Meditate On Your Blessings

Peace. I hope you all have been good. A lot of exciting things are happening with Pyramid Entertainment and Mac Nitti. Thanks to you I have made the #2 spot on the Hip Hop charts in Rochester, NY on reverbnation.com (I'm plugging the site here so if you haven't signed up as a fan, grabbed a widget to place on your myspace/facebook pages, or joined the street team, you can do so here: http://www.reverbnation.com/macnitti)

Also, we got the Pyramid Entertainment Magazine coming out this month, so if you haven't signed up to be on the mailing list, you can do that here: http://www.pyramidentertain.com/MailingList.html (just put "Magazine" in the comments)

P.E. Radio, as most of you know, is on fire! We broadcast every Mon and Thurs from 6:30pm-8:30pm EST. Here's the link: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/p-e-radio

OK, now that I got all of the business info out the way, I want get serious with for a minute. A week ago I lost a very, very, very important and close friend of mine. I knew this friend was sick, but the death came sudden and unexpected. It hurt me to lose this part of my life. But the thing about it is even though it is hard to let my friend and mentor go, I am cool because I know that I took full advantage of the time we had together.

We met when I was 14. So for many years we have had time to build, grow, bond and love each other.

I remember telling someone that if I lost this friend I’d more than likely lose it because I need to have that certain relationship in my life at all times. But now that the time had some to say goodbye, I realize that I still have that relationship because I took advantage of the times we had together. Now I reflect on the times we shared, the knowledge I gained and the smiles and tears we had together to replace the physical existence.

So why am I sharing this? We all lose loved ones. We all experience death. So what’s the big deal? I will tell you. This friend of mine has a family, but they don’t communicate. Not at all. They live in separate parts of the country and the last time they were together was at the funeral of their mother and that was just to pay respects to their mom; not to be with and comfort each other. So, yeah, this friend of mine died alone. Sure I was there and I am sure it meant a lot, but if the brothers and sisters were there, imagine how much better that would have been. To put aside differences and petty arguments and just be at the side of your dying sibling would have been beautiful. They missed that opportunity; and they will never get a second chance at that one. Sad.

Now the other day I was out taking care of some business and I ran into an old co-worker. He had a stroke, is confined to a wheelchair, needs a computer to communicate, and now lives alone. Guess what? He has no family either. None. The only child. Parents died when he was young. No friends. When he dies, guess how he’s probably going to die? Alone.

I am sharing all of this to get you to take just a few minutes and meditate on your blessings. I would like to bet that everyone reading this blog has family and friends. But I would also bet that almost no one reading this blog has actually taken the time to reflect on these people and realized how blessed you are to have "flowers" in your "garden". Yeah, some of those flowers are dandelions. But even dandelions can be beautiful.

I don’t want to sound preachy, but sometimes it takes tragedy in someone’s life for us to realize how blessed we are. I would challenge you to do three things:

1. Take some time to reflect on the simple things in life that you normally take for granted. Life, health, & strength. A job, a home, fresh water. Shoes, health insurance. But ESPECIALLY family and friends.

2. Fix broken relationships that were broken over simple things. We all get pig-headed and feel that we are too big to apologize (especially me). I know it's said all the time “You never know when…” Well, guess what? I am saying it again. You don’t want to go through the rest of your life knowing someone passed away and you didn’t say the simple words, “I’m sorry.”

3. Spend one extra hour a week teaching and showing love.

Thank you all!
Thanks for listening, thanks for your support and thanks for trying. But most importantly, thanks for loving.

Don’t forget Katie Tropp’s CD is coming soon.

Peace.

Mac