LESSONS

I've lived probably close to half my life already, boy time does fly. I often think of the mistakes along the way, and what if I did the opposite of what I did do. How my life would be different, What if at age 22 I married that girl I loved? What if I did not lose my faith? What if I was not a trained boxer who handeled stress with violence? What if I did not drop out of the state police academy? What if I never took the juice? What if I did not listen to my dad as much? What if I studied harder? What if I took that chance? You see, I think that life is to learn a lesson, my lesson is to listen to my heart. I made some major decisions in my life that would have had a major impact on my life, and made a left instead of a right. If only, I hear myself say. To all you younger than me people-my advice-go for it, life is to short, marry that girl if you love her, make your own decisions and not ALWAYS listen to dad, go for that job, live your fucking life and be happy! Listen to Gods gift to you, your concience, it is never wrong. So in closing, if I can help by my words, maybe I finally made the correct decision. LIFE IS-LIVE IT

DEATH:age

My 70 year old dad has had parkinsons disease for 15 years. Dad is at the tail end of the disease, which means he is (to put it bluntly)going to die soon. This is a man who for 30 years worked three full time jobs to get us out of the projects of south boston. Who sacrificed so much so that we could live a better life. It is 1 day before christmas eve and dad is sick again and ready to go back to the hospital, a hospital that he sees about once a month. As much as the nurses love my dad, we are not anxious to go back. Every time my dad goes to the hospital, it may be his last. My fear is that I will not be there to say goodbye if it is his time to go to God. I often wonder how I will handle his death. When I think of the inevitable I well up with tears, how can I go on without the man who made me a man, who loved me as his eldest son? How can I have the will to complete my own life with a crushed spirit? Will my feelings after his death be temporary? I dread the thought of the funeral and all the bullshit that goes with death, my dad will not be here any more so shove the funeral up your ass. I face mortality thru my father. I often think-we are young, we get old quickly and have physical pain as a result, then we die. Question- why the hell are we here? It could only be to learn lessons in life 101, to love, to live, to love more. I know that it is not going to lesson the pain when my dad and my mom die, but I know as a result that there is more to this life than we think. I believe that it was Emmet Fox who said " life is counted in more than how much you have in the bank". He is correct, we run after money, sometimes hurting people in their soul to get it. In the end you can't take it with you, so was it worth it? In the end, if you die at an early age, then you wasted your time and life chasing the almighty dollar. You need to do what you have to, but do it without hurting people. My dad worked 3 jobs, but to take care of his family, and still never hurt anybody to get the money he made. I now no why the football player Pat Tillman passed up 3million dollars to play with the arizona cardinals, to go to Iraq. I thought he was crazy-but some things are more important than money. In the now, I wait for my father to pass on.........and pray I can hold it together........

THE ATHLETES FAULT?

as a former pro athlete who for 20 years was trained to hurt people, how do I deprogram? How do you turn it off when you have been trained to inflict maximum damage to another human since the age of 6? How do you become normal when you were hardwired to hurt people? Nobody understands that athletes, even if they are not pros were involved in there particular sport probably since they were 5 years old. Is it any wonder that athletes turn up in the news for some violent act. The way we were taught to handle a stressful situation is with violence, how the fuck do you turn the switch to off, you don't. Football-boxing or any violent sport-you are trained to react without thinking-second nature- to just react. So after retirement and 20 years of doing the same thing, hurting people, what happens then? they let a trained killer on the street with no deprograming, somebody who reacts to certain situations the only way they know how, with violence. Not the athletes fault, but what do they do? Think about that the next time you read about an athlete in trouble in the newspaper.