1 Thing That Stalls Our Ego … August 17th, 2020

Jonathots Daily Blog

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Pain

It pains me to confess to you how essential pain is to the human experience.

Without this aggravation, we are in danger of becoming self-righteous—feeling invincible, and dare I say, claiming to be a chosen race or a Super-people.

We are not known by our victories but are qualified by our failures.

It is pain that lets me know what my brothers and sisters are feeling.

During this pandemic, it has been essential for each of us to feel some of the pain of the virus to remain empathetic to those whose lives have been stolen through it.

Merely losing dollars and being inconvenienced still softens our hearts a little bit—considering the ultimate cost of taking our last breath.

I don’t know who we are without pain.

All of our heroes struggle.

All of our saviors die.

And all of our comrades suffer in the trenches with us, as we endure the infliction.

Pain prevents us from becoming irrationally self-important.

No one likes pain.

No one wants pain.

It is why, on occasion, we all require pain.

 

1 Thing You Can Do This Week (To Get Along Better With Others)

 

People don’t remember and when they do remember, they don’t remember well. They tend to recall victories in their lives or times when they looked extremely powerful, and they will have their own rendition of those tales.

There is a nasty movement of human hatred within the human race. With all the false esteem, life coaches and optimism, we have just decided that humans should be gods, and when they aren’t, we’re really pissed off.

Humans are not godly, they are not divine, they’re not even spiritual. They are carnal beings who are capable of emotion and being touched by the Spirit.

So if you want to get along with friends, relatives and even strangers, the one thing you can do this week is:

DON’T EXPECT PEOPLE TO REMEMBER

That goes for your birthday. How about an upcoming dinner invitation? A concert. A meeting. Your telephone number. Your favorite color. Or the fact that you’re allergic to shellfish.

Whenever these things come up, kindly and tenderly drop a hint about them so those around you can once again hear what they need to remember, and feel really smart that they do.

Get the chip off your shoulder and replace it with a brain that’s supposed to sit up there. It is unfair to expect people to take care of their own lives and still maintain a calendar of events concerning yours.

Nudge people in the right direction, mention things that are going to happen and give them the chance to recollect.

If you do, you will be a hero instead of someone who “unfriends” people on Facebook because they did not know about the upcoming anniversary of something or other.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly donation for this inspirational opportunity

 

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Click the elephant to see what he’s reading!

 

The Night Visitor… October 2, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

(2024)

He comes very late at night, although I think he would insist it is actually early in the morning.

You see, that’s the problem. He not only has his own opinions, but definitions for terms that are separate from mine.

The creepy part is that he insists he IS me–and in my weakened state of sleepiness, I find it difficult to resist his will.

• He has the same memories I do.
• He has many similar beliefs.
• He has encountered the emotional conflicts and victories which are part of my history.

But physically, he is smaller. Yes, he takes up less room. And he lets me know it.

He shares ideas with me which certainly make sense in the dim light of the evening, which don’t come to mind when I’m in the shining light of the day. He has four repetitive, nagging subjects:

1. Why didn’t you act kinder?
2. Do you really think you’re achieving your goal?
3. Why do you think you can continue to be so fat and survive?
4. Wouldn’t it be easy to change these things?

You see what I mean?

It’s an annoying mixture of reality, self-righteousness, valid points and impossibilities.

But when I’m lying there on my bed, it does make sense. I do feel the inadequacy and the conviction to improve my situation. But somehow or another, this vigorous being who visits by night is completely vanished by the morning light, leaving me with the emotions of upheaval without the step-by-step solutions to victory.

Yes, I am abandoned.

It doesn’t make me angry. It doesn’t make me sad. It just baffles me enough that I want to eat something. It triggers the worst part of my appetites, which are devouring my future birthdays.

I want to figure out how to turn the conversations with my night visitor into a true motivation, to trim up the areas of my life that have caused me to become lumbering and clumsy.

But how can I retain the impact of the midnight confession into breakfast time  and the construction of a realistic “things to do today” list?

The truthful answer is I don’t know.

I’m not sure if my visitor is an incriminator to demean me or an angelic presence trying to spur me on to more noble causes. I’m not positive that the encounters I have with him are beneficial or just aggravating enough to cause me to slip a little further down the rock-slide of bad habits.

But I guess it’s just like everything else–if we view it as good, we can somehow carve it into a position to strengthen us. If we view it as bad, it can be used to discourage us and leave us wanting.

There are parts of the philosophy of my night visitor that I desire to possess. Honestly, I can’t be as hard on myself at ten o’clock in the morning as he is at two o’clock in the morning.

But if I can take bits and pieces, maybe I can launch a great idea which could eventually cause the man that I am during the day to make peace with the visitor who comes by night.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about personal appearances or scheduling an event

Emotional Cabbage… February 22, 2013

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I had to laugh. The slender young woman on the television set was explaining that the key to weight loss was portion control.

Of course, dear friends, if I could control my portions, I wouldn’t be a big fat boy, now, would I? If I was able to put less food on my plate and convince myself that I was satisfied, I would certainly be slim. Unfortunately, I can’t do that.

So the key to my weight loss is to trick my body into believing that I am eating just as much as I was before–but making sure that all that food going into my mouth is much healthier and has many fewer calories.

Casseroles help–just taking a baking dish and throwing in a whole bunch of stuff that looks delicious, cooking it up together and knowing that you will be able to fill your plate up just like you used to, but with about one-third the calories.

And one particular thing to add to that goulash is cabbage. It is a great filler, it is absent calories and aside from adding a little gas to your diet, it makes your plate of goodies look robust and full.

Yes–the key to weight loss is to change the amount of calories without changing your desire to enjoy good food.

Of course, the body is not that different from the human emotions. Everyday of our lives, we need confirmation of our status, reinforcement of our ego and encouragement of our pursuit of happiness. If we don’t have this we will start getting depressed, fussy and critical of other people who seem to be improving their lives while we are standing still.

So just as you need cabbage in your casserole to make your dinner seem like bounty, each and every one of us needs emotional cabbage added to our everyday, repetitive chores, to make us feel full of passion. Without this, we start feeling starved and cheated, stealing dignity from other people to make ourselves look better.

So what is emotional cabbage? Every day we need:

1. An opportunity to use our talent. That may sound silly, but most individuals work a job and perform duties that have very little to do with their actual talent. It is something they have learned to accomplish to make a living, but their heart’s desire lies in other areas. If your quest is not being pursued daily in some kind of opportunity you have created for yourself, be prepared to go to bed feeling a little emotionally empty. Each and every twenty-four hours, we need an opportunity to use our REAL talent.

2. To keep that emotional cabbage churning, you also need a challenge to that same talent. Repetition–even of good things–often makes us believe we are spinning our wheels, going nowhere. We require a challenge–because a challenge gives us two very important things. It puts our abilities to the test and secondly, it gives us the chance to celebrate our victories and correct our mistakes.

3. And finally, to have emotional cabbage in your life, you need a good, hearty, DAILY cleansing laugh. It may sound silly, but I will tell you this–if you are seeking an opportunity to use your talent and you are challenging your talent, many funny things will come your way. Laugh. Good cheer is when your whole being confesses that nothing is too serious to ever bring you down.

I call it emotional cabbage. Without it, we feel hungry for more, even when we’re too exhausted to do anything else.

• An opportunity to use your talent
• A challenge to your talent
• And a good laugh

It will keep you pure in your heart. It will make you believe that good things are possible. It will create a loving spirit.

It will make you valuable to your fellow-man.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity