Success Starts Here!

 I'd like to start by doing something I have probably done once or twice the entire time I have been blogging. I'd like to start with a photo:    As you can tell, it is a photo of a group of monks reaching the shores of a beautiful set of rapids/waterfalls. From the photo itself, we don't know why they are there, but we know they are there. So really the only logical next question is what are they going to do next? We'll get to that.    Today marks the end of this calendar year. For some of us it has been an incredible year full of new opportunities, health, great successes, maybe even new love. For some of us, 2013 was a terrible year full of pain and sorrow. For even others, it was a pretty unimpressive and rather forgetful year.    With that set of varied experiences and as we move forward into the new year, many people make it a point to declare New Years Resolutions. Of course the argument by many through personal experience or observation is, practically

Many people ask me why I am so into Christmas. With me it is an incredibly special time of year which I look forward to all year long. If you ask any of my Facebook friends, they might tell you I can be just a little bit annoying posting reminders of how long is left till Christmas all the way out in March. I suspect one or two has even hidden my comments so they no longer appear on their pages, and to them I say, Merry Christmas anyway. This Christmas Eve, I'd like you to consider for a moment the traditional story of Joseph and Mary as they headed to Bethlehem. For the sake of not having 500 messages following this post of people who "believe" and those who don't tearing each other limb from limb in the comments, I would like to ask that you take the story at its face value, just for the sake of this post. Just the story of a guy and his very pregnant wife on their way to his ancestral home to of all things, be counted on a census and get taxed. I guess even back