wildwestlife-blog

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The Easiest Way To Grow Tomato Seedlings

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I came across an article that had 15 questions to help people who feel lost. I added the questions here and answered them to help me work out my issues.

15 difficult feelings that mean you are evolving.

1. Feeling isolated from others.

- This is a feeling that I have had most of my life. I’ve felt like I have never completely fit in with any one group. I can assimilate with different groups, but I have always failed to fit in.

2. Having difficulty focusing on tasks.

- Over the past few years (it is currently October of 2017), I have noticed a significant decline in my ability to focus on general tasks that I would have otherwise had no issue with. My recall has suffered greatly and formulating solid plans has become a distant memory. I’m not sure how, or if I can ever get that back.

3. Feeling restless and anxious.

- An unnerving anxiety and inability to control my wondering mind keeps me from sleeping. I’m exhausted everyday, but yet at night, I find myself mentally wide awake yet unable to fully organize my thoughts. They are all over the place and I sometimes have a hard time deciphering what is fact and what are the figments of my wandering mind. It’s a scary thought to not now what your mind is doing. It’s also incredibly lonely because nobody is there to listen, understand or care.

4. Irritability to those that you are closest to.

- This is a tricky one. I understand that people don’t think they way I do. Then again, I’m having a hard time trying to figure out what it is that I’m thinking most the time. Any and all irritability stems from my issues rather than what others cause.

5. Feeling gripping fear at times.

- Not knowing what to do and where to turn to is terrifying. The feelings of doubt and inadequacy can be mentally crippling and overwhelming. There’s nothing worse than feeling that you are losing control of your mental capacity to think rationally.

6. A new tendency to be confrontational.

- This has not been an issue for me. On the contrary. I have felt more and more introverted and withdrawn than confrontational. I’ve lost a fire to step and and take control of situations. Then again, I may have never had that fire to begin with.

7. Becoming more dissatisfied.

- I would assume that many men my age go through similar thoughts and feelings. It’s not a midlife crisis. It’s more of wanting to know who I am and where I belong rather than being dissatisfied.

8. Feeling lost.

- The fact that I’m unsure of who I am and where I belong causes me to feel lost. If you don’t know who you are, how can you have any direction in life?

9. Feeling a strong desire to be alone more often.

- There’s is an intense desire to split off from society and move to the woods, but not alone. I wish for my wife and daughters to live a simpler life in a small community with me.

10. Begging to question your friendships.

- You need friends to begin questioning your friendships. This is an issue that I do not have.

11. Feeling intense sadness.

- Loneliness makes what I’m going through so sad for me. I have no male role models to look up to. No one to turn to for advice. My wife is amazing, but she could never fully understand what I’m going through. Just as a man could never fully understand what a woman goes through. There are certain aspects of each gender that can only be understood by the corresponding gender.

12. Dreading the future.

- An uncertain future is a scary prospect. Whether or not it is warranted remains to be seen and really shouldn’t be looked at as scary. However, not knowing who you are right now makes it all that more terrifying. How can you be excited for the future if you can’t understand life right at the current moment?

13. Desiring for things to be like they used to be.

- Most people would say, “Life was so much simpler back then.” There always seems to be a large amount of truth to that. The more we chase after life’s carrot of the pot at the end of the rainbow, the further we get from stopping and smelling the roses.

14. Having strange and intense dreams.

- As sporadic as my mind is at night, I never wake up and recall dreaming.

15. Desiring to cut off romantic relationships.

- I have had more of a desire to connect with my wife. I truly wish to rekindle her love for me. My issues have put a wedge between us and I can only blame myself for not being able to figure out how to fix myself.

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Untamed Mind

I’m fascinated with the human mind. Well, to a certain extent at least. Not to the point of an all-encompassing study of the human mind, but more of a deeper curiosity than most I suppose. I always wonder what someone is or was thinking when they do things that they typically wouldn’t do. Things like, not paying attention and then causing some sort of mild chaos or suddenly getting the urge to jump out of an airplane. What makes a person stray from their daily routine, whether it is conscious or not?

Of course, the examples above are usually once in a blue moon anomalies, but there are a ton of common occurrences that if you pay close enough attention, you’ll see all around you. If you really start to “tune in”, if you will, you’ll start to see things that you do that you probably hadn’t noticed before. Some people hum for no apparent reason, others suck their teeth, tap their fingers on the desk or even chew their nails. None of these things seem out of the ordinary when you think of it in a broad sense, but have you ever wondered why people do what they do? Is there a root cause hidden deeper into a person’s psyche that causes them to do certain things that, if they didn’t do, might set them off to do something extraordinarily off the cuff?

This is the kind of thing that catches my curiosity. If all of the sudden a person didn’t do certain things on a subconscious level, would the mind go haywire? Could that explain why some people spontaneously do acts that completely shock the people that know them the most? It could explain a complete overnight lifestyle change, midlife crisis situations or even turn from an introvert into an extrovert or vice versa. With all of the seemingly mass delusion and confusion in this world, could it cause entire cultures to change? Maybe this could explain why someone might commit a rape or a murder.

I realize that the last statement is taking it to a whole new level, but what if there is something to that? If there is, then it is entirely possible that we are all capable of doing things that the vast majority of humanity would consider deplorable. That’s definitely a terrifying thought if you think about it. Maybe it’s best to not bring attention to our unconscious behaviors and leave well enough alone.

Now I’m no doctor or psychologist and I don’t hold any degrees in any area remotely close to being able to say that I have a clue about what I’m talking about at all. I’m just sharing my thoughts on what I think about the untamed mind. There’s really no rhyme or reason as to why I’ve decided to write about this. Or is this possibly something that I had to do to keep my own mind appeased?

I wonder…

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Your Own Worst Enemy

People often like to believe that their lack of success is the fault of others. I believe that it’s a person’s own mind that holds them back. Let me explain…

All too often I see people who have extraordinary potential to succeed in the endeavors that they never allow to become reality. I know people who could drop what they’re doing right this moment and be instant successes if they would just allow themselves to take that first giant step and believe in themselves. I have a funny feeling that you know people like this as well. As a matter of fact, that person is probably YOU. Now if what I’m saying is true, then what’s the cause of the fear to take the first step? Well, the short answer is fear of failure. Nobody wants to risk leaving a relatively “secure” job and possibly lose everything that they’ve worked for up until now. However, I think there is a little bit more to it than that.

It’s the constant barrage of negative media attention and water cooler talks that have focused nearly all the attention on people’s failures. Negativity is big business and just what people love to hear these days, but why? It’s because we have created a culture of immense self-doubt and zero self-responsibility. It has become so easy, and socially acceptable, to criticize the grinders and hustlers of the world that put in the blood, sweat and tears needed to succeed rather than getting off our own butts and making our lives our own. It has become a detrimental cultural epidemic that is killing our self-esteem, pride and our country.

Is that who YOU want to be? I was that type of person. I know how easy it is to fall into the self-doubt trap, but after taking a long hard look in the mirror, I’ve decided that enough is enough and I’ve gotten off of my butt to do something about it. Don’t let the clowns of the world pull you down. Don’t allow the self-doubt to corrode your dreams. Get off your butt and get active! It may be challenging at first and that first step will be a beast, but just like anything else, it will continue to get easier and easier until you reach that goal of living your own life.

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Life’s Too Short!

We’ve all heard this before, “Life’s too short!” What does that mean exactly? It’s always taken as advice to hurry up and do something that, in theory, should benefit you in some way, but is that the way we should take it? Maybe we should look at it as advice to slow down and allow ourselves to seriously take in and process every aspect of our lives and truly enjoy it. If life is to be looked at as “too short” we should embrace it and stop to smell the roses more often instead of rushing through life only to have those roses placed on our graves.