TRULY

TRULY

True leaders do not seek leadership; they are often discovered.
True leaders are not compliant; they are true to their ethics.
True leaders recognize, accept and seek to share Love.
True leaders do not seek to prove but to discover.
True leaders do not compete, they encourage.
True leaders allow others to be themselves.
True leaders don’t advise; they listen.
True leaders serve when needed.
True leaders are often scorned.
True leaders are curious.
True leaders are us.
True leaders are.
Truth leads.
Truly.

Lee Broom

BETTER IS.

 

To fight against anything keeps the focus on that which we seek to conquer.

Success comes not with overcoming but replacing with something better.

Progress is not possible.

Better is.

Be good, mind your manners, move forward, do the next thing.

It doesn’t have to be perfect.

Lee Broom

The Truth of Now

The Truth of Now

is that it never, ever leaves us.

The same is often said of God.

Lee Broom

AND THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
Leo Tolstoy

All of life’s problems are in the future.

The present is fearless and is populated with people taking inventory, solving problems and laughing at the past.

Resentments, judgments and the fear of vulnerability have no place in the real world.

The real World is NOW.

Lee Broom

SAFETY FIRST AS ALWAYS

From Lee Broom’s diary, 7/1/1981

SAFETY FIRST AS ALWAYS

Rarely do we allow ourselves the awareness that our every move is influenced by the subtle, undertow of danger or that every cell in our body is devoted to living our lives in safety. Safety  never quite describes the moments we spend together. And every day we are bombarded with reminders of the dangers of complacency.

From the television and the billboards and the infomercials we hear “You need our product to be healthy, to lose weight, to improve your sex life, to earn more income, to smell better, look better, be better.

Vote this way, demonstrate, fight back, demand this or that , its your right to be free, to be treated fairly. Our religions offer relief which we must wait and die for and in the meantime…

I tell myself I am not getting old, that I will live forever, I demand respect, and complain when I get it.

Today I fell and landed on my right hip which is held together with two pins and I remembered…I was at a roller skating rink one Sunday afternoon in the eighties.  I was one of a handful of adults in a rink full of pre-adolescent children. Suddenly I found myself distracted by a group of racing youngsters, mostly boys, competing for recognition as the eventual winner of something or other.

Suddenly I saw feet flying. They were attached to the legs of a seven year old boy whose flying form was obeying the phenomena known as inertia, the body of this kid following those feet. Without thinking, my arms reached out and encircled the child and we fell as a single unit; I was below and though I was turning to the right , a mistake which would land me a broken hip, my move kept the lad safe. I released him; he landed on his feet and he returned to join his racing companions as though nothing unusual had happened. And,  though in pain I would remember later that during that moment of risking my safety in aid of another, I had felt no fear. And, that it was the obvious absence of fear  that revealed the constant, well hidden anxiety that ruled my life.

On that day I accepted God’s Love and passed it on. I vowed to do it again.

Lee Broom

OKAY I GET IT

Bravery requires fear.

Without fear there is no pain.

Without pain there is no feedback.

Without feedback there is no way to make an intelligent choice.

Hopefully, if we lapse into denial we will soon realize what we have done to ourselves and turn it over, all over again.

This man forgot and gratefully remembered all over again.

Bravery requires fear.

Without fear there is no pain.

Without pain there is no feedback.

Without feedback there is no way to make choices.

Okay, I get it.

 

Lee Broom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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UNKNOWN QUANTITIES

Do I want to improve the future or would I rather make time stand still?

Do I want to be rich or famous?

Will I be a leader or a follower?

Will I be employed by others or answer to my own choices?

Will I seek safety in numbers or unknown quantities?

These are the questions I asked myself at age five, eleven and fourteen.

 

Here are my answers at age seventy-six.

 

I am helping to create a better future. Time has stood still for me several times in my life. These times were not chosen by me. These times were moments of extreme danger. In each event the expansion of time made it possible for me to reason, to seek solutions. These times were free of fear.

I’ve been rich. I have been famous. Neither of these distinctions lasted for very long. Neither quality was important to me.

I have always been a leader, even as a small child, choosing only myself as a follower of my discoveries.

I’ve chosen my own careers and created the businesses which made those careers possible. I can imagine no other way.

Seeking safety in numbers is a dangerous but important way to live. Those who make that choice rarely know freedom; they do make time stand still and they insure the safety not of themselves but of the community as a whole.

The leaders discover better ways; the group makes it happen.

The moon, the stars, the size of the universe; together we get ’er done

Lee Broom

FROM THE DIARY OF A PERSON IN RE-RECOVERY

“WE ADMITTED TO GOD, TO OURSELVES AND TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING THE EXACT NATURE OF OUR WRONGS:

I am pretty sure that only God knows the exact nature of my wrongs. Love is outbound; Love is Unconditional and therefore peremptorily Forgiving. This does not mean that I can avoid this step, only that I must Respect God as my Higher Power.

God as I know God is not here to do my bidding. My list of wrong doings does not reflect the exact nature of anything. This is simply a list of opinions. I choose to not lose sight of the fact that I will  never know the exact nature of anything, except perhaps when I say “Goodbye” to my comrades and “Hello” to “The Rest of Me”.

WE WERE ENTIRELY READY TO HAVE GOD REMOVE ALL THESE DEFECTS OF CHARACTER.

Point 1: God is not my slave. I may ask; I make no demands.

Point 2: The concept of “removal” or the “destruction” of anything is a human idea of perfection and explains nothing.

Even the smallest habit is difficult (if at all possible) to correct but relatively simple to replace with something better.

Since God Loves me and Forgives me does it not follow that God’s Love heals me? Cannot God make me kind, caring and helpful to others?

Point 3: So yes, I believe that God’s Love can heal me. My character defects are a natural part of my fear-based, human self. These characteristics will remain dormant to the extent that I continue to ACCEPT God’s Love and to pass it on.

Falling into despair may open the door once again to the long forgotten narcissistic drive which brought me to my knees some years ago.  I have experienced this spontaneous rediscovery of old ideas of greed and frivolity twice in my life. I recommend such an experience to no-one.

WE HUMBLY ASKED HIM TO REMOVE OUR SHORTCOMINGS.

God, as I understand God is not destructive; God is creative.

As I accept God’s Love I have only to pass it on to all with whom I come in contact. This is I believe, is the path to sane living, especially attractive to controlling people like myself.

WE MADE A LIST OF ALL PERSONS WE HAD HARMED AND BECAME WILLING TO MAKE AMENDS TO THEM ALL.

To believe that I can to any degree, judge whom I have harmed is to ignore the invitation of humility.

Though it is important to realize that everything I do affects others, I can never know more than that. Only a Loving, All Knowing God has possession of such information. If I am to trust God then I must remind myself daily that my best judgment will always be flawed and that my willingness defines the limits of my own power.

As I approach this stepping stone in my recovery from craziness  humility will envelop me as I  accept God’s guidance through this step; the quality of my amends will redirect and improve my attitude toward others as I discover  with God’s Love, how to treat those in my life as I myself, want to be treated. There seems to be a distinct advantage in having additional opportunities for redemption.

WE MADE DIRECT AMENDS TO SUCH PEOPLE WHEREVER POSSIBLE EXCEPT WHEN TO DO SO WOULD INJURE THEM OR OTHERS.

This may be the most important step I have ever taken, though I do not believe that I am responsible for another person’s pain; such an act would quickly reveal the size and volume of my ego.

I regard this step as an act of humility, though the words I choose to describe this event may actually be the same exact words chosen by one for whom selflessness has no attraction.

If I am right about this then it stands to reason that of utmost importance at this point is our attitude.  Though the act itself be an expression of God’s Love it can be tainted by my personal biases.

Such an act must be an act of kindness. I feel compelled to proceed not only with willingness but with caution and with God as my Guide rather than One obeys my bidding.”

From the pages of the diary of a person in recovery.
Submitted by that individual who asks to remain anonymous.

 

PATHWAYS TO TRUTH

PATHWAYS TO TRUTH

 

Knowledge

Objectivity

Discovery

Memory

Proof

Learning

Testing

Thought

Interpretation

Each of these words is a potential pathway to Truth except two.

These two are real mischief makers.  Seekers of Truth will recognize them immediately.

Seekers of Rules look for the uncapped tags.

Lee Broom

GROUP APPROVAL

GROUP APPROVAL is important to us all. It is the first and perhaps the only visible key to finding the safest way to live in a very dangerous world. There is a problem with this though. Groups do not rate the validity of a common held belief by its authenticity but by its popularity. That’s one problem; here’s another.

PROBLEM NUMBER TWO: Those of us who are aware that the group’s primary concern is group safety, may turn to thinking for ourselves. Perhaps we learn a truth that rates very high, authentically speaking. And then we learn that some of the Truths of the group are obvious truths and others are not. Do we pretend to repeat the mantras of the group or do we look for others who have run into the same problem? And then we realize that looking for approval for a different truth is just creating another group.

AND NOW…

NOW we CHOOSE between living life as a GROUPIE or as a LEADER and then we realize that a TRUE LEADER has only the SELF to lead. 

Lee Broom