Wide Asleep Slumber no more…

Wide Asleep Slumber no more…
Excerpt from forthcoming book "Wide Asleep" copyright 2008 all rights reserved Timothy Kendrick

Why as human beings with so much untapped potential do we go through our everyday lives without even noticing a smile from a stranger?
How is it that we accept whatever happens as the norm and how is that we are so busy making a living instead of designing a life.
I hope to assist you in answering these questions and others throughout this book.
Let’s start with the obvious question? What makes me an “expert” or “specialist” on these subjects? Well, for more than 10 years I have studied my behavior along with countless others who have stumbled along the road most often traveled going where the masses go and doing what the masses do and the result was more often than not ending up in the same rut as the masses.
I found out that whether we like it or not we become the environment that we choose to be in. We accepted other B.S. (belief systems, thanks Tony). We followed the herd for fear of rejection. We are bombarded daily with mindless dribble from radio, TV and print advertising. The “weeds” in our subconscious feed off of the drama set forth from the previous examples. The weeds will grow regardless. We must learn to pull them.
We have a “gatekeeper”. It is our conscious minds ability to choose what we want to focus on. Believe me if you focus on anything with laser like precision you will bring it to you. This means success or failure.

When you Visualize, Crystallize
and when you Crystallize
you will Materialize.

What do you really want? Ask 100 people this question and 98 will not be able to give you an answer. I mean a deep down gut check, this is what I want, and this is how I’m going to get it and this is who I’m going to help so I can make it happen. The clearer the picture becomes in your mind the closer you are to achieving your goals. Write it down, cut pictures out of magazines, draw pictures, see yourself already achieving what you want. First you must know what it is.
It’s not what we want it is the feeling we get from it. I am here to tell you now that you can have that feeling anytime you want it.
Someday will never come, trust me. The average life expectancy on this earth is 25,500 days, that’s it 25,500 days. What gets you fired up and juiced with a burning passion that nothing can stop you.
If there is no passion in your life, simply put, you are not following your bliss and not doing what you are supposed to be doing. Ouch, hurts don’t it. This will help you move from pain to pleasure. This is what we do whether we wish to recognize it or not. Every action we take is an attempt for us to move from pain to pleasure from discomfort to comfort.

Data sought on veterans' suicide

By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press Writer


The parents of an Iraq war veteran who committed suicide and members of Congress on Wednesday questioned why there's not a comprehensive tracking system of suicide among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Mike Bowman, of Forreston, Ill., said his son, Spc. Timothy Bowman, 23, is a member of the "unknown fallen" not counted in statistics. His son, a member of the Illinois National Guard, took his own life in 2005 eight months after returning from war. Bowman said he considers his son a "KBA" — killed because of action.

"If the veteran suicide rate is not classified as an epidemic that needs immediate and drastic attention, then the American fighting soldier needs someone in Washington who thinks it is," Bowman said.

Bowman was one of several witnesses who testified before the House Veterans' Affairs Committee on the issue.

Rep. Bob Filner, the committee chairman, questioned why the comprehensive tracking wasn't already being done.

"They don't want to know this, it looks to me," said Filner, D-Calif. "This could be tracked."

Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's deputy chief patient care service officer for mental health at the Department of Veterans Affairs, defended the work being done by his agency to tackle the issue, including implementing a suicide prevention hotline.

"We have a major suicide prevention program, the most comprehensive in the nation," Katz said. Katz questioned why Filner was focusing on the number of suicides instead of looking at treatment programs implemented to help prevent suicide.

Awareness of suicide among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans was heightened earlier this year when the Army said its suicide rate in 2006 rose to 17.3 per 100,000 troops — the highest level in 26 years of record-keeping.

The Department of Veterans Affairs tracks the number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who commit suicide, but only if they have been discharged from the military.

The Pentagon tracks the number of suicides in Iraq and Afghanistan. For an earlier story, a Pentagon spokeswoman told The Associated Press the military does not keep track of whether active duty troops who took who took their own lives served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

In an e-mail on Wednesday, the same spokeswoman, Cynthia Smith, said, "We track all suicides, I just don't have combat service information readily available."

At least 152 troops have committed suicide in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center, which tracks casualties for the Pentagon.

On Oct. 31, the AP reported that preliminary research from the Department of Veterans Affairs had found that from the start of the war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, and the end of 2005, 283 troops who served in the wars who had been discharged from the military had committed suicide. On Wednesday, Katz said the VA's number had been changed to 144 because some of the veterans counted were actually in the active military and not discharged on the day they committed suicide.

Smith said that the military's suicide rate is still lower than that of the general population.

After leaving the military, however, veterans appear to be at greater risk for suicide than those who didn't serve. Earlier this year, researchers at Portland State University in Oregon found male veterans were twice as likely to commit suicide as their civilian counterparts.

In a report last May, the VA Inspector General said VA officials estimate 1,000 suicides per year among veterans receiving care within the agency and as many as 5,000 per year among all veterans.

"When decision makers do no have reliable data, we must rely on anecdotal evidence," said Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind. "While these may help inform us, it does not help us to develop strategies to diminish the risk and prevent incidents of suicide."

It doesn’t take a lot of light to wipe out darkness

by Timothy Kendrick



I read this in a book and I believe it is powerful. Most ideas I have are from books or talking to (successful) people.

Creating our own opinions and deciding for ourselves what works in our lives and what does not. Our conscious minds, if we allow can be bombarded with a ton of worthless garbage that does not enhance our personal, spiritual or professional states.
Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do”. So if we continually watch, listen to, or participate in the daily dose of “BREAKING NEWS” that “sells” this contaminates our minds. There is nothing wrong about staying informed on what is going on in the world. Keep in mind that News is a business and it must sell. What sells? Tragedy baby!!! Having breaking news about the miracle of the sun rising again today doesn’t cut it. It is taken for granted. Or a new baby being born today meaning to me that this is God’s way of saying he hasn’t given up on the human race just yet. “Human Race”, where are we all racing too? THE GRAVE. When you find happiness in a smile that is success. You will average 25,500 days in your life. Enjoy the day no matter what happens.
When I was in Africa with the government there was a “dog and pony show” where we went to an orphanage and we were going to show all the great work “we” were doing. I had been on enough of these that I was not thrilled at escorting some diplomats through more lies.
Before the “dignitaries” arrived we got the quick tour and were told not to go in this one room because the children there were terminally ill. You guessed it, I went in the room and there were all these little kids lying down on the floor on these crappy little mats. Everyone else went on to “smooze” and I just lay down in the middle of the floor with all of these sick kids, none of them older than 6 or 7 and there must have been about 30 or so of them. They smiled at me and I smiled back. They were perplexed because this was “a forbidden room” for anyone. More than a couple of them crawled up to me and put their little heads on me, Hell I don’t think they ever saw a Caucasian before. So as everyone was at another building with the “dog and pony” show I had more than a moment of bliss with these sick kids (actually I fell asleep with them). There lives were almost over but their memory would touch me forever.


It doesn’t take a lot of light to wipe out darkness now does it?