Category: Stories

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I'm Just Sayin Observations Stories

How Does Your Garden Grow?

When parents have their first child they look at it as a bundle of joy filled with wonder and potential. To them it is perfection, however, they forget that even Charles Manson, Hitler and Bin Laden started out as sweet babies.

We are born as gardens filled with a variety of seeds that spring up and grow throughout our lives. Seeds of doubt mixed in with envy, greed, lust, deceit, cruelty, anger, selfishness spring up weeds that desperately try to choke out the flowers of love, joy, peace, kindness, self-discipline, and faithfulness.

When we are born it is our parents job to landscape our lives like a skilled gardener.  Hours should be spent weeding out the bad and nourishing the good. In a garden that isn’t cared for beauty struggles to survive.

I think in life we often feel that we can just sit back sometimes and coast. We like to keep things low maintenance and instead of getting our hands dirty and digging into the root of the problem, we just clip it back or pay someone else to take care of the problem for us. In my own life I’m working on weeding out some bad habits and planting some good ones. I’m digging deep to unearth some deeply rooted weeds that have threatened to not only choke out the good things in my life, but to destroy me entirely. It has only been by the grace of God that I am the man that I am. If left to my own devices I feel that I not only have the imagination, but also the resources, to successfully destroy everything that I have worked hard for in my life.

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I'm Just Sayin Relationships Stories

A Pathetic Outburst Followed By A Wave Of Clarity

On Friday I play racquetball with one of my buddies and I love it. It is the highlight of my week. After we had finished playing he asked me how I was doing spiritually and physically. “Not Good” I replied. He continued to probe and question and I kept giving him these reasons for my lack of focus and overall complacency and when we were finished talking I felt like a big toad.

Normally a good talk makes me feel better. You get some things off your chest and you breathe a big sigh of relief. That didn’t happen form me on Friday. Instead I kept replaying the conversation over and over in my head and I thought, “Wow, that was a load of crappy excuses. How pathetic!”

It was a pathetic outburst followed by a wave of clarity. It was as if voices all these inner complaints helped me to see them for what they were – whining and feeling sorry for myself.

I don’t like to admit this, but I find that sometimes showing weakness allows other people to relate to me better. Weakness makes us human and in our weakness we realize that we must rely on God.

So after this talk I resolved to stop making excuses and to start making some adjustments. If I can’t correct my problems immediately I can stop the self-sabotaging behaviors and the excuses which are nothing more than tools of the incompetent and I had quite a few in my toolbox.

As a leader I am someone that should be setting an example. Life is hard for all of us and when we overcome challenges, when we fight for what we want then that makes reaching those goals all the more pleasurable.

I recommend finding someone in your life that challenges you to do better, to be better, all the time. It’s not always easy to hear that you need to make improvements, but it’s nice to know that someone cares enough to say something and challenge you to be the best you can be.

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Stories

I Need a Life Coach

Yesterday when I was eating dinner with my mom I said, “I need someone in my life that constantly checks in on me, listens to me when I talk about my goals, and supports and guides me.”

This person is often referred to as a mentor, I decided to use the term Life Coach. Coaches have whistles and they yell, but you like them for it because it means they care.

I’d like a life coach like Fred. Fred is one of those people who seem to really have done things right. Great family and well-balanced.

I’d even like to start a LifeCoach system where older men mentor younger men and there is a trickle down affect. Like if you are being mentored, you have to mentor someone else. Maybe not at first, but eventually.

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Home Stories

She could feel depression lurking in the shadows waiting for a sign of weakness so it could swoop in for the kill.

Judith pulled into her garage and left the car engine running as the garage door closed behind her. She thought how easy it would be to just lie there, still and quiet, allowing the carbon monoxide to just carry her away.

It wasn’t that her life was depressing, it was just that she was tired. More and more she felt like staying in bed as there seemed very little reason to get up. The things in life that once allowed her to escape from reality had lost their thrill, food became tasteless, people became an annoyance.

She shut off her engine and allowed the darkness to settle around her. Suicide was such a cowardly way to go and in comparison to the people around her she really had no reason to be bored with her life. She got out of her Camry and made her way into her house.

Without flipping a light on she dropped her keys on the kitchen table. They clanged loudly disturbing the silence but not bringing it fully awake.

Then Judith bumped into something and screamed. There was a man standing there in front of her. His face wasn’t dark and menacing, on the contrary it was warm and inviting. He pulled her toward him without seeming to move at all. One minute he was standing there and the next she was clutched tightly in his arms.”Don’t resist” He said.

His voice was deep and throaty and instead of fear she felt a twinge of excitement. Only moments ago she was thinking about death and now this? She felt her legs go weak as the man began to kiss her neck gently. Then he slammed her against the refrigerator, magnets and pictures fell to the floor as the assault continued.

Could this be happening? It felt like something out of a Lifetime made for tv movie. She couldn’t believe what she was feeling, joy, excitment, fear. She was suddenly turned on and without realizing it she was kissing back, greedily and lustily pulling off her attackers clothes. His eyes met hers and they was a break, a moment of hesitation as he sensed that the tables were being turned. He tried to pull away but Judith kept on pulling him toward her. She twisted and spun in such a way that pulled him to the floor and she fell on top of him.

She reached down between them groping for the buttons on his pants. She ripped his shirt open and bit his nipple. The intruder yelled in pain and tried to push Judith away but she held him down relishing the feeling of being in total control. She slapped his face hard and then kissed him devouring his face like Thanksgiving dinner.

When she pulled her mouth away from his she heard him saying something and shaking his head, “No, No, No”. The fear in his eyes seemed to ignite an animalistic need in Judith that she didn’t know she had. The power was all-consuming she reached up into the drawer and pulled out a knife and held it to his throat. With a single slice she cut his carotid artery and whispered, “Thank You”.

Judith sat quietly in the dark waiting for Mr. Parsons to get home. She held her breath and then pressed the cool steel of the blade to the side of her cheek. the cold cause her to gasp with shock. Before the intruder had come into her life she could feel depression lurking in the shadows waiting for a sign of weakness so it could swoop in for the kill, but she decided to show depression she wasn’t as weak as he thought. As she slid the knife into Mr Parsons heart she smiled at the thought of death and laughed…. life has a funny way of working things out and finally she had something to live for.

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Design Diet I'm Just Sayin Movie Reviews Relationships Stories

I ask important questions up front like, “Were you ever a dude?” and “Are you a Wiccan?”

I’m not sure if I posted on here about trying e-Harmony again in December of last year, but  I did. Surprisingly I was matched with very few women and the ones I was matched with weren’t a match at all.

What is it about online dating services that makes me feel like I am bargain basement shopping? It’s like I have this selection of women served up before me that are last year’s models or returned items that someone else didn’t want. I know what you are thinking: Harsh Much! But it’s true.

I’ve been trying Match.com for a month now and it seems that everyone they are matching me with is divorced. When did people start getting divorced in their twenties?

I’m probably being too judgmental or even unrealistic cause I know there are some amazing divorced women out there, but I sort of want to be my wife’s first husband. When someone has already been married then I feel like “Hey, you already had your turn, let some the rest of us have a shot!”

Match.com gives me 5 new matches a day and most of the time I can look at their profile and tell if we would actually be a good match. I have talked to a couple of girls through email and I can’t help but be bored.

One girl said, “It’s torture for me to get to know someone through email.” And I wanted to respond back, “If that is the case, then you should give me a good reason to want to meet you in person. Be interesting. Be funny. Be witty. Charming. SOMETHING!” Snore.

I have a tendency to quickly write out a long email that gives insights into who I am and what I am looking for without coming right out and saying it. I ask important questions up front like, “Were you ever a dude?” and “Are you a Wiccan?” It’s important to get these questions out of the way at the beginning instead of finding out on the third or fourth date and you’ve already french kissed on the front steps of her lair.

I promise that I am not hardened or set in my ways, but the last 4-6 relationships, the girls I took out from e-Harmony, Wilbur Smith novels and the 33 years I have lived on this Earth have wizened me and enhanced my bullcraptometer.  Online dating services allow people to put their best foot forward on an online profile but I think it also attracts people that fall into these categories:

  • Desperate
  • Shallow
  • Married
  • Divorced
  • Perverts
  • Crazies
  • Hopeless Romantics
  • Gold Diggers

I’m sure that makes me sound jaded, but I’m just drawing a conclusion based on my own personal experience and observation. But I also believe that in every field full of weeds you can find a beautiful wild flower… Somewhere in this great wide world there is a woman who will understand my heart and see me for who I am – flawed, but awesome.  She’s out there somewhere and I plan to find her.