I’m sure I’m not the first to say it but it’s not about guns. It’s about hate.

Until we raise our children to grow up loving each other, they’ll continue to grow up shooting each other.

I don’t have hope for today’s adults but maybe tomorrow’s.

#lettherebehope

It’s Friday at 4:34 in the PM mother-cluckers! 💥

#lettherebehope

It seems as if there are almost too many things that we’ll never get over.

We just learn to live with them.

#lettherebehope

I quit drinking 13 days ago. I wanted to let you know how much it means to me to read your recovery posts. I don’t always comment but I appreciate every single one.
–Anonymous

This is why I write and share what I do.

#lettherebehope

Believe it or not at one point I thought I wanted to be an accountant. Because I like it when the numbers add up. Equal parts payable, equal parts receivable. Equal parts ebb, equal parts flow.

At the end of the night all will be balanced.

I could never be an accountant though. Numbers aren’t colorful enough to me.

However, I still do like things to be balanced. Like I’m getting as much out of something as I’m putting into it. The reward matches the labor. Or else there’ll come a day when I’ll stop doing whatever I’ve been doing. If I don’t stop I’ll only end up resentful and being bitter is not something I want to be anymore.

When I speak at meetings I get so much more out of listening than I do talking. That’s why I go. I hug certain people because they hug me back. I write things like this so I get to know myself better. I pray because I’m led. I open an Easter egg because I calculate there’s a chocolate inside.

When something becomes a chore or I don’t feel like I’m being financially compensated or creatively fulfilled or emotionally satisfied then I’ll start making my way toward the exit. Because yes, people will want a pat on the back if they’ve busted their ass for you. And yes, I do cross my fingers that the flowers I planted will bloom.

It’s simple math really, black and white, objective and uncaring. Numbers don’t lie.

With my diaries magazine I had to close up shop on it. It wasn’t because I didn’t like doing it, it was because I was putting way more money into it than I was getting out.

I didn’t have any expectations that I’d buy a Porsche with all my piles of profits but I was hopeful that something might pan out with it. Sure, I was sad for a little while when it didn’t but that’s okay. I wasn’t mad or angry. Not everything works out the way we’d hoped and it’s okay to give up and move on to the next thing.

What’s more is that it’s okay to quit even after dedicating years to our pursuits. Sometimes the answer is “no.”

I think the hardest part is knowing when to throw in that towel. If we’re true to ourselves our heart will tell us. And if we follow that voice life will become balanced again.

#photos #lettherebehope

The only thing that’s keeping me going on this drive home right now is knowing that I have half a day old donut waiting for me there.

🍩 🏠 👍 #lettherebehope

Yesterday I pulled up behind a silver car waiting at a stoplight. There was another white car to my right, double parked with the blinkers on.

An older, burly dude was walking slowly down the sidewalk, eyeing the parked white car. I assumed it to be his. I also knew there was no way in hell he’d be able to open his driver’s side door. There wasn’t any room with his double park for him to get in.

I started to feel tense. Totally ready for the stoplight to turn green so this whole situation would go away. I like stuff to go away.

“What the hell you park like that for? This is a no win situation.”

Read more →

This is what your car might’ve looked like in the mid 90s because you crashed into a stopped car on a four lane highway because you had road rage and were pissed at yet another car that had cut you off.

I can honestly say that I don’t try to be a better person today because yesterday I simply thought it was a good idea.

#photos #autonews #lettherebehope

When I got to the place where I couldn’t stand myself anymore, where I didn’t want to be the person I’d always been. And not do the same things I’d always done, I can see now that’s when I had reached the breaking point.

The pain of being me had broken my very soul. Fuck.

It wasn’t the drinking, it wasn’t ever the drugs. It was me. It wasn’t the traffic or the other drivers. It wasn’t other people at all. Well, it was some of those people but when that blanket of denial was pulled back just far enough I could see, when a light came on that cast a clarity almost too bright on what I’d been doing to myself nothing ever looked the same again in the days after.

Thinking back to that moment and all the desperate, frantic pain, tortured to tears, completely sober and sick of being myself, that’s when I turned a corner and walked down a path I’d only heard other people talk about.

And that’s when the spiritual revolution began.

No horse blankets.

#photos #alcoholism #lettherebehope

We only have to believe in the fairy tales from our imagination for them to be true.

Scour the earth for signs of hope. Life’s as magical as we want it to be.

#photos #naturerocks #lettherebehope