{"id":850,"date":"2007-10-21T18:15:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-21T18:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/?p=850"},"modified":"2007-10-21T18:15:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-21T18:15:00","slug":"the-tyranny-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/?p=850","title":{"rendered":"THE TYRANNY OF ”WHAT IF…?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi All,<\/p>\n

I came across this article andI really want to pass it along. It struck home on so many levels, and really has a way of putting things in perspective. <\/p>\n

Light and Love<\/p>\n

Bridget<\/p>\n

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n

THE TYRANNY OF ”WHAT IF…?"<\/div>\n
by Charlie Badenhop<\/div>\n
For a child, a summer day can seem to last forever. This is<\/div>\n
part of the beauty of a child’s perspective. At the same<\/div>\n
time, all of us, adult and child alike, sometimes freeze up<\/div>\n
and lose sense of the fact that we have a future that has<\/div>\n
not yet arrived. Here is a story of a child’s summer day in<\/div>\n
Brooklyn, New York.<\/div>\n
~<\/div>\n
When I was eight years old a truck housing a children’s<\/div>\n
ride, used to come around my neighborhood in Brooklyn. You<\/div>\n
paid your fee, had your ride, and upon exiting, you got some<\/div>\n
small thank you gift. When exiting the truck one time I got<\/div>\n
a large sheet of tattoos. I was ecstatic because there was<\/div>\n
one HUGE tattoo showing Davie Crockett killing a HUGE bear.<\/div>\n
I ran home to have the tattoo immediately applied to my bare<\/div>\n
chest, and I remember thinking how it was perfect that I did<\/div>\n
not yet have any hair on my chest because the hair would<\/div>\n
only get in the way of the tattoo. And then, as hard as this<\/div>\n
might be to believe, my father totally screwed up in<\/div>\n
applying the tattoo, and I was left with black water running<\/div>\n
down my chest, and then great big tears running down my<\/div>\n
face, as I was in a state of shock and disbelief. Feeling<\/div>\n
totally crushed I ran outside and dashed feverishly around<\/div>\n
the neighborhood hopinging to catch the truck, but it had<\/div>\n
mysteriously disappeared, perhaps already on its way to<\/div>\n
Flatbush or Coney Island. By the time the truck did come<\/div>\n
back again two weeks later, it was giving away some terribly<\/div>\n
boring small plastic whistles, and the truck never again<\/div>\n
showed up with tattoos, and in those days tattoos were not<\/div>\n
to be found in toy stores.<\/div>\n
~<\/div>\n
It can be so easy to freeze up and lose sense of the<\/div>\n
entirety of one’s life. It can be so easy to lose touch with<\/div>\n
the fact that we still have a future. As a child, especially<\/div>\n
during the summer time, each day was a grand adventure, and<\/div>\n
each day would often seem endless, and totally absorbing.<\/div>\n
This sense of fully being in the moment is one of the true<\/div>\n
gifts of childhood, and at times it can also be a liability.<\/div>\n
Because children usually have little sense of the length and<\/div>\n
breadth of their life, and any one moment can seem to<\/div>\n
extinguish the possibility of happiness in the future.<\/div>\n
~<\/div>\n
I can look back on numerous times in my life, that seemed to<\/div>\n
play a major role in determining the course of my life. In<\/div>\n
hindsight I can see that it was not the actual events that<\/div>\n
determined my future, but whether or not I perceived myself<\/div>\n
to be "lucky or unlucky", "cursed or blessed", "stupid or<\/div>\n
clever."<\/div>\n
~<\/div>\n
Now I realize that each moment leads to another moment, each<\/div>\n
event leads to another event. I can choose which moments and<\/div>\n
events I want to give the most importance to, and which<\/div>\n
moments and events I will define my life by. By accepting<\/div>\n
the fact that much of what goes on in life is outside of my<\/div>\n
control, I can free myself to pay attention to the aspects<\/div>\n
of my life that I do have some ability to influence. And in<\/div>\n
times of difficult challenge I can give thanks for the<\/div>\n
future, knowing that even as day turns into night, and<\/div>\n
spring turns into summer, that my bad luck will turn into<\/div>\n
good luck, my sadness will turn to joy. Nothing stays the<\/div>\n
same.<\/div>\n
~<\/div>\n
If you look back at times that you initially thought were<\/div>\n
quite horrible or devastating, isn’t it true that most of<\/div>\n
these events, over the course of time, did not turn out to<\/div>\n
be nearly as devastating as you initially felt they were?<\/div>\n
Certainly this has been my experience.<\/div>\n
~<\/div>\n
By the way, I am still in the market for some Davey Crockett<\/div>\n
tattoos!<\/div>\n
———————————————-<\/div>\n
About the author:<\/div>\n
Charlie Badenhop is the originator of Seishindo, an Aikido<\/div>\n
instructor, NLP trainer, and Ericksonian Hypnotherapist.<\/div>\n
Benefit from a new self-help Practice every two weeks, by<\/div>\n
subscribing to his complimentary newsletter "Pure heart,<\/div>\n
simple mind" at http:\/\/www.seishindo.org\/newsletter.html<\/a>.<\/div>\n

Contact Charlie at seishin@seishindo.org. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi All, I came across this article andI really want to pass it along. It struck home on so many levels, and really has a way of putting things in perspective. Light and Love Bridget ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE TYRANNY OF ”WHAT IF…?" by Charlie Badenhop For a child, a summer day can seem to last forever. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[353],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-power-of-the-positive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spellmaker.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}