Texas Photoshoot

T E X A S

P H O T O G E N - X   2 0 1 4

Thank you models:  Kassie, Sarah, Cass and Rachel.

Your Biggest Enemy.

We all have dreams.  But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determinaton, dedication, self-discipline and effort.

Heaving my body off the top bunk at the break of day (or when the alarm jams a tune into my ear canals) to go for a morning run is like trying to fly a kite with no wind.  

It simply won't work.  Should I have determination, I could try running to create the wind, but alas! determination and running are the two problems here.  

So the proverbial kite remains flightless and comfortably tucked away.

The enemy shouts: "You can't"

or whispers, "Take the easy way out."

Wind, with it's powerful current brings both destruction and cooling breezes.  It can uproot trees and it can produce elecricity.  It creates monster waves yet is gentle enough to guide a delicate kite through the air.  The wind shouts, "I'm too scary for you!" or calmly whispers "Feel fresh and renewed". . .

We all have dreams. 

What is telling you "no"?

It's yourself.  

YOUR BIGGEST ENEMY IS YOURSELF.

If there's no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm.  I am the one who says it's to early to get up.  I am the one who says my body is too sore to run.  I say junkfood tastes better.  I say my dream is too big.  My obstacles are too hard.

Surely as skipping out on workouts won't help you win a race and eating junkfood will make you fat, the kite who succumbs to the fear of the wind will never leave the ground.

Should you choose to be determined, dedicated and self-disciplined, anything is possible.  The force of the wind or the greatness of a dream cannot be stopped when you've made up your mind.  We can do far more than we're capable of if we just try.

If you don't silence the enemy within, you will never fly.

Photo courtesy of Google.ca

#selfdisciplineandselfcontrol

#halfmarathontraining

Being An Elf

There they were.
Hordes of children.
They excitedly bounced around in anticipation.

Santa Claus was coming to town.

I watched the bulging line up grow steadily longer, laden with snot-nosed children being held back by parents whose look said, "I've had enough of this shopping mall" and thought to myself 'how did this become what Christmas is all about?'

Coming from track and seeing extreme poverty where children are in need of basic essentials to watching children line up to show Santa their lists or torn out pieces from the Sears catelogue and telling him of their need to have an Ipad, a PSP or lego mania while complaining that their candy cane broke.
Parents spend a lot of money for one photo.  That money could feed a child in an orphange for a week had it been elsewhere.

It was a struggle for me to find the balance in all of this and to not become furious at the wealth of our nation.  How has the birth of Jesus morphed into this display of consumerism and selfishness centred around this fictional character?  Every comercial I heard on the radio was geared around buying this or that for someone at Christmas.  It made me sick to think about the people I met this past year who will get nothing for Christmas.  We contentedly stuff our faces with endless amounts of food and then join a gym to work it off, but there are people around the world who will be lucky to have a meal on Christmas day.

I don't mean to write this blog to critisize and condemn my fellow Canadians.  I am writing this because after having my eyes opened to different parts of the world, I had feelings arise within me that I had never experienced any other Christmas and I wonder if anybody has ever felt the same.  We take the best story in all of history and turn it into some cheap counterfeit in order to make money while other nations are starving to know the true story of Christmas that can literally change their world.

It made me sad.  Just thought I'd let you know that for me - being an elf wasn't all it was cracked out to be.