Strength Training in Contentment
Hello, world! Hope all of you are enjoying your holidays thus far and are staying warm!
As Blockhead attempts to bring his message of 'thanks' this year, just be assured that I do not intend to bring the usual 'turkey story' or my experiences with Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. in this blog.
Nor am I a Cross-Fit enthusiast or fitness 'buff' who plans to bring you any desired "strength training" that is the norm in writings like the title might imply.
Instead, I would like to take you down Memory Lane and discuss the anxiety that sank its fangs into me for so many years over a children's book that I had lost somewhere in between our temporary house on Myrtle and settling into the house that I grew up in on Maree Drive.
This book was the 1985 illustrated masterpiece called, "The Power of the Evil Horde: Featuring He-Man and Skeletor!" I LOVED this book. The artwork for the Masters of the Universe is second-to-none, and the cassette tape was some of the best voice-over acting I have heard to this day! But, once the book went missing, I tried tirelessly as a little boy to unearth it in all of the boxes we had in our barn outside our house where we stored extra moving boxes, but to no avail. I settled for the next few years just occasionally listening to the audio cassette that I had not misplaced.
Three years go by and Mom and Dad have a garage sale. There, hidden amongst a playset I cared nothing about, lay the unstapled, scattered-about pages of my precious book!! As I assembled the pages in my room in the correct order, much to my dismay, I was still missing 2 pages. TWO PAGES! They had to be somewhere in the all the junk we were selling from our garage, right? Wrong.
Fast-forward to 2011, when I discover the book with audio on YouTube! I get to see every picture for the first time! What an exciting time! Or so I thought...
https://youtu.be/eL7LuUy5zrg?t=631
Nothing. But. Disappointment. I looked at the Dragon. "My imagination was better that this! THIS is what I was disappointed about for ALL THESE YEARS?!?"
Granted, I will ALWAYS believe that this is some of the best MOTU work ever done, but I truly was amazed at how anxiety had this grip on me for so long over something that was SO unworthy of losing sleep over. These thoughts came to mind as I was reading my most recent book Anxious for Nothing by Max Lucado, where he discusses the widest river in the world. No, it's not the Nile, nor the Amazon. Not even the 'mighty Mississippi'. It is, instead, the River of 'If Only'. The 'If Only' River has throngs of normal, everyday people standing on its banks:
"They desire to cross but can't seem to find the ferry. They are convinced the If Only river separates them from the good life...Are you standing on its shore? Does it seem the good life is always one if only away? One purchase away? One promotion away?...
...Gratitude leads us off the river bank of If Only and escorts us into the fertile valley of Already...One heartfelt thank-you will suck the oxygen out of worry's world. So say it often. Focus more on what you do have and less on what you don't."
What has you standing anxiously on the banks of this river? What can you be grateful for this Thanksgiving that can summon the ferry that brings you to the shore of Already?
Never having enough or wanting more or keeping up with the Jones's is a rat race you cannot win. Start your fitness training today with reps of contentment and gratitude. It is amazing how quickly it replace anxiety for all of us!
Blockhead and the Runnin' Free Rance will be ESPECIALLY grateful to any of you that use the link below for your online Amazon shopping:
Hello, world! Hope all of you are enjoying your holidays thus far and are staying warm!
As Blockhead attempts to bring his message of 'thanks' this year, just be assured that I do not intend to bring the usual 'turkey story' or my experiences with Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. in this blog.
Nor am I a Cross-Fit enthusiast or fitness 'buff' who plans to bring you any desired "strength training" that is the norm in writings like the title might imply.
Instead, I would like to take you down Memory Lane and discuss the anxiety that sank its fangs into me for so many years over a children's book that I had lost somewhere in between our temporary house on Myrtle and settling into the house that I grew up in on Maree Drive.
This book was the 1985 illustrated masterpiece called, "The Power of the Evil Horde: Featuring He-Man and Skeletor!" I LOVED this book. The artwork for the Masters of the Universe is second-to-none, and the cassette tape was some of the best voice-over acting I have heard to this day! But, once the book went missing, I tried tirelessly as a little boy to unearth it in all of the boxes we had in our barn outside our house where we stored extra moving boxes, but to no avail. I settled for the next few years just occasionally listening to the audio cassette that I had not misplaced.
Three years go by and Mom and Dad have a garage sale. There, hidden amongst a playset I cared nothing about, lay the unstapled, scattered-about pages of my precious book!! As I assembled the pages in my room in the correct order, much to my dismay, I was still missing 2 pages. TWO PAGES! They had to be somewhere in the all the junk we were selling from our garage, right? Wrong.
Fast-forward to 2011, when I discover the book with audio on YouTube! I get to see every picture for the first time! What an exciting time! Or so I thought...
https://youtu.be/eL7LuUy5zrg?t=631
Nothing. But. Disappointment. I looked at the Dragon. "My imagination was better that this! THIS is what I was disappointed about for ALL THESE YEARS?!?"
Granted, I will ALWAYS believe that this is some of the best MOTU work ever done, but I truly was amazed at how anxiety had this grip on me for so long over something that was SO unworthy of losing sleep over. These thoughts came to mind as I was reading my most recent book Anxious for Nothing by Max Lucado, where he discusses the widest river in the world. No, it's not the Nile, nor the Amazon. Not even the 'mighty Mississippi'. It is, instead, the River of 'If Only'. The 'If Only' River has throngs of normal, everyday people standing on its banks:
"They desire to cross but can't seem to find the ferry. They are convinced the If Only river separates them from the good life...Are you standing on its shore? Does it seem the good life is always one if only away? One purchase away? One promotion away?...
...Gratitude leads us off the river bank of If Only and escorts us into the fertile valley of Already...One heartfelt thank-you will suck the oxygen out of worry's world. So say it often. Focus more on what you do have and less on what you don't."
What has you standing anxiously on the banks of this river? What can you be grateful for this Thanksgiving that can summon the ferry that brings you to the shore of Already?
Never having enough or wanting more or keeping up with the Jones's is a rat race you cannot win. Start your fitness training today with reps of contentment and gratitude. It is amazing how quickly it replace anxiety for all of us!
Blockhead and the Runnin' Free Rance will be ESPECIALLY grateful to any of you that use the link below for your online Amazon shopping:
Comments
Post a Comment