Bryan Thompson :: Blogged

For people still reading this blog, it has officially moved (for a while now) to www.thompsonland.tk. 

 

Several months ago, I heard a talk given by renowned financial counselor and teacher Lee Brower. In the talk, Mr. Brower brought out a rock and told a story about this simple stone and the awakening he experienced as a result of it. In his story, he had been dealing with stresses in his family and relationships, and came across this stone on the edge of a beach on the California coast. With a dark marking on it resembling a butterfly, the image reminded him of his daughter (who had been going through a rough time). Brower said that he was challenged to focus on the good things of his life whenever he touched the rock. He went on to talk about how his life has changed since learning how to appreciate the blessings of his life with the reminder of this “gratitude rock.”

I was so moved by this story that I decided to take up this practice myself. While not constantly thinking about them, I would occasionally notice rocks along the ground while at the park with my daughter, pick them up and think of my own blessings before either losing them or tossing them back.

While I remembered to count my blessings upon glancing at a rock from time to time, however, my life hadn’t changed significantly, though I found I did have a typically better outlook.

Recently, I had been dealing with some stresses of my own. My car had broken down a couple of times and had cost me more than I was prepared to pay for. There were some family struggles, and yesterday, it all began to eat at me. Now understand, I typically regard myself as a generally positive person. I believe in the power of our thoughts and beliefs, and I try to surround myself with positive people, music, thoughts, and ideas. Still, on this day, I was really racking my brain trying to replace the stressful thoughts that had taken some wind out of me.

I turned up the music, tried to read from one of my favorite authors, but I just couldn’t shake these stressful images from my mind. Finally, I got up, stepped outside, and decided to take a walk. While I still couldn’t shut off the stressful thoughts, the fresh air did help.

My walk led me to a Sonic Drive-In Restaurant a few blocks away, where I sat at the outdoor table and ordered a half-price soda.

As I sat, waiting, I turned my head and noticed a neatly maintained portion of landscape. And right there, beginning at my feet and filling the landscape were thousands of – you guessed it – rocks.

And in that moment, my world stopped. I was speechless. Suddenly, brown, black, and grey pebbles were staring me in the face, seeming to call out to me. And I froze; aware that suddenly, these weren’t just rocks anymore.

God had sent me a message. And I was receiving it loud and clear.

A thousand rocks in an ordinary piece of landscape suddenly represented a thousand amazing blessings and gifts in my life. It occurred to me just how wealthy and lucky I am. A half-dozen Sonic customers undoubtedly watched with curiosity as I sifted through dull and boring rocks, analyzing each one and tossing it back.

Instantly, my day began to change. I now had an inescapable smile planted on my face, and I knew two things: I was one of the most blessed human beings on earth, and that everything in the future would ultimately be all right. As I walked back to my office, sipping my drink, I held onto my “lucky souvenir” and thanked God for all of the blessings in my world.

And interestingly enough, when I arrived back at the office, many of the previously unfixable circumstances I had been worried about were already working themselves out. It happened that quickly.

If you haven’t read Lee Brower’s story of the Gratitude Rock, I highly encourage you to do so. And if you haven’t done so now, find a rock of your own and rediscover the amazing life you’re already living.

I’m wealthy beyond my wildest dreams, and I’ve got the rocks to prove it.

I am a people-pleaser. There. I've said it. It's out.

In an age of political correctness where wife-beating can be called a disease and total jerks can blame their rage on their mothers for not breast-feeding them enough, I have finally figured out what's wrong with me. In what I've always thought was an effort to be the nice guy, I have often kept my mouth shut when I probably should have voiced my opinions, thoughts, and concerns. I have often let people get away with walking all over me because "surely, they didn't mean that the way it came out." And I have typically felt knots of guilt and regret curl in my stomach at the mere thought of having to say "No" to somebody or to let someone down due to my own inconvenience.

These, I have always thought, were random acts of kindness. I was brought up with this seemingly noble idea that to deny anyone a favor for the mere reason of meeting my own goals instead was selfish. This may have simply been the way I perceived it, though somehow, I did perceive it as the "Christian thing to do." If you were brought up in a church or religious group like me, you probably heard sermon after sermon about "turning the other cheek" or "blessed are the peacemakers." Scriptural phrases like these are often taken out of the cultural context for which they were intended and thrown about, giving parishioners the misguided and, frankly, unbiblical idea that to not stand up for yourself is somehow noble and spiritual.

And so, for almost all of my life, I have been the nice guy. In high school, jocks would treat their girlfriends like dirt under their toes and then trust me to "talk them up" when the ladies dumped them. And rather than confess my own feelings for those ladies (with what I thought was my own heart of gold and perfect intentions), I would lie and try to help them see the jerky-jocks' point of view.

Are you wincing yet?

Again, these were what I considered to be selfless motivations. Random acts of kindness.

So why, then, have I spent much of my life living out other people's desires for me when they seem to just go on living their own lives the way they want to? Why, then, have I so often held my tongue when someone took advantage of me and, rather than feel noble and inner-peaceful, wanted to push them into the street and run over them with my car?

(Don't you just love honesty?)

I have finally discovered the name for people like me. People-pleasers. We are the ones who are passed over for promotions day after day, are horrified by anyone who might confront us about anything, and will let others cut in line or push us out of the way because "they probably had a bad day."

While you might expect people-pleasers to be these peaceful saints of the universe, these seemingly selfless Zen monks are not actually living for the satisfaction of giving it all away. No, the two things that usually motivate people-pleasers into their sad forms of action are a fear of rejection, and a desperate need for acceptance. Man alive, am I being honest today!

When kids grow up, they learn, among other things, that they have certain weaknesses as well as strengths. From my own experience, it often seems as though most of my peers, while never achieving anything particularly great or useful, grew out of the insecurities of adolescence and grew up to not really care if their road to survival offended someone else. This is probably a gross generalization and is very likely a dramatic conclusion. After all, most of the people I went to high school with are doing the same things their parents did (or something very similar), or aren't doing anything at all.

Yet, still, it seems that I missed something significant, because these are the same people who continually cut me off in traffic, ask me to work their shifts because they're going to the midnight screening of "Cannonball Run 2" or some other stupid reason. And I forever seem destined to accept their selfish requests. And they forever seem destined to know it.

The world has no respect for people-pleasers, and people-pleasers have no respect for themselves. This is, of course, unless they begin to wake up and realize that their need for approval is really pointless. After all, giving a jerk what he/she wants won't make him/her like you any better. You won't make a vegetarian out of a lion by throwing tofu at him.

I have recently decided to kill off the people-pleaser inside of me. This post will probably have a slight Stuart Smalley feel to it, but that's okay.

I don't yet know if this experience of a newly realized self-awareness without the need for affirmations of others will be like heroin withdrawal or whether it will play out like a baptismal conversion, instantly life-changing. What I do know is that everyone starts from somewhere, and this is my new beginning.

So, if you are a people-pleaser like me, stop. Stop worrying about the morons around you who are only asking you to do something because they know exactly how you'll respond. Take your life back and begin to set up life on your own terms. Use the God-given gifts inside of you and don't let any opposing word stop you or set you back. Just keep moving forward.

And for the love of God, don't tell anyone, unless it's in a blog like this one.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Audrey Niffenegger writes a tender love story about a subject that, at first glance, typical chick-lit/flick-loving women like my wife would roll their eyes at. While the subject of time travel is stereotypically a "guy subject," this story introduces the concept in a way that is incredibly romantic, adventurous, and often hilarious.



Niffenegger instantly draws the reader into the story with a flawless attention to detail in a way that is still interesting. While the audio version of the story can be a little mundane after a while (the novel is written from a sort-of diary perspective from both Henry and Clare). Henry's sudden unwilling disappearances into different moments from his past and future are humorous, touching, and sometimes heartbreakingly sad, while Clare is forced to wait for him to return sometimes moments, days, or even years later. This story is also about what happens when love happens to two strangers, bringing them together against the strangest of all odds.



Although there were moments where Henry's character seems a little too good to be true based on the bizarre life he's led, this story is an instant classic, and I think the film version coming this Christmas (starring Eric Bana and Rachel MacAdams) will introduce a vast new audience to it. Four stars for this imaginative romantic novel.


View all my reviews.

This may be the most bizarre blog I've ever written. The strangest experiences...are the true ones.

What began as an innocent trip to see grandparents turned into a doorway to the Twilight Zone. After running a couple of small errands after leaving the office yesterday, I loaded my wife and two daughters into the car and we left for Oklahoma. My wife Kristin was planning to help her grandparents lay new carpet for a couple of days, and so I chauffeured her from Springfield to Tulsa where she would meet her mother. After sticking around the old stomping grounds for a couple of hours (during which time I took in the killer-action Robert Downey Jr./Jon Favreau film, "Iron Man"), I left to return as a bachelor to my dog in Springfield.

After an hour-and-a-half of sipping a Starbucks White Chocolate Mocha and straining my vocal chords to sing over John Mayer blaring out of my iPod, I quickly discovered something was dead wrong as my car began roaring. The roar was louder than usual and yet the vehicle itself was slowing down. As I neared the Afton/Fairland/Grove exit (Exit 302 - the image of this sign is forever etched in my memory), I knew...yes, I knew...it was all over.

I pulled my vehicle to the side of the Interstate - I-44 - and set my emergency lights on as my body and vehicle vibrated to the wind of a thousand speeding semi trucks. I dialed 9-1-1 and waited. And then I waited some more. I began watching an episode of "Scrubs" on the iPod, and after it ended, I began to realize help wasn't coming. I called Geico and asked that my Roadside Assistance Plan be kicked into full gear, but, alas, the time was now midnight, and "Open 24 Hours" apparently means nothing to tow companies. I reached no one and was relieved when Trooper Brown showed up, the familiar blue lights I have grown accustomed to loathing came flashing and I soon found myself being hauled off to the nearest Norman-Bates-esque motel...which just happens to be in Afton, Oklahoma (pop. 12 + me).

Now exhausted beyond measure (and at 1:30 AM, I should be), I checked myself into the Route 66 Motel for the night...or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Upon opening my motel room door, however, I found myself wide awake once more.

There, right in front of me, was a hot-pink bed, which sat atop a shaggy hot-pink rug. On the inside of the main window where a curtain would normally be were a thousand strings of pink beads and small plastic mirrors, giving off a disco-ball effect. On every wall was a gigantic framed poster of the late great Marilyn Monroe.

Pinned to the wall was another photo of Marilyn, this one a life-sized cardboard cutout with a bonus 3-D effect given by a pink silk scarf coming out of the photo.

I found myself asking two questions, both to nobody: "Was I supposed to be paying hourly for this motel?" and then, after talking myself out of that one, "Did Marilyn Monroe STAY here once?" I could stand that thought better. Who knows? Perhaps the lovely Ms. Monroe slept in the exact bed I was sleeping in. That could be a surreal thought. Still, as lovely as Marilyn may have been, I couldn't shake the feeling that it was a little creepy sleeping in a shrine to a long-dead Hollywood starlet from the Golden Age of movies. Well, maybe not the "golden age" but, still a long time ago.

Somehow or another, I eventually drifted off to sleep.

When I awoke, planning to fix whatever rock had fallen into my engine and head back to Springfield, I was perplexed to find that a rock had not, in fact, wandered into my engine, but that my transmission was totally, completely destroyed. The Ford dealer in Miami, OK (pronounced "My-Amm-Uhhhhh" lest you find yourself given over to the Oklahoma Mafia) kindly offered to rebuild the transmission for a mere $3,300. Needless to say, I was less than overwhelmed at his kindness.

I did, however, receive wonderful actual help from my wife's uncle Norman Steffenson (who, for anyone in the Northeast Oklahoma area, is an amazing plumber who is VERY reasonable! - I will design for him a website! That's how I can begin to repay him! -- Sorry for the rambling. I'm working these things out as I go along.). Uncle Norm offered to spend the entire pouring rain day with me, helping me to find the best deal on a new transmission, which we finally discovered for a now-measly $1100 (Thanks, Ron of the soon-to-be condemned Affordable Transmission). After turning my now-toast Taurus over to Ron for his last 30 days of business in Miami (My-Amm-Uhh), OK, Uncle Norm graciously agreed to loan me his daughter's VW Jetta. For the rest of the adventure home, I probably looked like a gay rainy-sweaty-dirty fashion designer driving a flashy red Jetta with wonderfully feminine red beads and tassels hanging from the rear-view mirror.

So, all in all, I turned out to be very blessed.

Still, what a weird 24 hours.

This is my wife's favorite image. Especially the red part that shows up occasionally that indicates only one thing: There's bad weather ahead.

My wife was raised in Oklahoma, and I'm coming to learn that there are few people in the world that get their kicks from bad weather like those born and raised in Oklahoma, Kansas, or Arkansas. If you are from any other place in the world, you may hear of bad thunderstorms and be somewhat thankful for those Severe Weather Updates on the local news, but if you're from Oklahoma, Kansas, or Arkansas, this is where the ultimate thrill of the universe comes into play. You live for the bad weather updates if you're from one of these three states, and Oklahoma gets the biggest kick out of them all.

My wife tells me every time we drive to her grandparents' home in Oklahoma, "There used to be a town here. It got demolished by a tornado."

I sat through a few hurricanes in my Florida upbringing, but I will never TiVo the local news JUST TO SEE THE WEATHERMAN!

Sorry, I just won't go there.

For the hundredth time, I've returned to the blog, and this time...I'm pretty sure...it's for real. No, really. Really, it is. I've had enough false starts and this time I think I'm going to do it. I've finished the novel and have begun a search for an agent (hence the banner at the top), and am going to do some posts regarding updates for that. Don't forget, I have a new EP out on iTunes, "Heartbreak Superstar." You can purchase it through iTunes here.

So sorry I haven't blogged in so long. I am trying to get back in the swing of it. Here are some thoughts on persistence.

My dog Angel is really stupid. She's got a list of problems: she's unsocialized (though we've tried), she's stubborn, and she's stupid. She can't have much brain space, she's three years old and weighs two-and-a-half pounds. It's as big as she'll ever get.

But, Angel has one thing going for her. She's persistent. Man alive is she persistent! Every night, she does the same thing: she goes into the kitchen where her dog bowls are and she gives off this short "ARF" in a syncopated rhythm every six seconds. (She has plenty of food and water, but she's picky and only really likes the "bits" out of the Kibbles and Bits.) For a while, she's easy to ignore, but after a good ten minutes of this or longer - especially as there are conversations going on at the time - I usually get so annoyed with her that I give her exactly what she wants.

Angel, my stupid dog, has challenged me about the thought of persistence. There is never a thought in her head that tells her to give up, to stop her course. It never occurs to her to stop trying to get what she wants. It's occured to me plenty in life.

How many times have I given up on something because I thought the door wasn't opening or that it "probably wouldn't work out?" It pains me to think of how many things I've missed out on - some perhaps small and some perhaps very, very big - because I've quit when things looked rocky or even hopeless. Had I the small smarts of a Yorkie-Poo with Kibbles-and-Bits on the brain, I wonder if I might have just gotten the things I claimed to want.

Angel may not have a lot going for her in the way of intelligence, but she has persistence. That's for sure. So, note to self: heed the wise advice from a stupid dog.

Whoever invented the concept of Daylight Savings Time never had small kids. 5:30 this morning my daughter woke me up. 5:15 yesterday morning. 5:20 the morning before.

And trying to talk to her about it doesn't do any good. Have you ever tried to reason with an eighteen month-old? Trying to explain the concept of daylight savings time to an eighteen-month-old is like trying to explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity to a duck. 

 
Technorati Tags: Daylight+Savings+Time, Toddlers 

So we finally left our drugged-out neighborhood in Hole-in-the-Wall, Springfield, and have moved our belongings to a much nicer less-drugged-out neighborhood in a different Hole-in-the-Wall, Springfield. This time, however, it's on the south side of town, so yay us! In the words of The Jeffersons' theme song, "We're moving on up...to the [South] side...We finally got a piece of the pie!"


The north side and south sides of town are to small-time Springfield, MO what the east and west sides are to New York. While there are nice places on each side, there's always that little bit of animosity toward the other [more "ghetto"] side.

I have nothing against the north side of town. We have lived on the north side both times we've lived in Springfield, but we knew it was time to leave the place we were in when we had to call the fire department twice within two months. A few months ago, we had the entire cast of Animal House move in underneath our apartment, and I'm pretty sure they were cooking up something stronger than cigarette smoke in there. The fumes were enough to make me fall asleep outside, so I'm pretty sure there was something going on. Plus, when strangers were knocking on my door at 2 AM asking "Where's Tony at??" (Like Dragnet, the stories are true, but the names are changed to protect the innocent - which I don't think is Tony, by the way!), I knew it was becoming my problem.


So, long story short, we got moved in on Friday. The following morning, I had to leave for Kansas City to pick up my brother Matt. By the time we got back, my wife had unpacked every box. The woman has a crazy work ethic when it comes to decorating.


I'll post more on this later, I'm sure.


Technorati Tags ::  moving, rent, apartments