Lately I have had many challenges in life. Even the last 30 years has been challenging… I guess if I could speak of recent, My biggest challenges of this year is dealing personally with a wife going through cancer that was never a part of her family history. Its something that one would have never expected, especially at 46 years of age. She has a good head on her shoulders to be honest. She has a drive for survival, and to enjoy life to grow old with the man she loves (me). Its a lot to take on even though I am the biggest support structure of the house, or at least that is what I am told from many others. This is all really new to me.
My 2nd biggest challenge is what you are reading right now. I have always done video editing, and production but, never to the degree of what I am doing now. All those years I was on YouTube making videos but, never really got the subscribers or the viewers. The site changes the way people are seen or get noticed. Its not fair really if you think about it. After talking to my older sister, she more or less said that I tried my way so, now I should try hers because just expecting YouTube to get viewers is a waste of time. So here I am doing my thing someone else’s way for a change. I think it was the best idea I have ever heard from my own family member. I have been stopping at nothing to write whatever comes to mind, or what Daily Writing Prompts I see! I was always told in high school that I should be a writer on a computer. I never listened to the advice. Back then if you put a keyboard in front of me, I would right paragraphs of anything that would come to mind without being tired. To me its like a mind dump. This brain I have has SO MUCH information that I am surprised my brain isn’t the football shape of Stewie Griffin at this point!
My 3rd biggest challenge has been all year but, still no definitive answer on it. This one is gonna be a little long so, bear with me. Years ago when I was in my teens, I used to stay at my sister’s house every other weekend in Clifton. When she was at work, and my dad was around, sometimes I was just plain old bored. I always had a love for music, and my sister had one of those huge stereo systems with the tall wood speaker cabinets. The bass on these things would aggravate anyone on the complex she lived on if I cranked it up high enough! I was looking for tapes to listen to at the time, and came across a weird one. It was something along the lines of subliminal hypnosis on how to program the mind to speed read on 1 side, and the other was for accelerated learning. I put her huge headphones on while listening to both sides of this tape and fell asleep. I used to listen to this each time I went down there. Eventually I was able to speed read. Problem is that I could only do it with learning books, and not made up stories. Oh and the accelerated learning? It must be a part of my subconcious mind because this is how I got as smart as I have gotten! Well it was that fateful day I found those tapes was when I wanted MORE! I eventually got my own tapes, then CDs, then eventually when I was in the mall around here, I picked up a set of light and sound glasses with binural beats to help with my anxiety attacks I have had since I was 12. I also ended up buying a huge VR set to somehow visualize stuff while I was listening to all these crazy audios I have amassed over the years. It was to my knowledge that if I had all of these items, I would be able to learn faster, or be able to program myself to be better than I was at the time. Eventually I got to 20s & 30s, I got into audiobooks for learning, and accelerated my learning with not only what I have read on the internet about the things I wanted to know but, now real people. The unanswered questions are not starting to get answers. I ended up getting rid of the anxiety & panic attacks altogether with all of these items, and have heard of others whereas I tried to help them along the way to some sort of success. It doesn’t stop there. I actually bought a Meta Quest 2. NOT FOR THE GAMING… For brain entrainment where I can learn from my eyes to screen in one device, and no distractions!
Eventually I got to the point where I was 8 years ago till now. I was reading at least 3 audiobooks a week. I came across this one audiobook called Think & Grow Rich. It was said there was a secret message in it that only the reader would know, and realize to change their own life. Guess what? I never found it. I listened to it 6 times, I even found the original video from way back then and saw his face. STILL didn’t get it. With loads of determination Iistened to As A Man Thinketh, anything by Earl Nightingale, Anything by Robert Proctor, Tony Robbins, etc. all of a sudden in time, things started to happen without my control.
My wife and I were at Cracker Barrel. Worst experience for a first time ever with instant sickness after eating their food. We walked around outside, both queasy. Next door was a realtor, and we were looking at the tablet signs in the glass at all the houses in the area mind you we lived 44 miles away, and in another county. We saw a few houses, and I told her “maybe we will live here one day”. 4 years later, Guess where we live? We didn’t plan it either. It just happened. I didn’t realize it till later in the years about that day. Another time I was at work, bored in the truck waiting for calls. I decided to throw $50 into an online casino called Golden Nugget. I had said in the past that I had wished I had like $25,000 just to pay down bills, get rid of credit cards, and other things for the new house that we had so I could work on the yard, the basement, etc. I was sitting in the tow truck, playing the games off of my cell phone. Out of nowhere I went from $50 to $370 within the first 30 minutes. I got bored of the game, and jumped to another game where that $370 turn into $841. By this time, for the first time, I thought I was dreaming! I jumped to the next game, and it was called Golden Money Frog. The top jackpot was like $10,139 or something like that. I said it to myself, out in the truck, out loud “I wonder what it would be like to win $10,000 Bucks…” Mind you I have only been playing about an hour. I got a bonus, I hit for $40. I played some more, hit a bonus for $88. I played some more, hit a bonus for a minor jackpot. I played some more, hit a bonus, and guess what?! I won the $10,139!
I freaked out! I was scared at the same time because all I said was that line! The pieces didn’t all fit to what I was looking for, nor would I have noticed it yet anyway. Fast forward to 2 DAYS LATER! It was my day off, I had the computer in the bedroom, my wife was sleeping. I got my money on a special Golden Nugget cash card. I decided to go for it again. $50 in again. Long story short… I went from $50 to about $2600 in 2 hours. I jumped to this game called Dragon Power. I was at the level that at a certain amount of money, I was going to up my ante or bet for the time being until I reached a certain threshold then bet down a level. A bonus hit and the matches for a line on a game had something come up across the top being 1X the win up to 20X the win. The first few rounds went off for a few hundred here or there, I only had 8 bonus spins. Then… It happened AGAIN! I screamed so loud at 4:10am that I almost gave my wife a heart attack! 2 hours and 20 minutes in, THIS HAPPENED!
in the end, I almost got the $25,000 I asked for! Close enough. This has been happening for 8 years in its own little way. I wanted a motorcycle, I bought one. Covid happened, I got rid of it to pay bills until money came in to survive not working. My wife couldn’t believe I sold the bike for the family. I told her not to worry, i’ll get another one if the universe sees fit that I could have one. 1 year later I found myself playing at good old chumba casino which really isn’t one but, you play to win the jackpots. That’s all its really meant for, and its not really easy either. Its a pain in the ass to be exact. Started at 11pm. I ended at almost having to be at work on no sleep. My account wasn’t verified yet so I was unable to cash out for a few days. My account went from $20 to $2249.00. Jackass me when to try for more when I got home on an unverified account, and I lost it all. I was mad at first but, then said it was only a $20 loss really. The next day off I had, I went back in with another $20. 7 Hours later the cashout was verified at $5211.00, I re bought the bike for $1800 from a private seller.
So before I bore you into all the things that 8 years have gotten me, I need to answer the biggest challenge! How do you harness the power to do this all the time, and not on a whim of asking, thinking about it, and it coming whenever it feels like. Also when you are down, depressed, stressed, and more. How can I make it happen again!? Lastly… If it could be harnessed to make your own dreams become a reality, can i teach it to others that could definitely use the idea so I could change the lives of others? THIS IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE YET!
Wow. You have a LOT here. I don’t watch Youtube nor do I have time for podcasts (would rather listen to an Audible book) so I’d say I agree with your sister. WRITE. Blog posts are a fabulous way to write creatively with fiction or non-fiction. Blogging is a community of generally like-minded people (who are very different but kind and supportive to/of each other – that’s the operative words. Generally, blog posts are about 500 words plus or minus, because most people don’t have time to read long long stories.
So, I’ll respond to two of your points here. You are up to the challenge of your wife’s cancer and helping her through it. She’s lucky to have you and your love. Secondly, I’m not a gambler. So for me, finding answers to my “wants” is through meditation. But this is not for material wants, but more energy/love/health wants.
I appreciate your comment RW. This is all really new to me. I’m so used to doing the harder things in life when its the podcasts, videos, etc. I feel as technology was placed here for a reason to make life easier hence, why I have so many outlets. I would just rather write them all but, as you can see, it ends up being pages of writing. I’m hoping in time that I can sum up what I have to write in smaller posts but, I am finding that almost impossible.
The whole “Gambling” thing was not a well thought out plan, nor did I expect that actual response that I had received from doing so multiple times. Since then I have not really used that resource as much because these things that happen in my life are pretty much random on how they occur. All of what happened was based on my research, and everyday usage in my own life.