Category: Words To Live By

I was told by a medium several decades ago that I was going to live until the ripe old age of 90. If that’s true, then I’ve finally reached the halfway point of my life, as today is my birthday and I’m now 45 years old. I’d like to mention as well that I’m also celebrating 22 years of continuous sobriety from alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes today, being that the last time I had any of those was June 10^th, 1995.

Nevertheless, it’s strange to ponder the thought that I might actually be halfway over with my life already, as sometimes I don’t think I’ve accomplished much in life thus far. Yet, sometimes I think that’s just an illusion my ego tries to tell me, always pointing to the idea that I’m a failure.

You see, it’s my ego that far too often compares myself to at all those people in the world who have earned multiple degrees, including doctorates, who speak several languages, who have published books, who have a talent that’s made them famous, who have devoted their life to ministry, who are successfully running their dream business, etc., all by the same age as I am now.

Yet, if I throw away that illusion and go to my heart and the Source itself, that being God and the Spirit within me, a question arises for me to think about.

Maybe I’ve accomplished exactly that which I was supposed to accomplish by this point in life?

 What I mean by that is the fact that although I haven’t earned more than my one bachelor’s degree yet, or learned to speak a bunch of languages yet, or published any books yet, or have any talent that’s put me on the world’s radar yet, or preached to any congregation yet, or opened my own dream business yet, I HAVE achieved the following…

Found sobriety from addictions to alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, caffeine, sex, love, and codependency

• Successfully sponsored a number of people through the entire 12 Step recovery process
• Found healing from being molested
• Found healing from both parents suicidal-type deaths
• Found a level of acceptance to embrace my sexuality openly
• Wrote monthly as a columnist for two newspapers
• Started a spiritual blog that I continue to write for daily for over four years now
• Learned to meditate and now spend 45 minutes each day doing so, and have gone for as long as 4 hours as well
• Have successfully taught meditation to plenty of others, ranging from 1 to around 100 people
• Self-taught myself numerology and have done many of those readings for others
• Have done leads at plenty of recovery meetings over the years, sharing my experience, strength and hope at them, a few times even to almost 200 people
• Was a Deacon at a church for several years where I served communion and prayed over others every Sunday
• Wrote two full length Young Adult fiction fantasy-based novels that could potentially be turned into two separate series

And well, that’s just what I could come up with in about 15 minutes of time as I pondered that question.

So, I think that’s why it’s best to never compare myself to anyone, because my ego is constantly going to try to show me how there’s someone else out there who’s done a lot more in life than me and in turn, tell me I’m a failure because of it. Instead, I’m going to choose to believe on this 45^th birthday, regardless of whether it’s the halfway point of my life or not, that I have accomplished a lot already…maybe even to the exact degree of what God always envisioned for me to achieve by the time I reached 16,436 days old.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

My cat Smokey really likes to chew on things, all the time in fact, and I have plenty of frayed shoelaces, ragged blind cords, and worn strings on my clothes for evidence. While this may not seem like a big issue at first glance, his quirky trait has also led to a few more significant damages since we adopted him at around one year of age, including broken speaker wire that led to a serious malfunction on my receiver, a damaged Apple keyboard that ended up having to be fully replaced, and two phone cord chargers that were marred beyond repair.

Unfortunately, when I discovered that fragmented keyboard cable, the most recent of his chewiness, I totally lost my composure. It resulted in a good spanking and yelling at him, which only made me feel like crap about it after I finally cooled down. And it was then I realized that maybe his unusual trait stemmed from a deeper issue.

Maybe it had nothing to do with having the right chew toys?

Maybe it had nothing to do with a dental issue either?

(Both of which being suggestions from our veterinarian friend that were looked into to no success.)

Maybe it was actually because Smokey was never weaned properly off his mother and instead was abandoned by her at less than two weeks of age, being the runt of the litter?

And maybe it has something to do with him almost dying after that, due to health complications and malnourishment.

Was his chewing something that developed as a way of coping with all this?

I say this because each of us have our own quirky traits in life that often stem from traumatic incidents in our past. In my case, I tend to eat most of my meals superfast these days because I was raised in a dysfunctional family where it often wasn’t pleasant to dine with them. In addition, I also tend to take way too much time worrying about my complexion because of a mother who stressed that how one looks on the outside was an extremely important attribute to have in life.

So, while these are just two of my own strange traits I continue to work on removing, it got me to thinking about my cat Smokey and his peculiar chewiness of everything.

While I may never know of the precise reason why Smokey has chewed through so much since my sister first rescued him at such a young age, thinking in terms of my own odd traits that stemmed from unhealthy experiences long ago, I found some compassion and understanding within me for a cat who truly might know no better.

And as much as I have wanted to “chew-proof” my entire household, such as me replacing that broken keyboard with a wireless one like I did the other day, I know doing so is not completely feasible, as I’m sure there will be plenty more frayed, ragged, and worn out dangly things that appear around my home in the future.

Instead, I’m plan on doing my best to channel Christ’s compassion and understanding for all things, including my cat Smokey, so that when it does happen again, I remember that maybe, just maybe, Smokey is only finding comfort in his chewing through things because of the painful memories he started his life with.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Today’s inspirational story that I found on the Web is one that really made me laugh quite a bit because it reminded me a lot of my old behaviors. It’s titled “The Professor’s Truth Exam”.

One Sunday night, four college kids stayed out late, partying and having a good time. They paid no mind to the exam they had the next day and didn’t study. When Monday morning came, they hatched a plan to get out of taking it. They covered themselves with grease and dirt and went to the Professor’s office before class. Once there, they said they all had attended a wedding the prior evening and on the way back they got a flat tire, causing them to have to push the car back to campus. The Professor listened to their explanation and actually offered them a retest three days later. They were overjoyed at how their tale worked and grinned at each other as they left the Professor’s office. When the day arrived to retake the exam, the Professor put them in separate rooms. None seemed bothered by this strange action because they all had studied exceptionally hard and were prepared this time. That was until each saw the exam had only two questions:

1) What is your name? __________ (1 Point)
2) Which tire was flat? __________ (99 Points)
Choose from only one of the following: (a) Front Left (b) Front Right (c) Back Left (d) Back Right

There are two distinct lessons in this story that I’ve personally had to learn the hard way in life, like so many other things I went through. The first is about being responsible. Whether it was with exams in college, deadlines at work, or personal agreements I made that were attached to specific calendar dates, I often pushed off the stuff I needed to do to meet those dates until the very last minute. All that ever did was raise my anxiety and worry as those dates loomed near, knowing I wasn’t going to be prepared. And when the date finally arrived with me not being fully prepared, I’d tend to lie, make up excuses, and hope that it might somehow grant me an extension or free me of the obligation altogether. Most of the time it didn’t do either and instead just got me into deeper water. This of course brings me to the second lesson from this story, that being about all that lying I did when I didn’t remain responsible. Because the reality is that none of that lying ever did quite pay off for me in the end. Sure, I occasionally got away with a few of them here and there, but somehow most of them always caught up with me, causing more problems at a later date than if I just had been honest in the first place.

As I pondered this story, I ultimately had a good chuckle at the number of memories that flooded back into my consciousness when I used to do similar things just like those students did. Thank God, I’m much more of a responsible person in life these days and someone who is extremely honest too. Being this way has definitely taken a bunch of stress out of my life and helped me to feel a lot better about myself as well.

Nevertheless, in this story, the Professor had the last laugh just like I’m sure a number of people did with me along the way as well, when my lack of being responsible and lies caught up with me. I’m so grateful I got the point of this story and can say I’ve learned those lessons. And hopefully each of you can too…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson