Increase Your Personal Value

Society has increased with it’s demand on people to produce profitable results with as much speed and quality. The pressure on individuals to meet the requirements can be overwhelming and depressing. Good news is you can increase your personal value that will effect where ever you go and whatever you do in life.

First Step is to slow down and observe the overlooked or unattended needs. There are things that need to be done, but for some reason they are left with half-way done or nothing done at all. It can be a step skipped, something no one has thought about, or no one cares about. You probably know the story of “Everyone thought Someone would do it and Anyone could have done it, but No one did it.” Seeing the need or needs is the first step towards increasing your personal value. Once you see the need start the brain processing ideas of solutions using the trial and error formula until you find the one fact that answers with speed, quality, and dependency. It does not have to be a grandeur level idea. It can be small, simple, and efficient with smooth flowing results. You can use the internet to research the needs you have seen, which makes a resourceful person.

First Step Example:  Inventive Multitasking

I like to change oil in my vehicles. It is personal time of hands on a machine that take care of my needs daily. I have bought different kind of funnels, but was unsatisfied. I began to see what I wanted personally for pouring in the new oil and its controls. I wanted something that showed measurements, had an open and close function, a filter for debris, a holder for the plastic oil container to drip all of its contents, and something I did not have to stand there holding it until it was finished. My solution: I found a funnel with a handle, measurement lines on the sides, filer in the bottom, a twist value for opening and closing, and a tube for the oil to flow. I took a light chain and fixed around the funnel where it would remain level. I put a hook at the top of the chain that holds the funnel to be placed in the holes or car hood latch above the oil cap. I took a wire hanger and twisted it in a shape that I could place a plastic oil container in it over the funnel to allow it to drip all contents without standing there and holding it.  What this did to increase my personal value was while it was dripping on its on I could be doing other things, creating a multitasking ability in me.

Second Step is practicing your new idea until you build a fully functional model that you have complete confidence in before sharing or implementing to anyone else. This step is important because the key word is “New”. A large number of people can not stand anything new. You have heard people just because it is new does not make it better. This is why the second step the proving ground your idea can take the tests of reality. Sales pitching an idea that has not been proven decreases your personal value because they remember what you said standing behind the sales pitch when it fails or fall short of its bragged about performance. What does proving my idea works do to increase my personal value: Your actions speaks volumes of desire to make things better, faster, and with integrity.

Second Step Example: Proof of Results

People where I work uses browser for a great deal of their work. They use a wide variety of internal and external websites to do their work. As I have listened to them complain about their browsers and the different websites they use. I had customized my browser for what I used daily. As I heard and saw where they were coming from about their complaint. When I visited them at their desk I would ask permission to sit down with their browser and I would inquire what websites do you use every day religiously? I would create a series of tabs of the websites they spoke of and made them their home pages in their browser. Now, when they turn on their browser their working websites are waiting on them ready to be used for the day. This is a simple fix customized to the individual needs making things better, faster, and a good practice.

Third Step is to ingrain into your senses and thought patterns of being a solution finder. Majority of people fall in step with negative seeing and hearing. They verbally complain filling the atmosphere with a taring down acid like feeling dissolving hope and closing the blinds to light. You have heard of the saying, “Be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem”. It is easy for almost all people to see the problem, but it is a rare few that snaps out of the band wagon mentality and sees possible answers to the situation. What does ingraining my thought process into have to do with increasing my personal value: You will become the go-to person with trust, belief, dependability and resourcefulness.

Third Step Example:  Presently Aware

Inside my mind where no one else can see or hear what is going on. I gather key words people are saying and start my mind on the process of a possible common sense solution with the belief of “Everyone thought Someone would do it and Anyone could have done it, but No one did it.” My Mom loves to work in the flowers, but carrying all her tools needed at each flower bed section got to be to much as she got older. There is a little wagon with a seat for a lid that could be pulled by a rope with tools inside. She could get the tool or tools she needed for that flower bed, close the lid, and sit down near the flowers she wanted to work with.

Be one of the few, building your self esteem, and making yourself resourceful in an open variety of ways.  “Have a great day in-spite of what comes your way” this is from my Dad when he was alive, which I have deemed a “Solutionarian” way of thinking and not a “Problemnarian” way of thinking.

Seeing Blindness

Our childhood up to the present whether you are in the adolescence or adulthood point of time I want to share an insight of “Seeing Blindness“. Seeing blindness are the opposites as love and hate are opposites. “Seeing Blindness” may give you the leading thoughts of, we who have physical sight, seeing those around us who are physically blind. This is about blindness within a seeing person.

Let us take the first steps of this journey together by looking back into our early days of growing up. I have many memories as a child of wanting things that others had that I did not, interacting with my family, riding a bicycle, throwing ball, playing in the yard or woods,  and interacting with others. What are you seeing from your childhood? As a child growing up our eyes saw good things and bad things around us every day. If you are going through some those memories right at this moment, you are experiencing a form of seeing. We are seeing with a sight of memories into the past. Our eyes record different events everyday from childhood to the present. They are filed away into a memory bank that we subconsciously categorize. Our minds store what our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and touch sensory system gathers. Every second, minute, hour, or day goes into the past memory data banks in our minds. We have subconscious categories of things we want in the death section (dead to us), buried section (don’t care to remember), and the resurrection section (enjoyable memories we like to watch). Our minds are full of movies and stories we can call upon any time for viewing. This is seeing with the sight of our memories.

From our tiny little fingers, stumbling to walk, our first days of driving, and to adulthood our eyes have been focused outwardly. Our eyes lock onto something we want and we go after it. I have observed little babies or small children seeing something they want and the efforts to obtain it go into motion from holding the edge of the couch balancing themselves towards the object to a quick uncoordinated walk in the same direction. Young adults do the same thing using different means to reach the goal their eyes have set upon. Adults go after things they want using things at a much higher level.

Some people have beheld with their eyes great oceans, towering mountains, roaring rivers, sun beams sparkling through the trees, fields upon fields of flowers, valleys flowing for miles between mountain peaks, tall skyscrapers, huge water dams, cities as far as the eye could see, towns if you blinked you would miss it, scary animals, cute animals, tall people, short people, mean people,  happy people, births, deaths, sicknesses, defeat, and victories. We all have seen more than we realize and recorded more information into our minds that we give credit.

Have you ever heard someone say, “Try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes before you judge them“, “There two sides to every story“, “Things are not always what them seem“? These are seeds planted in our minds to start a process of seeing more than with physical sight. The majority of people use 90 percent of their sensory input for outwardly things. They wake up every day looking out through their eyes reacting to daily things not seeing what is truly going on beneath the surface of others and themselves. Time does not wait for anyone. People will one day see they are at the age of their parents and ask the questions “When did I get to be so old?”, “I cannot stay up like I use to“, and “Where did all this aching come from in my body?“. The sight came on one day in my blindness revealing that I have been so busy with everyday life going after things that I wanted and the things  I needed to take of that I did not pay attention to the person in the mirror was aging. Physically we are seeing, yet there is blindness in all of us.

Example of Seeing Blindness:

One-day two men were having a religious talk. The second man made the statement to the other “no one could see the kingdom of God unless they were born again“. The first man replied, “…surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” The first man saw the sight of a baby being born from a woman in his memory banks associating the “born again” statement from the second man. He was seeing perfectly the events that took place on this earth, but he could not see a grown person getting back inside a woman and being born a second time. It did not make sense. There is no record of anyone being born from a woman after they are grown. The first man was only seeing physical data. His mind could not see the invisible sight the second man was talking about. Mankind has the ability to see physically and to see the invisible meanings that are all around.  The second man went onto explain, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” The second man confirmed you are seeing perfectly about the birth from a woman into this world, but the second birth is like unto it except you are “… born of water and the Spirit.” There are tons of people in the Bible as there are today that see physically great, but seeing past the surface of others or themselves they are blind. If you would like to learn about the conversation the two men had you can find it in the book of John in the Bible chapter 3.

Are we guilty of seeing things every day, yet a blindness of curtains remains pulled closed over our minds? Do we truly see others as they are in our schools, jobs, public, and churches? Do we really see ourselves with a raw examination of who we truly are? How balanced are you? Is there a denial blinding you from a temper, from depression, lack of value, or need fullness in life? The only way for any of us to go from “Seeing blindness” to “Seeing Insight” does not come from people, but from the connection our inward spirit makes with raw truth. Take time to have a closer look at yourself and others. You don’t have to practice seeing physically. It comes naturally from birth to adulthood. You have to practice daily examining, exploring, and bravely asking the questions to see with insight. Do not be afraid of the questions because the answers could reveal constructive materials for a stronger you. True answers are not afraid of questions. Have a great day in-spite of what comes your way.

Tap or Double Click People

Flowing By

Conversations and interactions from walking the halls of work, at the food store, at family gatherings, and strangers in general in public I have found a pattern developing in people.  This pattern I discovered caused me to look into the past at the different types of communications that technologically has changed over the years revealing it’s effects on us.

My father told me a story of when he was a young man visiting the local store. He watched and listen to two men playing checkers on the front porch of the store, which you have guessed was back in a slower time in history. My dad told me one man would speak saying something like “The other day…” suddenly stopped with a several minutes of silence, neither one breaking the silence. Then what seemed to be an eternity the man would finish “…I saw so on so.” The other man did not answer right away. My dad relayed how frustrating it was to wait around for their conversation to get to the end. This was during the time you called the local operator to connect you to whomever you were calling.

We could spend the time going through the telegraph, radios, telephones, and cell phones to reveal the pattern I started off talking about, but I will jump into the present to expose my point. We use computers, laptops, tablets, smart phones in this day and time to communicate. People, not all, are beginning to treat each other like the icons or apps on their technical devices. They expect you to react or perform the same as double clicking an icon on your computer’s desktop, instantly pop up with an answer as quickly as tapping the touch screen device, and knowing the answer as quick as the search engines or the social sites. It is amusing to me to see how our human behavior’s changed tempos over the years according to technological communication changes, yet with all the sophisticated devices they still reflect our human flaws.

Expectancy from others should not be based on the technology around us, even though technology has flaws as we do. You double click that icon on your computer’s desktop, an error pops up of why it could not comply, and now your expectation is left hanging. This is the human trait we see every day of believing others will do things they should, but end up doing nothing at all or the opposite. It is really cool to walk and talk with people seeing their different ages connecting to the life they have known seeing the telegraph mentality, radio, telephone, cell phone, and tablet speeds emulating from their personality.

Self examination is the curious part of seeing “how do I treat others” in comparison to the different types of developed communications. Which one of the communications mentioned above has influenced your behavior with others? Do you find yourself verbally tapping or double clicking the person you are talking to with the expectation they will respond as quickly as the icon on your computer’s desktop or app?

I hope you enjoyed this little journey of the past the surface. Have a great day in-spite of what comes your way.

Locked and Loaded

Photo06232104_1     “Locked and Loaded” has many different meanings to different people.  Some of you will think I am getting ready to talk about locking your magazine into your gun and loading the ammunition into the chamber.  You may think I am going to talk about getting ready or being ready for action.  Both thoughts are right, but one thing you have to consider about my writings they will most likely have a “Past the Surface” twist – a good twist.

Locked” is having something secured into place.  It is not going anywhere else to easily.  It is for this moment in time set on a destined course of action.  It has a tunnel that must be passed through before seeing day light.

Loaded” is having something full that was once empty.  A container that is filled to capacity and heavier than before.  It is a place that needs to be subtracted from to lessen the weight.

Go back with me to a time when you were small you ran, jumped, and laughed with a pureness of innocence.  This was a time that when you woke up to a new day of new adventures and discoveries.  For most people this lasted all the way to high school graduation.  Then some choices came and they had to be made for we knew the world would not stop spinning and time would not wait for us.

You went on to college, you went to work, and some may have enjoyed a little time longer at home.  Our sunshine as children began to slowly darken with some clouds.  The blue skies and the green trees began to fade in our eyes as we directed our lives towards things we wanted.  You may have gotten married during high school, after high school, or at college. You may have gotten a child before marriage or after marriage.  Survived all types of relationships, but as time has moved on our days have become a blur.

The things that happen to us brought the weight of responsibility and accountability.  Some adults may have warned you of the things to come, but our youthfulness may have washed it out of our hearing.  One day you begin to take a look at yourself from the outside and see you are locked into a daily job to keep up the life style you now have become attached and you feel the load heavy upon your shoulders.  You may feel you are in total darkness with a tiny light in the far distance. You have heard the saying, “There is light at the end of the tunnel” and some have added that it is the light of an oncoming train.  You now feel you are “Locked” into place, destined to a daily course, and “Loaded” so heavy you need some relief from this trapped destiny.

Rediscover you child like interests of fun.  Modify what you did as a child into what you can do as an adult.  Don’t let the “Locked” into paying bills and “Loaded” down with debt stop you from having some moments of sunshine inside your mind and heart.  For an example I loved riding my brother’s bike as a child exploring the roads near my home and neighborhood.  As an adult I took a refresher course on riding motorcycles.  Now, I get on my motorcycle or go in a car and explore the roads in my surrounding counties.  Each road with its curve, twist, and dip I see things I haven’t seen before because each person arranges their yard differently.  You see flowers, rock formations, waterfalls, various barns and sheds.  Around each corner of the road I have never been on offers a child like surprise.  It is like Christmas day when you really did not know what was inside that box wrapped so pretty.  Use your mind to figure out a way to enjoy life again.  Revive surprising yourself with personal efforts of fun goals.

Locked and Loaded” thinking has its necessary place, but all things need to be unloaded, cleaned, and refreshed before going into the field again.  Find your place to unlock your happiness and unload your burden without damaging your spirit and others.  You will find a stronger and better you looking out your eyes.  Life is too short to go through it bitter and upset.  Have a great day in-spite of what comes your way.

Determined Love

Mailbox of Love

I was blessed to have the parent’s I was born too. My dad passed away in 2009 and my mom is still living today. For years I have watched the changes in my parents. Both were very strong, hard-working people, but as time passes by they are not as well-balanced as they walked. Our mail box is just a few inches from a highway and on the South West side there is a blind hill that every one flies over.

My Mom at first had the mailbox she could go into the ditch to the back of it and safely get her mail and paper. As she has aged her abilities to go into the ditch have become dangerous. This dilemma bothered me to no end. She loves to walk to her mailbox and would never give that up until there would be no choice.

I did a great deal of research on the internet with no real solution. Being raised in the area I have been my mind began to think of gates that swing open and close for farmers. I began to mesh the idea of a mailbox that could swing like a gate. I designed it using four by fours, deck screws, wire support, and commercial grade hinges. I did not like the going into the ditch idea so the birth of a small bridge came to mind and I built it for her. Now, my Mom does not have to enter the highway at all. She can cross her bridge, unlatch the “Mailbox Gate”, swing the mail and paper to herself, gather the all she needs, swing it back to the highway, latch it back, cross her bridge in total safety. I am extremely happy that one of the loves of my life is safer by the labor of my mind, heart, and hands.

I built one for my sister in the same “Mailbox Gate” form, but with a large “T” for support. I painted all the other four by fours in white and painted the large “T” in orange. She is a Vol fan in Tennessee. The one thing I am bothered by is my sister’s short bank of dirt for the main support posts. I feel like I need to rework it, but time and energy seems to what I am short of.

I thought this would be a great thing to offer to other people who have similar situations.  I looked into a patent for the design, but the money would cost too much and finding how people could take the patent idea and make a slight change to claim it as their own detoured me from any further thoughts.

The conclusion is if you love something enough, have compassion on their circumstances you will think outside the box until all options have been exhausted or you have created a solution that makes their life better. Have a great day in-spite of what may come your way.