We can’t change where we came from or where we are in this moment, but we certainly can change where we’re headed. We can change tomorrow by changing the path we walk today.
When you recognize an unhealthy pathway for what it is, it’s time to make a course adjustment. Whether you’re on a path toward COPD, diabetes or cycling rage, identifying your particular pathology is necessary to develop an alternate route.
The idea of ‘triggers’ has become popular, in recent years. For example: My sister (who is a sober alcoholic), doesn’t spend time in bars or taverns, because she feels a stronger desire to consume alcohol in such places. She doesn’t drop in to the liquor store to pick up something for someone else, either. Frankly, she doesn’t date someone who drinks alcohol, because she knows she is stronger when she avoids her triggers which include being around people consuming alcohol, or being where alcohol consumption is a large part of the activity.
Learning our thought processes that lead to rage can change our responses to identified anger triggers. When something outside our control triggers anger, the story we tell ourselves about what happened or is happening determines how feel about it. The way we feel has much to do with the way we act. (It doesn’t have to be that way, but that’s another topic). Anger triggers can be trained away, with practice and enough time.
Seeing our unhealthy physical habits (specifically what we put into our bodies and how we use our bodies in motion), is important. Our understanding that we’re eating too much or making poor choices in food items is at the beginning of making another choice; eating less, eating healthier foods and drinking more clean water. Recognizing the amount of time and the quality of the time we spend stationary can help us compare bad habits to healthier options. A healthy choice would be to spend 40 minutes, most days of the week working up a sweat, and getting and staying winded (consult your doctor). A healthy option also includes ten minutes of quiet stillness in meditation and prayer, maybe more than that, if you’re able.
If you cannot see the path you’re on and the destination to which it leads, neither can you clearly see alternate paths. You can come to recognize two pathways. Perhaps you’ll come to see there are many paths…
When you realize the power within you to choose your path, you become powerful to choose your destiny.
Once you’ve seen your weakness and chosen the strengths you desire to develop, it’s time to determine the healthy direction you’ll go from here.
Turn yourself toward a healthy path.
Be well.
Life Cycles
Like the cycles of freedom and bondage experienced ages before Polybius wrote his theories of benign and malignant governments, we continue to cycle today, even thousands of years later. Generations, societies, governments and the governed cycle. Even the earth cycles as it spins through day and night, revolving through seasons and years over millennia and eons of time. Cycles are a theme of living things; growth and decline. We struggle for growth and cycle through periods of accomplishment and strength then ease and weakness. Time spent at ease leads to weakness; a very natural part of the living cycle. This is true for the body, both physical and metaphysical. Among my close friends, I would say this is true for both the body and the spirit. The phenomenon manifests in societies of all sizes, from that of the United States to those the size of the average American family. Around and around we go from weak to strong to weak; from poor to rich to poor. Generation after generation; hum...
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