Stories - FD Thornton

Recently a friend of mine introduced me to someone they hold in high regard. As we shook hands and were introduced, I made the remark, “most folk just call me the grumpy old man” . The person’s reply to my cynical statement was, “Well if you’d only accept Jesus Christ in your heart, you wouldn’t be so grumpy” . For a spilt second my reaction was going to be “what”, but I held my tongue. Here where I live in the rural south comments like this are not that unusual. In fact in my upbringing they are quite common. I suppose since I now live in a bubble of my own making little jabs like that now surprise me. If my dear mother were still around I suppose she’d say, “It’s only the conviction of the Lord making you uncomfortable”. But honestly, words like that have always made me a bit uncomfortable, even in my more evangelical years. I don’t think it is the words themselves that bother me as much as the tone they were conveyed in. At this point, I could drive into my own pers...

If you keep up with my posts, you know the past few days have been kinda rough. The idea of losing a crutch is really troubling especially when you have problems with anxiety and panic. But since I’ve began journaling my thoughts in earnest about the things I face. Often times I find that I can make it through tough situations simply by jotting my honest thoughts down. You know, I post a lot and give all sorts of advice about what I do to survive the problems I face. I guess I could think of myself as sort of self-help guru or something. But honestly, I’m just another person simply trying to leave the world better than how I found it. I suppose if anything the thing to remember is that while we all want to do better. It’s never going to happen unless you try. I've often described my moods and emotions like a tide going in and out. In other words some days are good, others not so much. The point here is to survive and to improve yourself. Lord knows, I'm far from being pe...

In my life, I often find myself depending on crutches. For me the crutches are like little insurance policies that tell my mind “I am okay”. As many of you know I suffer from Panic Disorder. One of the symptoms that can flare up from this is my fight-or-flight response is totally out of whack. In short a minor thing like a car passing me on the road or a crowd at a store, can cause me to go into a panic. Sounds fun right? Anyway, the crutches that I depend on have ranged from isolating myself from crowds to my chronic need to know my vital signs. It seems my fears know no end, but by sheer will or just plain luck, I’ve succeeded at accomplishing many of my life’s goals. But other than patting myself on the back, my goal here today is talk about crutches. That while they can be helpful, if depended on too long they can actually hinder our success. My reason for saying this comes from my own experience. I have noticed that over time, even as situations improved, my dependency...

While I have been working to get better physically, for even longer I’ve been working on my attitude and outlook. In no way am I ashamed to say I’ve been using therapy and medication to better my overall mental health. Therapy mostly entails looking within oneself and at the influences that shaped us. The reason I bring up all this is to make the point about how the words we heard as children shaped us as adults. Words are powerful things; they separate us from the rest of animal kind. They both unite and separate us, they both help create and destroy the best of us. Words are important in that they came shape our success or failure in life. Looking back at my own life, I can see where words impacted how I grew up. How the words of kindness and correction kept me on a straight path. While the words of hatred, insults, and bullying can take a developing heart and crush it. Here I don’t want to focus so much on my own journey, as I want to open eyes to the damage our words can...

I rarely deal with paper anymore; all of my postings are either created on my laptop or tablet then stored on the cloud. The disadvantage to this system is when an idea pops into my head and my hardware isn’t around. While technology and progress are foundations of moving ahead, not every innovation or advance can take the place of human contact. Recently I’ve written a number of pieces on the loss of human touch in our personal and business dealings. In our breakneck speed world we have so much thrown our way by home and work we hardly know which direction to turn. So things get dropped and people put to the side. Rather or not it was intentional it’s these let downs and disappointments that weigh on us. Causing us to slip farther away from the things we hold so dear. Being successful has its place, but at what cost? For way too long I measured success by how much I could better myself. But while I have put trophies along the wall and created a reputation as an effective le...

Well it’s Sunday morning and while it was raining earlier, the sun has now come out on this windy January day. Me and my father-in-law have a bit of a tradition where we call each other on Sunday mornings around 7:00 am. The conversations we have are pretty simple; we usually talk about our ailments, family gossip, or sports, whatever happens to pop into our heads. I mention this to bring up the thought that in this modern world we live, many of us are isolated more than ever. This isn’t based on anything other than my own personal observations, but if you think about it you know I'm right. In this world of Texting, Reddit, and Facebook posts; I grew up in a world where personal communication was more… personal. I believe that despite the convenience of today’s technology, we’ve somehow lost the ability to truly connect. With my own children the importance of conversation can get lost. This is a fact that I’ve noticed even among peers of my own generation. I suppose we...

This morning while getting dressed, I was receiving my daily dose of bad news from CBS This Morning . As the program dragged on describing in detail every evil in the world, a short segment caught my attention. It was a story about Grammy nominated Jazz musician Jimmy Greene and his family. You see the Greene family live in Newtown Connecticut and their daughter was one of the innocent angels killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. In the piece Greene along with his wife described how they have coped with the loss of their young child. The focus of the story is the fact that Greene has used his talent as a “sounding board” for his grief and love for his daughter. The music he created during this time has been recorded in his latest work the Grammy nominated album Beautiful Life . Briefly the album itself is soulful and captures both the artist grief and the peace he has found. I would highly recommend this album; it is on Spotify and is available on iTunes. Bottling up your emotio...

Like most of you I woke up to the news that David Bowie had passed. Now I must admit I didn't really get into Bowie until his The Next Day album came out. In fact just last night I was listening to his newest album Blackstar . My reason for being this up is because for a long time deaths like these were sad to hear, but they didn't have the effect say a loved one’s death would have. But for whatever reason ever since Amy Winehouse and Robin Williams deaths, deaths like these now affect me deeply. I'm not positive that it's my own mortality that causes me to feel this way. Or if it's just the idea, at least in Williams’s case, they saw no hope in going on. Whatever the reason, I thought that I had a better grasp of how I feel about my own eventual death. I recall reading in Thich Nhat Hanh's book Fear where it mentions the fear of death being a major cause of stress and depression. As Thich discussed, once we realize that we never really die in the Buddh...

After an unexplainably bad night ( kept waking up, for no reason ) I still got up feeling pretty good. But after a few hours, I don't know why, but I started feeling a little rough. It's a bit like having a panic attack where you get light headed and out-of-sorts. So I decided to go to the bedroom lay down and listen to some music.  After laying here for a bit, I still feel out-of-sorts, which my overanxious/panicked brain just wants to run with, yeah! So I decided to login and you know what's going on, because in my world, misery loves company . I suppose the thing I have to remind myself of is, some days are just going to be like this. And there's not a lot you can do about it other than don't attack yourself about it. Over the years I've noticed a vicious cycle can begin. When I allow myself to punch myself in the gut just like the bullies did all those years ago.  Just because I don't feel perfect or do perfect doesn't mean I deserve my own hate ...

In my little cave I call an office, I was typing away at a thought or two I post to an international business site. The contacts I make with individuals around the world still amazes me even after a number of years sharing on that site. Another site I subscribe to is a site that is a forum of sorts for people like me with my issue of panic/anxiety. Although that site originates from across the pond, the support I’ve gotten has been invaluable. These are two examples of modern media, one more business centric and the other more social. Both have exposed me to the fact that even with our cultural differences we share many common traits. After watching the news this morning I couldn’t help but think with so much talk about division put on display. No wonder we believe our problems are too big and our ideas too different to ever get along, which brings me back to the reality of our shared commonality. I suppose it’s just human nature to gather in our little groups. Valleys, moun...

Every so often I can’t come up with the right word to say or the right line to write to express how I feel at the moment. But you know that’s okay not every thought or emotion needs to be expressed. No more than something has to be said to describe a sunset or a clear sky, they are just there. Isn’t that how it is sometimes with a passing thought? Never knowing quite how it began or how it’s going to end. My thoughts have been that way lately, in no particular order or rhyme. Just hanging there in no particular order with no particular place to go. For someone that expresses himself with written words this can get a bit frustrating. But I do my best to just go with the flow and let the inspiration come when it comes.   Saying those words and doing them are two very different things. Because not having the inspiration to express myself is like a singer losing her voice or a painter without a canvas to paint. The lesson of working through a lack of inspiration is never easy. Bu...

Here in the Deep South we are having our coldest weather of the season (29 F this morning). For a true Southerner that's bone chilling. The local news media would have you think it's the end of time the way they describe the weather. But honestly, if you think about it, it does this every year. Here it starts getting mild in October through December, and then the bottom falls out around January till March. Now that I've educated you on weather in the Southern US, I hope your hearths are warm and the New Year looks bright. I went to my cardiologist yesterday and I'm happy to say he believes I'm doing much better than I was a few months ago. My blood pressure is very good and my heart overall is looking much better. In fact he is cutting out one of the meds I'm taking and I'll finally get rid of the portable defibrillator at the end of the month. I must say, I walked out of his office much happier then I was when I walked in. I've really been trying...

Yesterday while rushing around, I had an idea for a post. To make sure I didn’t forget my great idea I typed it onto my computer screen and continued doing what I was doing. Well it’s been 24 hours and after all the bill paying and other errands I had to do; I finally have time to sit down with my great idea . But sitting down in front of the keyboard I stared at the screen and all I could see are the words Stop & Ask Yourself and nothing else? Now yesterday I thought I was being clever by jotting down that title, that somehow it would jog my memory of that incredible idea. Well it turns out my mind is a total blank as to what it was I was thinking about to go with that title. So I’m left here with a title and not much else. Don’t we all have days like this, where the day looks to be full of potential but ends up being sort of a dud? Now you would think I’d simply give up on the idea of using that title and move on. Well as my better half would gladly tell you, it doesn’...