Essential, Random and Frivolous Thoughts of a Cabinet Maker

I’ve heard it said, many times, that you can only attract in your life what you are. Another words, like attracts like. You cannot be stingy with your money and have an attitude of scarcity and become financially abundant. Nor can you be a pessimist with a poor attitude and bring kind, optimistic and giving people into your life. It just doesn’t work that way.

I love that idea, as I see it as a clear path of the person I want to evolve into in order to attract my intended goal. Anything outside of those directives becomes a distraction and white noise.

It also becomes abundantly clear that wishing, hoping or praying to ‘win the lottery’ is a futile effort. Besides, even if your ‘numbers’ were drawn, your ‘abundance’ would only be temporary as that is not who you are. You’d be broke in a matter of months wishing you would have spent your time becoming the person you needed to become. Water always finds it’s level.

I use to believe that I would be happy when . . . . I had piles of money, when I was “successful,” when I had ‘X’ amount of friends, when I lived in a certain size house in a particular part of town, when I rubbed shoulders with the elite, when I drove a nice car and on and on and on.

That idea is not only wrong, but extremely unrealistic and downright detrimental to our well-being.

One of the most rich lessons I’ve learned over the years is to embrace the messy. Welcome the arduous. And entertain the chaos. These are where the gems of wisdom lie if you’re willing to look and remove yourself from victimhood.

Let’s not miss out on the most valuable parts of life just because we’re a bit reluctant to lean into the ugly.

We could certainly benefit from redefining our interpretation of what failure means to us.

It would seem to me, society has pigeon-holed the meaning to include getting an undesired result – or at least coming up short from receiving the outcome we were hoping for.

Maybe this is the problem. Anytime we’re locked into a specific and desired result, we miss out on other opportunities because we’re only looking for the predetermined product.

Have we learned something of value? Then how can that be a failure? We know something that we didn’t know before. Just because you didn’t get the exact result you were hoping for doesn’t mean we have ‘failed.’

After all, when 3M’s research and development was hoping to develop a permanent glue it stumbled upon what has now become Post It’s. That’s seem to work out for them. Give me some of that failure!

The most precious and beautiful things in life are quite simple; a hummingbird, a sunset, a towering tree, a fleeting moment of laughter with a Loved one, a whisper of unselfishness or a gesture of kindness to another.

We need not complicate the matter by overthinking it. In fact, simplifying our lives is always the answer to clarity and often times our happiness. It’s not the complication of things – the adding to – but rather the stripping away of all the non-essentials.

We don’t need much to thrive in this world, even though we’re being barraged with an overload of advice telling us what we must have or do. No. It’s rather simple.

Just the essentials please. We know what they are if we listen.

There are a handful of things in my life that are meaningful enough to me that I’ve committed to the Long Haul. A partial list is: my marriage, the relationship with my children, my health – which includes growth (spiritually/mentally/physically) and investing my time to those of my close family members.

Besides that, there’s not a whole lot that I’m dedicated to. I’m not proud of it, but one of those things is my art. I guess it’s not that my creativity isn’t important to me, it’s just that I wish I gave it more priority in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I participate in some sort of creative endeavor almost every day, but I certainly don’t prioritize it.

Why? I’m not sure.

We have to do what it takes to support ourselves and our family, but I must remind myself often to remember what’s important in my life. And for me, creativity is right up there with oxygen, water and Love.

Remember that, Jim.