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Prelude. I saw in my Facebook that a friend of mine (PJ) wrote….

“Life is like an hour glass glued to the table…. Breathe, just breathe.”

I couldn’t help but to re-post his quote. And then I added the following….. “#OneLIfe,OneChance.”

Max here…. Today is Thursday August 9^th 2018 and it’s about 9:50pm and I am sitting at a Starbucks that they recently built near my house. So much has happened, well….. Maybe not a lot. But enough to make me smile and feel progress. Now…. Like I mentioned it is 9:50pm and Starbucks closes at 11pm so I may need to stop writing and find a new place to continue this post.

So 3 things have happened this week that I think are positive towards my goals. One is a deeply personal goal that is not even on my goals list. I’m not even truly sure why I didn’t put it on my goals list ( I’ll save that thought for another time) And the other 2 things are on the goals list. As I list them they are not in any particular hierarchy/order of any kind…..

• Found Mark.
• Trying to understand my time (weekly) better.
• Found my father.

So let’s begin with finding Mark and why that is important… Mark is a guy who used to work for me until I could no longer take his behavior. Mark was contracted labor, so I never had a need to fire him.  Instead I would contract him for a particular job and then he would complete the job and get paid for the work. In the beginning when I found Mark I was in desperate need of either a helper or someone within my price range who could get a job done for me. What I liked about Mark was that he was an older white man and that his price per job was within my then price range. Now why did I mention “white”? Well, as much as no one likes racism, we all want the most intelligent and productive person possible. And for me, at least living here in the United States, if you take time to really notice the people with the most money and the most power, you will notice that the people with the most money and power in the United States are really and truly mostly older white men. Even Oprah Winfrey made a comment about that. She mentioned how she would go to board meetings and that sitting around the table would all be older white men and just her…. One African American Woman! Talk about feeling out of place. So yeah, sadly life is not proportional in any regards. (But I will say that life is fair) Yes life is fair, it’s just not proportional.

So this Mark guy. He is intelligent enough to get work done, but he has a habit. A habit that wasn’t clear to me in the beginning. I guess for most humans much of life is live and learn (that also includes me). And many times the old adage is true. “You get what you pay for” And as I write those words, I notice that “You get what you pay for” is ultimately a “relative” statement, however somehow those words still ring with so much truth. And when it comes to Mark and his work and life ethic, that old adage is EXTREMELY true. There is so much that I could literally write about Mark and my interactions with him, that I could truly probably make a book about the whole thing. It’s just crazy like that. But within this post I will try to make it as short as possible and sum it up as best can be.

While Mark worked for me, I ended up learning that Mark had a drug addiction. Cocaine to be specific. Now I truly don’t care what anyone does in their personal life or even during their time on earth. Even though I am not God himself. And the fact is true that I should not judge…. But because I am human, I still judge people. (It’s just what us humans do) But whenever possible, Whenever I catch myself, I remind myself that as long as someone’s thoughts or actions are not affecting my life, my circle of life or my future circle of life, then I don’t care what they do. Everyone has their own dharma in life to deal with. So yeah, Mark and cocaine, I later learned that he smoked it. I didn’t even know that you could do that with cocaine! (Personally I don’t do cocaine, never have, and I don’t care to ever try it. It’s just not the kind of “high” that I want in my life.) Mark however, as I later learned, Mark had parents and or a surrounding that in some form or manner, whether quietly or explicitly, showed him that doing drugs was a way of life and so mark now in his mid-50s is what I will call a drug user for life.

Now the real question is…. Can a drug user still perform needed tasks? My answer is Yes…. Depending on the task and the factors of the person’s cognition while on drugs. As for Mark, I used him to help me do some remodeling work, and on a scale of 1 to 10, and 10 being the quality of the job that I expected, Mark would at best give me a 7. Sometimes an 8. And to get a 7 or 8, I used to have to constantly be on his ass about why he cut corners on things. It was just horrible. It was so utterly stressful, aggravating and costly. Most of the time his work, if I said nothing about his work, would turn out to be a 4 or 5. It took me a long time to learn from him about how I should feel, think and treat someone that does work for me. Mark innately is a good soul, I can just feel that in my inner gut. But even though he is a good soul, he still chose a bad path. And I (Max) am someone that naturally looks for the best in a person. I innately want to help people. Maybe that’s why one of my goals in life is to become a philanthropist.

But I digress…. So Mark, drug addict, at his truly very best an average worker. Somehow I still kept using his service/help. Even though he has the drug issue and the fact that he also stolen from me and then would lie to me about his thievery, and if he didn’t steal from me then it would be one of his drug using workers that would steal from me, that he would hire off the street. And yet, somehow I still kept him around. I later mentally understood that I allowed things and connected to him because not only was he internally, but his persona was a mirror image one of my three half-brothers. To make a long story short, at best, Mark ended up being someone who would be my trash guy. I paid him to collect and discard any debris from a property that I was working on. And sadly even that eventually became too cumbersome for me to deal with.

So how can finding Mark be a good thing? Well I still need a grunt worker to do some outside grunt labor at apartment #01. It’s not much work and I now have had time to fully understand how to deal with Mark and I truly feel that Mark sees that I am more boxed and unwavering about how I will treat him.

To give a great example of Mark…..Envision this…. I last saw Mark at a Home Depot as I was buying supplies for apartment #01. When I ran into him he had not worked for me in several months. When he saw me, he walked up to me to say hi. He then very excitedly told me about his new venture/situation/adventure/life etc. He was very happy and excited and explained that he was now in charge of remodeling a very large and extremely old 2 story house. He said that he was allowed by the owner to live there and do what he wants as long as he does remodeling work. He said that the owner truly didn’t care what he did while living there. So much to the point that Mark went on to say that he ended up creating and running a brothel inside that house that he was supposedly remodeling. I personally didn’t ask questions when he was talking to me. I was still somewhat upset by how he last treated me. And plus why should I care what he is doing to someone else. What I know is that if you let him take advantage of you that he will unknowingly take advantage of you. So instead, I told Mark that I was happy for him and that I had to leave because I had work to do. I ended my conversation with Mark quickly.

Now fast forward to me seeing Mark today, as I mentioned I NEED someone to do some grunt labor for me. I’m at a point where I just don’t want to do it myself. And most of all if I am to be a multi-millionaire then I MUST learn how to find someone else to do the job for me. Especially the ones that I can’t or don’t want to do. So today, as I was on my way to apartment #01, I saw Mark’s minivan parked in an empty lot. I decided that maybe this was a sign from God. As I have never seen Mark’s minivan there before. So I stopped. I got out of my car and walked to his minivan. Prior to seeing Mark today, I had heard that Mark was now living in his minivan. Personally I almost couldn’t believe that he was living in his minivan, but Yep. Its true, Mark is living out of his minivan.

So I walked up to his minivan. He had both sliding doors of the minivan open. Mark had taken out the back seats and made space for him to sleep there. As I stood next to one of the open sliding doors I could see next to him on his left side by his thigh was a loaf of white bread and some bologna. No mayonnaise, no mustard, no tomatoes, no lettuce, no cheese, no napkins, no plates, no utensils, nothing…… Just bread and bologna.  And on his right side was a small igloo cooler filled with a few cold bottles of water. Did I mention that it was 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside and that Mark’s minivan was baking in direct sunlight? And did I mention that it was high noon! (Just crazy! I was dripping in sweat just standing there talking to him!) Mark was laying there in shorts, no shoes, and no shirt. Which, by the way, was almost exactly how Mark dressed many of the times that he worked for me. Minus the no shoes part. And so as the story goes….(Mind you this is from Mark’s own lips) Mark ended up telling me  details of his last home……remember that large old house with the so called brothel. Turns out that Mark said that the old house was filled with old antique furniture and that he emptied the place and made 10 rooms in the house and rented them to drug addicted prostitutes. He also rented one room to a cocaine dealer and one room to a meth dealer. And he then charged each person that stayed there $100.00 a week to live there. And all while he was also living there. And not to mention that he would get perks from the girls and the drug dealers. Imagine that…. 10 drug addicted prostitutes, 2 drug dealers and him a drug addict himself and all the while still trying to remodel that house???? That’s just ludicrous! I wouldn’t believe it if someone told me, but knowing Mark. I know that at least half of it is really true. And half of it being true is definitely enough for me. Long story short, one day the cops went to that house and someone got busted by the cops and Mark decided to leave. Although Mark didn’t go to jail for being the ring leader and head master of this drug infested brothel and drug lab, what happened to Mark instead was that in the process of him leaving the house, the cops gave him 43 tickets on his vehicle. 43 tickets of what? (Again, that just crazy!!!) And again, I didn’t ask Mark any questions. Knowing what he told me was already too much for me. Sometimes I feel like my life is a real life movie. You just can’t make this stuff up! So Mark, he is just someone that I would never have thought that I would ever have to meet in life. But then again, God does all things for a reason.

So to sum it up….  I decided to get Mark to clean a fence line and install about 40 feet of chain link fencing. And this time I have no problem being strictly business about things. I know it’s crazy, but the idea is this…..to always try to find a way to get something done. Even if it means that you have to reinvent a new way to work with someone that you did not initially care or want to work with.

The Second good thing about this week….. Trying to understand my time (weekly) better.

Starbucks is closing…. I’ll be back in a second. Remember Starbucks closes at 11…..I’ll be back. OK I’m back. I’m now sitting at a 24 hour Mexican restaurant near my house. The place is named “Rocky’s Taco House”. The juke box randomly blares classic Mexican music and sometimes country music, so I decided to put my headphones on and listen to some jazz music from my phone while I write the remainder of this post. As for the food here, if you like Mexican food or a fan of Mexican food then you will find it palatable. Not sure if you are gonna love it. But for whatever it’s worth, it’s at least food, lower priced food that is, and unfortunately also not the healthiest food on the planet. But it is at least open 24 hours and near my house.

Back to the 2^nd good thing….

In my meeting with Joan, the professional organizer, She put within an excel sheet my basic current weekly schedule. No details but instead just some time blocking. Currently she helped me to better see that I currently use Thursdays for inspiration and all things related. Ie: skydiving, music, writing etc. I did not explicitly know that was the way upon how I was using my Thursdays. Because all this time, I was still trying to mentally look for hourly space to write in this blog and also find time to make music etc. I was still trying to set a schedule for myself. And this whole thing called “my life” is still a work in progress. However I am at least now one small step closer to understanding how to schedule my time.

So this week is my first time trying out with making Thursdays my day to pack in as much skydiving, writing, music, etc. as possible… And I’m not sure how it is going to work out. Currently now it is almost midnight and I’m still not done writing this blog post. And I also have not yet eaten dinner (But hey…. I’m at a Mexican restaurant that is open 24 hours, so dinner will happen soon). I was also hoping to unbox my 3D printer and get it almost up and running. I bought my first 3D printer about 2 weeks prior, but I have not scheduled the time to open it and put it together. Let alone try and use it. So I was hoping that tonight will be that night. We’ll see. Again, getting the most out of my time will take much practice.

Now as for number 3… Found My Father…..

Boy, this one is close to the heart. You see for all of my life my mother was both my mother and my father. Not only that, but I was also a latch key kid. Times were just hard. LOL. Wow I just laughed as I just wrote that! I laughed because as I thought about it,  times were really truly freakin hard. I just hated nearly all of my childhood. To this day (my mid 40s) I am still trying to learn to like how I look in the mirror. And so yeah I just laughed when I wrote that those younger times were hard. I laughed because yet somehow, after all I have been thru, and where I am now compared to then, somehow I still think that my life is hard now. How ludicrous is that. I have so so so so so many limiting beliefs that I need to unpack from my inner emotions and erase from my mindset.

So yeah, my Dad was not in my life. I saw him 2 times my whole life. First when I was about 5 and then again when I was about 7. I can’t remember any of the details clearly because I was so young. And if anyone is my age that reads this, then you will understand the deepening challenge to remember every event in your life as you roll up in age and closer to your time with God. Which now as I ponder my new information. I think it is important that I go to a hypnotist and see if he/she can help me to remember in vivid detail my moments with my father. I know for some, seeing a hypnotist is nothing more than snake oil, hog wash, and a complete waste of money. But then again, so is believing in something that you have never physically seen with your eyes or held in your own hand…. Like God, Love, or patriotism. Instead those are things that you must just internally believe in in order to see. ie: “The master will appear when the student is ready”. Again, just another reason why I like the movie “The Matrix”.

So yeah hypnotist, that’s gonna be on my soon to do list. And did I find my Dad. We’ll not really. About 3 to 5 years prior I saw that Ancestry.com had people that could help to try and track down your genealogy. So I hired them, but for several years they were fruitless. Until one day while I was searching the internet for my Dad’s name, I ended up seeing his name on a petition. It was a list of Freemasons that signed a petition against the government from which my father is from. I then gave this info to a man named Joseph Shumway from the progeneologist’s at Ancestry.com and after some time they were able to find out that my father was a Freemason and they also found out that he has since passed away. I then asked Joseph if there were any other family members. He was able to find out that I have a step mother, a step brother and a step sister.  I was internally elated with the news.  But at the same time I was also scared because what if they didn’t want to talk to me? What if I wasn’t good enough for them? My mind ran the gambit on the “What if’s” of so many things of what they may or may not like about me. And will my journey to my father end with knowing that he was dead? Or will God allow me to know more and hopefully find out more about who I am on the inside? Just so many questions.

You see, I have always felt that I deserve better in life. (Maybe everyone feels that way) but for me, I just can’t let that feeling go. I can’t unwrite how I feel and rewrite something that says that I should just be happy and content with the life and surroundings that I have. That’s just not me. That’s just not what God wanted for me. The way I see it is that that God created me and also created all that is around me…. And yes that also means both good and bad. And my job in life is to explore this world, and to learn from it and to understand it. And in the end, to leave this world better than how I first found it. There is a video (I can’t remember which one, maybe a Les Brown video) but in his video he says that each of us when we are born, that we are born with many gifts and that for him, that when his time has come to stand in front of God again, that he wants to stand in front of God completely empty of all his gifts. Empty because what he did in life is to use all of his gifts to his extreme and give every one of his gifts away. Because you see, my personal belief is that when you die you can’t take anything with you, so in truth, the only thing that you can do with your life is to give it away. It’s just that simple.

So back to my Dad and the Freemasons. As it turns out one of the brothers of the masonic lodge contacted my extended family and told them that I was looking for them. My step mother, step brother and step sister all agreed in me being able to connect with them. This to me as I write this is still something that I never thought would happen. It is very surreal. I guess I somehow kind of gave up hope of ever finding my family across seas. But low and behold, not on my time, but instead on God’s time, I finally found my family. Or at least some of my family. (Totally makes me smile) Now will they like me, accept me, or allow me into their inner circle? Truthfully I don’t know. Instead I MUST look inward to my inner self. I must be who I am on the inside. Because if I am anything like my father, If I in anyway truly carry his genetic DNA within me, if I am truly somehow a portion like my father then somehow that will shine thru and the word family will eventually grow into something meaningful. Now as I said, my father was not from America so not only must I understand my current self, but I must also learn how to connect with another country, another culture. Wow! Just so many things to learn. But what is life eh? Just a puzzle waiting to be put together. And it’s my job to find the pieces of this puzzle and put as many together before my time is up.

So very sadly, painfully, hurtfully, (I can come up with a million more distressing words to express how badly it saddens me to know that I will never, and I mean never physically truly know my father during this life) But instead, what I am deciding to do, what I am internally coming to grips with is that what I can do is to focus on what I did find…..my step mother, my half-sister and half-brother and their children. That is what I can be joyous about. That is what I can find resolute in. And that is what I can look at to be the spark that will hopefully unlock more of my family heritage. So yes, sadly my father has already passed and I can only hope that God has something even greater in life stored for me, hopefully to the point that it will help me to understand why I couldn’t have a father in my lifetime. It’s truly one thing to not talk to your father while he is alive and in some way, shape, or form knowing that he is within your arms reach, but it is a whole other thing when the person you call Dad was taken from you before you could even know him.

As I have mentioned I am in my mid to late 40s and when I was born my Dad was in his mid to late 40s. And I learned from my sister today that my father died at the age of 61. I also learned that my sister was 9 years old when my Dad died. So in many ways, she and my brother must also resonate with the depth of not having a father in their life. It’s just so perplexing for me. Because in one regard I want to say that life is tough and nothing but a bowl of shit. I want to say that life is tough because truthfully many times for us humans, literally, it just feels that way. But at the same time I want to say that life is easy, because also truthfully life…. Life is how you decide to look at it. Each moment, each event of your life is defined not by what happens to us, but instead by the different ways of how each of us decide to look and feel about what happens to us. The realest fact about life is that you cannot ever “always control” every event in your life, but you can ALWAYS CONTROL how you decide to feel about every event and moment of your life. And In the end of and during every event in your life, you can say one of 2 things…. Either the cup of life is halfway full or the cup of life is halfway empty. And for me…….. I just spent too much of my life thinking and somehow believing that the cup of life was always halfway empty. This journey of my life is not yet over and there is much of my life still yet to write, so it’s time for me to start redefining this cup life and seeing that life is truly halfway full. And after that, my next goal is to make my cup of life overflowing.

#TheJourney.

#Belief.

#BabySteps.

#OneLIfe,OneChance.

Love,

Max.