybe your why isn’t strong enough. Maybe you’ve lost interest. That’s ok. Move on to something else and put that goal on hold for a bit. It doesn’t mean you’ve quit, it just means you want to focus on goals you are really driven to achieve in this moment. You can always return to it later.

Well, that’s it for today, folks. Have a great Monday and a great week!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Attitude Adjustment

17 Saturday Aug 2019

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If we want to keep the blessings of life coming to us, we must learn to be grateful for whatever is given.

—Harold Klemp

The Language of Soul

Gratitude is an interesting character trait. It requires us at times to really dig deep to find something, something to be grateful for. As the quote says, we must LEARN to be grateful for whatever is given.

So, how do you learn to be grateful? I think this is an individual endeavor. What works for me may not work for you. I started out with the 5-minute journal and followed the instructions that it provides at the beginning of it when you pull it out of the package that arrives. “List three things you are grateful for” in the morning. “List three things you are grateful for” in the evening before bed. This simple, short exercise helped me finally grasp what it means to be grateful.

When I first started I listed out the common things everyone is grateful for. I was grateful for my wife. I was grateful for my stepdaughters. I was grateful for my immediate family. After a while, when I began to see the benefits of explicitly writing down what I was grateful for, I began to get more detailed. Instead of “I am grateful for my wife” I would write down “I am grateful for my wife because she works so hard to take care of me and our girls.” When I began writing the specifics of why I was grateful for something, the feeling I had changed to a stronger feeling.

There’s another quote I began to think about during this time period. The quote reads, “Things are done for us, not to us.” I don’t know who the author of this quote is, but it had an impact on me. Think about that for a moment. Things are done for you, not to you. Think of the last time you had that “woe is me” feeling. Now think about this quote. It is hard to capture gratitude when things are crumbling around you, but if you truly embrace, “things are done for you, not to you”, you begin to see that God is doing everything for you so you can become a more spiritual being.

Maybe God is trying to tell you to change your diet, or it’s time to get a new job, or it’s time to move to a new area. If you believe that God is doing things for you and not to you, some events in your life that are traumatic or unsettling, take on a whole new light.

These attitudinal changes make a huge difference in how you approach your day. Think how good you will feel when you discover that nothing can rattle you, that your internal happiness cannot be affected by the changes in weather, what other people do or don’t do, or how things turn out for you. The human mind is so feeble and incapable of grasping the whole that we rarely see how God works in our lives, nor in the lives of others. It is beyond the human mind’s capability to see the infinite amount of variables that intertwine to make our reality.

Gratitude is a simple character trait. It is being grateful for your life. It is being grateful for what you have. It is being purposefully grateful for the blessings that God has given you. The ego and the human mind are very small vessels. They are necessary for our survival, but easily offended, upset, and dumbfounded. This is where a faith-belief must take hold in your heart. If God is perfect, which IT is, everything in this universe must be in its rightful place—everything. Everything that God does for us must be received as a blessing not a curse.

When you begin shifting your attention from what you don’t have to what you do have your life will take on a whole new meaning. Try this out. Use a pad of paper, a journal, or a computer program (I use MS OneNote) to do my gratitude journaling. It has made a huge impact on my life and it will do the same for you.

If any of you try this, keep me posted on any changes you feel or what impact this change in attitude brings into your life. Feel free to leave your revelations or insights in the comments below.

As always, have a great Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave