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Author: C. L. Harmon

Mindset: Don’t Be The Missing Link

Imagine you were created to achieve one incredible accomplishment. This one achievement is a link in a chain that began long before you were born and will continue long after you are gone. Your link is every bit as important as the ones before it and just as crucial for the next. Our understandings and meanings of life, as well as our ability to grow as one, are in this chain that links past to present, present to future and future to comprehension.

This chain is unique in the sense that it does not need to be connected by each link to be functional. So each time there is a missing or broken link, a new section begins leaving a void between the two sections. Because of this, as the chain stretches out across time, there are gaps between the missing and broken links. And once they are broken or missing, they cannot be replaced. Time does not reverse and allow us to repair the chain. What should be there is not and only a dead space is left in its place.

Each time we fail in our hopes, give up, take an innocent life, corrupt what is good or pure and fail to achieve our purpose in life, we are not achieving our one task that is to be our accomplishment, but instead destroying a link and leaving that dead space between links. As a result, what we were supposed to contribute to life never materializes and future links to connect with are absent.

Each link is knowledge, wisdom and an accomplishment that the next generation uses to further the chain. Each of us is responsible to add a link to the chain while also helping others to do the same. Missing links leave us lost and disconnected from the past and each other. So when we ask ourselves why our lives seem to have no reason to them, perhaps it is because we are the start of a new section of chain that was broken because of someone else’s failure to provide the link we needed to connect with. If we can all just remember how important our contribution to the chain is, then undoubtedly we can create one that is never broken.

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Mindset: Treasure Is Buried Deep Within

Each of us seeks treasure. We work for it, sacrifice for it, even take risks for it. But have we ever actually defined what is treasure? What we desire is not necessarily treasure although it feels as though it should be or that it will be once we have obtained the desire. But what if the hunt for treasure is actually just a phantom we chase? Although treasure is real, it is not hidden in some distance destination or achieved dream. It is found in our perceptions and understandings.

We actually stumble over treasure in our attempts to find it. We occasionally experience treasure but rarely enjoy it for the riches it brings because we are stepping over what is valuable in order to dig in the dry sand. The truth is that each of us is born with treasure inside us. The search for what is valuable has never been about what we can find on the outside, but what we should discover on the inside.

Everything natural and man-made crumbles or rusts away in time but our essence, our energy, lives on indefinitely and with it is the treasure given to us by our Creator. We are tasked with finding those riches and sharing them with others before our existence here is returned to dust. Every experience in our lives are markings on an ancient map to the whereabouts of the treasure within us. We will never find that most valued of treasure in the earth beneath our feet because it only exists beneath the meaning of our very creation.

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Mindset: Escaping The Crushing Rubble

We should never hold someone else to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. We should not expect more from them than we ourselves are willing to be, give or do. Sometimes that standard can come in the form of an example and often times in a word. Those simple gestures or words form building blocks which allow negativity to move forward and build foundations upon us.

It is imperative that we acknowledge our mistakes. Not just so we can learn from them but so we can forgive ourselves and be forgiving when others make their mistakes. There is no greater equality than that which is in forgiveness. It reminds us that we have all been, without exception, guilty of transgression and victims of its consequences.

Through forgiveness, we find that we do not have to endure a life of crushing rubble which keeps us down preventing us from rising above negativity. Instead, we can move forward and raise humanity’s standards by simply standing on the belief that our imperfect nature makes us perfectly equal.

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Mindset: Don’t Be Defined By A Definition

Success is not about big goals that one accomplishes which are planned for years. It’s about getting out of bed in the morning when the only thing you want to do is sleep and hide from the world. It’s about rising up and putting your feet on the floor when yielding to a feeling of failure seems normal. It’s about forcing a laugh when crying feels more natural. It’s about living through each day when death seems the only way to peace. This is success!

Success is a relative term but most will agree that it is defined as the accomplishment of something, an achievement even. In other words, it’s something that is gained. To some this is all it will ever be. But to others, it is not about the gain, but about battling the losses and continuing the fight. Their success is not defined by moving forward, but by not falling backward.  It’s a different world for those who give all just to maintain than it is for those who push forward with ease.

Success cannot be defined with one global meaning because individual meanings should only be defined by the particular obstacles each one of us must endure. There are as many worlds to live in as there are people on the planet. Each of us must overcome the obstacles in our own existence and each of must choose what we deem as a success based on those difficulties. Our happiness depends not on the obstacles in our lives but in the fact that we don’t allow them to keep us from us challenging them. Success should not be a definition for all to agree but a new cause each of us redefine every day.

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Mindset: All Yesterdays Die

All circumstances pass away, they live and die within the moments that age us all. What is happening in this space and time will fade away and only the residue will remain. In each moment we must remember this truth. When we look over our lives and that of history, we see parcels of time where things were good or bad to different degrees. Those moments become lost in days and those days may become wrapped up in months and even into years. That period of time is remembered as a circumstance in our lives.

No matter how violent or frightening a circumstance is, it always fades into the dust of time. We then move forward as tomorrow pulls us out of yesterday bringing the residue of that circumstance with us but leaving the physical aspect of that time behind. That time in our lives then becomes a phantom that no longer harms us unless we allow it to haunt us and taunt the residue that is left inside us.

The evils of yesterday always reach beyond the grave to draw us back because of our unwillingness to let go of a memory or tragedy that no longer has any physical power over us. The very concept of a sunrise and sunset are that all things have a beginning and an end. Although thunderstorms will still come, they will not be yesterday’s storms. And in time, those new storms too will fade away in a future sunset. We must always carry with us that each new sunrise is our reminder to not be pulled out of yesterday but to willingly step anew into tomorrow.

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Mindset: Looking Beyond The Slivers

It is not from the evil of this world in which we are defined. Those acts of atrocity against humankind, the crimes of individuals in our everyday lives and the will of those to bring conflict and suffering are not who we are as a whole. They are mere slivers of a broken world which obstruct a clear view of what is mostly wholesome and good.

Our collective identity lies with those who work hard with pride and integrity to provide a living for those whom they love. It is apparent in the forgiveness that is given when forgiving is the most difficult of tasks and in the examples of our choices when the easiest choice is one that we choose not to be an option.

It is also in the kindness that we teach to our children who learn all too soon that the world is not a fair and just place and all too often not worthy of kindness and mercy. Further still, it lies the faith of those same children who continue the teachings of grace and mercy in spite of this knowledge.

So much of what we experience seems of a dark nature. We are engulfed in a world that appears to be crumbling but the fact that we still feel shocked and shame at the sight of evil is proof that immorality has not become commonplace in our hearts and minds and an accepted as a way of life. It is a belief that good does win out over evil and that we choose to rise above that which attempts to destroy us while building a future that will never crumble into dust.

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Mindset: We Are But Grains Of Sand

Most of us focus on our individual lives. We live in such a large world with numerous activities abound at every moment that we tend to remain in the small part of the world which makes sense to us. As a result, we become disconnected from others even as the technology works to bridge us closer together. This implies that we choose to be separated. But what if we were to perceive the world differently? Would this change not only affect ourselves but our involvement in the world?

How would our lives be different if each of us saw ourselves as grains of sand? What is the nature of sand? At times it attaches to other grains in an effort to build something or to be a part of something larger. Other times it blows singularly in the wind to other destinations. But it’s very essence is that it moves. It moves across oceans and continents to other places in a never ending process of migration with its nature never changing. It is a minuscule grain of sand that follows a plan much greater in scope than what it represents in size.

We mustn’t fight that which uproots us physically, mentally or emotionally because it will move us to where we are needed most. That wind that blows us or wave which carries us away is part of a greater plan that is meant to connect us to others for an ultimate purpose. It is part of a greater plan that we may never get to view in its entirety, but we do get to feel and know deep inside that we are a small part of a very large idea. If we simply accept that we are part of a plan, then the wind and the waves will always carry us to where we are a part of something better, something more meaningful.

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Mindset: One Moment Ago

We live in a yield sign world where everyone and everything slows down but nothing seems to ever come to a complete stop. Life rushes by because we experience the world around us moving at ever-increasing speeds and if we are to keep up then we must flow with the rhythm of this world’s chaotic momentum.

However, we need to understand that the world only spins as quickly as each of us allow. We need to realize that it should not push us but instead be pushed by us as individuals in control of our lives. When our actions are done hurriedly and in haste then the very essence of those acts get lost in our attempt to keep moving forward.

Happiness has always been found within the small things of life. The moments we cherish are the few we actually take the time to explore and feel; the ones we carry with us and that save us when our world is in chaos and drifting off course in this vast universe. Every moment that we stop for and then savor is our natural reminder that the beauty of life is not in the expeditious manner in which we live it but in the leisurely way we experience it. 

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Mindset Origins: Our Universal Connection

So often it seems the root of humanity stems from what we want instead of what others need. The desire to tend to our own comforts can build walls separating us from those who need us the most. It is not always a conscious act of neglect but more of an unwilling blindness that keeps us from the most important issues and people in our lives.

It is a simple gesture to give, one that requires only the choices to see and then to act. This simplicity has an awesome effect on both the giver and the receiver because it brings positivity, which sparks an internal change that never ceases to evolve. To need is something that each human experiences. Whether it be love, money, emotional support or simply a reason to continue believing, we all understand its purpose and that it connects us to each other. 

After truly experiencing the power of giving, we no longer see ourselves as individuals with personal desires but rather part of a large family whose needs for assistance lead us to the understanding that we are one family with a combined conscious that dictates we must help others so that we too may be helped. It is this unity which allows us not only survival but serenity. 

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Mindset: Blessings In Wolves’ Clothing

The truth is that there have been moments in my life when I have loved being depressed. I loved it with a passion that I will never be able to explain to anyone who has never known madness. It’s power, freedom clarity and safety beyond understanding. It is a blessing lost within a curse that dies in a hot breath and is reborn in a simple sigh. It’s life through a pouring rain of hot bullets and gentle cool drops.

Found means nothing without the experience of being lost. We only find what we all truly seek in the chaos that leads us through darkness. Reason emerges because of that chaos which we need to find for explanation and purpose. Once found, it can be accepted, understood and used. Misery and joy are both guides in this life. Each takes us to destinations which give us both power and vulnerability. They are not good or evil, but life tools.

Your chaos will come. It always comes. But when it does, realize it as the blessing within the curse that it is. Suffer from it what you can to extract the enlightenment which is at its core. It is your purposeful journey to reason; your cost for recognizing happiness. Allow it to strengthen, teach and become a part of you which you can then control. True happiness is forged in the dark. Without it, joy is simply a myth we chase never seeing that it is not that it doesn’t exist, but that we simply don’t know it when it comes to light.

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