This Is Dave Place

Bragging Rights Are Only Good Until You Die

I was contemplating a depressing view point the other day: Maybe this life is based on filling your days and your mind with busy plans to keep you occupied until you die. Why is everyone so busy? Money? Love? Fleeting happiness? Selfish accomplishments? Selfless accomplishments?

I’m a very task-oriented person. I spend a lot of time trying to accomplish short-term and long-term goals. I need to take a step back and make sure I am working for the right reasons. The goal is to live for God and for others, not to accomplish hard tasks. Accomplishments are just bragging rights that are only good until your dead. It’s not about accomplishing. Don’t waste your hopes thinking accomplishments are the key to life. It’s about more.

A Bitter Pill Is Harder To Swallow

I know my headline is a famous saying, but I didn’t understand it until recently. You see, every now and then I have random epiphanies from random events. Very random events. I learned the true meaning of this saying quite literally from one of those random epiphanies. This one had to do with feeding my cat…

I was at my house one morning eating breakfast. Phone Calls From Home had been sub-par on our work ethic, so I was going to have a meeting with my band-mates and ream them out (yes I know… It was mean and wrong and never worked well, but it was back in 2010 when I was young and naive). I was trying to figure out the best way to tell them how bad we were doing (I was much more negative… back then).

After breakfast, I was told I had to feed Trooper, one of our house cats, a pill to make it feel better because it was sick. As I gave it the pill I thought to myself, “Please be a good tasting pill so I don’t have to fight you, pin you down, and shove this pill down your throat. It would be easier for both of us if you just enjoyed the taste of this pill and swallowed it on your own accord.” Sure enough, the pill tasted good and the cat ate it quick. As Trooper was chewing, a light bulb turned on in my brain and I said, “My band is like this cat!” and then my sister looked at me weird because what I just said didn’t make sense.

But it made sense to me.

I’ll put the two scenarios together… The pill is like the news about our band sucking. The cat is my band. And I am me in both scenarios. Ok. So if I give the bad news to the band like I was planning on doing, they would swallow it like a bitter pill: They know it is healthy to hear how our band is doing, but they would be fighting the news because no one wants to hear that they are sucking, ever. So in the same way that the cat doctor thought, “Hey, let’s make this cat pill good tasting so cats will actually enjoy it”, I started thinking, “Hey, let’s make this bad news sound not so bad, and more optimistic so everyone will be down to work hard to bring our band to the next level.” It’s not enough to simply tell something to someone if you want to affect change in them. You have to actually make them want to hear it.

No one wants to swallow a bitter pill, even if it is good for them. In the same way, no one wants to hear the truth sometimes, even if it is good for them. So you treat your friends like you would my cat and treat your words like you would treat that pill: Make the words feel better so the person swallowing them actually wants to swallow them. You don’t have to lie and you don’t have to over-fabricate. Just make the pill taste better.

Thank you Trooper for the great revelation. I still don’t like you though. You gave me scars with your talons.

It’s About What They Hear, Not What You Say

I’ve always been able to understand complex things, but I’d always miss the obvious. I am pretty bad with common sense. So it took me 20 years to find out one of the easiest and most important lessons of my entire life. It’s something that you should take ahold of right away because I guarantee it will help you very, very, very much.

I was taking a class on human communication last year. It taught me a lot about human learning, listening, how we talk, public speaking, cultural differences in language, and a bunch of other fun stuff. But the key lesson I learned in that class, and that year, was that when I am talking to someone, it isn’t about what I am saying, it is about what they hear. I’ll reiterate…

I always talk thinking that everyone is on the same page with me, or knows about what I am talking about. When in fact, everyone has their own agenda, their own brain, their own way of thinking, their own way of learning, and their own ideas about life, the world, themselves. So there is absolutely no way that they are interpreting what I say the way I think they would. Therefore, I have to sympathize with people and be at their level if I ever want them to understand what I am saying.

Think about everyone in your life (parents, teachers, friends, relatives) and think about every time you get mad or frustrated that they don’t understand you or your way of thinking. “Mom! You just don’t get it!” *door slam* . You always think, “They are dumb, they don’t understand, they will never get me.”

Well… the moral of today’s topic is stop blaming them because the blame is on you. Sucks right? It’s up to you and only you to communicate your thoughts in a way that someone else will understand. Think about someone who doesn’t speak English. Are you going to just keep talking to them in English and get frustrated and pissed off that they won’t understand you? I hope not because you would be considered insane, literally (look up Einstein’s definition of insanity). In the same way, don’t speak to people and get upset when they don’t understand your or see eye-to-eye with you. Understand them better first and bring it to their level. Then you will see results.

When you are communicating, the responsibility is on you my friend, not them. Deal.

Doubt Is Healthy

I’ve been living with a lot of doubt over the last few months. It is something I generally keep to myself. I don’t think it is always 100% necessary to share my doubts with everyone so I wouldn’t be surprised if none of my friends even realized.

I did talk about it with someone I trust though. They assured me that I am human, and humans tend to doubt. I think it is part of our general makeup. I also think that doubting shows that you are thinking deeply. If someone was completely dead set on their actions and beliefs for their entire life, I’d almost believe that they are lying to themselves sometimes. Doubt is real and we all feel it at some points.

Doubt can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing. I think it is what we do with our doubt that really makes the difference. I want to use my doubt to assure myself in what is true and what is right in my eyes. I want it to allow myself to ask me questions that scoffers and skeptics would ask, and I want to be able to find answers to those questions that I could stand by.

So doubt when you feel that you need to. But don’t always look to others for answers. Doubt is best taken up with God and with yourself. Look within for the answers, because no one understands you better than you.

Don’t tell anyone that I doubt. If anyone asks, tell them I am too overconfident and too arrogant in my beliefs to ever doubt myself. I like to keep up that persona…

Do Your Best… What More Can You Do?

As a musician I used to get very caught up in writing the perfect songs. I used to get a lot of anxiety from feeling like my songs and my voice and my band wouldn’t be good enough.

I’ve grown since then. I’ve realized that I just need to do my best and let it go from there. What’s the use of worrying if I’m trying my hardest? What more could I do? It gives me a better feeling. No more anxiety or discomfort. If I write it and people love it, great. If I write it and people don’t like it, oh well, maybe they will like the next one. All that matters is that I did what I could. There isn’t any looking back and saying, “Oh man, I wish we did this instead.” We didn’t do that, we did our best and nothing more.

I want to stop talking about me and talk about you. All you can do is try to do your best, don’t feel bad after that. There are times at school, or at home, or at a sports game when you fail or you lose or you make a mistake. But the only time you should be ashamed of that is if you weren’t trying your hardest. Always bring your A game, and you can’t lose. It’s like all those sports movies where at the end they end up losing, but no one cares anymore because they all know how hard they tried for it. Think about those movies and relate them to your life… Ya. Do that.

Do your best because after that, what more can you do?

Surround Yourself With The Right People

I think it is very important to be around people that make you feel happy. The more I make friends around the country and the more I travel with the friends I have, the more I realize how much the people around me matter.

The people around you have a huge influence on your life. Whether you think it’s true or not, you have the ultimate power to choose who you want in your life, other than your family… you are stuck with them :-) . So choose wisely. And if you feel that you need to break away from some of your friends, that is OK. Just do it very nicely, they will eventually get over it.

When I say surround yourself with the “right” people, I don’t always mean the “moral” people, or the “cool” people. I mean people that make you feel right about yourself. I have friends that are promiscuous , friends that are virgins, friends that use drugs heavily, friends that would never touch them, friends that have anxiety issues, friends that cut themselves, friends that go to church, friends that would never step foot in one, friends that are gay, friends that are straight, friends that are fifty, friends that are fifteen, friends that are poor, friends that are rich, friends that feel broken, and friends that feel great. I’d say the only similarity between all of my friends is that they are all my friends.

I try to be with the “right” people. All that means is that I want to be with people that make me feel comfortable, safe, excited, loved, down-to-earth, and all around happy. They make me feel right. They keep me grounded. Find friends that make you feel like a better you, even if it is hard to do. It will pay off.

It’s About Them, Not Me

It’s human nature to be selfish. I definitely live a very selfish life, I think most do. So I put a post-it on my computer that I read everyday that says, “It’s About Them, Not You”.

I want to be successful and feel fulfilled. But success and fulfillment don’t come from trying to fulfill myself. They come from helping to fulfill others. So, though I make mistakes, I want to always be on the path of helping others. It’s not about me, it’s about them.

Strengths/Weaknesses

A while back I had to do an assignment for college where I had to list 15 of my strengths and weaknesses. In business, they call it SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). I like to be completely transparent with you guys. I hate having anything to hide and I want you to know me as well as you can. So I want to share my strengths and weaknesses from that assignment with you. I like looking at the weaknesses much more than the strengths. I think that weaknesses define a person better because they seem more honest, more human and less like bragging.

Listing strengths and weaknesses is a good way to start becoming self-aware. I think self awareness is a very important thing. The more you know about yourself, the easier it is to live with yourself everyday. Right?

Strengths
01. I am organized
02. I am relatively bright
03. I am a good multi-tasker
04. I excel under pressure
05. I am a natural leader and a good teacher
06. I am confident in myself, my beliefs, and what I can accomplish
07. I retain information quickly and easily
08. I have a stable, loving family to keep me level-headed
09. I am well received by most people I meet
10. I am a hard worker
11. When I have a problem, I don’t feel content until I have a plan to solve it
12. I am very independent
13. I have an entrepreneurial mind
14. I have many passions in my life and I have the drive to achieve all of them
15. I am good at thinking outside of the box

Weaknesses
01. I am not a good communicator
02. I am anal retentive
03. I struggle with putting others needs before mine
04. I am stubborn
05. I tend to procrastinate with big, ominous tasks
06. I am not very lenient or sympathetic with friends/coworkers
07. I don’t deal well with incompetence
08. I tend to be late a lot of the time
09. Sometimes I tend to overlook the obvious
10. I lean toward overconfidence
11. It is hard for me to accept or admit failure
12. I don’t do well with change
13. I tend to be close-minded with my own ideas
14. I often expect too much from people
15. I have improper balance of logical thoughts and emotional thoughts

3 Points On Life

Here are three easily digestible thoughts on life. Read each one a couple times because they are short and sweet.

1. Life is not a dead end. You can change yourself and your situation tomorrow if you’d like.

2. Life is not a waiting room. That is the title of a Senses Fail CD. I love it because the sentence breathes so much thought into me. What are you waiting for? Live. Love. Right now. Today.

3. Life is to be endured and enjoyed. Parts are hard, parts are easy. That’s the point, the present is all you have. Soak it up while you have it.

Crazy

These past few weeks I’ve been feeling like a different person. I feel very emotionless and numb. I can’t really put my finger on why. It is definitely odd though. I feel alone in my own head. I try to listen to different songs to produce some type of emotion from me, but no song seems to be working.

I know I almost always write helpful words on here. However, I also try to be very honest. And honestly, I’ve been feeling crazy. I feel like some pieces of me are missing. I need to find them. I hope writing this can still help you guys in some way. If nothing more, maybe it’s something you can relate to, or something to show that I am human and not always happy-go-lucky.

All I know is that life is still good and nothing is more important than love. That will never change.