Teach Me Intention

There was a time in my life when alcohol was something I used to escape a life I didn’t really want to think about. It was well needed distraction at a period where not very much could keep me distracted. And my intention in all of it was something less then wholesome.

Because of that, I became very unhealthy and the people around me saw it. They knew the place I was in and that I was going downhill. They tried to help me, but in the end all they could do was wait until I was ready to come out of it.

Later on when I was back on track and in a healthy place, I had a drink. It had been a while since I had touched one and in the beginning I felt bad for dropping back into a routine that used to be horrible for me. But overtime, I noticed that things had changed. Now, when I drank, it was just to have a drink. Just to enjoy time with friends. Just to lay back. The unhealthiness of it all had vanished. I wasn’t trying to escape anymore.

I was thinking about this last week and It came to me. The big difference between the two different periods of my life was one thing: Intention.

I noticed it applied to everything in my life. Everything comes down intention. You can do one thing with bad intentions and ruin your life. You can also do the same thing with good intentions, and forever change your life for better. But either way, it came down to the intention you had going into it.

It has me examining my life and the things I do everyday. But more importantly, it has me examining my intention in all my actions. In doing so, I have noticed certain things where my intentions are downright bad. And in those instances, I see that I need to drop it. But I have also noticed that there are certain things that I might not be doing because I thought it wasn’t good for me, but I see now that at that time my intentions were bad. Now however, with better intentions, these things can be apart of my life and actually be positive.

Intention is everything. It makes or brakes something. What are your intentions?

Teach Me To Change My Stripes

Years ago, I was a lost boy traveling an endless dirt road that had no foreseeable ending. And because it had gone on so long, everyone around me had began to think it was a permanent change. In doing so, I began to believe it as well. Even more, the thought of going through all the work in order to change myself seems to be an insurmountable challenge. After all I’ve been told you can’t change your stripes.

But there was a little sliver of hope inside of me that wanted to prove that that idea was wrong. I was a depressed, 265lb, lost cause. But something inside of me pushed me one step ahead and only worried about that one step. But that wouldn’t be enough to change my stripes. I needed a bigger motivation.

It finally came to me when I realized how selfish it was to remain the same. I wasn’t giving my friends my best, my family my all, or my work the time it deserved. And the thing was, there were some people in my life giving me their all in spite of what I wasn’t doing.

I knew from there on, that I might not be able to change my stripes solely for me, but maybe, if I kept all those people in my life in mind, that I could do it successfully. And you know what, it was the golden ticket to a new and satisfying life.

Over time, I got healthy. I went down to 190lbs, and I allowed the depression to take it’s course and found that at the end of that tunnel was the warmth of the sun and loving people under it. My passions came back, and slowly but surely, I pursued them and found more hope in them. And lastly, I finally opened up the dudgeons of my mind and let others in.

All this to say, you CAN change your stripes. It may take two years of hard work that might even seem useless at certain points, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Believe you can make a change. Believe you can be better. Believe there is a reason to change. And if you can’t even do that, then look around at the way others around you are being short changed because of the way your life is, and do it for them.

If you can’t motivate yourself, let others do it for you. Push hard and allow yourself to finally let go of all of that selfishness. When you do, you would be surprised how quickly those stripes of yours do change.

New Post Later Today!

I’m back with my first new post in a month. It will be up later today when the california sun is high in the air.

Thanks again for sticking with this blog and me.

Zack Kendall

Teach Me Comebacks!

Whenever I feel like I have said too much, I feel the need to stop. So I do. But over this period of silence I have had a lot of visits on the site and am so thankful for that.

Lot of lessons have been placed upon me over the last month and I will be coming back to here to share them with you next week!!!

Thanks for sticking around.

Zack

Taking A Little Breather

When it comes to blogs, you write about what you know. About the things around you and what they mean to you and the life you are living. In the beginning when it is not something usual, you feel the need to get everything out that is on your mind. The things that have been teaching you to be different then you were yesterday.

But as time goes on and it becomes normal to record what is going on around you, you find yourself wanting to be quiet for a second. To listen to the new things that are coming in on the wind and the new people that have drifted into your life.

You find yourself tired of talking and only wanting to listen. It is then that you just have to take a step back and breathe a second.

Anyways. I’ll probably start back up next week. But for right now: I’m just gonna listen. Just gonna read what you are saying.

Send me a link to your blog if you want.

Thanks.

Teach Me Sports

For the majority of my childhood, my parents made me play soccer. This meant two practices throughout the week and a game on the weekend. There were many times that I hated having to go to practice  because I wold rather being hangout out at home watching something or playing with a friend. But when game time came, it always seemed worth it.

That only became more true in high school when I played football. Except this time it was practice everyday after school and game on fridays or saturdays. The practice always killed me. Every day I wanted to create some kind of excuse for why I couldn’t practice that day. But again, when game day came, the rush of it all seemed to make it all worth it. That is, till monday came again and you were back at practice.

But as I look back on it, I realize how much more playing sports offered me on top of exercise and a chance to shine on game day. First it offered me community and a sense of loyalty. I remember how close I was with everybody on the team. This was especially great my freshman year. At that time, I only knew the dudes in my own class, but with the help of football, I was able to become good friends with seniors and they helped to make my time in school so much better.

On top of that, sports taught me to always push harder and be better. To know that the mind gives up before the body does. That body can’t last much longer then you think. It taught me perseverance, courage, confidence and so much more. It taught me to never give up even when everything inside of me is telling me too.

And because of that, even though I’m not that big into sports, I will always cherish what they did for me growing up and how they have helped to mold me into a half way decent human today.

Even better I am now able to get a lot of that in the band I play. But it shows just how important community is to our survival and how having other people around you can push you to all new heights and achieving things you would of never thought possible on  your own.

Teach Me Shameless Plugs

So I talked about the beauty of music earlier and it is a fitting day because my band that I play with had released a new single today and yes I am gonna share with you.

I know its a shameless a plug and I’m sure this type of music won’t be for everybody, but I’m hoping you still listen. We have a female vocalist and she has one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard.

So give it a listen and please share it with as many people as you can. Come like our Facebook page and follow us and we go on a journey that most people never get the chance to do.

Thanks for reading friends.

Blonde Bazaar Band Facebook Page

Teach Me That My Music Does Matter

I was in Jr. High when music was transformed from some sound into something amazing for me. Up until then, It was just the music my parents put on in the car when we went on trips. Luckily my parents had decent taste in music. So I got to hear a lot of the great classics. And for that I am thankful as well.

But in Jr. High music became something personal to me. Probably in big part to the fact that I started playing it. But it just kept growing in me. By ninth grade it was a sanctuary I could go to when I was dealing with crap around me. And then music started being attached to memories. To this day I can turn on an album and be transported to my time in Russia or the hot days in south africa. I love that.

But the reason I think it matters so much is that transports me to a place out of this world. When I’m listening to music or even better playing it, I find myself completely gone. I feel like I get to experience a type of euphoria that is specific to the fact that music is so important and special in my life. And every time I reach that euphoria, I am so amazed at what I feel.

Now for me it is music. I’m sure each of you have that thing that takes you out of your own life and transports you to a place that is the most peaceful and beautiful of all. I wrote this today because I want you to know that that place matters. That thing that transports you there matters. Never take it for granted. And pursue it as much as you can.

Music takes me away from bad times. It pushes my happy times to an all time high, it forces me to be better when I am exercising, or working. It reminds me when I am not being very nice or when I have made a great change in my life.

Whatever it is for you, cherish it because it matters and it is what allows you to navigate through this life without being burnt out in the process.

Teach Me To Love What You Hate

They say a writer hates to write but loves to have written. And oh how true that is. I’ve struggled for years to balance between that love and hate in the hopes that I could find a place in the middle where the hate didn’t over take the love. As anyone knows, when your pursuing a dream, it often comes with a ton of difficulty.

Some of it comes from learning the craft. It takes years to find the right way to write, play music, start a successful business, dance, paint and many other things. But that isn’t the only difficulty that you have to deal with. The hardest part that I have seen in pursuing a dream is being consistent. It’s showing up every day and practicing in order to get perfect at it.

That seems like it wouldn’t be that hard. Especially when you know that the end result will be success in whatever craft you are going after. Problem is, it just doesn’t work that way. Instead you spend endless days procrastinating and do just about anything you can except the one thing you need to do.

Im pretty sure almost all of you know how this feels. But what if you could learn to love the part of the journey that most of us hate. What if you could see that that nasty part of the journey is the exact thing that prepares you for success. People always want to get past the part they hate. But if they had the chance to just skip that part and get to the end, they would realize that they would not be prepared for what would come.

Even more then that, by sitting my butt on the chair everyday and writing (whether its crap or not) I learn the flow of writing and inspiration comes to me. Because all the crap the you have to do now in order to be successful, is the same crap that will help to sustain yourself in a long and consistent career instead of a one hit wonder.

So while you might hate the ins and outs of the journey, you would do best to learn to love it because those ins and outs are the very stepping blocks to your success. Love what you hate. Whose knows, you may even come to love it.

Teach Me Improvement

After I graduated from high school, I went through an introspective period. That time where you evaluate whether you are the person you want to be or not. And in my case I found that there were a few big things about me that I wasn’t willing to keep. I needed to rid myself of them and improve myself in a way that would make me a better person.

The idea itself seems rather easy. Just change certain things about you. Remove them from your everyday life and you will be square. Problem is: Once you get down to it, it takes a lot more out of you then you once thought. It means constantly checking yourself throughout the day because like it or not, those nasty habits are gonna keep rearing their ugly heads every time you are not careful.

But over time, with enough perseverance, I was able to let go of a few parts of me that needed to be removed. However once this happens, you run into another problem. The problem where you start to believe that because you fixed a few little things about yourself, there is nothing else left to fix. You get into this mindset that you have improved all that you need to and let me tell you it can be a dangerous place to be.

The reason: you stop looking for ways to improve and therefore you miss the fact that you still need improvement. You blind yourself from new problems that come along and become ignorant of what is going on around you. And if your ever lucky enough to open yourself up to looking for new problems, you find out just how much harder it is now to change them.

I have had to do this recently and it has been no easy task. In fact I find myself failing at it everyday. But I know that If I don’t make the effort to improve, that I will never push past the things that hold me back.

I encourage everyone to constantly be on the lookout for ways in which you can improve. It is not always the easiest path to take. And like me, it can be easy to get lazy about it. But it doesn’t change the fact, that we need to continue to improve so we can be better to those around us, better to ourselves and better at what we do.

Always improve. No matter what.