I don’t hold inside my feelings, my thoughts, or my hopes.  I share them with my friends and family.

I believe people who hold things inside tend to feel isolated, believing that others do not understand them.

I believe those who share feel both supported and more content, even if events do not go exactly as they wish.

Bad things happen, but usually I do not feel their effects on me forever. It’s really true that time heals wounds. My disappointment and pain are important and serious, but my distress will pass and my life will take me in new directions. I just need to give myself sometime.

There is no point in competing in a game that you do not really care to win. Don’t allow your life and expectations to become anything but deeply personal reflections of what matters the most to you.

Many of us are constantly in competitions where we don’t really want the prize. We find someone to be in a secret economic competition with a friend, a neighbor, a loved one.

We size up their home, their car, their lifestyle and try to do them one better. But our life is not changed for the better if the engine falls out of their car or if they suddenly have to cancel a vacation because of finances. Others look around at work for a rival and measure their relative progress against the other person.

But is this really our goal? Were we born into this world to get promoted before one of our co-workers? Were we born into this world to get a better car than our neighbors? Let our real goals guide us, not meaningless competitions we don’t really benefit by winning.

If you hold back the one product that the market could get by itself, rather than focusing on providing new and different things that the market couldn’t get and that the market actually wanted and to now blame them for not buying the late-to-market, seriously overpriced DVDs misses the point by a wide margin.

For those of you who aren’t aware, my grandmother of 74 passed away on Sunday afternoon. She was a wonderful person and a true angel to everyone she met. She had lived with my family for 6 years before succumbing to cancer. During her life, she had many obstacles to overcome, but she always overcame them, and became a better person because of them.

I miss her dearly now, her smile and voice mostly.