Below is a blogpost from 7 years ago today that sets the tone for the upcoming holidays.

There really is something magical about home.

Home is more than a place to hang your hat, as the old expression goes. It’s a refuge.

It’s more than a house, an apartment, or a room. It’s a love filled womb.

Everything is taken care of when you are home.

The multi-talented, Jazz/Pop singer, Michael Bublé sings an enchanting song about this sought after, soft landing called “Home.”

Truth be told, home isn’t a place; it’s a feeling.

The feeling you get when you are home cannot be described in words. It’s the peace that passes all understanding.

If you are attempting to find home by mentally seeking it, you will always encounter noise. There are no magical thoughts that get you to the peace of home. In fact, it’s the absence of thought that ensures you find your way to that ‘homey’ feeling.

If you hear the song “(There’s No Place Like) Home For The Holidays” this holiday season, let it serve as a reminder that home lies beneath all the hustle and bustle and is always there to welcome you.

Your job is to find a way to let the noise calm down. When you take steps to calm the noise in your mind, you are at the threshold of peace, and if you take the time to look down, you’ll see a door mat that says, “Welcome Home.”

All the best,

John

Here’s a post from 8 years ago that’s just as “real” today as it was then.

When you pit reality against destiny, it’s a mismatch.

Reality ALWAYS wins.

It’s amazing to me how we try and squeeze reality into our model of destiny. It’s the typical case of attempting to arrange the facts so they support our belief.

There is no arranging reality.

Destiny has an air of resignation about it. “It was meant to be this way.” Truth is, the only meaning it contains is the one you consciously added to it. That would be like saying, “The wind meant to blow off my roof.” The wind doesn’t care. It just is.

No one has a fate for you all lined up and ready to go. When you believe that, you can make an excuse for anything, my favorites of which are: “The Devil made me do it” and “It was God’s plan.”

I can think of no more limiting concept than destiny. It’s something we made up. Notice that reality contains the word “Real.”

Destiny keeps you contained in a self made box. Reality has no limitations.

The only destiny that exists is contained in your patterns of belief. Change your belief and you change your destiny. That’s the reality of destiny.

“I was meant to be poor” is a destiny myth. The reality is, “You were patterned to be poor.”

Your patterns can be your destiny if you let them. The key to a self made destiny is to notice your patterns. So many of them run on automatic pilot that we fail to notice the stimulus/response contained in each one of them.

Noticing that you have patterns is noticing reality. When we begin to notice reality, we begin to see the building blocks of the pattern we have labeled as “Destiny.”

You can create your own destiny; you just have to notice that you have the ability to do so. The process begins by noticing the reality of stimulus/response. When you recognize a stimulus and interrupt your patterned response to it and choose another, you have chosen a new destiny.

Unlike the current model of being resigned to your destiny, the new model of manifesting your own destiny takes some action on your part.

The action is to notice that your “Destiny” was created by your conditioned thoughts and behaviors. When you make the effort to interrupt them and choose others, you will discover the reality of your destiny.

All the best,

John

As I get older, I find myself asking, “How does this movie end?”

The focus is not so much on my ending but, more so, on what will happen with the people I leave behind.

There’s really no way to tell, but it doesn’t keep me from wondering.

How will my children and grandchildren fare? How will my surviving friends and other family members make out? Does the “Law & Order” TV franchise ever end?

I want to leave them something, something other than tangible things. I heard Katie Cassidy the daughter of the late, teen star David Cassidy quote her father’s last words: “So much wasted time.”

She took her dad’s message to heart and vowed to make the most of her time. Her father left her with a guidepost.

I remember when I turned 50. My father called to wish me happy birthday and I asked him a question. I said, “Dad, you’ve already been 50. If you were 50 again, what would you do differently? He didn’t hesitate and replied, ‘save more money.'”

He gave me a great birthday present.

I sure hope I’m acting in an epic movie that goes on for a long time but every movie ends. So what can I leave to those near and dear when I leave the theatre?

I’d like to leave them the gift of response.

So much of our lives are about patterned reactions which become stale over time and stultify life. Nothing new comes to us when we’re in reaction mode, which is almost always.

The gift I want to give to my family and friends is to let them know that they always have the ability to respond rather than react. Just becoming aware of your ability to respond brings more freshness to your life. Acting on that awareness and choosing a response brings a lifetime of options – options that would have remained hidden in the shadows of a reaction.

Each time you see the credits rolling at the end of a movie or TV show, let them serve as a reminder that you’re more than a pat answer. You’re a creator of responses – ones that direct your own version of “It’s A Wonderful Life.”

All the best,

John