Take a Stand
Your Life Depends on It

The moments where you take a stand will define your life. It is almost as if all your life is a series of inconsequential times punctuated by a few brief, moments where you either rise to the occasion, make something of your life, or step back, avoid doing what you need to do and fade back into nothingness.

I know this seems harsh. I know it is cruel to define someones life,but that is how I see it.

My life has been mostly this down cycle of not doing much with occasional bursts of something real, something great, something fun and even something monumental.

How can a great life be anything other than you taking a stand? The better you want your individual life, the more you will take a stand.

You will not have any kind of life at all without doing this. You know I am right. You know this is said over and over again and yet you still ignore it.

I do too. It is only by this continual study and self anaylsis and looking for ways to take a stand will you grow.

I often think back to my youth and the list of what I consider my 5 greatest decisions and how they have shaped my life.

I think back to the enormous fun I have had with friends, the wild times I spent with wonderful girls, the fantastic trips I enjoyed with family and friends.

I think of my wedding day, the birth of my children, my gradutions, my job interviews and the pride I felt when finishing projects.

And I mostly think of the courage I exhibited when I turned my life around and left my wife.

If you honestly examine your life you will see that when you were the most bold, the most determined, the most in charge of your life, you had great moments that propelled you into the future and are what you think about the most.

If you want to think better of yourself, do just that. Forget what other people are doing. Forget what other people are saying. Forget what other people might be thinking.

Think about you. Think about your life, your dreams, your experiences and what you have done and what you are going to do.

I am not talking about taking a stand like in the history books. There is no need to risk your life, or prison.

What I mean is that in all aspects of your life, you take a stand on what matters to you. If it matters to you, it is worth it.

I keep talking about leaving my wife because this was the defining episode of my life. I had what I thought was a good relationship in the early years of my marriage turn into a nightmare relationship where each moment was either a timid waiting for her to blow up, brief moments of happiness when she was in a good mood, or a deep depression and despondency after she lectured me or gave me a tongue lashing.

I was just waiting to die. I was hoping that she would die. My life was a total mess and I saw no escape.

But there was an escape. There was a way out. There was life. And there was hope.

I took a stand.

I was not going to tolerate one more second of her abuse.

I left her.

This was not a nice, mutually agreeable leaving either. I fled. I ran. At that point in my life the best I could do was run. I could not stand up to her and demand that she treat me in a way I could tolerate. I was too far gone.

Taking a stand means you doing whatever you need to do to make your life better. If you have to shout someone down, do that. If you have to quit your job, do that. If you have to go bankrupt, do that. If you have to let the bank take your house, do that. If your wife is not good for you, leave her in whatever way you can.

It is always better to run, to leave, to flee than it is to die without trying.

You taking a stand is however you define it. You do not have to literally take a stand and take a beating.

This is a mindset. This is a way of thinking. If you get this, it will mean you do not tolerate things in your life that are not good for you.

If your wife is not good for you, you leave her. You don't negotiate with your wife to treat you better. Either she treats you right or you are gone. This is different than the bogus ideas you see about marriage. In the best marriages, there is no bargaining, there is no negotiating. There is mutual love and mutual respect and mutual kindness.

If your job is not good for you, you quit and get a different job. You don't negotiate with your boss to treat you right, give you more money or better benefits. If he doesn't just do that, he doesn't value you, or he has no means to value you. In either case, you lose. The only solution is to move on.

People normally think of taking a stand in the stand up to a bully or force your wife to be nice to you or pound on your boss's desk until he gives you a raise.

But that is not what I mean at all. I mean to walk away from the people who are not good to you or good for you.

You can take a stand by leaving, by walking away, by moving toward something better.

You do not have to take a stand and be slaughtered, like the fools in a war zone, or like the timid men, who continue to live under the unrelenting verbal abuse from their wives or their bosses.

You take a stand by standing up from the self imposed shackles you have willingly accepted and moving toward whatever it is that you want.