Cary Darling

I am grateful for the experience

Cary Darling — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:41:25 +0000

You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life.

Yes, I just quoted the theme song to a cheesy 80’s sitcom, but Alan Thick and company had a point when they wrote this song, you gotta just accept it all as a part of life.

When you try to control things outside of your control this causes suffering. When you live in regret over the past, something that has already happened and out of your control, you are suffering. When you worry about the future, something that is once again out of your control, you are suffering. So how do you live without suffering? By living in the present moment where the only thing you can control is you, and your reaction to external events.

But that is not my point of today’s post. My point is while I need to learn not to suffer, I also need to learn to accept the pleasure and the pain as both experiences of our existence on this planet. Neither is good or bad, they are like a twist or a turn on a roller coaster ride. They are what make the experience of this ride exhilirating, fun, scary, interesting, you fill in your own adjectives, but I think you get the point.

How can you know happiness without ever experiencing sadness? How can you know comfort without ever experiencing discomfort? We need these conflicting experiences in our lives to not only enable us to see the contrast, but we need them to help make us grow. Sometimes in life, like a tree, we need pruning in order to spur growth, and both good and bad experiences are like a pair of garden shears cutting off branches of our being so we can generate that new growth, and grow taller, and stronger than we were before.

These are all just words, and it is hard to put these words into practice when in the middle of a painful uncomfortable experience and accept that experience as just a part of growing, but the first step in acceptance is awareness.

I am grateful for all of the experiences I have had, both good and bad. I have lived a wonderful, interesting life, and hope it gets even more interesting. I am excited about the possibilities of what each day may bring me.

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I am grateful for resiliency

Cary Darling — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 05:02:57 +0000

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” - Confucius

I have fallen many times in my life, but I am grateful for that inner strength as well as the support of loved ones and friends that help me to keep getting back up and moving forward again.

Life was not meant to be easy, where would the fun be in that. Not that it was necessarily meant to be bad, it was meant to be a challenge. In looking back on some of my most challenging times in life, I have often been able to find a really important lesson, and even some humor. I have laughed myself to the point of delirium with my old high school buddy Tim, talking about events in my life that would have had some people jumping off of bridges.

I was listening to Joel Osteen and he was speaking of times where like a plant, or a tree, we need pruning in order to grow. It’s a really positive you can put on those challenging times when they come around. If everything were handed to us, without us having to put forth any kind of effort, or work through any kind of challenge, we would all still emotionally be infants. While pain avoidance is something we humans rely upon, there are certain pains we just have to go through in order to grow into the kind of man or woman we know we can be.

I still have so much I want to do with my life, I don’t want it to all be spent sitting around an analyzing how to live it better, writing blogs, reading books, listening to speakers on my IPOD. Some of our best lessons are out there waiting for us to be experienced, and we have to learn to welcome the pain that comes with some of those lessons, because if we spend our lives trying to avoid it, we’re definitely going to miss out on the rewards.

I’m a very resilient man, I have had to be for so long. I’m part pit bull, and part bantam rooster. The pit bull in me is that stubborn streak that just grabs onto something and I won’t let go until I get it done, and the bantam rooster in me, is that cocky little bird that walks around, strutting his stuff, just daring the world to step up to him, looking fate in the eye and saying, “Make your move, I dare you.”

I’m a bit all over the place with this post. I guess it’s because in my life I’m a bit all over the place too. It’s because of so much change I have gone through this past year, while there was a bit of regression, there were some major renovations done deep within that I am proud of. I just need to balance it, just a bit.

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I am sort of back

Cary Darling — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 22:47:18 +0000

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. - Kahlil Gibran

As the title says, I am sort of back. About 6 or 7 months ago someone special entered my life and I grew to love her as deeply as she did me. The only problem was, I began to love her more than I did myself, and once I did that, that is when I ventured off my course, and my life was soon out of balance. Her happiness became more important than my own, and because of that I lost her. I was no longer that same man she fell in love with, I in fact had regressed to a version of my former self, a self that I had hoped was long dead and buried.

She often told me that she couldn’t understand how “she got me,” how she was so lucky to have me in her life. In my mind, it was I who was the lucky one. I told her on more than one occasion that there was a reason our paths crossed, that there was a reason for our meeting. I still believe that to this day there was a reason for us to have come together at that particular place in time, lessons to be learned. To say I learned a lot of valuable lessons during that time is an understatement. I am sad and heartbroken that those lessons had to be learned on someone so special. I wish I could have been a better man at times, a better friend and didn’t need to learn anymore lessons in life, and then we could have spent the rest of our lives just enjoying each other as we often talked about. But that of course was not how it turned out.

One very important lesson I learned during all of this, is no matter what, you always have to love yourself first. If you can’t love yourself first, then you’re just not going to really be able to love others in a manner that would be considered the healthiest way of loving. If you love yourself first, while some of the choices you make may upset those you love, if they truly love you, they will only respect and love you even more.

Another lesson I learned is no matter how much someone may want you to, you just can’t fix others. At one time, she had told me that my song was “Fix you,” by the group Coldplay. She told me she needed me in her life, she needed someone to fix her. In the end I came to realize, that this only causes resentment.

Lots of painful lessons to be learned, but valuable lessons that I will hopefully carry forth into the future so as more special people cross my path, I don’t make the same mistakes I did with her. It is over, as well as it should be, and it is for the best. I will forever be grateful for the time I had with her, I will be a better man for having known her.

Where do I go now? Where any sports team goes when they lose focus, back to the basics. I am starting over at square one. I sat down and just mediated on my life for a bit, and took stock of where I am, and how things are going. I then wrote out some goals for this next week, nothing big and audacious, I just need to get back to that version of me that could find happiness wherever he looked, that found the lesson, and the gratitude in all things, that version of me that continuously attracted so many blessings into my life. These goals are real simple, just things to tune up the mind, and get my energy flowing in the right direction again. So here’s what I came up with…

Expressing gratitude daily - Whether out loud or on my blog, I need to get back to looking for those things in my life to be grateful for, and there are so many.
Daily affirmations - These are a vital tool to keeping the mind focused on the best possible version of me, that I can be.
Exercise - I just gotta get moving again.
Spiritual Diet - Music, books, movies, t.v., even friends, If it doesn’t feed my mind, my heart, or my soul, then I don’t want it in my life.
De-Clutter - Both my bedroom, and my car became a physical manifestation of how chaotic and imbalanced my life had become. If your physical surroundings are cluttered, then so is your mind, which makes it very difficult to make sound, reasonable choices.

These are my only goals for now. Until I get myself back on track, a week is long term for me. I will focus on these goals this week, and continue to do so until they become habit. Once they become habit, and I have realigned myself with the true desires of my heart, I will begin to bring back those big audacious goals into my life.

Thanks as always for taking the time to stop by and read…

Cary

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I am grateful for looking right

Cary Darling — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:35:30 +0000

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. - Lao Tzu

Whether you call it God, The Universe, or Source, whatever it is it sure has a funny way of teaching you some valuable lessons in the most simple, but in your face way. Saturday evening after work, I headed down to the Luxor casino to meet some friends to see Carrot Top live in person. No the lesson to be learned wasn’t that you won’t find happiness in steroids and too much plastic surgery, it in fact was a lesson regarding blessings in life that are yours for the taking, and how to find the right path, to ensure you cross paths with those blessings.

One thing I seem to manifest in life with relative ease is parking places. Sure it may sound like a weird thought, but I can show up just about anywhere, anytime and find a parking space exactly where I want it to be. I have always known this to be true, I don’t doubt it for a second, and I see evidence of this little blessing, miracle, whatever you want to call it occur in my life all the time

As I entered the Luxor parking lot, I noticed it was pretty full, I was already running a bit late, so I headed right towards the door to find a parking spot that was close. As I drove through the parking lot, I did not scan to see if I could see any open spaces, in fact I decided that the second row would have an available space for me to park, so I turned down that row and looking to the left I proceeded to drive where I expected my space to be. However, as I got to where my space should have been all the spaces were full. I kid you not, when I say that I was shocked, I just knew there would be a parking space available for me right here. So I started to drive off to go down another lane, and as I drove off, something caught my attention in the rear view mirror. On the exact opposite side of where I was looking for my space, there it was. The open space. It was there all along, all I had to do was look to the right.

What’s my point? There are miracles and blessings flying into our lives daily, in fact you should learn to expect that blessings and miracles will show up in your life, accept and be grateful for this fact of life, and once again show even more gratitude when they do manifest themselves. However the simple little lesson I learned that night was that don’t always expect them to only come from one place, or one direction,. Don’t do as I was doing, and trying to force the Universe to work within my set of rules, but without any effort on your part just allow these blessings and miracles to show up in your life in their own time, in their own way, and they will come, sometimes you just have to be prepared to look right, instead of left, and there they will be.

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I am grateful to BE

Cary Darling — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:05:33 +0000

I cannot tell you any spiritual truth that deep within you don’t know already. All I can do is remind you of what you have forgotten - Eckhart Tolle The Power of Now

Here lately when it comes to the lessons I am learning in life I am often finding myself asking God, “Didn’t we already cover this in an earlier chapter?” But then here comes a pop test, and I quickly realize I have forgotten some very important parts of that assignment.

Over the past couple of months, knowing in the back of my mind I would begin to create my exit strategy from Starbucks in the first weeks of 2009, I began to grow frustrated. Some people call it “short timer’s syndrome.” I was ready to go, in fact I still am, my desires in life have not changed, but an earlier lessons began to unfold before me again, and this time I’m starting to see there were more layers to this lesson than I had noticed before.

A huge part of my frustration comes from wondering why I am still at Starbucks, how come I haven’t moved on, and how come magical doors have not been opened to me. WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO LEARN FROM THIS?!

I know one of the reasons I got my job at Starbucks was to get over my ego and understanding that a job making fancy named latte’s was not below me. I learned that lesson. Honest work is good, no matter what the job is, do your job well, and do it with pride. Okay class is over, promote me now.

But as I have meditated over these thoughts, wrote in my journal, prayed nightly, it all began to come together yesterday. There was more to that lesson, much more. As I sat outside in my truck eating my lunch, I watched people going in and out of Vons when a co-worker caught my attention. I asked myself “Is he happy with where he was in life?” Looking from the outside, not really knowing what he was thinking he seemed to be happy. But of course looks can be deceiving. I then began to wonder what brought him here to this point in his life and would he be like so many others at Vons and work there most, if not all of his adult life. Well lunch was over, my answers didn’t come to me then, but it sure did get the ball rolling.

That same afternoon, I was driving over to Jim’s house to meet with him and Denny. I decided to take all surface streets across Vegas, I didn’t feel like messing with all of the freeway construction near the strip and downtown. So in order to pass the time, I strapped on my headphones and began to crank out some tunes. I love to drive, especially when I am not in a rush to get anywhere because in my car I seemed to get inspired, and the thoughts just come rolling in.

As I drove down Durango and was beginning to cross the 215 where two lanes merge into one, I saw in my side mirror an Escalade roaring up behind me, and they were going to disrupt the flow of traffic and instead of taking their proper turn and getting in behind me, they were going to try to pass me on the right. Well my heart began to race a bit and my foot hit the gas and I sped up just enough to thwart their plans. The Escalade was forced in behind me and what I saw in the rearview mirror was quite ridiculous. At the wheel of this very pretty piece of machinery was a forty plus year woman who was clearly hanging onto her twenties a lot harder than her steering wheel. In fact she wasn’t holding onto the steering wheel at all. She was talking on her cell phone, which was held onto her shoulder by her chin, and both hands were in the air and she was dancing in her seat. There apparently was a rave party going on in the vehicle behind me.

Of course the absurdity of the situation made me laugh, and that’s when I realized during that moment I wasn’t any better. Who am I to police the world? Why did I find it necessary to make someone else follow my imagined set of road etiquette rules? Even if I attempted to explain this imaginary set of rules to this lady she just was not going to get it. So I told myself to just chill out, relax there is no hurry,” you are in the right place, at the right time.”

> Insert sound of a record player coming to a scratching halt<

I had a huge moment of clarity here. I began to understand why I am still at this place in my life, wherever that is, because it is the right place at the right time. In five minutes from now, in thirty seconds from now, when I complete this sentence, whatever happens good or bad, I will be in the right place at the right time. There is a lesson to be learned from each second we have in this physical form that we have chosen to manifest ourselves, and that is very simply put, what time is it? The time is NOW. I must quit worrying about tomorrow, and focus on this keystroke, focus on this breath, and detach myself from the outcome because the future will arrive when the time is right, and wherever I am, I will BE.

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Thoughts at 6 am

Cary Darling — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:38:06 +0000

I just completed an overnight sleep study and as I was driving home I began to contemplate and meditate on different aspects of my life such as accomplishments, goals, and challenges that lie ahead.

One of my biggest hurdles right now is that I know where I am headed, I can see the steps, but a few of those steps require me to pull the trigger and make some decisions where the only thing that holds me back right now is fear.

One of those decisions is that it is time for me to leave my comfy world at Starbucks. While Starbucks has provided a great place for learning, growing, and security, it is knowing that I applied that last word, “security,” to one of the most insecure things in life that causes me great distress. A job has never, nor will it ever be security. A job is only there for me, when I am there for it. The moment I cease to be, the moment it ceases to be. In other words, as long as I remain as healthy as I can be, that job will be there for me. As long as my superiors continue to appreciate my efforts, that job will be there for me. But to everything there is a season, and the sun will not always shine, there will come at some point a long hard winter, and maybe a few thunderstorms and eventually my season at Starbucks may change, and I may no longer be the fair headed wunderkind that is looked upon with favor.

I am still grateful for my job, especially in such a time of economic turmoil that has devestated a lot of families. I pray that this is the economic bottom, and if anything, over the next couple of years we will only plateau, or begin our rise again. So while I do feel grateful, I also feel a load of guilt for wanting to move on, and not just guilt for wanting to give up the job, but I also feel guilt because I am taking up an opportunity, a blessing for somebody else who maybe wants a career with Vons or Starbucks, while my stay is only temporary.

But in the end, it is those two words that haunt me. Job security. It is job security that has stopped people from growing, learning, loving, and living their life’s purpose. It is job security that has kept people from realizing their life’s dreams. One of my dearest friends may not have realized the level of success she has experienced, if she had not turned her back on the security of a government job. That one step in faith, has lead her on a journey around the world.

Me, I have been a victim of my own fears for so long, and I don’t believe getting over a fear can be done by slowly peeking my head out to see if the coast is clear. The question I must ask my self is, when is NOW the right time?

Stay tuned, this year will be an interesting one.

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I am grateful for another step

Cary Darling — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 06:40:27 +0000

photo credit: ken mccown

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Pour a cup of coffee, kick back, because I think this is going to be another long winded post.

In my early twenties I was introduced to the writings of an old curmudgeon by the name of Charles Bukowski, whose simple beat style prose intrigued me. Hank, as he was known by friends, family and fans, was “blogging” well before the net was invented by the US government in the 1970’s. Hank could take some of the simplest things in life and through his writing he would make them interesting. He didn’t seem to get caught up in the fluff of writing, he just wrote about what he did, what he saw, what he smelled, and what he tasted.

I spent an entire summer learning from Bukowski’s writings. It was as if everything I wrote could be titled, “A study in ____ .” Of course you fill in the blank. I had hundreds of pieces of paper, scraps even, whatever I could find where I wrote about things like filling up my gas tank that afternoon, driving to work, or cleaning my bedroom.

What I had learned during this time was that talents are like muscles, if you don’t use them, they tend to atrophy and grow weak, but if you did use them, the pump that is your mind, was always primed, and thoughts and ideas flowed freely. This time in my life was one of my more prolific times. There were many nights where I spent hours over state of the art technology like an electric typewriter riffing like a jazz pianist hopped up on reefer in a 1930’s anti-drug movie. These writings ranged from prose, to poetry, to Dennis Miller like ponderings that I was sending off to friends across the states. I’m sad to say that I have since lost every single piece of writing from that period. Whether or not my old friends still have those letters I sent I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to any of them in years, and don’t have much hope. I apologize, I am getting to a point but it will take some time to get there.

I have written here on my blog in the past about my inability to get from A-Z by going through the smaller steps like a to b, to c, to d. I would rather skip the whole process and just go straight to the end of the line. It is because of this lack of patience I haven’t completed certain short stories that I have begun, among other projects. But in the last week or so I have been inspired to journal again.

Now when I say journal, this is something completely different than my blog. I purchased a journal at Wal-Mart that is now filling up with ideas, questions, and inspired thoughts. One person that inspired me to do this was my father. My dad has been buying me journals for years but I have never used a single one. I still have them all packed away somewhere. What I came to realize was that my dad, who is an amazing writer, has compiled a number of books (unpublished for now) by combining thoughts, and poems written over many years. Sometimes it takes a lot of work to penetrate this hard skull of mind with one of the most simple concepts like, I don’t have to write an entire novel in one evening.

As I said, the thoughts are flowing, some of it may get posted here, most probably will not. But as I sat outside for lunch today I filled up three pages in my journal, and something hit me, it was recognizing the next step I need to take in life. It was such an inspired moment it hit me right between the eyes so hard that I wrote at the bottom of the page. “This is the next step.”

I am doing my best in life to walk my preach and just keep taking those steps in faith, knowing that there will be another one to follow leading me upward to achieving my goals.

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I am grateful for a winning season

Cary Darling — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 01:32:01 +0000

Losers live in the past. Winners learn from the past and enjoy working in the present toward the future. - Denis Waitley

I have not been blogging much this last half of the year, but I would like to remind not just my limited numbers of readers, but myself, that does not mean there is nothing to be grateful for. In fact, each and every day I find more than enough to be grateful for.

In this month’s issue of Success magazine, Ron White speaks on the free CD / DVD included in the magazine about having a winning year. Just like a sports team has a winning season by winning over 50% of its games, we too should strive to recognize our own winning seasons by focusing on how many good things, or days we has versus bad. With that in mind, I can say emphatically that this year was a smashing success, and I have no apprehension about repeating and even improving upon that success in 2009.

With the year coming to a close and a new one just about to begin, I sit here on the eve of 2009 to once again remind mainly myself, that we don’t need a January 1st to get started over again. We don’t need a “New Year” to set things right, get out the pen and pad and write a list of resolutions we hope to keep. All I have is the very moment I exist in. Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is not even a promise. While I am blessed with time, I do not wish to choose on foscusing on how I screwed up this relationship, blew this diet, or “back slid” into old habits by not following resolutions. The only path that leads down is a self-destructive one of shame, in which most people including myself choose to become a victim.

The path I choose to take now is one of hope. Each night I go to bed and five t0 eight hours later I wake up and it is a new day, and each new day brings with it new opportunities to improve upon the new version of the old me. Did I meet each and every goal I had set for myself last year? No, but I did stop picking at my nails. Did I read one book a week? No, but I bought more than one book a week. Did I meet my goal weight? No, but I figured out what was holding me back. So with that in mind, to wrap up the year I will set just one resolution…

I Cary Darling resolve for the year 2009 to have more good days than bad, giving me another winning year.

Happy New Year!

Cary

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I am grateful for source energy

Cary Darling — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:20:46 +0000

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Xanadu is a mystical magical place where anything and everything can happen. Where is Xanadu? Well I guess the question should really be when is NOW Xanadu?

I woke up this morning and life was still breathing within this body of mine, and what a blessing bestowed upon me, because yet again I get another opportunity to create the reality and life of my dreams. Another opportunity to not only find my calling, but to live my life’s purpose. This is Xanadu. NOW is Xanadu. If you’re waiting for some reward on another plane whether it is spiritual or physical, then you are missing out on the one you have chosen to manifest your physical form in this very day. For me I choose from here on out to live my life as an experiment. I’m strapping on the lab coat, pulling out the bunson burner and I’m going to test the boundaries of this physical plane and live life to its fullest extent. That is why we have chosen to be here.

This morning I am grateful for the source energy that moves to and through me, creating this world around me as I choose it to be.

“We’re a long way from home, welcome to the Pleasure Dome …” Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Frankie says Relax

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Finding Gratitude In The Face of Bad News

Cary Darling — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:54:31 +0000

The future is called “perhaps,” which is the only possible thing to call the future. And the only important thing is not to allow that to scare you. ~Tennessee Williams, Orpheus Descending, 1957

Over the past couple of months I have devoted most of my free time to take care of some existing health problems, only to see new ones arise. I am currently recovering from surgery I had not even two weeks ago, and I am healing fine. My strength and endurance increase each day.

A few weeks before my surgery, I was told by my urologists that my PSA test results which scan for possible prostate cancer came back high. For a man my age, the high range should be no more than 2.5 and my PSA score came back at a whopping 8.5. They then put me on some antibiotics to rule out the possibility that an infection I had was causing a false positive and then retested me the day before my surgery. Today I got the results back, and they were not what I was hoping for. My PSA score did drop from an 8.5 to a 2.7, however the Free PSA test score which should be 25% or higher came back at a 6.7%, which anytime the number is 7% or below, indicates a very likely chance of your having prostate cancer. The next step is another test, and then biopsy.

So what am I grateful for in light of all of this? I am grateful that every day I wake up I am surrounded by those who love, care and and have respect for me. I am grateful to be back to work. I am grateful that my health continues to get better and better each and every day. I am grateful that I continue to learn and grow spiritually and financially. I am grateful for every morning I wake up on this side of the dirt and I get another chance to play this game called life. Yes I am still grateful, I am extremely grateful, even though I have not put it out in my blog. I live a very blessed life, and no one knows that better than me.

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