Please Let Me Explain Myself

As I type the first sentence of this prelude it is March 3, 2011. The reason for mentioning this date is that throughout the following personal history there will be many references to dates regarding a large number of life experiences. Everyone has life experiences-what is life but having life experiences? However, when our mind flashes back and forth to earlier events we seldom question the relationship of these experiences to each other, nor do we devote much attention to how these thought processes began in the first place. However, when we deal with others we notice their individual patterns of living, their appearance, their style of thinking and how they each seem to relate to daily life. You recognize the flow of their existence and you know that if you accept their life style it will lead to a satisfactory relationship, whereas introducing words or actions that disrupt their stream of life causes heightened emotions and conflictions. For you to do so, in their mind-it was you who removed yourself from their earlier positioning [estimation] of your life flow-your station in life. It is this station in life, or flow of everyday existence that I will be writing about. Much of this history will consist of things that I've done, people I've known, and places I've been, but here and there I will step deeper into my thoughts and motives to describe my personality's formation in a manner that will serve as a guide for the reader to analyze their own personality development-my name can be replaced by the reader's name-the reader just needs to insert their own experiences in place of mine. Although heredity presents us with different physical appearances, degrees of stamina, intelligence, emotional capabilities, and the "luck of the draw" selects our parents, our race, and nationality, we basically think alike and act alike throughout our lives. I have won several "minor awards" during my life, but I am not inferring for a moment that I'm any better an individual than anyone else. I believe my life was average, which leads me to the goal of explaining why my life was average; rather than more successful [or less successful]. I would like to describe what motivated me (and perhaps you, the reader) to achieve certain awards, or goals in life: causing certain patterns of behavior to occur. We each unconsciously develop self-imposed limitations concerning winning or losing and avoiding certain competitive areas in life. Our definition of awards will be expanded to include one's spouse or partner, your occupation, ownership of a business, your choice of residence, and many other frequent challenges met during a normal lifetime...And finally, as I sit here typing an introduction to a work that has taken many years to complete I would like to add that regardless of how depressed I may appear many times in the following pages-I've had a good life. No one can travel back in time and avoid past mistakes or grasp missed opportunities, but many times I have returned in my thoughts and learned from my past experiences. As I've mentioned, you cannot change your past or rebuild your genetic or personality foundations, but you can learn to appropriately structure areas of your current life over the good and the bad surface areas of your personality's foundation. I am proud of my family and satisfied with my education and my employment history. I won't say that I should have performed better as a husband, father, grandfather, student, or worker-because as the following pages will outline, I did the best I could using my foundation for each of these roles in life. Even at the age of seventy-five I still consider myself "green and growing."