Category: Perception Is Reality

Words are the colors you use to paint the picture(s) of your mind.

And as much as you might want to step into a Caribbean color palette with sky blues, lush greens, and warm yellows…

Choosing words that paint dark browns, deep reds, and harsh blacks will elicit a much different kind of picture.

Hate is not a path towards love. Love is a path towards love. And the colors of love are the words you should choose to paint with.

Resentment is not a path towards peace. Peace is a path towards peace. And the colors of peace are the words you should choose to paint with.

Anger is not a path towards happiness. Happiness is a path towards happiness. And the colors of happiness are the words you should choose to paint with.

And each day is a blank canvas. Your mind has access to an entire array of colors. Which will you choose to paint your day?

The one you have about yourself…
and who you are…
what you went through…
what you stand for…
who’s on your side…
who isn’t…
your worth…
your value…
your abilities…
your inabilities…
your cans…
your can’t’s…

Is just that…
dialogue.

And the thing about dialogue
is it can be edited…
rewritten…
updated…
expanded upon…
improved…
made more clear…

Choosing not to do this is exactly that:
a choice.

And choosing to act in accordance with an outdated…
demeaning…
belittling…
restrictive…
subdued…
incomplete…
script

…seems like a silly choice to mentally agree to
…to me.

At a recent weekly meeting, my boss asked my associates and I what we did first thing that morning.

Two of them said let their dog outside.

He asked them what they saw… they said, in not so few words, pee and poop.

He proceeded to tell us that when he looked outside… for whatever reason that morning… he was completely captivated by the trees… and the way they were swaying… and the beauty of the snow and how it blanketed the early morning neighborhood.

They all probably opened their door to an almost identical snowy scene.

…But couldn’t have seen things more differently.

After a really good music show, some describe the feeling after as a crash—a drastic come down back to reality—even as post show depression.

Because when you’re at a really good music show, you’re not attached to reality as you know it. You’re somewhere else. Somewhere transported, somewhere high above, somewhere freeing and loved filled…

But as I heard someone describe it today… it doesn’t have to be a crash followed by depression… it can be something we gracefully carry back down with us and intentionally integrate into our reality as we now know it.

Because being at a really good music show isn’t a detachment from reality—it is reality. And what’s happening there can happen elsewhere, too. We just have to learn how to carry that updated understanding of reality with us.

I took a picture
Of a mountain today
I don’t know why

To capture permanently
Light rendered
Off converged rock

To share socially
Document something
Get likes, impress, hype myself up 

Or maybe because
Everybody else was
And looking was pressured; timed

“Can you get the whole mountain, please?”
“Try one the other way.”
“Ew, the angle—get another shot.”

What does this mountain mean to me?
Will it ever mean anything to me?
…Is this even for me?

I don’t know why
I took a picture
Of a mountain today

But I guess I’ll leave it
Maybe one day I’ll remember
That at the very least

…I was here.

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P.s. You can read my other poems here.

Boyyyyy… could it be worse.

But, you already know this… Here’s why I bring it up: you know that expression, “A dollar saved is a dollar earned”?

Think about your life situation in a similar lens: “A worse situation avoided is a better situation earned.”

Because when things are rough… sometimes the only thing we can control is our perspective… and if you can imagine all of the ways your situation could’ve been worse… and in fact, isn’t… then maybe—just maybe—it’ll help you make your situation feel better.

Because when you feel better—you’ll act and perform better.

…And that’s the first step towards actually making things better.

Good luck.