What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger

Bruce Lee once told Jackie Chan, while out on a five-mile run, that if he couldn’t keep up then he was better off dead. So, Chan got pissed and sprinted the rest of the course despite the fact that he may die of heart failure.

Shortly after, Jackie Chan transformed Bruce’s insult into a creed.

He’d never let his belief in limitations prevent transformations.

Jackie Chan went on to be one of the best known martial arts actors in the world.

Bruce Lee died mysteriously young.
Of course, rumor has it that he may have had a thing for chewing opium, and if he practiced that same limitless philosophy with drugs, well… go figure what could’ve been the result.

I’m not saying to kill yourself with exercise, but if you think Heaven is a real thing, what are you afraid of? The pain between here and there?

Who knows, the life you’ve always dreamed of may be just over your next barbed-wire covered hurdle.

To be clear, some people think it would kill them just to skip their morning coffee!

Get out of your comfort zone

Truth is, skip the coffee.

“Blasphemy!” I hear.

Well, I didn’t believe it either.

But, take it from a guy who works twelve hour overnight shifts and has been caffeine free for three weeks. Had I not done this similar fast from caffeine last year, I wouldn’t have known it was good for me.

Two days without caffeine, and you will be sleeping like four or five hours a night. The caffeine fast helped me go to sleep easy and sleep less, but it was fasting from sugar that really boosted my energy.

When I don’t eat sugar, I don’t even begin to feel sleepy during the course of a day (or night in my case). But it took three days without it to get there.

Those first three nights without sugar were really hard. That’s how I knew right away that the sugar was giving me artificial energy and that my body had begun to expect it.

Not to sound like Donald Trump but, trust me, three days without it and you will be so bored that you will be wanting a candy bar or cup of coffee just to break the monotony.
But tired, you will not be!

It’s really quite amazing what the body can do Au Naturel.

Don’t listen to your bored mind and snack or grab that coffee!
Instead, congratulate yourself on finding a new discomfort zone.

Yeah, boredom is a discomfort. Though many of us parents would disagree. I mean, how many of us would give a teste or an ovary for ten minutes of free time?

Raised your hand?
Well, ask yourself what would you do with that free time?

If you’re like the rest of us, you’d stuff it full of social media scrolling, watch a flick, read a book, have a drink, write an article…
Can’t you just sit there and breathe? I mean, you did ask for free time, not selfish indulgence time, right?

Stay with the pain people!
Do a Jackie Chan and get mad. Then, rest in your discomfort.
It’s okay to start meditation angry. At least you’ll know how much you’ve come to hate sitting still and doing nothing! But, come on people.

If you can’t sit naked in an empty room for six hours without panicking, insulting yourself, getting anxious, or pissing yourself off, then what kinda company do you think you‘re providing to other people when you can’t even stand yourself?

A great man named Siddhartha once taught us the three most valued talents that every man should possess. The abilities to think, wait, and fast.

But it’s the norm today to get everything while the getting is good, because hey, YOLO.
For those of us over fifty, that means ‘You Only Live Once’.

We only live once, or do we?

This one’s up for debate.
Another great man once said,

“What are the few brief years of life to the art of perfecting the soul?”

Furthermore, even Christians use the term born again even though their theology is based on a linear timeline like all Semitic religion.

i.e. God created everything, will one day judge everything, will destroy all evil, and then all will be good.
Semitic belief is that God sent his son and he himself resurrected his son. Everything happens in a closed system by God’s miracles alone.

Indo-European religious beliefs were based in cycles of rebirth and saw time as cyclical. They held value in the soul of the self and envisioned it as escalating forever upward type of thing.

Mineral to plant, to animal, to man (sometimes men had to live three times), to ethereal being.
They more likely attributed Jesus’s resurrection to some innate ability of Jesus himself.

I hold firm that one belief could fit inside another, or exist side by side.
In fact, I think they could oscillate between the two beliefs depending on who’s looking and the given necessity.
I mean, that’s what happens with electrons when we try and define them as a particle or a wave under close scrutiny.

So, I don’t see why the macrocosm wouldn’t resemble the microcosm. Especially when it does so closely already in the shapes of atoms, planets, and other fractals found in nature.

Those, more successful than me will tell me that all this philosophy will ultimately lead me nowhere, which Neal Donald Walsch was flippant enough to point out also spells Now Here.

That’s fine.
However, it does make a clear distinction on Atheism.
Semites may point to an Indo-European and say your an Atheist because you don’t believe God is out there…
But, an Indo-European will point to a Semite and say you’re an Atheist because you don’t believe God is in here.

Meanwhile, I’m sure our forefathers are shaking their heads and thinking, just you wait!
Forefathers, who probably wouldn’t be where they are (a better place) if they weren’t trying to distance themselves from all of us judgemental know-it-all assholes.

Are Our Forefathers Holy or Are they also Holes?

Well, I liked to believe that those closest to death are closest to God. So, In my opinion I suppose they would be.
Holy, I mean.

My grandfather just passed at ninety-nine years old and I ask myself sometimes why anyone would want to stick around so long. Life’s hard enough without being old and all the stuff that comes with it.

But, when it comes right down to it, you have to understand that it’s often the places that you don’t want to be that need you the most.
Maybe that explains it. Perhaps my Granddaddy was one of those guys who went with the pain.
Good job Granddaddy, Bruce Lee would be proud!

I mean, no one wants to admit that the one guy who is taking the most pain is also the one doing the most good. That wouldn’t paint a pretty picture!

But, I care for my forefathers in the respect that I know how a combustion engine works, by God. And reason is, my grandfather worked in an oil company all of his life.

Refining, delivering, marketing, customer service. Down to the last drop. Fossil fuels for you and me to live comfortably and then later bitch about it destroying the earth.

But, truth is, we’re just a drop in the cylinder.

Build an exhaust and an intake and then fly right through the chute — 

Once that lightning strikes, you’re gonna fire off and burn baby! Make all kinda shit happen. It’s gonna be rough on the motor, but all that effort will get the wife to the grocer and Timmy his tennis shoes for school.

Hell. It’ll eventually get us to Solar, just like coal got us to this. But old oil miners aren’t asking for medals, they can get those serving our country like anyone else can.

Isn’t it odd that God can only offer you such a simple and immaterial thing as grace and mercy but that he is the most needed person on the planet?

If you’re a Christian you don’t have to read the Koran and if you’re a Muslim you don’t have to read the Bible. But at least be an Atheist who has the heart to bring a bible to a dying Christian’s bedside.

The three things that overwhelm God’s inbox the most are understanding, grace, and mercy, and those three things we are all capable of handing out for free.

Be a good person and do your part for God.
If you believe in all that.

So it’s hard. Do it anyway!

Ya know. Being a sugar free and caffeine free guy can really make you irritable. Especially, when you’ve been fasting for twelve hours.

The guy in the BMW in front of you who’s eating a McRib and talking on his cellphone still hasn’t mashed the gas and the light’s turned yellow.

You have five minutes to spend with your kid before work, if you make it in time.

The man takes a bite and flicks his cigarette before peeling off through the just-turned-red.

Well… you shoulda honked the horn at the asshole.
Why?
Cause you’re a good soul, damn it! You have authority.

If he gets out with a gun and attempts to blow your head off because he spilt McRib sauce on his new tee-shirt, well then…

He deserves just what this Ninja’s gonna give him!

Still not sure how to find strength in your righteousness? Connect with me over here and we’ll try together.

If you like stories that slap you right in the face, leave me your email here.

Wanna tip me and move on? Blow my skirt up here!

Wanna collaborate? Connect with me over a cup of coffee…
but not here.
That would just be weird.

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Jay Horne is an author and publisher out of Bradenton, Florida. He is a husband and father of four.
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