Beta-Testing Begins On "The New Me"

After regular meditation for the past two years, a hefty amount of baggage I have been lying or doing to myself was uncovered. Many issues from my childhood, my stubborn early 20s and the years of my marriage were topics I have lied to myself in my head about over the years. I needed to confront these issues and start fresh with life. I recently came to the conclusion that in order to make a stable and healthy future, the smartest thing I could do was remember my past as accurate as I could and deal with why I am who I am today.

The most important epiphany I came to through all of this is that if I truly want to be in a relationship again with someone I can trust, someone who is passionate about living and can handle themselves healthily and with careful action in times of anger, frustration, sadness, confusion and even happiness, I must relearn to trust myself. That means respecting my body and mind, being 100% honest with myself and being a good person to other people. It means routinely watching my diet and exercising, drinking occasionally rather than regularly, quitting cigarettes and making sure to challenge myself to meet goals of all kinds.

Life is not about contentment, nor happiness as it is typically defined in Hollywood. Life is about anger, pain, love, sorrow, happiness and every other emotion I'm too lazy to list. Life is about living.

Taking the time to prepare and think about what I want in my future is a road worth going down, but it's a long road, full of both self-improvement and even more mistakes to make along the way. The time has come to rebrand myself, to think of how I should market "Me" for the people I attract romantically, emotionally and professionally.

I want to be worth the investment for the next person who purchases me as their next vehicle of choice and drives me off the used car lot. Ha!

The Speech I Never Gave

If you were at my brothers funeral, you will recall that I gave a very simple and to-the-point speech on my brothers behalf. Here's what I really wanted to say, but found no motivation to write it at the time:

Cory's death was the beginning of a long needed overhaul on my general character. I hate to admit much, but I have a confession. I am a human being. I'm weak sometimes. I've made many many many mistakes. I've pissed off lots of people. I've lived. I have a lot of good people in my life though too.

I've got another confession. I loved my brother. I was severely attached at the hip to him for a long time. In many cases and for many years, Audrey, Cory and I only had each other. But my loyalty to him started to dwindle sometime between a bunch of bullshit and some more bullshit in our lives. We began having a rough time understanding each other. I was somewhat of a rebel that has always questioned everything. And he loved questioning my questioning. We butted heads a lot.

In my teens, I wondered why. I began questioning a lot of what made my family tick and soon discovered who we are. I found that my core ideals and values are very different from most of my family's. But we still love each other the same. We are loyal to each other and I think it's safe to say my parents, aunts and uncles are some of the best teachers I've ever had on the subject of passionate living in life, regardless of a differential in everyone's ideas. Me, my brother, my sister and all of our cousins are blessed to have had such great role models, who have been through hell and back and only wished happier lives upon my generation. They have sacrificed a lot to pass on these traits. Without them all, Cory would be a very different person. Audrey, the same. I would be too.

Cory was very particular in his interests and had a significant amount of the passion genes passed on in his blood. You could never tell him how to do something, you could only ask him to figure it out on his own, and he would in no time. He was a quick learner and you never had to worry about him falling behind. He knew how to evolve or press the gas pedal. He knew how to get the job done and get it done well. Unfortunately, his body's energy evaporated over a seemingly slow and "painful to witness" process. Everyone in our family had lives of our own and had grown apart. It wasn't easy to see. Eventually he had nothing left to give, his conditions worsened and soon his passions were lost.

I know his death affected everyone in quite a similar way to how it affected me. We all saw his life being so much different than how it ended up. His wife and kids are incredible and they deserve so much credit for being so good to him. I know it was hard. But Trisha, Ryker and Jenna were my brothers pride and joy. He loved them. His immediate family was the only thing he had at some points, especially near the end. But he didn't ever want to end up bed-ridden. He had too much passion, just like all our cousins, aunts, uncles, parents and grandparents.

Cory, as stubborn as he might have been, was always a loyal and dependable person. He was annoyingly opinionated. Super offensive. But also very honest about his feelings, at least he was at one time with me. So if I have one thing to thank him for, it would have to be his teachings of how to live passionately. We can all agree his body's biography is severely tragic though. Everyone in our family saw his potential, because we all feel the same potential in ourselves to be who we want to be.

Cory never gave up. Cory lived passionately. Cory worked hard.

-I don't give up.

-My passion gets me in all sorts of trouble.

-I've come a long way since my lazy youth, I work very hard.

Cory can be regarded as a great teacher of these core values. Love you brother.

New Lease On Life

Throughout every day I live, I stumble upon grumpy people. A grump here. A grump there. A grump in the mirror sometimes. A grump across the street. A grump in my passenger seat. A grump upstairs. A grump in front of me, waiting to pay for coffee. Grumps are everywhere.

Point is, there are so many grumpy people I'm surrounded by.

One person I'm quite close to is grumpy, seemingly every day. It makes me so sad to see someone so miserable in life. But this person hasn't changed a single behavior for as long as I've known him. I've seen him live his life the same way for years with no evolution of character. No will to change. He's comfortable in his life. But he's frickin' upset all the damn time. It's really hard to be around someone so unhappy.

I've had three major life changes in the past two years that have awarded me with a new lease on life.

-Divorce

-Simon

-Death of my brother

The last thing I need is to be grumpy. These three things have taught me that life is far to short. Yet, I find myself grumpy too often when things don't go my way. Relationships, work, quitting smoking, nutrition... They all affect my mood. I don't want to waste my life anymore, worrying about things that are out of my control. I refuse to wait around until something happens. It's time to make things happen for myself. No one has time to hold my hand and tell me everything is gonna be alright.

So I got to thinking, rather than worrying about something I'm not, I need to be proud of who I am and who I try to be.

Reasons to be proud of myself:

-I'm doing at least 45 minutes of cardio 4 days a week, couple more weeks and I'll be weight lifting again. Just waiting for endurance to truly kick in.

-Nutrition (Daily monitoring of food intake, don't wanna get too obsessed), last weekend killed me, ha! But for the most part, my nutritional needs are being taken care of.

-I've got my own business and have spread my name quite well for the first 3 months. Already have some great clients.

-I've owned up to some things dwelling in the confines of my mind for years. I saw a doctor, he's given me some great advice with quitting smoking and has insured me I'm healthy otherwise.

-I'm a great father; as long as I raise him to be a gentleman then all else pertaining to him will be fine.

-I try to be a good friend, though sometimes I have to be selfish with my time. People can rely on me, however, as I try my best to fulfill promises I make to them.

2011, I'm going to kick your ass.

Prioritizing...

I wish I didn't procrastinate. But unfortunately I'm too overwhelmed with so many important responsibilities. Thus, I procrastinate things I need to do but never get done. Taxes are one of these things... How can I start organizing and prioritizing these very important things in the future? Anyone with good financial advice?

Ugh!

Death of Hearing or Death of Sight?

My bestie Jacob and I had a conversation a few months back about something that has left me baffled and no clue how to answer. I am going to attempt to weigh in my thoughts on the topic that's left me puzzled. If I had to lose one but gain sensation in the other: sight or sound, which would it be?

Pros of Sight Loss/Sound Gain:

-Music and conversation would be that much more meaningful.

-I'd learn to listen more to people

Cons of Sight Loss/Sound Gain:

-My career would fail, no such thing as a blind cameraman

-I couldn't see beautiful things in this world, people I love, scenery, films, concerts.

Pros of Sight Gain/Sound Loss:

-Does this mean I don't have to get lasik someday?

-I'd have a great eye for good art.

Cons of Sight Gain/Sound Loss:

-Duh! No hearing. No music, no beautiful voices to listen to in conversation, etc.

-Having too good of vision could potentially make me paranoid. I'm already a super visual person.

So I'm not sure which one to choose. Hard decisions. Hopefully I'll never have to make them, or have them made for me...

Things That Are Out Of My Control.

I've been divorced officially since July of last year. I can't remember the exact date and truthfully, it doesn't matter. I've been uncommitted from that relationship since December of 2009. She's my son's mother. I respect her because of that. I will rarely say anything bad about her to even my closest of friends. I want her to know that I wish her the best in life. I also want her to know that I'm committed to being the best father, for the rest of my life, to our adorable and perfect son, Simon! I'm thankful to have learned about myself from my experience in marriage. Thus, I am thankful for her. She was a large part of my life. She is a great mother to our punko. I am a damn good father to him too!

Really, I couldn't ask for a better son. He's just the best. Period! The reason I chose to move back to Logan is solely because I chose to be a part of his life. His mother moved back to Northern Utah with him when we decided it was time to divorce. Had I stayed living in Las Vegas, I fear I would be living a miserable life knowing my son is just 8 hours away, yet I rarely get to see him. Luckily, I think I've really proved to myself that I can be a responsible Daddy. I sacrifice spending more time with friends, networking for business, concert-going, road-trips, vacations, major clientele in Las Vegas for my career that Utah doesn't offer (i.e. major television shows, sports broadcasts, Los Angeles tag-along jobs, more experience with celebrity talent and major producers, etc.) I still get to work those jobs from time to time if my scheduling permits, but they are fewer and much farther between these days. But perhaps the most important thing I sacrifice these days is my patience.

I dedicate so much time for patience with other things. Patience for Simon, patience for the right woman, patience for my career to take off, patience for money, patience for a home... the list goes on. I've been so caught up with life that I've really sacrificed patience for myself lately. I find myself caught up in impressing a laundry list of other things, some materialistic and some not. But my patience on myself has been increasingly thin. It's forced me into all sorts of emotions lately that have made me selfish, self-interested and bizarrely anti-social. If you know me, I'm not an anti-social person typically. I want to be so many things I'm not. I want to be more social. I want to be more successful. I want to be more attractive. I want to be smarter. I want to be a respected achiever. I want so many things.

So sometimes I wish I had full control of where I'm going. But there are so many things that are out of my control in my future. Just gotta accept that and strive to be the best.

My First Blog...Ever!

When I was a kid, I hated electronic music. It drove my brother and I batty. I was largely influenced by his musical opinion, although I actually ended up having good taste in music while his tastes didn't evolve much as he remained an avid Poison fan up until his passing.

Disclaimer: If you're a fan of Poison, I never wanna talk music with you, just sayin'...

If you should know one thing about me, it's that I hate Poison. My brother loved that damn band. He always requested I play "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" on guitar in between the beatings I received from blasting my 10watt amplifier over his SportsCenter. I hate that T.V. show more than I hate Poison. He used to make fun of me for listening to "sissy music" as he called it, or music that he, and only he, disapproved of. (Cory, you'd make a terrible DJ, you're stuck in the 80s and 90s, I've always wanted to say that to you. Ha!)

And yet, here I am... Listening to Daft Punk while I think about how I am not the man I thought I would become in my days of being a little punk. Times have changed and I'm a father. Simon is a mini-me and very influenced in the decisions I make, just as I was when my brother served as my first major influence. I don't say my dad was my first because truthfully, he didn't become a major influence until later in life, which I will touch upon at some point on this blog. My father is a good man.

A few random facts about me and who I am:

I still have very close friends but we are all taking the different roads in life we all knew would come one day.

I'm picky when selecting friends. I can only think of 4 people who truly know who I am.

I went from adoring Metallica and Queensryche to loving Sigur Ros and Tiesto.

I am passionate.

I like to shoot for stars.

The people who support me do so very well.

I love making music.

I wanna fall in love again.

I think this life is pretty worth it for the most part.

I've been hustled, badly... I know how not to get hustled now, for the most part. I'm not too naive in thinking I will never get hustled again, it's totally possible. But I'm learning quickly how to be strong and be wise.

I am a good father.

I still love video games and learning about the video game business; past, present and future.

My life is a huge journey. I like to think I know myself but I'm also always finding new ways to be me. I have evolved dramatically and so I hope to be myself through this blog and be honest without being too revealing. I want to remember how I have evolved. I want to tell stories and exploit my character. So... Welcome to 'Mason's Trip'!