Life Principles

If It Don’t Come Easy, You Better Let it Go

Today’s kids don’t get dating.  And the misunderstanding has been long in coming.  Frankly, I didn’t understand dating when I was young.  Dating is like shopping.  When you’re going down the aisle at the grocery store, you’re not falling in love with every cereal, every mayonnaise, every apple, every pork roast in the store.  You’re looking them over to see which one deserves to go home with you.  After all, you’re the one that is going to have to eat it.  Dating should be more like judging and rating, rather than seeing what base you can get to.  It should be more about planning for the future than about even falling in love.  Because once you have fallen in love, there is no return receipt.  At that point, you better hope you fell for the right one.  If not, there is only trouble up ahead.

Hopefully, the trouble can be limited to an uncomfortable breakup so you can both get along the way of your lives.  But nowadays, too many kids not only allow themselves to fall in love before they have a clue who this person is they are with, they often end up with kids on the way before they know this person they are with.  Now you REALLY have a serious problem.

When I was young, I had good motives in dating.  But I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.  I fell in love at age 20 with a woman 3 years my junior.  I fell all the way.  Way too serious, way too soon, not a clue where I was headed.  Two years later, my heart was crushed as this young woman realized she wanted to go in a different direction.  She had become seriously ill and almost died.  She matured quickly in a short amount of time.  The bottom line; I was devastated and crushed.

At age 22, I had reaped what I had sowed.  And I was bitterly lonely, sad and desperate for love again. Now at age 60, a word to the young.  Bitterly lonely, sad and desperate is the WORST place for your head and heart to be while dating.  Everything inside you is pushing you with tremendous pressure to find that love again.  What should you do? Moving to a deserted island with a same-sex friend would be a good idea; a deserted island so there are NO opposite sex people around — you need to get your head together.  And the same-sex friend for support in the hard times.  You MUST heal before you will ever have a clear enough head to start dating again.  Lest you grasp at the first glimpse of love and end up in a bad relationship.

People who are desperate overlook incompatibilities and problems with the people they are grasping for.  But that is what dating is for — finding the RIGHT person, not just the NEXT person.

I did this when I was desperate.  And ended up not only hurting me, but the person I married the first time around and our kids.

I am a strong believing Christian and generally like biblical answers to these kinds of issues.  But in those young days, I got some really bad and stupid advice from my spiritual leaders.  It went something like this:

“Should we get married?”

“Do you love eachother?”

“Yes.”

“Then get married.”

That’s about as deep as it got.  It was the worst advice I have ever been given.  With the smallest bit of probing, our pastors giving this advice would have discovered that we both found each other on the rebound from other broken relationships.  That should have been the first of many BIG red lights.

As much as I appreciate pastors and spiritual leaders these days, my advice would be simple, short and to the point.  And I wouldn’t even have to open the Bible.  I would just give the couple a CD of an old Tanya Tucker song with the lyrics and tell them to listen to it over and over. And consider it very seriously because the person they are with is a potential life partner.  And it’s best to find out NOW if its really going to work instead of years and kids later.

Lyrics

I know a man, a good friend of mine;
He spends all his time tryin’ to make love work out right.
But the woman he loves, she don’t feel the same, no;
I don’t know much about love but at least I learned one thing:

If it don’t come easy, you better let it go.
‘Cos when it don’t come easy, there’s no natural flow.
Don’t make it hard on your heart, you might be better off alone,
If it don’t come easy, you better let it go, yeah.

I know a woman, she’s got a heart of gold.
You know she’d do anything to make her man feel right at home.
But the man she loves, now, he’s a restless kind of guy,
I wish there was a way I could make her realise.

That if it don’t come easy, you better let it go.
‘Cos when it don’t come easy, there’s no natural flow.
Don’t make it hard on your heart, when you might be better off alone,
If it don’t come easy, you better let it go, yeah.

Let it go, though it’s hard I know;
Let it loose, I tell you, it’s no use.

If it don’t come easy, you better let it go.
‘Cos when it don’t come easy, there’s no natural flow.
Don’t make it hard on your heart, when you might be better off alone,
If it don’t come easy, you better let it,
You better let it,
You better let it go.

If it don’t come easy, you better let it go.
‘Cos when it don’t come easy, there’s no natural flow.

—————————————–

Presently: I am happily married these days to a woman I met in 1994.  We’ve been together most of that time and married since 1998.  We are compatible and happy because it HAS come easy.  I’m a slow learner, but at least I got the lesson!  The worst mistake I have made in my life was hurting my kids when their mom and dad split.  God bless them both.  They deserved better.

Personal

I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area during my high school and college years

Mt Diablo with Walnut Creek in the foreground

People have visited San Francisco but may have never noticed a very picturesque area about 30 miles east of the city.  In 1967, my family moved to the San Francisco area from the east coast.  We moved to the town of Walnut Creek.  Our neighborhood was at the base of Mt Diablo and was a very pretty area.  It was quite different from the east coast.  The grassy hills and oak trees were very different from what I had ever seen back east.  But it was Mt Diablo that made the place so nice.

I used to hike through the hills and make trips up Mt Diablo just to take pictures.  I have pages of negatives of photographs taken in the area back then.

30 miles east of San Francisco is a valley overshadowed by Mt Diablo. This is where I lived between 1967 and 1972.

I found some photos online that show Mt Diablo’s location from San Francisco.  This is what visitors may never have noticed.  I think San Francisco is a very  beautiful city, but our area was just as nice.  I have very fond memories of Walnut Creek.

 

Life Principles, Politics, Spiritual

I Thought Separation of Church and State Was a Two-Way Street

“Ladies and gentlemen, under the guise of separation of church and state, under the confusion that the Constitution dictates freedom from religion rather than freedom of religion, modern America has thrown prayer out of schools, wants to erase “in god we trust” from currency, removed the ten commandments from government buildings, and sanitized school history books to measure recorded history as BCE (before the common era) rather than BC (before Christ). But now the godless are thrusting their agenda inside the doors of the church. That is certainly over the line that was drawn in the sand by the signers of the Constitution.”

I Thought Separation of Church and State Was a Two-Way Street

by Bill Sardi

Politics

Let’s Vet Barack Obama This Time

Since the mainstream media has no interest in vetting Pres Obama, I suppose the genetral public needs to.  Here is a 3 part video on Obama.

http://youtu.be/6Og0Mq9Y1PM

(Part 2 and 3 will be available at the end.  Just click upper left selection on the video screen — will be the next part)

Life Principles, Politics

Marriage Defined by the Supreme Court

United States Supreme Court, 1885, Murphy v Ramsey, 144 US 15, 45

“”Certainly no legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self-governing commonwealth..than that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from THE UNION FOR LIFE OF ONE MAN AND ONE WOMAN IN THE HOLY STATE OF MATRIMONY; [the family] is the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization; the best guarantee of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficient progress in social and political improvement.”

Politics

Gingrich, the NAACP, Paychecks, Food Stamps, Hitler, Jews and Punching Bags

Subtitle: Typical Political Intercourse in America at Any Place and Any Time

From the actual speech video

Newt Gingrich, “Now there’s no neighborhood I know of in America, where if you went around and asked people, “Would you rather your children had food stamps or paychecks, you wouldn’t end up with a majority saying they’d rather have a paycheck. And so I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African American community should demand paychecks.”

Newt quoted by HuffPo

“about why the African-American community should demand pay checks and not be satisfied with food stamps.”

“He has also frequently called President Obama a “food stamp president.””

Newt questioned a week later by reporter shortly after

Gingrich was pressed on the topic by Yvan Lamothe, an African-American New Hampshire resident.

“My point is, about a week ago — some time ago — you mentioned that black people should be able to earn a paycheck, not be on welfare, implying that black people in general are on welfare,” said Lamothe. “And I really took exception to that because it demeans my accomplishments, my hard work, because I have worked all my life. I have never been on welfare. You know about history. You know that back in the 1930s, Hitler started talking in Germany about a Jewish problem. My question to you is, do you think that blacks represent an American problem, and if you don’t think that, will you stop using blacks in general as a stepping stone or a punching bag?”

Newt clarifies what he said (Huffington Post)

“I didn’t say what you just said,” he said. “Let me be very clear, because this is something that makes me, quite frankly, very irritated. … What I said was, there’s a real problem in America because you have a president who’s put more people on food stamps — people, I didn’t say any ethnic group, people — than any other president in history. … And I said I would be willing to go to the NAACP annual convention — which most Republicans are not willing to do — and I’d be willing to talk about the importance of food stamps versus paychecks.”

“Now I would have thought there would have been a positive response, saying, ‘Gosh, here’s a Republican who cares enough that he’s willing to go and talk to one of the most left-wing organizations in America about how to help the people they represent,'”

Newt clarifies what he said (from Daily Caller)

“What I said was, there is a real problem with America when you have a president who has put more people on food stamps. People — I didn’t say any ethnic group, people — than any other president in history,” Gingrich explained. “I would like to get more people on paychecks.”

“There is currently 43 percent African-American teenage unemployment in the United States,” Gingrich stormed on. “That number should be unacceptable to any American, and we should have a commitment to enable every young American of every ethnic background to pursue happiness.

“And I said I was willing to go to the NAACP, which most Republicans are not willing to do. And I’d go in to talk about the importance of food stamps versus paychecks.”

Gingrich said he was surprised at the backlash from his comment.

“I would have thought there would have been a positive response to, ‘gosh, here’s a Republican who cares enough that he’s wiling to go and talk to one of the most left-wing organizations in America about how to help the people they represent.’”

Gingrich standard stump speech inclusions:

A portion of Gingrich’s usual speech given to crowds includes a line in which Gingrich says more people are on food stamps under President Obama than with any other president. ABC News fact checked Gingrich’s food stamp claims earlier this month, confirming that Americans on food stamps is at a record high, but mostly attributed to a weak economy.

“The fact is if I become your nominee we will make the key test very simple – food stamps versus paychecks. Obama is the best food stamp president in American history. More people are on food stamps today because of Obama’s policies than ever in history,” Gingrich said. “I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history.”

Comment to Daily Caller Article:

BOO WHO NEWT can’t cry his way out of this one…..Unless food stamp recipients are an “Invented People”

Conclusion:

It is not possible to make points and gain ground on any issue currently mired in political correctness and racial oversensitivity if you are a Republican and/or a conservative in this country. You might as well just give it a rest.

Dave's Conservative Blog