The Rising Cost of Education

It was 2 decades ago when I was at the first major crossroad of my life. I was too young to realize the impact it would have on my life to pursue a skilled labor trade over a college degree, but none the less I became a machinist. 10 years past quickly, and I received a one sided degree in precision machining. The cost for my happiness was a decade of mediocrity, for which I received a degree in limited engineering.

My wife's degree was a little more literal, a $150,015.50 picture to hang on the wall. We spent $15.50 for the frame. Her education was more traditional in the sense that she attended college and went to classes. She got away relatively inexpensive compared to the current cost of a college degree. The trade off was well worth it in her case.

Education comes in all forms with all types of costs. Perhaps one of the bigger costs is the realization that we do, in fact, have much to learn about the world and ourselves. You may learn one day, in example, that you should have asked different questions to a potential client at your job. The cost may be the loss of that client, revenues or even your job. None the less, the lesson was learned.

The point is that education is never free. You are always paying some price to learn something. Be it free time, emotional stability or actual money, the lessons you learn each day do not come without a cost. The price of education is on the rise in the world of today. Approach the school of life with an open mind and be prepared to write a hefty check. Personal growth awaits you and is only limited by the size of your mental, spiritual and physical wallet.

Internal Violation

To think you are going insane, is to be lucid. Therefore, I am lucid as these thoughts flow from my pre-frontal cortex. I do often wonder how to stop thinking about something. The very act of forced forgetting is in fact focusing on the issue. I have found that misdirection is the most effective tool once the process has begun. Still, though, there are times I can not stop the process.

The loss of a child, for example, is said to be the most painful emotional experience. There is a time of grieving and general sadness. A some point you must allow these painful thoughts to remove themselves from your life or they will will control you. So how do you force out the thoughts that hurt you?

My own thoughts sometimes violate me. They violently break into my sanity and trespass over my contentment. As if faced with an intruder, I fight back with little success. The struggle is epic. How is it that I can be bullied by my own thoughts? The answer is not clear, but i have enough intuition to make a hypothesis. Guilt, uncertain decisions and past transgressions are the usual suspects.

There is no "do over" button in life. You really can't fight these thoughts. the sub-conscious is telling your consciousness that you have not fully addressed these issues. The real solution is to allow the intruder into your daily complacency. Shake his hand, offer him a drink and ask him what he wants. You aren't getting rid of him until he has what he came for. Now is the time to deal with it. That is all, nothing more.

Deep Roots Of Resentment

I grew up with an old family saying: " Expectation is premeditated resentment". The idea behind this is that when you create expectations, you are planning on resenting that person because they will never live up to your expectation. This saying came from my mothers side, who just happen to leave me at age 3. Naturally its about time to challenge that.

As I sit here thinking about people i have resented over the years, I find that in most cases it is true. There are the rare occasions where this saying does not hold. When you purchase a meal, you are entitled to good service. When you enter a marriage you are entitled to fidelity. When you are wronged, you are entitled to justice. You may choose forgiveness in the later but you get the idea.

Is it wrong to expect these things? I don't think we are planning to resent someone when we walk in the restaurant and end up with horrible service. Eventually tho, our expectation do lead to resentment. Resent has only 2 outcomes, forgiveness or distance. Too many times my solution has been distance because the path of forgiveness is a road difficult to travel.

These days, it seems, I am finding the hard beaten highway of forgiveness to be the more lucrative route. It is the path of least resistance, but it comes at a price. The price is self loathing and resentment of expectations placed upon yourself. I guess mother's words hold true for now. Expectations are premeditated resentment, but she never told me the person I would end up resenting was myself.

Take a Seat, Please.

The jury of our lives are every man woman and child we pass. The judge is the maker of this world we all are part of. I am thankful for this. Though the jury may find us guilty for many offences, our sentence will be handed down to us by a just and fair source. Unknown to the angry mob of our peers are the intentions and things lost in the translation. These trivial matters are of little significance.

The condemned man walks alone. Unrestricted by public opinion, he is essentially free. The scowls of the angry crowd are his applause for a voice of his own. Standing in a circle of his own truth he begins to preach his volatile propaganda. To him it is pure unedited truth. To the mob it is provocation for banishment.

I have been on this jury for many years. I have issued my verdict of disapproval as if I were handing out candy to peculiarly dressed children in the Autumn. The reflection of these verdicts is a blinding reality which comes full circle. It is my turn to take the witness stand. It is time to be judged.

Each time we take a seat in this throne of injustice, we struggle to find comfort. The absence of a fair trial awaits us all. Or does it? For as the carnival of evidence is presented in the case against us, we see each other. Look at me, smile, and charge me with what you will. Soon I will be banished, and again the chair will be available. Take seat.

My Life Feels Incomplete

Complete : 1) having all necessary parts, elements, or steps.

This is your life's ambition isn't it?Some say " You complete me." or " My life is complete.". That is what we all want isn't it? We desire to feel whole, a feeling of complete satisfaction. Before you continue your quest for every void filled, consider the alternative. The incomplete life.

Dare I challenge the logic of every empty unfulfilled soul amongst us? What do you really seek? A new challenge, and ongoing strife and an Endless search for knowledge is what you are destine to find. What makes you complete? Your partner in life? How about your job or your children, do they complete you? They do not, they only present new challenges.

It is the fool who searches for the impossible. It is the masses who are blind, feeling around in the dark for something that does not exist. Pathetic is the rat in the race which can not be won. My heart weeps for you. Your new car, house, wife and child is a piece of a Pandoric puzzle for which you will never have the last piece.

Closed minded and mocking the sane, you will never attain the unattainable. Today you must meditate on your life. Ask the important question

" Do i need to be complete?" and consider that perhaps you have missed the hidden meaning in life. Perhaps you forget that complete is more than being whole....

Complete : 2) brought to an end.

~Enjoy your complete life, I pray for you.

Volatile Containment

There are so many things we are in control of in the world. If the volume of music is painfully loud, you need only to turn the volume to end your misery. Perhaps you wish to arrive at a destination in your own time frame, you can speed up or take a shortcut.
What about your anger, your love and your happiness? Can you control those things?


How do you make someone love you? How do you subside your anger when you are wronged? How do you find happiness in a sobering world of anguish? Where is the switch for that? Where are the shortcuts? There is no master control for you. Life is a series of reactions. From the first time we feel, we react. We must make a conscious choice not to.



Therein lies the delima. It is an action we may desire in actuality but have no control over. The switch is on constantly. Pretty simple simple right? Someone wrongs you, you get angry. We all require Zen like control to contain our emotions. You heard right. Contain.


In anger, in love, and in happiness we are all responsible to contain ourselves. We can not control it, only trap it in an endless cycle that will eventually consume us. It is a sentence of death for our souls. It is the price we pay for others. That is the time to decide the value of another person. I value few people this highly, and for those people I gladly pay my toll.

I am contained.

Emotional Distortion

Recently I have been trying to sort out my feelings. White noise fills my head and makes filtering pure thought near impossible. On rare occasions I manage to clear my emotional distortion and am left with RMS clarity. For those of you who are into equations, you know I am comparing emotional clarity to a measure of the magnitude of a varying quantity. For those of you who are not, think of RMS as Real Mental Stability. The principles are the same. We are looking for the largest amount of truth from an emotional roller coaster.

When You have so much going on in your life. The ability to refine one specific problem seems near impossible. A simpler term for this would be a " Calgon take me away moment". It is here at the most stressful time where we figure out how much we can emotionally endure. Visualize your existence in this distortion and focus on one thing. The less distortion you have, the simpler it is to see and repair the issues of your life.

Practicality urges us to believe the obvious. There are just 2 choices. Reduce the distortion or magnify the problem. Clearly you should never magnify the problem. REDUCE THE DISTORTION. Have you heard the saying " Don't sweat the small stuff?" You have just heard it explained. That is how we reduce our emotional distortion.

RMS defined is Root Mean Square. It's most common use is to determine how loud you can power up your car radio before the speakers start to crackle. How much power can you push before you loose clarity and become distorted? Its time for you to look at yourself. Are your emotions already distorted? If so, reduce the volume and reach for emotional clarity.