Let it flow…

We have all experienced situations where things which are difficult to find or obtain create a mindset of fear, insecurity, and control. Taking things too seriously generates feelings of hopelessness that, if you fail, the world will end. This is short sided, focused on short term decisions and a reactive approach to life, rather than planning ahead instead and trusting that waiting or missing something now will pay off long term. We focus on not having enough, being good enough, not having enough time or money and making bad choices. Such fear is an illusion when you allow these thoughts to limit creative opportunities where you can do your best.

Not feeling abundant or good about yourself or life in general may mean you are not necessitating the simple process of getting your possessions, your time, your finances, and your documents better organized. This does a great deal to cultivate an abundance mindset. With organization, you begin to see how many things and how much time you actually already have in your life. The operative word here is organization and achieving that can be the most difficult hurdle, even a roadblock, to get past. Realizing that we have more than enough of things we deem important in life can be the biggest challenge of all but one well worth the time and effort involved with being successful.

Once we reframe that mindset to one of abundance, to a place where there is an understanding of enough time, money, success and happiness, comes the realization of trust and acceptance, along with a deep sense of inner worth. Such a mindset takes a proactive approach to life with the understanding that there is more than enough of all we have felt was lacking. This allows us to share and do so freely. We can then acknowledge the accomplishments of others, focusing on all that is positive.

From the Writer’s Workshop…Write a post based on the word abundant.

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Wrong turn, right face…

A very long time ago, on a highway ever so far away, I got lost. Hey, it can happen to anyone, especially here in New York.

Back in the late sixties, directions were either shared by someone who had been where you wanted to go or there were maps often picked up at a gas station. Remember those neat packets of travel information that, once unfolded, became an experience from hell? Think about the true beginning of distracted driving with the map perched in front of you, leaning against the steering wheel, while you tried to navigate unfamiliar territory.


It all started with a quest to buy a carburetor rebuild kit for my ’66 GTO when a change was made from a four-barrel to tri-power setup. Running “3 2’s or 3 Deuces” was a big deal back then and had been since 1957.
The Tri-Power option was available on the GTO from 1964 through 1966 with a total of 20,547 GTO’s ordered with Tri-Power as original equipment in 1965. There was nothing better, WHEN, the damn carbs played nicely together and that was a matter of bringing a lot of fine tuning to the process, and four letter words.

There I was, on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, in my GTO, map in my lap, finally coming up to the exit which would take me to the speed shop. Let me tell you, up to this point, it had been an almost two hour trip which encompassed traffic, missed turns and even more traffic but, at last, I had arrived. As I started to make a turn and head to my destination, a man started to cross in front of me, waving his hands in the air and shouting. I didn’t think twice and pulled over, thinking he needed help. He came over to my car, with a huge smile on his face. I asked if he was okay and his response was “hey, I saw you drag race at National Speedway, isn’t this Light My Fire?” And right he was, sans the usual lettering on my hot rod when at the drag strip, it was me! Within a few minutes, the stress of that day disappeared with his smile and a lot of laughter as we stopped and talked for a while.


He wished me good luck with the rebuild kit, told me that the speed shop was just down the next street and said he’d be looking out for my next visits to the drag strip, which he did, always stopping by in the pits to say hello. Thinking back to those years ago and how different times and people were then, getting lost managed to end well.


By the way, for any motorhead reading this, running tri power was, at least for me, an exercise in futility. Nothing beat my 1050 Holley and the lifelong good memory that went along with that process.

Except for the BQE, which is still a nightmare some fifty-six years later.

From Writer’s Workshop…Tell us about a time you got lost while going somewhere.
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This too will pass. Maybe…

Now and then, one of those loaded questions rears its ugly head and initiates a personal challenge regarding a response. This, is one of those times.


“Write about something that has bothered you this week” landed on my computer screen and it felt like an entire pack of fireworks exploded in my brain. Really people, unless you’re all living under a rock somewhere, how can you not feel somewhat reactive to the insanity currently around us? Aside from those issues that come and go, our world has been in a cataclysmic spin for several years now, from the orchestrated/manufactured pandemic, the endless political bullcrap and, presently, our institutions of higher learning currently having students demonstrating behaviors similar to campus mosh pits.


How can anyone not be bothered, angry, even disgusted? Our country is shamefully turning its back on Israel in favor of militant extremists who are orchestrating chaos at colleges in this country, a majority of individuals who are outside agitators, not matriculated students of these universities. The issue of having the right to protest is completely understood, it is a right of free speech which should never be denied to anyone but not when it is fueled by violence, directed at other nationalities or religions and at law enforcement. By all means, speak up, speak out and do so with some element of intelligence and awareness of just why in hell you are perched on some soapbox of entitlement, just outside an REI tent. Spare us all from the rhetoric of these modern day, entitled, whiners, more concerned with staying hydrated and being served organic and vegan substances while they occupy and vandalize college campuses.


Over on the “left coast”, the governor of California recently perched himself, and his sparkly teeth, on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, citing the beauty of the state while ignoring the decaying San Francisco streets in the distance, many littered with homeless people, drug addicts and increasing crime. Periodically, this heartbreaking collection of deteriorating humanity is cleaned up, relocated, and basically swept under the rug in an attempt to revive the failing tourism of this once beautiful city by the sea.

Here on the “right coast”, we have a former president on trial with an aging, “rode hard, put away wet”, porn star sitting in a witness stand, spewing out comments (when she’s not talking with the dead) geared mainly to bring herself some element of financial subsidy and way, way, more than fifteen minutes of fame. Her testimony in no way fits the overall legal issues for the basis of this trial but she’s being used as a political pawn in an attempt to interfere with upcoming presidential elections. Frankly, I don’t care about which side of the political coin anyone stands. This courtroom circus sideshow demeans all of us as American citizens and as a country. Democrat, Republican or whatever in hell you label yourself as, to be so diabolically focused on supporting those seeking to destroy a candidate and interfering with the campaign and overall election process, demonstrates weakness and desperation, definitely not on doing the absolute best for anyone in our country. For what it’s worth, I’m personally not a fan of any current presidential hopeful, especially the current head of our country who has turned into a maniacal and very sad conductor on a runaway train of leadership.

So, as this writing prompt asked, I responded. Take a long, hard, look around the life which surrounds us and weep, as I do, for the future.

From the Writer’s Workshop…Write about something that bothered you this week.
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