Current Situation...

Current situation. Here I am. I am writing to you. Yes, you. Whoever decided it was a good idea to read these words. They are my words from my experiences that I just want to share with the world. It’s good to talk about things, but it is also good to write about them. So, this is that. This is me writing about the anxiety attack/breakdown/episode/ whatever you want to call “it”. That just happened about four hours ago.

Current situation? You will have to wait and read a little longer if you want to find out what triggered “it”. For now, I want to talk about human evolution. I don’t know what you believe as far as creation, and I won’t back up that far. Instead, I want to talk about however we got here, how we have changed. How we have evolved. As a species, we are incredibly lucky to have intelligence. Not everything got that. We, as a species, also have a consciousness that when coupled with intelligence allows us to reflect on things. We think about how the warm summer sun on our face feels good when we take the time to enjoy it. We know that we will get sick or die if we do not eat, or if we eat the wrong thing. This consciousness and intelligence we have helped us grow, learn, live like no other species. I feel very lucky to be here on this earth yesterday, and hopefully today and tomorrow. We are so lucky to have become so advanced as a species let alone as a civilization. My current situation, incredibly lucky to be on this earth at this point in time.

Current situation? I have an incredible job. I spend all day making healthcare better and safer than it was yesterday. The number of people my actions affect in some way or another is astounding, and I am just a nobody working in a cubicle. I implement changes that someone else decided on, but it is my duty to execute them perfectly because one slip of a typo or a click of a mouse at the wrong time could be disastrous. Please don’t think I am someone far up a corporate ladder. Quite the opposite really. I’m just the guy that implements the changes. My current situation is that I work in a beautiful office with everything I could ever want, with a great team of people, doing meaningful work that affects others.

Current situation? Happiness can’t be purchased with money. After hearing that and telling it to myself so many times I have another thought that is evolving. If it took our species millions of years to evolve into what we are now, then anything that changed in the past few hundred thousand years has not yet had time to let evolution catch-up. I think you can make this comparison to just about anything, so please just indulge me. How long has the corporate grind been going on? How long has a cube-farm been a thing? How long have we been more concerned with tangible and intangible things like money than with our community? It wasn’t always like this. We had a balance. We worked, we went to church to be with community, we spent time with our families. Current situation, in a normal weekday I work eight hours a day to provide money and things for myself and my family. I constantly worry if I will ever have enough things and money to enjoy them. When will I get to go see the world, or just take a vacation, or retire? Then I am exhausted from all of that, so I come home mentally drained, I often must decide to use the remaining energy to spend time with family or myself. Then, completely exhausted I lie my head down only to raise it back up tomorrow to do that whole dance again. I didn’t accomplish anything meaningful other than what I gave to my employer. What about my family? What about my community? Perhaps more important, what about my own self?

If I had to put a label on myself to explain what kind of person I am I would say that I am; A positive person with a negative outlook on himself. I am positive about every person and every situation unless I am reflecting on myself. Then I am much more critical and self-deprecating. If I said, the words I say to myself, out loud, one might say I was cruel to myself. Look I have been trying to fix this since I was old enough to realize I was doing it. It isn’t something that gets fixed easily and certainly, I am spending all my time trying to make money so that I have time to work on myself, so there is no more time in the day for me. Current situation, I didn’t always think like this. I mean I always worried about money, but never have I realized how much more precious time is than money.

I feel like I am rambling so I will tell you about what happened this morning and what kinds of thoughts I was having. But first, let me say that if you or anyone you know is struggling with depression/anxiety/or any other mental illness, I want you to seek needed help. If you need help to help yourself, or you need help helping someone else. Go to https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ or talk to someone on the hotline 1-800-273-8255. I am incredibly lucky to have someone so supportive, but if I didn’t have my wife to lean on I would certainly use these resources and others.

My story of what happened this morning is a long one and I’ll sum it up where I can, and if you have any questions I’ll try my best to answer those in the comments. So here it goes; When I was far too young an older boy molested and raped me. This went on for far too long and unfortunately, I trusted the wrong adult to tell so while it stopped I was still forced to see this monster of a person every day. Fast forward too many years than I am willing to admit I have finally come to terms with it enough to at least talk about it. That was roughly about thirty years, and it is still very rough and raw and emotional to deal with. As you might think this has profoundly affected my life and worldview. So much so that when my sons were little I would never kiss them on their lips when I tucked them into bed. I am not making this a sad story, I am just trying to paint the picture.

Fast-forward to last Saturday. I saw a meetup about meditation. Now, I must credit “Mindfulness” for helping me get to the level of acceptance I am at right now. If you are not familiar Mindfulness is the new name for meditation because for some reason the word meditation is not attached to the medical world. Mindfulness is. Now. I digress, but I just want to thank www.headspace.com and the app. Download it. I don’t get anything for it, but it explains in a perfect analogy of how our thoughts are like clouds. If you're curious, check it out. Everyone is on their own spiritual journey. You may be firmly grounded in your faith and that is fantastic, but none the less you are still learning and thus walking a spiritual path. If you view or articulate that point differently I completely understand. In my journey, I found meditation/mindfulness and it has helped immensely. Because of this, I am always looking for more ways to open my mind. Which is how I ended up at this meditation meetup group, in a public library, on a Saturday, in the middle of Kansas City. I was uncomfortable from the beginning, but I told myself to grin and bear it. It can’t be that bad. Pretty soon I found out that this was a participation type of “introduction to…” and instead of meditating in the way I was used to it e.g. individually with your own individual thoughts. This was different and required me to put my hands on the shoulders of the person in front of me. No biggy right? Except since I didn’t “feel” anything the instructor called me out for not holding my fingers correctly basically telling me I was doing it all wrong, or some nonsense. But then something unexpected happened. We changed positions and now someone had their hand on my shoulder. I knew who it was, and I was immediately uncomfortable. I didn’t know this person, but they were male, and I just can’t deal with a male stranger in this kind of intimate situation touching me. So, I freaked out. I freaked out so much that I kind of freaked myself out because it really felt like I was in a fight or flight situation and had that person been between me and the door I don’t want to think about how it would have gone down differently. Instead, I flung the person’s hands off my shoulders and I left without saying a word.

Current Situation. That experience was what triggered my anxiety attack/breakdown/episode/ whatever you want to call “it”. “It” was irking me Saturday night, but I didn’t really tell my wife the full story. So, since I didn’t talk about it I allowed the situation to fester. It ate at me from the inside. However, since I have been talking about my situation(s) more and more I was able to recognize that feeling in the pit of my stomach as depression. In fact, I told my wife on Sunday that I didn’t want to have another breakdown right now. I felt it coming. As you might guess, Sunday was filled with depression. Then on Monday, just a few hours ago, it all came to a head.

I am not going to talk about how “it” manifested in my situation. But please know that everyone deals with things differently. Needless to say, there was crying and a very outward emotional outpouring that allowed me to think through and deal with this situation. This was a silly situation in comparison to other heinous things that can happen to a person. But what came out of that particular breakdown is why do we, as humans, do so much out of the norm of evolution? We are in such a hurry to evolve ourselves, and I think that is causing some unhappiness. Suffering. If that is true, why do we keep doing it to ourselves?

 

Current situation. I work my tail off in hopes that I will have money to retire, and that I will be well enough to enjoy said retirement. Perhaps I need to downsize at a certain age so that I can live cheaper and use that savings to enjoy life today. Because not tomorrow, nor Sixty-Five and a Half is guaranteed, and humans did not evolve to retire.

-Ryan

Yappy Dog on the Corner of Carson and 85th

This is a Eulogy that I wrote for my best (4-legged) friend! He passed away January Twenty-Fourth, 2017. I posted this in a few places back when I wrote it, like Facebook and Nextdoor.com a neighborhood social media platform, but I thought I might post it here too.

Be sure to find kindness in everyone and everything. If you look for the Bad you are only going to find the bad in people. But if you look for the good and you listen to their story and get to know them, you will find acceptance and kindness in everything. That my friends is happiness. 

Please enjoy this inspired writing from a few years ago.

-Ryan

Yappy Dog on the Corner of Carson and 85^th

Neighbors and Friends,

At the house on the corner of Carson and 85^th there is a yappy dog on a lead that comes almost all the way to the sidewalk on 85^th. He runs to the end of his lead, as fast as he can, barking and startling everyone that walks by. He very small, but loud and annoying. He is equally annoying from inside the house. The blinds are kept closed so that the people inside don’t go mad from his persistent barking at every man, woman, child, and animal that passes by. It must be exhausting for that dog to constantly be on the lookout for friend or foe. It is a job I’m sure he took pride in.

His name is Zeus. A big name for such a little dog. When in fact he was much more of a scaredy-cat. He wasn’t much of a protector as much as an alerter. If you made half a motion towards him he would scurry off & retreat, then reestablish his position and continue barking. If you were not a member of the family, you were not welcome. Not because he disliked everyone else, but because he was compelled by a sense of duty to keep his family safe.

Zeus is my best friend, a Jack Russell Terrier. I apologize if he frightened you or your family if you were walking by. We tried our best to avoid times when the school bus stop would be busy. We also tried to be respectful and bring him in right away as soon as he would start barking, which was inevitable. Moving here three years ago was a big change for Zeus. He used to have a large fenced yard and a dog door to come and go as he pleased. He still, however, would run out that door and unrelentingly bark at the neighbor mowing or working in their yard, just to show them he was watching. No matter how hard they tried to be friends with Zeus he would still bark to let his family know that someone was near. He was a great guard dog in that regard. He barked so much that we didn’t always believe him. But, I will forever recall one night in the wee hours of the morning when he barked and barked to get us out of bed. I finally threw off the covers stomped over to him in frustration and told him to knock it off. He continued and I soon found a person outside peeking in our window. We always believed Zeus after that.

Zeus did get grumpier as he aged. Thirteen is pretty old for a dog. He had his routine. Knew what he liked and didn’t like. But he always looked after his house and his family. He was never too tired to fulfill his duty. Even though sometimes you could sneak up on him, once he finally noticed you he would bark and then, with a satisfied look on his face, wag his whole backside while looking up waiting for appreciation in the form of a head rub. That is all the compensation Zeus required.

It is with a heavy heart that I tell you that Zeus is no longer with us. As I said, he was an elderly dog, and time catches up with all of us. I think it was the bourbon and cigars that did him in. He didn’t think I knew, but I could smell it on him and I often pointed it out to my wife when I would come home late. But seriously, he had a recent stay at Amity Woods Animal Hospital for three days. When he came home he would have some good hours and bad hours. We did our best to help him get better. Unfortunately, we could not get him to eat after he came home. For ten days he only ate a small piece of cheese that contained his daily medication. At the end, he didn’t even want to eat that. With no strength, as well as being ill, life was hard for Zeus and on Tuesday January 24, 2017 we had to let him go. So I say to you my neighbors and friends, you can walk on the sidewalk by the house on the corner of Carson and 85^th without fear of being startled by Zeus, that yappy dog with the annoying bark, and full heart. Thank you for putting up with him. Thank you for trying your best to make friends with him. And thank you for being our friends and neighbors. We love and appreciate you all, and we know that Zeus did as well.

I also want to thank Amity Woods Animal Hospital and their staff. They have always been wonderful, kind, and professional. They took great care of Zeus and did their best to give him extra comfort and love. I recommend the place not just because they are in the neighborhood, but because of the great service they gave my 2-legged and 4-legged family.

With Love, Kindness, and warmest regards,

Ryan & Sarah

Rylee & Tyler

Top 5 reasons I hate numbered lists

I can't stand number list articles. I'm not quite sure why. I certainly read them when I am researching something, but never do I casually click on a number list article. I feel like they are selling something and know that number lists get more clicks/views. Because of this, I feel like I want to rebel and NOT click on those lists just because it's a marketing technique. I actually do this for a lot of marketing techniques that I recognize. I just rebel against them because I don't want anyone to influence me.

1) I don't want to be influenced
2) You can't tell me what to do!
3) It's the norm, and I usually look for the path less traveled.
4) They do not always match up to my rankings
5) They give the crappy websites the ability to get more page views by making you click "Next" and each number on the list is on its own webpage.


I think what I have discovered by writing this article is that I don't like to be influenced by marketing, and that is why I don't like number lists. Do you like number lists? Did you click on this article because it had a number in the title? Let me know in the comments if you like or don't like number lists.


Here is an article about why we humans are drawn to lists by someone who actually knows what they are talking about.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201109/7-reasons-we-7-reasons



Cheers!
-Ryan

Parents. Not all are the same

Six years ago, yesterday I lost my Mother. She left this world before we could reconcile our relationship. As I watched the clinicians stop administering life-saving functions and call the time of death I wailed out loud how sorry I was to not have been closer to her. If I would have apologized just 5 min earlier maybe she would have heard me. Instead, I carry this guilt with me every day.


Presently we have a situation in our house that I don't think is common, but it's not that rare because I have heard of other people helping others get on their feet. We took in a 17yr old girl that showed up on my porch in April. It was chilly. She didn't have any shoes on. She asked if she could talk to my son, her friend. I won't go into the specifics of her family issues, but I'll try to explain what I am doing, what I am thinking, and how I am planning on getting them at least talking to each other again.


What am I doing? - I will change the names, but the situation is that Jane was kicked out of her house by her Father and Stepmother, the Doe's. Then Jane came to live with me and my family. I am trying to shield this young woman from some of the things I feel are hurtful. When people speak out of frustration or anger often times they spit vile things in an effort to make themselves feel better. I try to be the main contact, but of course, I can't control all of their communication with their daughter. Once, after the girl had been living with us for six months, they threatened to pull her out of our home. After the threat, Jane was super scared and anxious that she might have to leave. It was then that I had to put my foot down and told the Doe's that they will not threaten or hold anything over Jane's head. It wasn't fair to her, and after living with me for so long we had gotten her a bank account in her name. We had the address changed on her ID. For all intents and purposes, Jane's primary safe residence was at my house, with my family. No Sheriff would pull her out of my home without a Judge's court order, and by the time a Judge would do that she would have already turned 18.


What am I thinking? - I carry guilt for never reconciling with my Mother before she died. So in this situation, my goal is to get her talking with her Father and Stepmother in an attempt to save some semblance of a relationship. When my Mother was still alive there were family events where we couldn't avoid each other. Holidays and family get-togethers were awkward, to say the least, however, both of us still made the effort to be cordial to each other. I feel like this is, for lack of a better word, a skill that adults develop. In our adult lives, we are often forced to work or deal with people that we didn't necessarily get along with. So I feel like we have a teaching moment to teach Jane how to deal and work through awkwardness so that she can learn to be an adult. The trouble has been to get the Father and Stepmother on board. 


How to reconcile? - I don't know. I'm asking YOU for help. I only have SMS messages as a form of communication with the parents. This is beneficial as well as detrimental to opening up lines of communication. We can take our time to respond, hopefully without being influenced too much. But the downside is that we can choose not to respond, or not reply to a question. The result is that often the communication is just one-sided. Do you have any suggestions on how to open up lines of communication? Any ideas on how to help this young girl salvage her relationship with her parents?





Thanks for reading
-YonK

Randomness #1

Often I have random thoughts that do not warrant their own ramblings. So today is the day I scratch two of these off my list.

Alcohol

Alcohol. Is it addicting? We know there are alcoholics, but what about binge drinkers? Even the ones that do it once in a while. I don't remember where I heard it, but someone said: "What if a hangover is just your body going through alcohol withdrawals?"

That comment has stuck with me for some time. I know that I do not metabolize alcohol well, or efficiently. So hangovers in my 20's were tough. After getting that out of my system I rarely drink now. I just can't handle those mornings after where my whole body hurts and I don't want to get out of bed. Is that a consequence of alcohol withdrawal?

Flags at Half-Mast

I hold the United States of America in a high regard and I fully respect our U.S. flag as a symbol of this great country. I feel so very lucky to have been born in this country. 

I often wonder about the presidential decrees to put the flag at half-staff are getting too frequent and thus taking away of the reverence we all have for the symbolism of flying the flag at half-mast. It seems all too frequent that we have a disaster, a celebrity dies, etc. I feel like that takes away from the reverence when a government official dies. Take Sen. John McCain for example. When he passed away I almost forget that the flag was supposed to stay at half-staff until interment. But that is also not the only thing I forgot such as, the Senator was laying in state for a week before his burial.

I am certainly not saying we shouldn't lower our flag for celebrities or tragedies, or other remembrances, but I do wonder if we lose some reverence in doing so.

Thank you for your kindness in listening to my ramblings. Feel free to comment below. Comment about this post, another post, or this project. I would be happy to hear from you.

All my best

-YonK

Getting the Band Back Together...

The Blues Brothers is a classic. Full of awesome stars and cameos. If you have not seen it, I highly recommend it. So, what does this have to do with LivingOnKindness? Well, I would love to get the band back together as they say and team up with a filmmaker. Someone with the passion of telling stories. I think there are great stories to be told on this journey. Not just in the adventure of it all but the hundreds of stories about the people that we will get to meet. Whether it's meeting someone on a trail or sidewalk, listening to the story of someone kind enough to give a ride, or even the kind family that takes brings a stranger into their home for a night.

How do you find a filmmaker? I mean I'm not going to get Casey Neisat no matter how much I love his storytelling. I know there are brilliant storytellers all around the world. Probably far more than I think there are. I just need to figure out how to find them. Perhaps an ad on Craigslist? I wonder if there are filmmaking forums?

I don’t think I would be able to vlog about my trip, at least not as successfully as a storyteller could. I mean I will if there is no other option, but my creativity comes in the form of coming up with creative solutions for problems. Not so much on the artsy side. But capturing it all in a raw unedited vlog would be better than nothing at all. I will of course also be updating this blog during the adventure too.

If anyone has any insight about anything, please comment and let's have a conversation. It could be tips on hitchhiking, backpacking, minimalist camping, Blog/Vlogging, or Storytelling.

Thanks for your kindness

-Ryan

What would it feel like to be homeless?

I am very grateful for advantages that I have had in life. I grew up with loving parents and step-parents. We were probably at the bottom end of middle class. We had a house that we owned although I remember my Mother always talking about how expensive it was to heat/cool it. After high school I received enough money to buy my first computer. At the time I didn't know it, but this would send me down the IT track. I was lucky enough to always have a job when I needed one. After learning a trade I went back to school to go into IT. When I graduated I enrolled in a four year college, and began my professional career.


I, like I am sure many of you have had, have also had difficulties and challenges in my life too. Going through a divorce at a young age. Twice. I was raped and molested at a young age with trusted adults not doing anything about it. When I was older with a family I was off work for a long time due to an injury and was within two weeks of being on the street. I considered myself incredibly lucky to get the job I both wanted and needed at the exact time I needed it.

So my point is that I do not know what it is like to be homeless. When talking to those down on their luck I try to avoid the question of how they got there and what are they doing to get out. I focus more on helping them with a ride, food, drink, or maybe even a couple dollars. In my ignorance I guess I think of being homeless as camping in the city. Perhaps backpacking is more accurate. Carrying all your belongings with you all the time. They can't be too big or you won't be able to go into any buildings or businesses. But I would think your pack does have to contain the majority of what you need. Is camping/backpacking in the city the same as being homeless? Could I practice in my own city for a weekend before I set off across the country?

My main concern is that if I travel across the country, or wherever, that I will be taking resources away from those whom are truly homeless and need those resources more than me since I could get access to money if I needed to. What do you think, am I taking resources away from those who need it? Do I makeup for it with the exposure that the different programs will get?


Hope to hear from you
-YonK

What is this all about?

This blog is a half-baked idea I had. Kind of a spur of the moment or impulse idea. Before I knew it I had clicked buy on the domain www.LivingOnKindness.com. The motivation comes from an idea I have about a project that is still a few years away. A trip across the country, or at least part of it, with little to no resources. I want to travel, have random adventures, and meet new and interesting people.

I am lucky enough to have an employer that still puts the welfare of their associates above the bottom line. We are encouraged to take a sabbatical, or a four week break from our normal day to day jobs. My sabbatical will most likely happen in 2021 and I really want to use that time to get all the way out of my comfort zone. I want to lose the many blessings and privileges that have been afforded to me.


What would it be like to not know where you will sleep tonight? Does that make me anxious or will I embrace the comfortableness of the unknown. What about something as simple as water? Something that I appreciate very much that I have access to fresh clean running water. What would it be like to give focus to daily water planning? Then there is the travel. I do like adventure and a few years ago I spent a few weeks wondering around Colorado just looking to find myself. While I had good intentions to live spontaneously, I still found myself staying at the Hilton or AirBnB rather than crashing on the couch of someone whom I just met. I want to be a wanderer and submit to the unknown.

So there it is. The spark that ignited an idea of traveling by myself. At the mercy of whatever happens. Going wherever the kindness of others will take me. I hope that this journey is interesting to you as well. Come along with me while I figure out how to do this thing safely. I hope to get a new perspective on my personal worldview.

-YonK

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