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Blog Entry 1 of 2 Random thoughts and unnecessary tidbits
A day at work, a night at home, a walk in the sunshine, or a particularly motivating image/sound/emotion

Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~RGuidry

Things I've taken away
Contributed by: Ronnie Guidry   on 3/15/2006

Every once in a while, I find myself talking to someone that I feel I can connect to on a truly deep level - one where I can discuss my own philosophy, ideas, and lessons I've learned. More often than not, spiritual discussions arise. Ordinarily, you can't talk to just anyone about religion or spirituality. Many people take offense to broader ideas or rather any convictions other than their own, but I digress.

What I really wanted to go over are a couple of things that I've discovered myself, and these were generally learned through pain, loss, or love - all powerful teachers.

1. I never regret anything. I discovered years ago that one thing people hate is regret, and I discovered I hated it too. I didn't like feeling that I should have said something differently, or done something differently. I'm like a gardener when I find weeds in my life, or a housekeeper that finds a particularly dirty spot in a house. I try to remove it. I try to clean it. So, in regards to regret, I now believe that whenever I make a decision, I make it with all the accumulated knowledge and experience that I have up to that point. When I make up my mind, I know that nothing else can be done to help sway  my decision - I'm basically as smart as I can be right then and there. So, in the future, why should I regret the choices I've made if I have this mentality? Let me take it to the extreme. Can I regret something I did when I was 15 years old? That was 10 years ago, and I've grown quite a bit mentally since then, but of course at that point years ago, I was the best that I could be at that time. That is not to say, of course, that I can't dislike the decisions I've made. What now? Learn from it, and avoid making a similar decision in the future - that's all you can do, so don't beat yourself up over it.

2. Learn from everything. It doesn't matter it is - I feel that it's important for self-growth and for my own sanity to glean a lesson from anything that is particularly trying or devastating. This really goes hand in hand with #1 above. If you don't force yourself to learn from everything, you'll find that your mental growth will be extremely slow if not stagnant. I have no desire to make the same mistakes twice, and endure the same pain more than once. To be completely honest, I shutter at the thought of reliving some of the experiences I've had.

3. Remain self-aware. I hope I don't sound like a self-help book, but this is easily the most important thing to me. No one is perfect, and I know I can't be, so that's not what I'm professing that anyone should attempt. Maybe I should take a step back to explain how I got here. About 4 years ago, someone asked me what my vices were. I don't even remember who it was (though I wish I did so that I could thank them), but I do remember everything that happened to me from that point forward. I reviewed myself and realized that I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I do drink a bit, but nothing extreme. I don't have any addictions unless you count strawberry milk, Smores cereal, eggs and rice, and edamame. Realizing that I wasn't aware of any real vices in my life, I turned to my best friend, Shannon. He knows me better than anyone else, and sometimes, I wonder if he knows me better than I do. So, I asked him what my vices were, as strange as that may sound to you. What he said resonated so deeply in me, that it became a turning point for me in my life. He said, "Your vice is that you don't know what your vices are." I feel that though life is nothing but myriad choices and paths that can be taken, that I arrived at one of my life's large intersections. He was right - I didn't know myself. Yeah I knew the basic things about me, but I didn't know the darker side of me. No one likes to look at their faults and their flaws. People like to remain focused on the positive things, which is great, but what happens to all the negative parts of yourself? The accumulate. So, I made a list of all the things I didn't like about myself. Sometimes, people ask me, "What was on that list? What didn't you like?" Come on - why on Earth would I say what I hated about myself years ago? I have no desire to be naked in front of people, or to open up myself so completely unless they're a dear friend. So don't ask, I won't tell. ;) Anyway, I prioritized that list according to the things I disliked most, to disliked least. I found that to help discover what I didn't like, I evaluated what people disliked about me. No, I'm not saying that I changed everything that anyone said they didn't like, but it was a great place to start. Some of my flaws, I don't mind, but some of them did indeed need to go. Some people can be really objective, and I've found that often times, the negative things I avoided were presented to me on a silver platter by blunt, abrupt people. Either way, I think that in repairing these things, that I've found that I've grown quite a bit more as a person, and I'm compatible with many more people. Some people say, "Jeez, so you beat yourself up constantly over things you hate about yourself? Wow. That's a tough life." Nah. I have a great analogy to describe all this. If you never do housekeeping, you'll have a very dirty house. You start cleaning, and it's rough at first, but as you get towards the end, you find yourself happier with the way things are looking. Once you're done, the house looks great, and you just have to periodically clean a dirty spot, wash the dishes, do laundry, etc. I don't have many things about myself that I really dislike, I've got a couple things that I'm working on - I'll say that there are 4 on my list, but those aren't really horrible. There are some things about me that I don't intend to change - they define who I am. I'm perfectly OK with the fact that I have a drink or a glass of wine every day. I get stressed too easily. I take it easier now, and I don't get stressed as often, but nothing's more pleasurable to me than to have a coctail while I'm reading a book in the tub. I'm perfectly fine that I'm more than a bit eccentric and unnerve people that prefer ordinary company. I embrace the fact that it takes me over an hour to get ready in the morning - 30 minutes just will not do. I still find it inconceivable that someone can wash their hair, face, body, shave, fix their hair, and decide on what they'll wear for the greater part of the day in under 30 minutes. So the moral is, don't change what you like about yourself, only change what you don't like - and sometimes you'll find other people providing a great starting point.

Life can be rough, and lots of things suck - I don't ever intend to stumble my way through life again aimlessly. I like having direction and I enjoy becoming someone that other people enjoy being around. Who knows, maybe one day I'll find someone else like me. It'd be nice to have someone else eccentric and self-aware to discuss stupid things with - like if trees are really sponges.


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Showing 1 of 1 comments
Submitted By: Mary K. Guidry
posted on 3/17/2006 @ 9:40:31 AM
(Not Rated)
Wow...thanks for the insight and the advice! You are never too old to learn! OK.....so i find myself reading this over and over again and I enjoy it more each time because I learn something more about life each time I read it!
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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Ronnie Guidry

Denver , CO

Ronnie Guidry has posted 3 blog entries and 3 comments since joining on 1/1/0001. Ronnie Guidry's average blog rating is 5.
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