I looked forward to golf this morning, looked forward to another round of learning, of creating metaphors that I can apply to both golf and life. Sounding a bit too philosophical? OK how about this: I looked forward to smacking the ball 200 yards. I made an 8:24 tee time at Roosevelt, but I got an early text from Scott that he wasn't going to make it today. I guess it would be just me and Greg then. I wish I would have diverted us to Penmar but I also remembered that I won the last time we played at Roosevelt and this would be a good opportunity to see how sustainable that win and good play would be. The short answer was that it was not very. As in not very sustainable. I shot a 6 on the first hole where I had a par the first time and I should have realized then to make an adjustment. I had a decent first shot but hit a tree on the 2nd, and then left it short of the green on the 3rd. The goal should always be get on the green in 3 or less. And I am perfectly capable of doing that on ALL holes really. And then I can focus on putting too. When I putt well I would win. When I don't, who knows. Today I didn't putt well on Hole 1, which was a predictor of things to come. I managed a tie on Hole 2 only because Greg muffed as much as I did. But even then I was prime to get my 3rd shot on the green. But I didn't. And instead muffed TWICE. These are the corrections and adjustments I need to be making. On Hole 3 I was actually in better shape than Greg was off the tee but his loft chip was closer to the hole than mine and so he won the hole. I had a great first shot on Hole 4 but again muffed twice into the sand then out. Another great first tee shot on Hole 5 was followed by another muff into the sandtrap. Why the heck am I muffing so much on the fairway today? THAT was the adjustment. Same thing on Hole 6. A beautiful tee shot down the middle on that funnel got me 50 yards from the green. But my next shot didn't make the green, like on Hole 1. I was leaving everything short! On Hole 7 I muffed the tee shot but got on the green on the next shot. But missed the putt. Hole 8 I muffed the tee shot again but the next shot was great and landed in the middle of the fairway. I should have gotten on in 3. But I didn't because my chip went past the hole this time. And finally on the last hole I clipped it short from the tee but went way past the hole again on the chip. It was either one or the other. Too short or too long. Sigh. I did not have a good game. But at least we got done before 10 AM! 9:54 to be exact! I was home by 10:30...
No learning lessons today other than I wasn't letting the shots come to me. Gotta try again next week. I did manage an hour nap after lunch to make up for some of that sleep I didn't get last night. Got some nice meditation in too. And I did have a nice lunch at Crimson. And by the time all of that went by it was already almost 4 PM. I had enough time to clean some around the house and finish my laundry and then it was time to watch the Oscars. It was pretty boring actually, except that the big winner was PARASITE, the Korean movie I liked so much. To say it was a surprise was an undertatement. But I felt like everything was spread around pretty well. There were moments... Idina Menzel singing Johnnie's favorite Into the Unknown from Frozen 2, Joaquin Phoenix sounding like one of those who follow the teachers I follow on YouTube about being connected and losing our connection with nature blah blah. I guess he gets his 5 minutes and that's what he did with it. There was Bong Joon Ho the director of Parasite again and again saying he was ready to drink into the morning. He said it again and again because he kept coming up to accept awards again and again LOL. After the show I set up my NEW media player that I got from Amazon for $35. I really needed to replace my old Western Digital one and after tonight it went to the trash. This new one is so much easier to play with. And it read my 1 TB hard drive too! Of course in the process of messing around with it and moving some files and old stuff I had to reconnect with some old favorites. And before I knew it I was watching A Room With a View again and then Indian Summer right after that. Ahhh… old friends. Unfortunately watching back-to-back movies late into the night does have its price... Before I knew it it was already 2 AM in the morning! Argghhh!!! 2nd night in a row I blew off a good night's sleep really for no reason whatsoever! Only this time I won't be able to make it up with a nap tomorrow at work. Or won't I?....
I walked out the door today at 7:30 AM to pick up Johnnie and it was like soup outside. And it was cold. Is it going to be like one of those February Saturdays where it's miserable out and Johnnie and I are indoors all day? That wouldn't be so bad really. It wasn't like we didn't have anything we could do. I went to Lisa's house and Johnnie was already dressed, but he hadn't taken a shower yet. I give Lisa a pass because it is a work day for her after all. And it was easy enough just to go back to my apartment and give him a bath there. It took less than 10 minutes and then we were headed right back out for breakfast. It's Elysee Saturday after all and Johnnie and I were happy to do our routine. For some reason the servers this morning were very loose and relaxed. So much so that when Johnnie went back up to the counter after getting done and asked for a cookie [as in ONE chocolate cookie] he ended up getting a bagful for free! That's my kid for you! Last Tuesday he got a bagful of fortune cookies. Anyway after that came the shopping run: Whole Foods, Target, Ralphs. And by the time that was done, the cold and fog that we started the morning with had pretty much disappeared and it had turned into a pretty nice morning. And we weren't done with errands. Last pit stop was the Mar Vista Recreation Center so we could get Johnnie signed up for spring soccer starting in April. As we were walking I noticed some hesitation with Johnnie: "I'm not going to play today am I?" he asked. I wonder why he was hesitant to play? He kept like that until... we ran into a whole bunch of his classmates from TK class in basketball uniforms! There was Oliver, and Cyrus, and Julian, and Marshall, and Aviv. It made me feel good about how familiar Johnnie already is with some kids that are sure to be in the soccer league as well. In fact, I wish I had known about the basketball league earlier or I might just have signed Johnnie up too. I felt like we missed out, especially with his friends being out there and all. Johnnie wanted to watch and of course his friends called out to him and he called out to them back. Even some girls from his class were there and hung out. Hesitation gone. And so with that, we went to get some popcorn fried chicken from KFC and ate lunch at home. I still had all that pizza from last night after all. Usually I would let Johnnie take an early afternoon nap. But he's not so used to that anymore now that he doesn't take naps at school. It wasn't so long ago that I would drive up and down Sawtelle just to get him drowsy enough to sleep. But then again that was still during the Maplewood Saturdays. Today he wanted to watch Frozen. And since he was so good while we were running around all morning, of course I let him. And just because I felt a little bad that Johnnie wasn't out there with his friends playing basketball, he and I went to the courtyard and hit some balls. I made him run the bases this time and there was one thing that I did notice. I made it a race to the tree and a couple of times when I beat him, he got a little upset. It would appear that my son hates to lose. Gee where did he get that competitive fire from hmmm LOL. I'm ok with that but not to the point where he's pouting about it either. It would appear there are lots of dad-son learning opportunities in the very near future. And I look forward to that. The good thing about playing outside is that I got my exercise in as well. And by the time it started to get dark, it was easy to just grab some teriyaki chicken from Panda Express Sawtelle. And I had some for my own dinner as well. Lisa called by 6 PM telling me she was still writing notes and mentioned she'd be done by 7:30. I thought that meant she was going to come by the apartment to pick up Johnnie by 7:30. What ended up happening was that she went on home and wrote notes remotely. A minor communication glitch. Instead I handed Johnnie off at 7:45 and I was glad we had a very full day together it seemed. We ended up getting some reading done too, Johnnie read the Pete the Cat and Hiccups book that I got in the morning at Target. I knew I wasn't going to see him tomorrow since Lisa was having her family over and that's ok. I ended up staying up really late for Saturday night. I remember de-compressing with the Lakers post-game of a really close game with the worst team in the league. Something to be concerned about? Naah… Then just tried to do some meditation. But when I looked up, after still being awake it was already past 1 AM! It was one of those nights were I knew I should have gone to sleep much earlier, but I stayed awake really doing not much of anything and I'm kicking myself for that. Now I'll be tired at golf. Oh well...
So waking up today without making Johnnie breakfast and taking him to school did have its advantages. I went through stock market "stuff". I know everything is about doing your homework. Figure out what to trade and when. Look for patterns. All that should be right in my wheelhouse. Stuff I really like doing. But I still have to learn - or relearn such as it were - how to do it. And so it was no small feat I thought that I actually did a watchlist today! Also read up on some more strategies. Even found a Youtube video of Steven Dux a Tim Sykes student doing a penny stock conference at MIT. AT MIT! I'd LOVE to be doing that! And so with that I felt some satisfaction that I finally took a forward step and I got some momentum going for the rest of the day too. I actually got into somewhat of a "flow" state. It's that state where I actually felt like I accomplished a ton in a very short period of time because my mind was just clicking very efficiently. I was moving from task to task and actually was feeling very productive. Maybe it was because I was simply focusing on the stuff I'm supposed to be meeting with Eloisa with in almost 2 weeks. Hey I can do A WHOLE LOT in 2 weeks! Anyway, even the brief interruption that was the February Birthday celebration in the early afternoon didn't actually feel like an interruption. It was actually welcomed and provided some levity for the day. What I did NOT do, however, was leave my desk much which meant that by the time I looked up at the end of the day I was barely at 2000 steps. Guess I know what I'm going to do this evening LOL. It was like I looked up after the birthday thing and it was already time to go home. I didn't think I'd see Johnnie this evening. I'm already going to spend most of the day with him tomorrow so I didn't care so much. But I did get a call from Lisa right at 5 PM which was exactly when I got home that he was just picking up him up from school and that they might be heading to Target Westwood tonight. Something about picking up some toy he had his eye on? Anyway Lisa alluded to maybe getting together and I was perfectly fine with that too. She's been the one that has been real good about getting us together "family-style" and I do appreciate that. I'm the one that has been mostly focused on just Johnnie and I stuff. But that's because I felt like he spends more time with Lisa already than he does with me, so I feel like simply catching up. But as I said, I'm already going to see him tomorrow so when Lisa called back and said after all that they were simply going to go on home it was ok with me. Part of me thought it would have been nice to still have "family-time" but my defense mechanism kept me from reaching out. THAT was about Lisa and I and right now I'm perfectly fine to start over as friends and more importantly, co-parents. I'm ok to simply keep doing the things we like to do together with Johnnie. And tonight, I thought it was ok to let them have their mommy-son alone time too. Besides, I thought I could build on this morning's momentum with the stocks stuff. I even brought my laptop home from work thinking I might also keep moving on the momentum of today. But tonight, I watched S01E03 episode of Star Trek: Picard, very happy to have found something to replace the Mandalorian while that preps for its new season later on in the year. I did my 11,000 steps walking around the neighborhood. And then actually made myself a pizza. One of those frozen ones from Ralphs that I topped with more sausage leftovers that I had and pineapple too. Was it as good as something I could have bought from Pizza Hut or Domino's? I don't know. I don't think so. But for tonight's dinner it was. And it was good to finally chill at the end of another work week.
I hadn't gotten a meeting notice with my boss in many months. She's pretty much left me alone all this time, and for a while, which I appreciate. Which was why I was plenty surprised when I got one today. She had a list of stuff to talk about. None of stuff she asked for on her list were so tough that they couldn't be done in the next couple of weeks, or at least I'd be able to get a plan together for them. Still, I got an immediate negative reaction from myself. It reminded me of the time Johnnie and i were coming back from the San Diego Zoo last year and she wanted to meet about Sharepoint. I felt the same negative reaction then, almost like a panic. It was a fear that started in my gut and almost gave me goosebumps. Wow. What was that all about?! Am I getting fired? [Why am I thinking that?] That would be GUILT obviously. That I think my job is on the line when my boss had given zero indication that it was really is just a whole bunch of INSECURITY on my part. I reminded myself that last year, we ended up meeting about Sharepoint and I was worried about nothing. Like this time I'm pretty sure. Just my ego and my faulty past programming doing its thing. And it's something I have to work on. NOTICE and CORRECT. That is the next step here.
As far as the rest of the day, there was the rant-fest that was the Director's Meeting in the morning. I don't think it was all that productive to be honest, other than we did manage to vent. Sometimes we just have to let each other know we're doing the best job that we can. Anyway that was sort of a momentum-creator for me doing work for the rest of the day actually. It sort of put me in the mood. But really, this being a Thursday and all, I was more focused on later on tonight, which would be hand-off night. When I picked Johnnie up at STAR, he was doing a word puzzle. Sometimes I think they learn as much at STAR than regular school LOL, which is a very good thing. On the way home we detoured to McDonald's and I picked him up a Happy Meal for his dinner. Hey he hadn't eaten one of those things in a while, I figured no harm in a little break in the routine. And then we went home and we did some subtraction exercises. I think he is well ahead of his peers. Anyway it isn't a competition at his age. He learns fast that much I'm sure and that is plenty good enough. I wanted to give him some sort of reward so when he asked to watch Frozen 2. Yet again, how could I refuse? Tonight I knew Lisa would come early and she called at 6 PM which meant Johnnie was only going to be able to watch just about a half hour of the movie. It was plenty good enough for him. By the time Lisa got there to pick him up it was barely 6:30 PM. Much as I would have loved to just hand him over really to save myself some emotional residue more than anything, it was Lisa that always wanted to talk. I had no interest in whatever she wanted to talk about actually but I also reminded myself the lesson there is to be nice about it anyway. Furthermore, I reminded myself that what you don't like about another person is that which you don't like about yourself anyway. Could that be? Could I be that yakky-downloader at times? Perhaps. Again what I needed was to practice is COMPASSION. I listened until she was ready to go and then I finished my 11,000 steps. It was still only 9 PM when I got done. I could have gone to bed early like I usually do when Johnnie stays with me. But I just kept on watching YouTube videos and before I knew it it was already almost midnight. Ahhh! How did that happen? Oh well...
So this morning, while in the shower I get a nice little trip back in time to all those times when I "failed" at trying to start something entrepreneurial for myself. OK failed may be a bit harsh. But for sure I didn't get the outcomes I wanted. I tried real estate all the way back in the 80s with Karl and Resur, trash bin surfing for copies of the MLS LOL. Funny thing was that an unconventional no-money down wraparound contract that we offered was actually accepted. But by the time it did I was already on my way to Michigan to start my real job at EDS. I mean we didn't even have a deposit or anything on the offer LOL. That was a good 35 years ago! That's how long I've been wanting to do something on my own. And then of course I picked up where I left off in the late 80s with real estate again and with Rudy Bonnin this time. Actually did buy a house in Hacienda Heights that we had to assign to someone else because we didn't actually have the money to buy it. We did find someone who did though. Unfortunately we could not sustain that and then I ended up starting the Tony Robbins stuff, getting deep into credit card debt because I didn't want to work anymore or get a job. I wanted to make money with real estate. But never during that time did I try to focus on what I SHOULD have been doing. And then I went through the period of time where I didn't have money at all, no income no nothing. And I had to go back to the "security" of the only thing I knew - a job. And that was with Cedars-Sinai. And then from that point on, I turned that into the career I have today 25 years later. I did try to do the Amway thing in the middle of all that with Resur. But that was his idea. And then when I met Lisa and she graduated from dental school I got let go by USC. And I tried to give trading for money a go. But I was just dabbling at it. I was far more interested in getting together with Lisa. And so when an opportunity came to get another job, this time with USC Stevens, I went back to that old "security" again. Until I got laid off and here I am. Man does time fly doesn't it? And now I want to give the working-for-myself thing another go. I think I need to clear out all the reasons why whatever I've done so far has not worked, or at least not been sustainable. That was what I was thinking about this morning in the shower. As I dried up, I concluded with this thought. It is NEVER too late. And I owe it to myself to give it another shot. And that with all these "failures" there were also SUCCESSES, it was just that I treated them like ego-strokes at the time, and did not sustain effort well enough to have more. I can do that NOW can't I?
I'd like to be able to say I was very motivated today, I was clear in my goals and intentions and I had myself a pretty good day. But I can't. What I did do though was at least get my priorities done. And that was getting Johnnie his breakfast, getting him ready for school and then walking him to his classroom. Here was the pic and it may be my favorite pic that no one is probably going to get to see. Just me being Johnnie's DAD.. my favorite occupation in the world. And I admit it's getting harder and harder to focus at work. Still I made the commitment to keep my job until I replace THAT income with an equal or greater steady income stream [which does NOT mean another job though] and so off I go to work right after I dropped Johnnie off. Today is Hump Day Wednesday and is usually chock full of meetings of some sort. But not today. In fact, today my calendar was clear all day. I admit I didn't exactly focus on priorities either, merely on what stuff gnawed at my attention via emails, and Teams messages. Hey the way I saw it, we're doing pretty good this week with the systems being mostly up after a pretty trying last week when different network stuff kept blowing up all over the place and all week long. It's been pretty quiet so far, knocking on wood and fingers crossed. It really does feel like I'm all over the place mentally though. I'm at work and I'm still focused on doing my job and creating value but I'm also still going through learning patterns. If there is anything I'm starting to internalize, is that I NEED TO WORK ON MYSELF AND MY EVOLUTION. DO THE INTERNAL WORK TO HEAL EMOTIONAL FISSURES, DELETE INTERNAL MALWARE AND BAD PROGAMS. Because I realize that I could focus on attracting lots of money as an example. But if I do not eliminate the bad programming that kept it away in the first place, then I will be sure to lose it. So there is obviously a duality throughout my day and a balancing act to make sure I do not lose sight of one or the other in terms of priorities in my life. Provide massive value in my job while I create replacement income. Work on myself to eliminate my own self-sabotaging patterns and programming. That's the goal. Did I do those today? I thought I did ok. It's slow going in terms of seeing results though, and that's ok. That's just my ego demanding proof. Which is why I keep going back to the sure priority: do a good job being Johnnie's dad. On that note, I picked him up from school and as usual he was all smiles as he gave me what he was working on in the past hour at STAR. They sure do manage to keep the kids busy. Before we left I took a picture of Johnnie at the Buddy bench, which is probably similar to the TALKING CHAIR at Blue Oak. And then Johnnie and I were off to Panda Express Westwood. It felt like they got some kind of directive today, maybe to be more engaged with the customers. I had no complaints anyway otherwise I wouldn't be coming here every week now would I? But tonight, they gave Johnnie a coloring picture and crayons and gave him an entire box full of fortune cookies! Wow! And so not only did Johnnie eat up all of his chicken, but he also managed to finish the coloring drawing. He was so proud of it LOL. And when he was so full he pooped right there and didn't want to wait to go home, I knew it would already be a quiet night. That's because he was so full that on the drive home, him falling asleep in the back seat was a virtual certainty. Last week he did the same thing and I welcomed it because I hadn't done more than 3500 steps by the time we were headed home. Tonight was different. I was already almost at 9000 steps by then. How did I do that? By walking to Macy's in the afternoon to try to exchange those 502s I got over Christmas. The only thing was that when I folded them open to try them on, they were the ripped jeans style. Arghh! I don't want those! Great... now I get to go back yet one more day tomorrow... anyway with Johnnie asleep I just kicked back on the couch and enjoyed a little ME time. I had all of an hour before I woke him up so he wouldn't do so in the middle of the night. He was so grumpy... until I put Frozen songs on. And then he was ok and his laughing self again. So we really didn't end up doing much. Just our little rituals. Our little dances, our little jokes, our routines. And that was plenty good enough for me.
Today's A.Ha How come if I keep discovering that I have already been exposed to information and resources from almost 30 years ago, why was I not able to follow through? Answer: I didn't work enough on the underlying programming to move the needle a different direction. Those programs are what keeps us stuck. You see the Universe keeps giving us lessons... opportunities to move forward from these programs so we can have our desires. It is up to us to learn these lessons. And when we don't learn them, they get harder. How drastic and difficult the lessons we learn in this life are is entirely dependent on our response time to these lessons that the Universe/Higher Self is offering. The more we continue to resist the lessons Life is bringing to us, the more they will continue to appear in our Field. And every time a lesson reappears in our Field, it has a little more magnitude than the previous time. My Lesson: What I did NOT learn back in the day was how to manage money. And now that i have some I STILL have to learn how to manage it so it can grow much faster than I've done in the past decade. And I must learn this now. Learn to transmute fear of failure and scarcity and lack thoughtforms into abundance and expansion and having more than enough. Progress: Today once and for all I went to the pennystocks training subreddit /r/pennystockstraining and compiled the strategy in one place. That was the first step in learning. Taking notes. Next step is doing and first hand trying the steps. But I also need to do set up work also. Get a broker to start doing the strategies and again, learn first hand.
Johnnie and I watched Frozen 2 tonight. Again. This after picking him up from school and he was so excited to be going home and doing Tuesday night routine. The first thing he asked was if we were making cookies tonight. Of course we would! And there would be other stuff too. That, of course, would be me making his chicken noodle soup aka penne pasta in chicken broth. And me putting Italian sausage on the barbecue for me. He wolfed down the pasta and then waited for the Italian sausage. And then wolfed that down too. And then I ate my share with some regular spaghetti. Johnnie ate some of the spaghetti from my plate too. And then we settled in and watched the Frozen 2 movie. There couldn't have been a better M&M moment like this. Just look at him in the pic transfixed on that song "All Is Found". I'm starting to really like the movie now. And then I remembered the Aaron Abke video on the lessons from the original Frozen movie. He likes using movies to illustrate lessons in spiritual growth. In the original movie, Elsa had all these powers but because she thought she had hurt her sister she starts to suppress them and when the more she suppresses them, the stronger they got. It's a metaphor to the dark side in all of us. The truth was of course that they weren't the dark side, they were powers, and they weren't negative. She just needed to learn how to use them. And to learn how they work. And she needed the power of love instead of fear to come to terms with what she thought was her dark side. And then of course there was this part where she needed to let go of the past. Very eloquently articulated in the video was how all of that relates to each and every one of us. So today it would seem that I had multiple lessons. The next step is to make sure the lessons stick. And so I thoroughly enjoyed routine Tuesday. I started of course with getting Johnnie ready for school and making him breakfast at home. And walking him to school. The best job I have is "DAD" obviously. Work was pretty uneventful today and even if I felt I didn't get anything important done, I was actually working on some stuff. That's the fun part of my job is trying and testing new things. A way to encrypt Gdrive. A new VPN. New technology I can utilize for my personal use obviously but might also benefit QueensCare. And then the shift at 4:30 from job mode to Johnnie mode. I even got my 11,000 steps done by 8 PM tonight I was so ahead during the day. And Johnnie and I got to do math lessons too. Subtraction was the lesson of the day. It felt great to realize he had gotten it and that he had gotten the answers right. And to top it all off, the Lakers won again with a monster performance from LeBron James. All in all it turned out to be a pretty good day.
DREAM I had this strange dream last night. I dreamed Lisa was in play mode with me and we were in play mode together. And the next thing I realized she was cuddling and consoling someone - presumably the guy in her life who had gotten jealous of the two of us together. And now I became self-conscious and tried to do an exit-stage-left without them seeing me. Interesting. When I woke up I did think that at some point we both will have to deal with each other's next romantic partners. Or not? I'm preferring not actually. Lisa does not need to know any part of that about ME. Why do I need to know any part of that about her? What I don't know can't hurt me. I guess what I have to prepare for... is that knowing. And making sure that knowledge doesn't hurt me either. Which means I have to continue to detach. I remind myself it isn't Lisa that I want, but to be Johnnie's dad. THAT means everything in the world. And Lisa does not have to be in it. Interesting way to start the week in any case. I tried to hone in on my emotions in the dream, maybe it is pointing me towards stuff I need to work. I felt like I was intruding - perhaps on a couple, and the emotion was almost like shame. And if that were the case, I would only point out to my own SELF that there is no shame in being happy, if in fact the Lisa entity in the dream and I were happy at play.
So the day after the Super Bowl and I'm in the office and the 49er fans are noticeably quiet. I love that they aren't around chirping and talking smack. That would have been pretty unbearable. Anyway this being a Monday and all, I started with a re-set to make sure my priorities are set for this week. I had some pretty good meditation this morning and I wanted to keep myself as much in that space as possible. I even posted a pic of me meditating on a Grabovoi number and thinking out loud "Everything works out in my favor", the idea being to hold and sustain a higher vibration for as much of the day as possible. Today didn't turn out that bad actually, as in it was pretty much uneventful. I even blew off a meeting after lunch just so I could focus on whatever I needed to do today. And that is to help my team do the best job that they can. Just focusing on that ensures that I myself am doing my job as well as I can and that I'm providing massive value. I don't remember any one thing that I did today but that I was pretty productive anyway. Which meant I was in the zone of unconscious competence. And by the time 4 PM rolled around it was as if the afternoon had gone by in the blink of an eye. I knew this because my steps log was barely at 2600 at the end of the day. That meant I hardly left my chair in the office. The only consolation was that I did do my Nitric Oxide dump exercised in the morning. I was already driving home when I got a call from Lisa. I had texted her earlier asking if I needed to come earlier to pick up Johnnie since her Monday night soccer league started tonight. Ahhh that soccer league. How long is she going to keep up with these young guns. If I know her she's going to keep trying. I just hope she doesn't hurt herself LOL like I would be certain to do if I did a basketball league right now out of shape. Basketball shape anyway. As it was the text came at an appropriate time it would seem as she was tied up doing errands. I ended up picking up Johnnie at school and the first thing he asked was if was going to sleep at my house tonight. Well of course Li'l Bug. That is why I'm here I had to answer. I had not seen him all weekend and by all accounts he and his mom stayed the night at Balwan and Sharon's on Saturday and then went to Vatche's concert yesterday. I reminded myself of the need to detach. Whatever they do is what they do and I'm not a part of it. Emotionally or otherwise. I think I'm just glad Johnnie got to eat and sleep albeit not in the regular way I know he does with me. I think that's what my role is then. To provide routine and stability and I am very happy to do that. Just look at his pics in my living room watching Miffy the Bunny which we hadn't watched since he was much younger. I don't know what prompted him to want to watch it tonight. But watch it he did. And kept him occupied while I finished my steps, baked croissants for his lunch for the week, and kept him constantly munching away as he kept asking for food every half hour or so. I really do wonder how he does with Lisa. Any way routine meant in the shower by 9 PM and that is what we did. First work day, first Monday in February is in the books and it was all good. I remind myself that only a week ago I was bringing him in for the week sick and drowsy and so him bouncing around to Miffy is much much better. Always glad that he has done well from whatever weekend activity Lisa had done.
So today is Super Bowl Sunday. But that's not until later. It's also golf Sunday and we're at Altadena this morning. And it was a warm day. Felt more like a spring Sunday than early February and believe me we weren't complaining. Today I wanted to do better than last week, which is to say I didn't think I was able to hold my focus and positive vibes past the second hole. Today I get to practice once again. And on Hole 1, I had a great first 2 shots just like last week and putted for par. I MISSED though, only saved by a 3-putt by Greg who had a birdie putt. I tied for the win on that first hole. Although I had nice first putts on the next 3 holes, I did not have the focus I needed on the fairways and had muff after muff after muff. In the meantime, Greg was breezing winning or tying on the first 5 holes outright. The score was 5-2-1. And I had the 1. I just wasn't putting well. On Hole 5 for example, I was on in 3, but couldn't putt my way for the tie. Finally on Hole 6 I broke through and with a great 2nd shot, got the par for the outright win, breaking Greg's streak. And that raised my vibration totally, so much so I blasted my tee shot on Hole 7 straight down the fairway 225 yards. I had another par putt on this hole, but missed letting Scott win. Same on the next hole, I had a tying putt but missed, letting Scott win again. Finally on the last hole, I had a rocket blast from the fairway and got on in 3. But I missed my win-outright putt to allow Greg to tie. Final match score 6-4-3. I had the 3. But I wasn't down. I realized that had a merely made 3 putts that were not only make-able but were all less than 10 feet from the hole, the score would have been 5-5-4 and I would have tied for the match win. I'm going to hold that possibility in my consciousness so I could feel better today. And also be grateful that it was such a beautiful day this morning.
I was still home by noon, even after making a pit stop at Trader Joe's on the way home. I decided to eat some of that Japanese frozen food I picked up at Marukai last night. Japchae noodles and Gyu don instead of the usual Crimson salmon plate. I must say it did look pretty good for a nice change of pace. And filled me up too. I would have wanted to take a nap before putting on the Super Bowl game, though I admit all I really cared about was that the SF 49ers NOT WIN. If the Rams couldn't win then I did NOT want the 49ers to win. Alas, the nap never came. That's because I just put some theta frequencies on and although it felt like I got some good meditation in for about a half hour, I never did cross into sleep. Which is maybe good? SO... the Super Bowl... last year when the Rams were in it I couldn't bear to watch and I spent a great deal of the game pacing around outside in the neighborhood. The year before that was the weekend at Legoland, which would be like the last hurrah I remember having as a family, Lisa Johnnie, and I. I would be gone by that summer. But why am I even thinking about that? Probably because I missed Johnnie this weekend. I shifted to other years when we would go to Heidi's house and Johnnie hung out with her kids. Or the time we went to the Cataldo's in Beverly Hills. I even remember one year I did laundry at a laundromat the year Lisa and I were stuffed in her tiny studio LOL. The ghost of Super Bowls past. As far as the game itself, I got frustrated watching the 49ers take a 10 point lead in the 4th quarter. Are these guys actually going to win? Will the pull off what the Rams couldn't a year ago? I implored Patrick Mahomes to get his act together. Fortunately... he did. And he led a furious 4th quarter comeback. Chiefs win 31-20. Thank God! I did NOT want to have to hear it from the 49er fans at the office. Anyway with that ended the football season and I can focus on the NBA season for real. After all we're headed to the All Star Break and the Lakers have the 2nd best record in the league. We're doing well. And now I can reminisce and reprise the days when the Lakers were winning and February was all about watching them. I missed that the last few years. I'm looking forward to it again.
So today is the first day of February. A brand new month. And not lost on me was that January is already gone and I'm at the same place that I was - seemingly anyway - than when 2020 started. This is how I ended up letting 30 years go by. I simply didn't do a good enough job of following through and sharpening my focus. But I also need to forgive myself for that. And for January. And I have to start over. To that end,I had a nice meditation session this morning first thing and what i focused on was the outcomes that I wanted. I asked my Inner Self what was preventing me from getting THAT which was what I wanted. I presumed to focus on the feeling of FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE which gave me the feeling of freedom. But i also had thoughts on what I needed to express more in terms of my passions and what I wanted to do. I love to learn. I'm good at culling information and resources together. Is that enough to create my 2nd income stream? Maybe 3rd or 4th? And then I focused on how I got to be successful at having my job and doing the work that I do. I need to focus and project that same competence in the "work" of creating new occupations for me that created as much or more of my current income level. And it occurred to me that I must "attack" that occupation the same way I go about my job. Clock in (mentally anyway). Focus on the outcomes by the day or by the project. Plan these projects. Get resources together. Create timelines. Make things happen. Provide massive value. Measure how I succeed. All those things from my job that I am already very competent at doing and getting results. I have to do the same stuff. The meditation session also brought some stuff to the surface. Internal blockages still. The FEAR that came up was fear of failure from not having the income constancy of a job. THAT I have to continue to work on. It's all I know for now. I need to challenge that thought. Why can't I just learn to do THAT if i truly love learning the most? I can learn anything couldn't I? And then I got on the video from Aaron Abke about the ego and its need for attention which feeds it and the awareness that it is constantly harboring guilt and that FORGIVENESS is the only thing that can counteract it. We must accept our darker nature but we must also learn to control it and focus more on our natural light. And then the Teal Swan video on how time is a man-made construct and we must focus on our passions rather than trading our time for money. When we're focused on our passions time becomes almost irrelevant. Kind of appropos to the earlier stuff I wrote about a job wasn't it? So do I give myself a timeline or Not? It is February 1 should I give myself 29 days to manifest something to make that "skill" more believable to me? [do i really need a timeline for that? can't I do it now?]. Can I manifest $20,000 by the end of February? I go back to my golf game last Sunday where I know I simply couldn't hold my focus and sustain it more than a couple of holes. How do i reconcile this with needing to be so absorbed in my passion that time sort of goes away? Lots to absorb, lots to process.How do I keep my mind from wandering too much. I feel like I'm all over the place this morning. Maybe a little bit overwhelmed even.Before I knew it the morning had passed and it was noon already and I hadn't left the couch. Is that good?
It was such a nice day though it would be a shame not to take advantage of it. I had already stayed in and I chose not to go to Bristol Farms to get a turkey sandwich at lunch which had sort of become somewhat of a routine. Today I just realized that I had so much food in the fridge that I baked the frozen halibut in the freezer, opened up the bag of ready made rice and voila... lunch! And then afterwards I knocked off for about 1 1/2 hours for my afternoon nap. It was past 3 PM before I decided I had to get off the couch. I hadn't done any activity, the steps log was at barely 1000. Oh well, I had to do grocery shopping anyway. And so I did the Ralphs, Trader Joe's routine and made a stop at Marukai along the way to pick me up some Japanese food. Hadn't been to that place since the last time I did the hand-off many months ago now. It's not that I didn't have a Japanese store near me. Quite the contrary actually, it's just that the specific Korean noodles I liked I saw here and I didn't see at Mitsuwa or at Ninjiya on Sawtelle. Maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough. Anyway I got them now. My thinking was that I was not going to eat pizza tomorrow on Super Bowl Sunday. And so I loaded up on Asian food LOL. I thought about doing some more study videos tonight but I was all studied out. I think I need to let this morning's lessons process. And there's also golf tomorrow to help me integrate and practice manifesting. That is where I'm at really. Practicing manifesting skills. Tonight I saw the Lakers finally play like their real selves and win the 2nd game of a back-to-back in Sacramento, matching last years season win total weeks before the All Star Break. It's unbelievable now that they only won 37 games last year. And then I finally got around to watching the movie Jojo Rabbit. I really liked the movie. It ended up being somewhat of an allegory like District 9 about how we demonize those that aren't like us. So apropos to our current divided country wasn't it? It became they and us. And then when we find out that all they are... are people. Just like us. When we see them as human beings, suddenly those divisions become less apparent and less important. And it tied in to the lessons from this morning. We are all connected. Division is an illusion. We must never forget.
As far as the rest of the day, there was the rant-fest that was the Director's Meeting in the morning. I don't think it was all that productive to be honest, other than we did manage to vent. Sometimes we just have to let each other know we're doing the best job that we can. Anyway that was sort of a momentum-creator for me doing work for the rest of the day actually. It sort of put me in the mood. But really, this being a Thursday and all, I was more focused on later on tonight, which would be hand-off night. When I picked Johnnie up at STAR, he was doing a word puzzle. Sometimes I think they learn as much at STAR than regular school LOL, which is a very good thing. On the way home we detoured to McDonald's and I picked him up a Happy Meal for his dinner. Hey he hadn't eaten one of those things in a while, I figured no harm in a little break in the routine. And then we went home and we did some subtraction exercises. I think he is well ahead of his peers. Anyway it isn't a competition at his age. He learns fast that much I'm sure and that is plenty good enough. I wanted to give him some sort of reward so when he asked to watch Frozen 2. Yet again, how could I refuse? Tonight I knew Lisa would come early and she called at 6 PM which meant Johnnie was only going to be able to watch just about a half hour of the movie. It was plenty good enough for him. By the time Lisa got there to pick him up it was barely 6:30 PM. Much as I would have loved to just hand him over really to save myself some emotional residue more than anything, it was Lisa that always wanted to talk. I had no interest in whatever she wanted to talk about actually but I also reminded myself the lesson there is to be nice about it anyway. Furthermore, I reminded myself that what you don't like about another person is that which you don't like about yourself anyway. Could that be? Could I be that yakky-downloader at times? Perhaps. Again what I needed was to practice is COMPASSION. I listened until she was ready to go and then I finished my 11,000 steps. It was still only 9 PM when I got done. I could have gone to bed early like I usually do when Johnnie stays with me. But I just kept on watching YouTube videos and before I knew it it was already almost midnight. Ahhh! How did that happen? Oh well...
Johnnie and I watched Frozen 2 tonight. Again. This after picking him up from school and he was so excited to be going home and doing Tuesday night routine. The first thing he asked was if we were making cookies tonight. Of course we would! And there would be other stuff too. That, of course, would be me making his chicken noodle soup aka penne pasta in chicken broth. And me putting Italian sausage on the barbecue for me. He wolfed down the pasta and then waited for the Italian sausage. And then wolfed that down too. And then I ate my share with some regular spaghetti. Johnnie ate some of the spaghetti from my plate too. And then we settled in and watched the Frozen 2 movie. There couldn't have been a better M&M moment like this. Just look at him in the pic transfixed on that song "All Is Found". I'm starting to really like the movie now. And then I remembered the Aaron Abke video on the lessons from the original Frozen movie. He likes using movies to illustrate lessons in spiritual growth. In the original movie, Elsa had all these powers but because she thought she had hurt her sister she starts to suppress them and when the more she suppresses them, the stronger they got. It's a metaphor to the dark side in all of us. The truth was of course that they weren't the dark side, they were powers, and they weren't negative. She just needed to learn how to use them. And to learn how they work. And she needed the power of love instead of fear to come to terms with what she thought was her dark side. And then of course there was this part where she needed to let go of the past. Very eloquently articulated in the video was how all of that relates to each and every one of us. So today it would seem that I had multiple lessons. The next step is to make sure the lessons stick. And so I thoroughly enjoyed routine Tuesday. I started of course with getting Johnnie ready for school and making him breakfast at home. And walking him to school. The best job I have is "DAD" obviously. Work was pretty uneventful today and even if I felt I didn't get anything important done, I was actually working on some stuff. That's the fun part of my job is trying and testing new things. A way to encrypt Gdrive. A new VPN. New technology I can utilize for my personal use obviously but might also benefit QueensCare. And then the shift at 4:30 from job mode to Johnnie mode. I even got my 11,000 steps done by 8 PM tonight I was so ahead during the day. And Johnnie and I got to do math lessons too. Subtraction was the lesson of the day. It felt great to realize he had gotten it and that he had gotten the answers right. And to top it all off, the Lakers won again with a monster performance from LeBron James. All in all it turned out to be a pretty good day.
So the day after the Super Bowl and I'm in the office and the 49er fans are noticeably quiet. I love that they aren't around chirping and talking smack. That would have been pretty unbearable. Anyway this being a Monday and all, I started with a re-set to make sure my priorities are set for this week. I had some pretty good meditation this morning and I wanted to keep myself as much in that space as possible. I even posted a pic of me meditating on a Grabovoi number and thinking out loud "Everything works out in my favor", the idea being to hold and sustain a higher vibration for as much of the day as possible. Today didn't turn out that bad actually, as in it was pretty much uneventful. I even blew off a meeting after lunch just so I could focus on whatever I needed to do today. And that is to help my team do the best job that they can. Just focusing on that ensures that I myself am doing my job as well as I can and that I'm providing massive value. I don't remember any one thing that I did today but that I was pretty productive anyway. Which meant I was in the zone of unconscious competence. And by the time 4 PM rolled around it was as if the afternoon had gone by in the blink of an eye. I knew this because my steps log was barely at 2600 at the end of the day. That meant I hardly left my chair in the office. The only consolation was that I did do my Nitric Oxide dump exercised in the morning. I was already driving home when I got a call from Lisa. I had texted her earlier asking if I needed to come earlier to pick up Johnnie since her Monday night soccer league started tonight. Ahhh that soccer league. How long is she going to keep up with these young guns. If I know her she's going to keep trying. I just hope she doesn't hurt herself LOL like I would be certain to do if I did a basketball league right now out of shape. Basketball shape anyway. As it was the text came at an appropriate time it would seem as she was tied up doing errands. I ended up picking up Johnnie at school and the first thing he asked was if was going to sleep at my house tonight. Well of course Li'l Bug. That is why I'm here I had to answer. I had not seen him all weekend and by all accounts he and his mom stayed the night at Balwan and Sharon's on Saturday and then went to Vatche's concert yesterday. I reminded myself of the need to detach. Whatever they do is what they do and I'm not a part of it. Emotionally or otherwise. I think I'm just glad Johnnie got to eat and sleep albeit not in the regular way I know he does with me. I think that's what my role is then. To provide routine and stability and I am very happy to do that. Just look at his pics in my living room watching Miffy the Bunny which we hadn't watched since he was much younger. I don't know what prompted him to want to watch it tonight. But watch it he did. And kept him occupied while I finished my steps, baked croissants for his lunch for the week, and kept him constantly munching away as he kept asking for food every half hour or so. I really do wonder how he does with Lisa. Any way routine meant in the shower by 9 PM and that is what we did. First work day, first Monday in February is in the books and it was all good. I remind myself that only a week ago I was bringing him in for the week sick and drowsy and so him bouncing around to Miffy is much much better. Always glad that he has done well from whatever weekend activity Lisa had done.
