On Aug 29, 10:05Â pm, "tooly"
bellsouth.net> wrote:>>I often make reference to the journey of life being a process of
>> elimination. We each have to discover what we are not first.
>
>> To illustrate Im not talking hypothetically.
>
>> In my twenties, I had an enormous motivation to 'make a difference' by
>> actually turning a passion into a viable vocation. It worked
>> brilliantly. Beyond my wildest dreams, after spending the first part
>> of my adult life feeling like a willing prisoner walking into a cage
>> each day. Some of my 'inventions' became and still are mainstream in
>> the fitness business I was more intrigued than 'proud'.In fact the
>> system I developed is now used by  Fitness First, (the m.d actually
>> was born five miles away from me back in the UK).
>
>> It grew extremely well, to such an extent I sacked my first accountant
>> for nearly sending me broke because he didnt understand the subtleties
>> of what was then, a new industry.
>
>> I built the first co ed club in Aus, met the 'pretty woman' (she had a
>> remarkable likeness to the J.Roberts. version). I never wanted
>> children until I at least started to enjoyed the work I did. We had
>> two.
>
>> I found a new accountant who was familiar with the industry, but
>> unfortunately (don't use that term any more), he was also secretively
>> a 50%% owner of my opposition, and directed me accordingly. He
>> persuaded me to sell out to the opposition, which I did, providing
>> substantial vendor finance.
>
>> The new owners went broke and brought me down with them. The 'pretty
>> woman' left.
>
>> I started up a year later, and built up the most successful chain in
>> Aus, and after eighteen years in total, decided to sell to my bank
>> manager. The vocational part had disappeared, what with 11 clubs to
>> run, and a staff of 160.
>
>> I provided vendor finance to the manager, but kept hold of one of the
>> buildings so I could re enter if he had problems, and also have a
>> source of income for the future
>
>> He actually colluded with the bank (he used to be their state manager)
>> who owned the mortgage, to sell the building from under me, and then
>> he defaulted.
>
>> I have managed to hang on for ten years, waiting to get my time in
>> court which was due early this year.
>
>> I have just discovered that my lawyer has not fulfilled his obligation
>> to get me into court,after twice assuring me that we were on track,
>> and I have now lost my chance for a successful outcome. Perth is a
>> small town, and the bank and his practice will be there long after Im
>> gone. Hes a family man with big commitments, so I hold no grudges.
>
>> Why am I talking of this?
>
>> The one truth I "know" is that reality is never what happens to a
>> person, but how we each handle events. Friends cannot believe my
>> appalling luck, but I also know there is no such thing as luck. I have
>> only briefly touched on the amazing coincidences, enough to convince
>> any sceptic.They convinced me :-)..( I could write a book just about
>> the 'pretty woman' episode alone.).
>
>> I can now compare my understanding of life from many different
>> perspectives, but I have never felt so free and unencumbered as things
>> unfold.
>
>> I had strong impulses to create what I imagined to be the
>> circumstances to live a great and fulfilling life.
>> Had I have not been 'compromised' I would have had my daughters and
>> siblings in homes without mortgages, and a very healthy income from
>> the building. The company was subsequently taken over by a Chinese
>> backed public company, which would have strengthened my position.
>
>> The excitement of the unknown that I now face, combined with a
>> knowledge that everything moves as it should creates a zest for life
>> that many spend their whole life seeking.
>
>> Never circumstantial, always attitudinal.
>
>> The new name of the clubs ? "Zest"....
>
>> Youve gotta laugh :-).
>
>> BOfL
>
> And another brief history. Â I have an uncle who was asmatic when a child.
> He grew up introverted and skinny. Â He was so shy he would bow his head to
> you when you spoke to him and slowly back up out of the room if he could.
> He eshewed all social situations and of course, there was to be no 'pretty
> woman' for him in his life. Â At a ripe old age of 28, he started to drink.
> He probably understood the odds by then and saught some sort of consolation
> and it turned out he had the desease and spent the rest of his life battling
> hard core alcoholism. Â He banged around from job to job and wrecked cars and
> eventually had his license revoked, whereupon, he had to find work close
> enough that he could 'walk'. Â He ended up painting houses and doing odd
> jobs for a living as it was all that would allow him to go on extended
> 'drinking binges'.
>
> I often thought of this uncle, as when I was growing up, he still had some
> vitality to him and I remember sharing times of building snowmen and sliding
> down hills on garbage can lids and lighting off whole bags of fireworks for
> 4th of July celebrations. Â He was only a few years older than me and I
> looked up to him as a kid. Junior, which is what we all called him, was a
> good hearted soul; a kind man...but so so so shy. Â As the hard core
> alcoholic, the family and entire world turned against him. Â He became that
> most horrible of all human fates...a burden on others and existed in what I
> assume to have been a constant abject misery.
>
> It was not all bad times of course. He became an avid fisherman and would
> build cayaks in between his drinking episodes. Â He finally died last year in
> his early 60's. Â I dare say, I would wager that he never even kissed a girl
> his entire life but existed in a silent torture of aloneness and disrepair.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
I was also a tall skinny asthmatic as a youth, but turned to the 'iron
pills', although if I had have been carrying the alchoholic gene?
Like most young men, the quantity of alchohol you could hold down, ws
a sign of manhood.
As I often say here,"without reincarnation, nothing makes sense, with,
everyhing does".
BOfL
