kingnickrusso

[kingnickrusso]

Long Overdue Exhaust

I just went back and realized it’d been almost two years since I wrote a blog. February 2018 was the last one. 

I’ve become very restricted with social media. There was a time I was updating 3-10 times a day with every other thought but now that doesn’t work for me. Apparently, that means you’re self centered or you’re egotistical or a douchbag or inconsiderate person by many of the people I work with. 

At least that’s the way it comes across when I listen to their criticisms. Funny enough, confidence has never been a lacking point in my life so I am still confident in myself but I express it much differently these days. 

I have found that social media was how I escaped loneliness. It’s where I could muster up some attention to fill the void in my mind.  As my following has frown to well over 150k people across all platforms, I get plenty of attention from not as much posting. So I try to make my posts more poignant, less emotional, more directed at a portion of my audience, more brand oriented so that they go further with each one. 

Sometimes I miss being able to be blatantly honest and blissfully ignorant with my posts because it just felt so good to spray thoughts without a filter. Honestly, I think people appreciate that but the environment is conducive to that type of expression anymore. Everyone is on edge. Well not everyone but a lot of people. A lot of other people also filling the void in their lives. 

Ironic, eh? To fill a void in their life they engage others to fill the void in their life. Maybe that’s why we’re all on social media and so addicted. Maybe. 

I really do think it’s just endorphins. We get endorphin release when we get message notifications or a tweet or a like or a comment from someone we hold dear to our heart. The more we get, the more we want. It’s never ending. 

Well, the only way to end it would be to stop going to it for the endorphin. Break from it so that you merely take it for what it is versus taking it as something you need.

It’s definitely a habit at work that I log into Facebook first, then Twitter, then my email. I notice it every day but it’s the way of the world. 

I used to love drunk tweeting. Not so much anymore. I wake up regretting my tweets if I do that. So now, I just tweet “this is my tweet about everything i wanna say right now.”

Anywho, it’s been 5 1/2 years in Houston on The Bull. 4 years doing afternoons from 3-7. This is what I was dreaming about doing back in my Corpus Christi days. I mean, not specifically this but certainly this arena. I always had dreams of NYC or LA but never very concrete. Lately, I’ve been trying to envision getting to host a television show or game show or something to that effect. 

Earlier today I was talking with some friends about Spring Break 05 or 06. Or 04. Not really sure but we got hammered in South Padre Island, stayed at a best western about 8 people deep. One of my friends reminded me of when I got us in as water boys for a wet tshirt contest at Clayton’s. I vaguely remember it but can certainly pinpoint a couple of moments from that night. 

Whew, the 20′s were wild. I’m damn near 40 now. Yikes, hated to write that.

Truth is, I’m so happy right now. I was a little depressed earlier this year. I think I didn’t want to admit it and it lingered for a while but I’d lay on my floor and just stare at the ceiling. It just started to feel like time was closing in on me and things were becoming stagnant. They weren’t stagnant but that’s what my mind kept suggesting. I also battled some severe back pain. Two herniated discs that were extra swollen which was causing major muscle spasms around my abdominal area and back. Could barely walk, couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t roll over in bed. Couldn’t sleep. It was awful. 

Thankfully, chiropractic help and physical therapy got me back to a great place. Unfortunately, this process led to me finding out I have ankylosing spondylitis which is a form of arthritis. Auto immune disorder that causes my body to send inflammation to my joints for no reason. Causes pain and discomfort but I’m doing 1000% better than this time last year. 

I’m still single at this point. I feel like I’m ready, though. I’m ready to get married, stop chasing and flirting and stop thinking that every girl I find super hot I have a chance with. HA! 

Geez, that’s not really what I think but I have always been super quick to love the way a woman looks. I get hopeful every time I see a woman I’m attracted to. I’m working on fine tuning that attraction. 

I wanted to start a dating app again but the bio or my place in life or what I’m looking for is so hard to explain. Let me try it here:

I want a woman who is a professional in her field or on her way to becoming a professional in her field. Mainly, because I am a professional in my field. I’d rank myself as one of the best in the entire radio industry and I want someone who will respect me for my achievements and push me to achieve more and wallow in success alongside me. I’d love to have my lady to take to shows, concerts, vacations, dinner, just chillin on the couch not even talking. I really want that. The catch is that I want who I want and I want to be mad about them. mad as in crazy. crazy as in every time I see her I want to kiss her. Maybe I dont kiss her everytime I want to but if I did she’d be okay with it. 

Personality wise, I’d want her to be intelligent and want to know more about everything. I want to respect her for her and I want her to be ready to tell me everything she’s ever thought or wanted in life without fear of judgement. Because that’s what I want. I want to not feel like I have to write a blog to exhaust all the things I’m thinking about.  I love to talk so she has to enjoy listening and I love answering questions and playing out scenarios. 

I did meet this woman at Discount Tire a few weeks ago. She agreed to grab lunch or dinner next week so I gotta figure out the next line for the invite. She’s absolutely stunning. I mean....drop dead gorgeous. I saw her and she smiled at me so I smiled back and just started talking to her. We talked for about 30 minutes before her car was ready. 

Needless to say, I hope when we meet up and talk we pick right up where we left off. I think there’s an opportunity there and I know she’s looking because she just got back into town after recording a reality show about dating. 0_0

Anyway, I’m almost out of energy to keep this going and I’ve been all over the place but it sure felt good to just think, type and express. Things come out so much easier when you dont have to say it out loud. I’ll be back because there’s a lot to say about work that I can’t say on any other medium and I’m not even sure anyone reads these anymore but thats really okay with me. As my older blogs would say redundantly, I love coming to tumblr because nobody is on here reading my stuff with judgment and if they are they tried really fucking hard to find this page. 

[kingnickrusso]

Reality Check

Last night, I got to see Tracy Lawrence at Stampede. I’d never seen him before and he smashed it. SO many hits. Loved every song. 

It was one of those rare moments where I forgot what I’m doing and it was okay. I’m in a battle. My team is in a battle. We go head to head against our competitor every single day. I don’t know anyone who faces that kind of uninterrupted crash course. 

We were coming from way behind. They were leading with an discouraging margin. Then, something switched. Things started morphing into an equal battle. The goal is to win over the people. To win over more people than the other. 

It’s a tug of war. 

Last night, a listener asked the star of their team and me to get in a picture together. The listener was in the middle and it became apparent. 

The picture was a photo op, sure. However, on a symbolic level it was the muddying of the waters in the battlefield. We’ve just begun to collide and now is the time for the real war. The war of persistence, determination, strategy and planning. This time, it’s all about execution. 

This time, the balance beam will tilt. 

It’s time. 

[kingnickrusso]

Letting Go Of The Self

The craziest part about the self is that once you truly find it you lose attachment to the perception of others when you’re in a state of bliss. Sometimes, when you feel the music and start to move in rhythm (whether you’re on rhythm or not) you’re in a feeling of bliss. This kind of bliss should not be interrupted by the opinion of someone else but can if you attach yourself to those assumed opinions. That’s how you spoil good energy. 

We should not live with the weight of the opinions of others; that doesn’t mean not to listen, accept, digest and reason with differing opinions but rather listen and measure against your true knowledge of yourself. We can derive the root of our assumption to a place in our life that expresses itself in the initial bad vibe. 

Example: I have an irrational fear of my card not working at an inopportune time; thus, creating an image of being poor or not able to afford my purchase in front of others. This comes from a place in my past that rears it’s head at different times. My card was not working at a bar recently and I had the thought of the opinions of those who may have seen my card get declined and think I was poor. I immediately corrected myself: I did not know anyone else opinion; nor, would I ever. I knew I had money and it was an ATM malfunction.  I knew myself; therefore, their opinions did not matter.

I was immediately happy and blissful, once again.

The mind is a powerful thing; in fact, it’s the most powerful thing we possess. Our ability to create our future and manifest happiness through the power of positive thinking is real. The law of attraction says you attract the things you want into your life. We shall think about the things we do want versus the things we don’t want as often as possible. 

Once we let go of the attachment to the perception of others we can be free of the invisible standard; which, is set by labels, society and our own expectations. We find ourselves in a constant battle between what we think we need to be and what we are and in the reality is we’re exactly what we’re supposed to be. We are the sum of our life’s choices. We can only hope that our product will still contribute to the greater sum of existence. 

[kingnickrusso]

The Bachelorette & Bachelor Shows Aren’t All That Far Off

I don’t really watch the shows. However, it makes perfect sense.

You see, as options and avenues have increased (population, dating apps, etc) so the landscape has changed. It appears most of us try to make it work even though you’re not really happy, break up, date a new person try to make it work even though you’re not really happy, break up, and so on and so on. Hoping that one day the roulette ball will land on my number and BAM! Magic, story book romance!

Nope. That’s not how this is gonna work, unless, of course, you want to be unhappy in a relationship and sacrifice that happiness for that of someone else; which is noble and respectable because we should all try to put others before ourselves. 

Now, the idea of getting to know several people over the course of an indefinite time scale is a reliable strategy. It’s not a competition it’s a filtering process. The key is to not talk about it. When the serious relationship, what are we, what’s next, conversation comes up, you have to be honest and say you’re not looking to commit. 

It’s really about respect and honesty. Note: This does not involve fraudulent situations; in which, someone misleads a person to gain intimacy. 

Moving on, over the course of the next few weeks, you go on dates, you go hang out, you talk to each other and you see how realistic it is to create a truly lasting relationship with that person. 

Everyone is in such a rush it’s like kamakazi dating. Crashing into relationship after relationship trying to force a connection that doesn’t exist.

Life is much about pace and perspective, what we see for ourselves is what we’ll create but the key is to not expect things like love and success to happen over night. Once we’re done developing as a person, becoming who we are, only then can we truly know what we need in a relationship because only then will we know what our heart truly desires. 

The magic exists and when it’s time it’s time. Life runs on a different clock than ours, when life presents the opportunity that we’ve been waiting for we’ll know it’s game time. Until then, make friends, learn from people, get to know others, make the best life for yourself and only then will the pieces you’ve been wanting to come together, will. 

[kingnickrusso]

Single in 2018

You know, I got away from talking about relationship advice and relationship oriented things on Facebook for a while. I stopped talking about it when I got into relationships and I kinda never wanted to go back. It feels disrespectful to give relationship tips to people when you can’t keep a relationship your damn self. The catch is that we all know, deep down, what we really want and 99% of the time it’s not one of our options. 

However, eliminating that type of dialogue from my Facebook, my relationship status became something that solely existed in real life. Not online. 

I was in two relationships over the course of about 3 years. One lasted three times as long as the other and they were the first two REAL relationships I’d ever been in and let me tell ya, being out of the game for that long sure makes a guy look at things differently. 

There’s this crazy push and pull going on that can best be visualized as two magnets with matching sides. You can feel the pressure build between them but you can’t make them touch.

They just get close enough to feel and then keep it at that boundary because they do not want to handle their own emotions.  Understanding yourself emotionally is a fascinating concept. Emotions are completely natural but our actions under those actions are not natural but learned as coping mechanisms. 

Emotional highs and emotional lows are real but they only exist because we allow ourselves to believe that something should be better than what it is and everything is perfect at every single moment. 

As being single continues to evolve, the most important concept in dating is honesty. Not the “I’m honestly only talking to you” or “I honestly think I could marry you” but the keeping of your word at all times, to yourself. 

We all know what we want in a relationship. We all know what we are looking for and when we find it we’ll know it because there won’t be any questioning it and it will happen right on time. That’s the amazing part of it all. 

Using myself as an example, I know there are a couple of things I want to have before I truly “settle down,” if you will. I’m not putting time limits on things but I know that I said I was going to be single for at least a year before getting into a relationship, again. 

Through my last relationship, I found my true self. I found the things that I will and won’t compromise. Also, I can’t move in before getting married. The truth is, my daughter comes first and I need to know her well enough to understand the right woman when I find her. 

I guess, as I’ve said in damn near every post on Tumblr. I come here to let out the exhaust pipe of thoughts. BTW, I’m super proud of myself for not going off on Twitter when I’m buzzed anymore. 

[kingnickrusso]

Euphoria

I’ve had this new level of clarity as of late in regard to the truth, reality, perception, success, honesty and love. Our lives truly connect from one moment to the next even when we think it’s chaotic. When we look back, we can find the sliver of brilliance in the field of pain that teaches us something about ourselves and about our life. 

The highs and lows are inevitable as nothing ever really stays the same. All life ebbs and flows. Through those waves we must learn to navigate the path or wavelength to which we belong. I believe we’re all giant bursts of energy emerging through space and time that creates our reality. That energy can be directed and harnessed. Within that energy exists positive and negative (or good and bad). However, the energy doesn’t make a distinction, we must make the distinction.

Somewhere over the last year, thanks to a friend of mine who came into my life randomly on more than one occasion, I have learned to trust my energy. I have started to believe in my ability to harness it for the greater good. It’s almost scary, sometimes. 

With this new found power, if you will, has come maturity. I can call it maturity because others have described it to me. No longer do I expel my emotions immediately upon feeling them. Instead, I digest them and manage my situation to the extreme best of my ability. 

I believe the job I do is directly related to my energy/wavelength. Ironically, I’m on the radio so that makes it two-fold. Considering a microphone magnifies sound and a radio amplifies energy/output it’s quite the combination. I don’t write this to toot my horn but rather explain why I think where I’m at and what I’m doing puts me on the brink. 

Soon, I’m going to figure out a way to utilize this new found super power to put together something really special. To get to that really special something it’s going to take a lot of little somethings along the way. 

[kingnickrusso]

Wherever The Wind May Go

Blowing, breezy, flowing, rolling

winds.

Heights, lows, peaks, valleys, tunnels

wins.

The winds bring the wins.

The wins leave with the winds. 

The winds don’t control the wins, they guide them.

[kingnickrusso]

Delayed Gratification

In our world of instant gratification we’ve developed a deficiency in delayed gratification. This is the root of the issue in dating. Text messaging, instant messaging, likes, shares, comments and notifications are all forms of instantly gratifying dopamine releases in the brain. We become addicted to the interaction so much that we let it flood our experience. This leaves us with an inability to recognize something that will lead in extreme gratification in a delayed manner. 

The insistence on instant gratification is subconscious; which, makes it dangerous and susceptible to addictive qualities. When it’s taken away from the user there are side effects.  

[kingnickrusso]

Running And Gunning

The engine is RUNNING yall. 

I mean, Tumblr really is the hideout for me. I may be redundant but being an only child, I always used social media as a way for me to vent my thoughts and ideas and I can’t completely do that and subject it to discussion (if possible) in a way that could potentially bring harm to my progress. 

Right now, I’m remember back in Goliad when I was writing in people’s yearbooks “one day I’m gonna be famous.” I don’t know why but ever since I was a kid I felt like I recognized something in the people I saw on television in myself. I saw a way that I could be like that if I just...tried. 

It was mimicking. 

Then I moved to Corpus Christi and leapt out on my own with the help of my parents. In reality, my actual money, was only what I made bussing tables and later delivering pizzas. Then one day, I got on the radio and kept grinding. 

I’ll save the bio. I just remember being in radio, barely getting by, making just enough money to buy what I wanted and needed to get through until the next time I’d get money. It wasn’t poor, it was real life. I lived among so many others that were doing the same thing. It’s this kind of water treading practice that you do to keep yourself happy, sane and worthwhile. 

I remember getting DOWN TO THE PENNY in my cup holder for spicy mchickens. But I never went hungry, ever. I went to the bone, though.

Then, I got in that groove where I was building and profiting in radio and was eating sushi twice a week. Then boom, the bottom fell out. Back to the ground stone. Literally TO THE GRIND STONE. 

Broken leg, no job and unable to walk. 

Rose up from the ground and landed a gig in San Antonio. Lived with two great friends who let me sleep on their couch until my life got together. And boom, flying high and buying new cars. In a great place and wollop. 

Back to the beginning. But now, we’re in Market 6. Houston, Texas. Doing the thing I’ve been hustling at for the last 15 years. Talking on the radio. Being one with the people. Feeling the heartbeat of a city. Feeling the emotions of people I’ve never met and sharing that with them on the radio. Playing music and listening to music and doing my best to provide a break to the bustle of life. 

Ironically, the bustle I rarely see anymore. You can guarantee, I will not, I repeat, will not forget where I came from; I will not. I can’t. It would go against everything I did to get here. 

To be surrounded by a city that supports you and believes in you is a feeling like nothing I can explain. Houston and I got a little thing going on. I’m slowly figuring out how to make us dance but when it happens we’re going to steal the show. 

It’s been a vision. The vision I’ve been seeing is happening and now it’s time to fulfill my part to continue the growth. It’s time to KEEP PUTTING IN WORK. 

Work consumes the majority of our life. The better you do it the more money you make. That’s all there is to it. Eventually, we find out how to manage the tools of success we’ve developed and when that happens....nothing can stop us. 

[kingnickrusso]

A solar eclipse followed by a flood of biblical proportion.  Think about those rare events both taking place in such a small time frame. That’s something they’ll talk about for ages. It was a clash of Mother Nature and Father Time. 

Oddly enough, for some people, the Solar Eclipse was an omen that signified a major change was on the way. Hurricane Harvey fits that bill, to me. 

There’s a reason the Native Americans trusted and valued the Sun so much. We all felt that amazing feeling when we first saw the Sun again after the storm had passed. That was one of the purest feeling of being connected to one another that we could feel. That’s why the they valued the Sun the way they did. 

Now, what would they say about a solar eclipse? Or a full eclipse? Signs of change to come. Whatever state they were currently experiencing was soon to be changing because such a monumental event was occurring. 

With the inundation of technology and the development of a non verbal dominant society we’ve come to a new time. A time where television is no longer the only entertainment device for a living room and society is more connected than ever. 

We got our first real test as a digitally social society in the Gulf Coast. Twitter, Facebook and live video capability connected neighborhoods, cities and regions with information on roads, rescue needs and more.  We had more information about an oncoming natural disaster than we’d ever had before. 

Maybe, just maybe, the Solar Eclipse was end of the previous scene and we’re now beginning the next. For all of us. The eclipse represented the end of everything that happened before that moment and the hurricane washed the slate clean. From here we have the choice of starting anew and rebuilding or resorting to the old tired ways of the past.

The only constant in Life is change and there’s a whole lot of change going on right now. To that, I echo Steve Jobs, “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”

[kingnickrusso]

Getting On A Heater

First, let me say, I come to Tumblr now to express myself because it’s safer. I mean, I’m not so easily subjected to disruption of the brand. I am a brand now. I belong to a brand. My raw honesty on Tumblr doesn’t threaten my brand, I don’t believe, because it’s less, “out there.”

With that said, I feel like my life is picking up mad pace. The crazy part is that I can feel my energy expanding. Truth be told, I always knew it was going to happen I just never knew how it would come to fruition. I’m rolling up on a close to 100k in a followers across social media and when I say things are about to get real big, I feel it. 

I look to the likes of Bobby Bones, Charlamagne the God, Howard Stern, Elvis Duran, Carson Daly, Ryan Seacrest and think: That’s where I want to go. I want to write books to talk about the unbelievable path my life has taken. It damn near takes my breath away to think about it, sometimes. 

It’s scary to put your goals out there like that because fewer people want to see you reach them don’t. Sometimes, though, for real, I feel like I have built up my following with a ton of people who believed in me. BUT, it’s different now: I had the base who believed in me and interacted and supported me online and they stuck around buy I had to move. As I moved on, I didn’t want to ever let them think I forgot about them. 

Social media is a community and there are leaders of the community. I feel like I’ve always been one of those. The early pioneers of social media. We were trudging pathways through the internet back on AOL that are still showing up with fingerprints in today’s social habits.

I mixed that level of social media community experience with a radio show. I mean, come on. I think that’s what freaks me out (in a good way) is that I know that when I break through it could be massive. 

To be able to share my positive energy with so many people is a very empowering feeling but it also comes with a lot of responsibility. I am the only person who can make or break my success and I’ve overcome some incredible obstacles over the last 15 years and it’s about to all pay off in a big way. 

But, that’s not the point of it all; there’s a bigger path, another avenue, another way to influence and help others. That’s what it’s really all about. Finding ways to help others because by doing that it propels you forward and upward. 

I guess, in a weird way, that’s what Social Media does for people. It helps them. It helps them feel confident. It helps them feel good, nostalgic, proud and more. That’s powerful. That’s a huge factor to one’s life. 

While I was in Vegas this past week; I nailed down some great bets. Scored big. For a while, I was winning and I left with money. 

I was on a heater. 

I see it as a parallel to my life, currently. I’m on a hell of a heater and I want to be focused, determined and hungry. I’m STILL hungry. 15 years later, I’m still hungry. It’s almost time to do some big eating. 

[kingnickrusso]

Silence

The silent life is different from the silent silent life. 

There are two kinds of silences

one is the sound of being and the other is the sound of coexisting. 

Two coexisting forces in one confined space

full of thought

wonder

Faith

and plans.

The plans come with paths and the path has been written. 

To join or to echo is not a matter of force but a matter of perfection.

Anything less 

decreases pure wholeness. 

We all want purity. 

[kingnickrusso]

No Phone For Time

The past 40 hours have been spent alone

on another

level.

Well not really alone like you’d usually

think.

But I haven’t had a phone that I could

tweet

pick music

play chess

snap

text

email

instagram

post with.

I had to think and troubleshoot and realize

so much.

It made me miss a life with no digital connection to the world.

Just for a little bit but 

immediately

I’d see something I wanted 

to take a picture of and show

my friends.

I thought about everyone in my life like I hadn’t before because I couldn’t

talk to them.

The phone will be returning

I just hope 

I remember how I feel today.

[kingnickrusso]

Update On Life

So, I have been really yearning to write a whole bunch of really raw truths about what’s going on in my life. I stopped doing it on Facebook because I don’t feel like it’s the right setting. I needed a place that I could do it free of the preemptive thoughts about inevitable judgement to come. 

Sometimes I look around, being on the radio in Houston and I think “I’ve made it. MAMA I MADE IT!” And then I think about the fragility of life. The fragile nature of all of our most prized possessions. Everything we treasure the most can be taken away in an instance. I can’t let myself get too attached to the success I’m currently experiencing because it’s all temporary when compared the permanence of time. 

I think back to being in Corpus and grinding it out for enough money to pay rent and electricity and other recreational expenses. I was doing middays on KOUL at 20 years old and thinking “I’ve made it!” This is the dream I had when I was 10! Then, gone. 

Then I was doing nights on Z95 at 25 years old and thought “I’ve made it!” I’ve always dreamt of doing this job! I grew up listening to this show and now I get to host it! In my mind, I didn’t know what could be better and then bam, gone.

San Antonio, I was scheduling music and doing afternoon drive and meeting every artist, big and small and attending concerts like I’d never done in my entire life. I remember getting asked by Chuck Strouth if I wanted to meet Ed Sheeran. Instinctively, I said yes, he took me downstairs and boom, there it was. 

I helped to discover Sam Smith. If you really want to know the story ask me and I’ll tell you. It’s 100% true. 

I remember being in a NYC hotel room, looking out over Manhattan and thinking, “I’ve made it.” Then bam, gone. 

Now, as I’m in Houston, I begin to think “I’ve made it!” and then I remind myself that there’s still much more to make. There’s much more to accomplish and achieve. There are new heights that are in reach because of my current place and I tell myself, reach further. 

I’m reminded of what Dave Dodson told me, “When you know they can feel your fire, turn it up.” So that’s what I’m doing. I’m diversifying my talents to accommodate my passion and drive to achieve more. 

We’re at a point where social media can give you an unprecedented platform. I’ve connected with a ton of people in multiple mediums over the last 3 years of being on the radio in Houston. From here, at some point, it becomes exponential. It’s picking up pace, I can feel it. 

That’s part of the reason I backed away from Facebook. I took my personal feelings off of it as far as I could and have done my best to disengage beyond promotion. I created 4 other facebook accounts under my name to try and reach more people. 

One is at 5k, another is closing in on 4k and the other is almost to 2k and in due time, I’ll be opening another page to keep building. To some it looks neurotic but to me it has a purpose. That’s what risk takers and difference makers do; they look crazy. 

I have a genuine desire to connect with as many people as possible and social media gives me that outlet. Attach that to my desire to be on the radio and my ability to create on the fly and my soon to be digital design skills, I think I can really reach deep into the world as an influencer. 

It’s somewhat daunting but it has also never seemed so real. So attainable. The goals for my future: continue to develop my on-air show with creative and thoughtful consideration, capitalize on the opportunity provided by social media, combine the two to reach new heights. 

I give the glory to God for allowing me the skills and determination to achieve what I have and I can only hope he’ll continue to guide me as I venture higher than I’ve ever been before. In unchartered water, God is my compass. 

[kingnickrusso]

Crawling Out With A Smile

Here I go, once again, onward and upward away from where I have landed,

 If I didn’t know any better I’d think He’d planned it.

 Validation comes from strange places but we all need it from time to time,

 Kinda like a wooden desk and some pine o pine.

 Nature versus nurture and age versus time

 Like living life in our prime.

[kingnickrusso]

The Winds Of Change Are Blowing Cold

Well, I made it four months in a relationship. Okay, it was more like 3 1/2 maybe 3 3/4 but either way there were tons of red flags all along the way. A few things I learned were important concepts and validations. 

One thing, when your gut tells you something is wrong that’s probably because something is wrong. Often times, if you haven’t changed your own behavior but for some reason the relationship is strained then you can rest assure it’s coming from the other person. 

Another thing, when people someone volunteers information and when added to another piece of information and it doesn’t add up there’s a reason. Likely, it’s because the math isn’t correct. For instance, if someone tells you x and then later tells you y but early on they told you the answer was xz then you can assume that y was a lie. 

People lie, that’s how they justify their own inappropriate actions to themselves. It’s human nature. We lie when we’re afraid, we lie when we’re worried or when we want someone to believe a certain something about us that perhaps we can’t even believe for ourselves. 

For instance, when I was in middle school I wanted this girl to like me and think of me as a bad ass so I told a lie about how I beat up a kid at school once. I remember midway through the lie that I was really deep in that lie and there was no coming out of it. She never spoke to me again. That lie ruined that little 7th grade romance forever.

Many people do that in today’s world. The fear of being judged by someone you’re interested in weighs so heavily on your mind that you pass off the false narrative to protect yourself. That’s a disservice to everyone involved. 

[kingnickrusso]

The last comment makes this post twice as amazing.

U.S.- Mexico Border