Be the Change no. 31

“Your beliefs are your actions. What you say is just what you think.”

Be the Change.

Thirty years ago, I was three months away from graduating high school at the Maryland Theater in Hagerstown. I was set to attend Georgia Tech and become an engineer. I had two friends that were inseparable and a few others that occupied my time of driving around and getting into adolescent foolishness. Now, I am looking at my oldest daughter getting ready to make that transition out into the world.

A lot of things have changed. I had a plan that wasn’t aligned with what everything else had in mind. So, I am now teaching middle school English/Language Arts with degrees from three Maryland schools. I rarely talk to those old friends. I occupy my time with a garden and livestock and a reenergized love of wrasslin. And my wife keeps telling me I’m becoming my dad at least once a week. A bit of a change from that seventeen year old fella that had life mapped out. Things change whether you want them to change or not. Thirty years ago I hated eating salads and today I eat them twice daily five times a week. BUT who I am and who I was really have not changed.

I am still filled with hope for what is coming in the future. I still have plans. I still think life is funny. I still want to have all the fun. BUT, as I have grown, I have grown to understand that I am not in control of everything. No matter what my plans are, I only have a small amount of control over those plans. The rest I have to let slide. A lesson learned over my time in college. Sometimes things do not go the way you planned BUT allowing things to happen rather than fighting against the inevitable is liberating. Being able to slide with the flow and embrace the change helps give perspective to what I can and can not control.

So, I can change the things I can change. And the rest is left to the realm of what I do not understand. And I am not questioning that path. Thirty years ago this was not my dream. This was not my plan. And despite that, life has worked out rather well.

It’s nice to have a plan. It’s nice to have goals. BUT it is much more complicated to learn from the change and embrace the path.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyBodyMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #BeTheChange

Be the Change no. 30

“Good ideas NEVER require force.”

Be the Change.

There has always got to be a law for folks. When folks advocate for laws, they do not consider what laws mean in implementation. Laws mean giving a group the right to use deadly force to enforce that rule. Laws give a group the right to take your property. Laws give a group the right to put you in a cage. Laws give a group the right to take your life.

Laws give away your freedom. Laws do not make you more free. Rules make you free. You get to set your own rules and sometimes you break them. Rules can change given more information. Rules can change due to circumstances. Rules are malleable if you want them to be malleable. Rules are strict and rigid when you want them to be strict and rigid. But rules do not take away from other folks. Rules allow folks to live their lives content in their life, liberty, and property.

And your rules for your life can be totally different from mine and we can get along in a shared society because of that one Golden Rule. And if folks started just adopting that Golden Rule together, then we may see folks yearning for more laws. BUT we aren’t going to get anywhere doing the same thing folks have been doing for centuries. Advocating for new laws, stacking up new laws, and acting like laws make people more virtuous. How many laws is it going to take to create your utopian society? We have stacks of laws around and I don’t see it making folks better people.

Maybe we should stick to rules? I am working on the Golden Rule. How about you?

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyBodyMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #BeTheChange