14 Lessons from 2014

Fourteen Lessons from 2014 (and a lifetime)

**14. The world may be shallow but you don't have to be.**

It does not take five minutes of reality television to leave most people shaking their heads and muttering in disgust. So why does it exist? Because like the old saying goes, 'if you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.' And these days most people no longer stand for a damned thing. I learned this depressing fact when I took an online course called, The Mind is Shallow. The professor talked about an experiment where they gave the subjects two pictures and asked them to select the one they found most attractive. The experiment then went on for a few more minutes before the researcher handed the subject the picture that they did NOT pick and asked, "Why did you find this one most attractive?" The kicker...almost everyone in the experiment then began to justify why they choose...the wrong picture. Almost no one smiled, handed it back and said "Excuse me, that is the wrong photograph. I choose the other one." That is what we have all become...mindlessly justifying the WRONG choices you made in the past...the house, that too expensive car...and yes, that relationship. Okay there are limits here...if you have kids, grow up and deal with it. Same is true in some long term relationships too (more about that later). But if you are just dating someone...I have a three month rule. That is long enough to have seen the 'real' person and if it ain't working then...quit wasting your time trying to fix the WRONG person for you. Stop justifying the WRONG choice and hand that photo back for the one you really want.

**13. Follow happiness and success will come.**

From an early age we have been conditioned like Pavlov's dogs to be what other people want us to be. Raising an autistic daughter I have learned the joys of saying...'screw you' to other people/s expectations. Think about it...how many people do you know who have spent a lifetime doing what was expected of them, following dreams that were not even their own, working jobs they do not like to pay for houses that own them (it never is the other way around). They follow the success rainbow because they have been taught that the pot of gold called happiness waits at the end. But if/when they find that end...most discover they were following the wrong rainbow all along...and not only do not find happiness but her dark twin...misery instead. Sometimes, folks, it is all right to be rude, selfish pricks/cunts and just go for what makes you happy. And honestly when you do, I believe that you will discover success at the end of the happiness rainbow...whatever success means to you.

**12. Some things are for a reason, others for a season, only the best are forever.**

We see it every day in nature...things are born, they live and then they die. Animals, flowers, even the air, water and land have life cycles. But when it comes to human relationships, we don't like to see it that way. We get upset when a friendship, dating relationship or heavens forbid a marriage ends. But the hard truth is...some people come into your life for a reason: to take something from you or give something to you. Others are there just for a season...in fact you could even argue that nothing is forever. Children grow up and spouses die. Personally though I believe that some very very special ones transcend it all, across lifetimes and space. Of course this is just a theory as I have yet to find my special forever friend...maybe I never will. But one more thing I have learned...

**11. Sometimes you have to let old things go to make room for new ones to grow.**

So like the stupid song says 'just remember in winter far beneath the bitter snow lies the seed with the sun's love in the spring becomes the rose.' After any gardener will tell you the first lesson about growing roses is that if you want beautiful flowers in the spring, you have to prune that damned bush back...almost to the ground in the fall. But so few of us have the strength to cut off those final bruised and dying buds of another season. Maybe those bruised flowers smell too sweet...sometimes sickly sweet perhaps? Sometimes we are afraid of getting stuck by the thorns...but the longer you delay the pruning the bigger and tougher those thrones become. After Mount Saint Helens erupted one of the things that astounded scientists was how quickly life returned to the mountain. As desolate and barren as it had seemed right after that eruption within months there were signs of life. Almost as soon as those embers cooled the life cycle began again. So too will yours if you simply have the courage to clean out the old to make way for the new.

**10. Go for your dreams always.**

From the moment we learn to crawl (and too often before that) the word we hear hundreds of times a day is...NO. Don't do that. Don't touch this. Don't...Can't...Shouldn't...Mustn't. The they are the other words...stupid, silly, naughty. By the time most of us enter school, the beautiful free-spirit that we were born with is broken. If it wasn't before...school will make certain to kill every dream inside of you. The comes jobs and bosses we hate. Most of us spend a lifetime forgetting the dreams we once held so dear. Sadly some even forget how to dream. Here is the best kept secret...it is never too late to go for your dreams. Even if you are fifty and want to be a prima ballerina...you can find a way to capture some of that glory even if you never make the Bolshoi. One of my favorite movie scenes is the opening and closing venet of Pretty Woman. There is this black homeless man pushing a shopping cart and shouting out..."What's your dream? This is Hollywood. Everybody's got a dream." So...what's your dream?

**9. Never compromise your values.**

Never is a word that I almost never use. Because never is an absolute...and there are almost none of those in this world. But when it comes to something like values I think that never and always are appropriate adverbs to use. I have been tried and tested on this one recently. I am part of an annual contest that challenges erotic authors to write as many stories in as many categories as they can within one year. My goal has always been to write three stories in all thirty-five categories. This is the last year ever for the contest as the site has decided it no longer fits their needs. In other words...my last chance. Have you ever felt like something was your last chance? Were you tempted to cut corners? I have been, but one thing that is important to me is to write the caliber of erotica and romance that I want to read...to hold true to my unique voice. Now the website has a word limit of seven-hundred and fifty words minimum...but I gots a big mouth. My stories tend to run from two-thousand to...oh, one-hundred and thirty-five thousand or so. Now I could have written those smaller stories...especially at the end when I had like nine stories to write in five days. But not even to fulfill a dream would I compromise one of my values. Or a job. Or a man. Values should be sacred as few things other than family are...now there is a great value for you.

**8. Shit happens...don't wallow in it.**

Uma Thurman taught me this lesson in Kill Bill. You see in that movie she goes after people who harmed her. She kicks five or six dozen trained Ninjas to get to one of them. Then she comes up against a down on his luck cowboy and get sucker punched. She ends up buried alive and crying like a bitch. The same woman who killed almost a hundred assassins crying and buried alive in her own shit. We have all been there...when life seems to just kick us when we are down. But you see, she thought me how to get out. The first thing she did was calm herself...nothing wrong with a good cry folks but before you can see the problem clearly you got to dry them tears. Then we need to remember who we are, what we have been trained to do, what we have done already and what drives us on. Then we need to concentrate, reach deep within ourselves and do what we were trained to do...shred that wooden coffin from within and dig our way up through all that dirt (manure, shit...of our own making). And get on with what we are meant to do...our destiny.

**7. The most important words in the worlds are...I am sorry.**

Because all of us make mistakes. We all hurt people. We all fuck up. The difference between men and boys (girls and women too) is what you do about it. In this fucked up world where we are all protecting ourselves even from those we love and are closest too, we do not sorry the important shit often enough...I love, I am sorry, you are beautiful. But one thing I have learned in life is that I love you means nothing without I am sorry. If you are not man/woman enough to say those three little words then do everyone a favor and sit on the sidelines of love until you can. Because this is one of those cases of you can't have one without the other.

**6. And sometimes sorry isn't enough.**

But I thought you just said those were the most important words in the world? I did. BUT words are not enough. How many times have abused women heard those words...hell even roses and promises...then gone back only to be hit again? Too many, too often and more than a couple have paid for the mistake with their lives. "I am sorry" is just thee beginning an important one to be sure. But the thing is that there needs to be action too...change. It is one thing I have about religion...this idea that if we ask forgiveness then everything will be all right. Folks, there are consequences for your actions. And I for one ain't Jesus. I might turn the other cheek a time or two but I am a baseball fan...three strikes you are out. Don't get me wrong I don't expect perfection cause I sure ain't but I am talking here about doing the same old shit over and over again. I can always forgive someone for making a new mistake...just not the same old one. So if you truly are sorry...then stop fucking doing it asshole.

**5. There is nothing wrong with the waiting place.**

One of my favorite authors...and philosophers...is Dr. Seuss. And my favorite book is hands down..."Oh, the Places You'll Go." In it he talks about the waiting place. He describes it this way...

You can get so confused

that you'll start in to race

down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace

and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,

headed, I fear, towards a most useless place.

The Waiting Place...

But then I learned...the waiting place is where you grow. It is where you learn what is important to you. And sometimes it is where you go to heal. Healing may take weeks or months or years. But take your time. When I worked as an emergency medical technician I learned a term call ROR...I forget what legalese it stands for but basically it means you left against doctor's orders and are on your own. Leaving the Waiting Place early is like that...and tearing out stitches hurt worse than having them put in. Stay there as long as you need, keep your heart safe...until you are ready. And if he (she) is the right one they will wait for you to heal or be friend enough to stay by your side while you do.

**4. Always live naked and blue before the world.**

In case you have not guessed yet...I am a movie puff. And one of my favorites is X-Men. And my favorite character...Mystique/Raven. Wait a minute? Isn't she a bad girl? Is she? Is she really? Or is she just a poor lost little girl who just wants to be loved? A woman so desperate for love that she becomes whatever the man in her life wants her to be? Isn't that the story of my life? A lot of yours too. But I love her best in those rare moments when she finds the strength to be who she really is...blue, naked and tough ass scales. It is a hard thing to do in this world granted. Because being different is not easy. But learning to accept your own beauty is the first step to allowing others to love you. So Beast...Mutant, mutant and proud...is all I have to say.

**3. You can be...alone AND happy.**

It is the one thing that most of us spend a lifetime trying to avoid. As babies, we wake up alone and cry to get someone to come and just pick us up. As teens, we do almost anything we can to be 'popular.' Drink, smoke, do drugs. We discover the one that we will continue to manipulate well into adulthood...sex. If we have sex, then we are not alone. Right? We marry. We have children. We make friends. Hell, we work crappy jobs. Just so that we won't have to be alone. Except alone is not that bad a place. Alone is quiet. Alone is peaceful. Alone is freedom. To do and be what you want. Alone is serenity. Alone means just for me. Even when we are with someone there will always be times when you and they will need to be alone...and that should be okay.

**2. There MUST always be boundaries.**

Picking the top lesson of this year was damned hard to do...because wow did I screw the pooch on this one. It might just be one of the hardest learned lessons of my life...and one of the most valuable. You see I tried it this year...playing without limits...giving total control to another. And as the saying goes...absolute power, corrupts absolutely. The thing is that...without limits you are saying that you do not matter, that you have no value. And if you do not value and respect yourself, demand that of the people closest to you then they will take you for granted. And it is not just in relationships either...this is true of our friendships and even our children. For a very permissive parent this was a shocking lesson but now I see that drawing lines is one of the biggest ways that we say...I love you and I love me. Yes, give...give of yourself...but never ever forget...

**1. To thine own self be true.**

And the winner is...the biggest lesson of this year is over five hundred years old...although I doubt even Shakespeare was the original with this one. It is timeless. It is also what is written upon the collar that I gave myself. But there is one thing I need to add...to be true to yourself...you must first know yourself. This means lots of hours spent looking in the harsh cold mirror of your soul. Knowing your hopes, your fears, your strengths, your challenges...knowing you. And on the other dog tag is the companion piece to this lesson...the Greatest Love of All.

I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows

If I fail, if I succeed

At least I'll live as I believe

No matter what they take from me

They can't take away my dignity

Because the greatest love of all

Is happening to me

Goddess bless and keep us all and may 2015 bring you joy and happiness, laughter and lessons. May you learn yourself better and be truer to your destiny. May you grow and flourish. May you love and be loved as never before...because when all is said and done love is all we really have.