How To Choose the Right Partner

I am typing this with a huge grin plastered to my face, because the title is so absurd. Seriously.. I have no idea how to choose 'the right partner', let alone any clue as to what a 'right partner' is. Even if I could define one, it would be hard to know who really fits the description, because from my experience, the majority of people are not who they seem to be. It's hard to pick the right one when you don't really know who anyone is..

Consider this: when you go to the store, how comfortable would you feel buying food that said it contained certain nutrients only to find out that virtually none of those nutrients were actually in it? How different is that from a person who portrays themselves as an honest, giving, selfless person only to hide their dishonest, greedy, self-centered side? Both leave you feeling disappointed, because neither was what you thought it was.

The only thing that can show you who people really are is time and circumstance. You see, certain amounts of time and different circumstances give people opportunities to show you who they really are. Given enough time, people will show you how trustworthy they are, how reliable they are, how sincere they are, etc. Likewise, given enough time, people will also show you how human they are, and how easily they fall prey to their own shortcomings.

For example, I like to believe I am a good person. I mostly do the right thing, am considerate of others (for the most part), and try my hardest not to step on any toes as I walk down this road of life. However, despite how much it means to me to be a "good" person, I occasionally find myself doing things that are anything but good..

It seems that the more I try to do good, the better I am at achieving the exact opposite. When I reflect on why this is, the best I can come up with is a stupid Yoda quote: "Try not. Do or do not. There is no try."

There has to be something to this, because even when I am out playing disc golf and "try" to make a certain shot, that's usually when it flies the craziest. It's when I know what I want to do and simply DO it without even thinking about it that somehow the perfect shot just magically happens.

The tricky part is getting into that "do it without thinking about it" mental space and living there permanently. Most of the time, I walk through that space like it's connected to an ever-revolving door. As soon as I'm in it and become aware that I'm there, *poof* - the space is gone. Back into the revolving doors I go, walking in circles to no place in particular but always in search of a hope, dream and wish.

Now, what does all of that have to do with choosing the right person to be your partner? Or gaining a better understanding of who exactly a 'right partner' is? Everything. You see, until you can see yourself in all of the people around you - the right ones and wrong ones, good and bad ones - you will never really see them. And without being able to see them for who they are, you will never understand that they are all perfectly imperfect beings that have varying degrees of goodness and badness packaged neatly within a self-regulating human body. Nobody will ever be right for you. Why? Because you'll never be right with yourself and will always be looking for what you'll never be in someone else..

I know, that's not exactly the news you wanted to hear. And in some ways, it's not really news. It's really more of an opinion that anything else, but it came from a truth that I can't seem to deny no matter how hard I try. When people hold someone to a higher standard than they hold themselves, they spread emotional poison in the form of discontent simply because the other person couldn't be what they needed them to be. But here's the kicker.. People don't exist to be what WE need them to be. They simply exist. And we can learn to value and appreciate them for the imperfect people they are, or we can harp on the fact that they don't meet our checklist of unrealistic expectations of perfection.

Think about this: there is no person on this earth who is 100% good or 100% bad on any given day. Every single day, we are all a mixture of good and bad, some leaning more heavily towards the good side and others slanting hard in the opposite direction, but none of us are perfect. Yet we expect that the person we are with will never make a mistake. We expect that they should never hurt our feelings, and if they do, it's an action potentially punishable by exile from our life. But why? What do we ultimately gain from those expectations except the pleasure of building up one relationship after another just to tear them all down in the end? Seems like such a tremendous amount of energy being expended to have nothing to show for it all in the end..

I'm not saying to lower your standards and accept poor treatment, or to put everything into building something that ultimately isn't right for you (or possibly even dangerous for you), but I am saying that maybe the foundation for choosing a right man (or woman) is in being right with yourself first. So, for example, if you can't admit to your ex that you are in a bad relationship with person that runs in their circle of friends, don't expect that relationship to go very far.. And don't be mad at them when they expose you for the not-so-good person that you made the choice to be.. It's not that they aren't the right ones for you, it's that you aren't being the right one for you, and you should really, really take the time to ask yourself "Why?". It will help you more than you know.

Honesty matters, and it starts with self. Be honest with yourself about what you want, need and dream of having, and work hard to be the person you need to be to make those things happen in a way that you can appreciate them if and when they do enter your life. Most of us take the blessings we have for granted, then constantly ask for more. Perhaps if we focus on the blessings we do have and realize that problems are not stop signs, but rather guidelines to the right way to go, we will be able to appreciate the beautiful people who grace our lives with theirs and stop looking beyond them.

The Greatest Loss

My best friend killed himself on May 5, 2016. I'm pretty sure he did it the day before and they found his body on the 5th, but nonetheless, he is gone.

How do you mourn the loss of a connection so powerful that you feel incomplete without it? I know.. One day at a time. This man and I shared a heart and mind, and after watching him slowly lose both over the last few months of his life, I'm in a weird sort of numb place. Part of me has an energy and power that is ready to take off and do as much good as possible with my time left. The other part, however, is struggling to find a purpose to keep going.

I keep hearing him tell me to trust the journey. He says he's safe in my heart, and not to worry because he'll be with me every step of the way.I suppose I have to cling to that and keep going. Every step forward is the most powerful act of hope in the face of hopelessness. I just have to keep going.

Money is Freedom

Think about it.. Without money, you can't really do much in today's day and age. Transportation costs money, food costs money, kids cost money, school costs money, everything costs money. With enough money, you are free to choose whatever you want to choose. Without enough, you are stuck doing what you can. You are bound to what you can afford, and the less you have, the less you can afford.

So what, exactly, is money? It has changed from generation to generation, country to country, and from time to time, but it always represents the same thing: some arbitrary value made up by someone other than yourself. You can't just print some money and be cool, because if you try, you will have federal agents at your door in no time. They don't like it when people mess with their money.. No gang does.

"Well, we could always go back to the gold standard. That would solve all of our money problems!" While this is great in theory, in reality, it won't change a thing. It will slow their ability to print more money, and prevent the economic problems that come along with an ever-expanding money supply, but in the end, you'll still have problems. Not even gold is safe from the breaking of the promise of money. True, it isn't fiat money, so it has intrinsic value beyond that of an empty promise, but there is only so much of it. And it is difficult to store securely. It's heavy, so it isn't transported easily. And most importantly, there are SO many other important uses for gold that it seems silly to keep it all hoarded up as money.

You see, we have trillions upon trillions of little pieces of paper here in the U.S. Each and every one of them represents a promise made by the full faith and power of our government. Just let that sink in.. Our money is a government promise. What does history tell us about government promises? Don't have time to read your history? Well, no worries! Spoiler alert: They break them. Damn near every time..

So, what do we have so far? Money is a promise made by our government that basically assures us that we will be free if we collect enough of it. So you can safely view the poor, working or otherwise, as slaves. I would include the middle class as well, although at the rate this group is shrinking, it won't be relevant much longer. But since most middle class families are one disaster away from financial Armageddon, they aren't free. Freedom is being able to pay the 15% capital gains tax rate because your money is working hard for you, giving you time to pursue the things you want to do. Most people don't have the starting capital, financial knowledge or acuity to become wealthy. Instead, they work hard to become rich, always paying the 50% plus tax rate the the working poor are hit with when it's all said and done. They kicker is, they never get there. They never get rich. One or two squeak by, but most just work their lives away, trying to build castles out of sand.

Here's the biggest problem: They keep printing more promises. Promises that were already damn-near empty are now losing value by the second as more and more sheets of green paper bills fly off the printing presses. Each dollar that gets printed robs value from the dollars already in circulation. True, many of those dollars will get damaged or destroyed, so there is a need to keep new bills coming, but not at the rate that they are. For example, in 2014, roughly 6.6 billion notes were printed at the rate of 24.8 million per day, with a total face value of $560 million. Yet, only 5.95 million notes were destroyed. That's nearly 100 times more money created than was destroyed!!! Yikes! And if every dollar printed and added to the circulation is robbing value from the ones that exist, then we are in for big problems ahead. Freedom will be at the center of the issue, because we are selling our freedom in exchange for empty promises. Check out the U.S Treasury website for more recent facts and figures, if you dare..

I hate to say this, but we are in the middle of a global sovereign debt crisis, with our own government debt accounting for a tiny fraction of the overall outstanding global debt. So does it surprise anyone that a war cycle is building up right now? Does it surprise anyone that civil unrest is at an all-time high globally? Does it surprise anyone that the number one generator of money around the world is criminal enterprise? Drugs, human trafficking, slavery and other by-products of organized crime are earning one out of every $10 dollars earned. This is what government promises buy us..

What does it mean to be a human being?

I had to reflect on this. I've been struggling with forgiveness as of late, and this really got me thinking. When we see ourselves as separate from others, we lose sight of the "us" that is in "them". The emotions, the consciousness, the humanity. Yet, this is what many people do, especially if they struggle to see the humanity from the depth of the void in their soul.

So what does it mean to be a human being?