Herbert Hilliard | HIV Support Community Forum - Living with HIV

What to Do If You Don’t Have Any Good Memories?

What to do if you don’t have any good memories? The first thing that you should do is realize that you do have a good memory or two embedded someplace in your life. These life experiences may have a very brief duration and they may have come at lengthy intervals, but they are there. Another thing to be mindful of is that your memories are a product of your thinking and that your thinking is articulated by how you live your life. Not being able to see any good portion of your life logically leads to depression and even worst.

You build your memories, so it’s up to you as what type of memories they are. Even with health problems and other difficulties that are out of your control you have the mastery of your thinking. I know that this sounds all sweet and cuddly and that you have heard this over and over again before. So, have I which is why I repeat this saying to myself as a reminder when I can only see darkness in my memories and start belittling myself. It’s easy to lose what you have if you do not appreciate it. The lines of my life are not all straight and dimly lit there are shadows and colors throughout them.

What to do if you don’t have any good memories? If a person has lived to be age twelve and beyond, just as an example, it’s hard to imagine that this person does not have at least one good memory that they can relish. This good memory is undoubtedly deeply submerged within the mind by other life experiences, but it is there.

This good memory can be as simple as your smiling to someone and them smiling back to you that gave you a good feeling for that moment. Or the sound of a bird singing, or how wondrous out sister planet the Moon looks in the day or night sky. Good memories of your past are not hard to find if you want to find them. I must remind myself of this when I want to weep and mourn for myself.

As you can imagine, changing your set way of thinking is a difficult task. You are reconfiguring the chemical composition and electrical circuits in your brain when you are transforming your way of thinking. Some people attempt to do this by the use of certain medications. Others by engaging in a belief system that is greater than them. While others want to use brute force to modify their thinking habits and patterns. Whatever works for you, that is what works for you. As for me, I reach to a source that is greater than me to help me find those many hidden positives that have occurred during my life.

At present my success rate by using this approach is dismal, not because of the source, but because I am a terror unto myself. I want to change the way that I think and yet I resist this change at the same time. Like a seed that will not germinate, I allow the life-giving waters of thought purification to have no effect on me.

This is not because my current way of thinking is my comfort zone, on the contrary, my current way of viewing myself and the world around me is fractured and shattered. It highlights and underlines everything that I dislike about myself and shroud that into a world view.

One thing that has prevented me from tumbling into the deep end of self-loathing and depression is my ability to laugh and make fun of myself. I recognize my faults and shortcomings and make an effort to correct them. This is an LTE (Long Term Evolution) process that will take as long as it takes to complete it. I fall on my face daily, get up, and continue the process.

Hopefully, I have learned something valuable each time that I fall that I can use to achieve my goal. My willingness and effort to improve myself is a good memory that I can feed upon from the day or hour before. Good memories are not hard to find if you are willing to find them. However, finding those good memories is just the first step of recognizing them as being part of my life’s experiences along with the not so good memories that I tend to focus on.

Once those good memories are found I must diligently pitch my tent over them so that the negative electrical charges in my brain are equally balanced with positive ones. There must be a balance because too much of a good thing is not necessarily good and may hinder personal growth because you are using only one pool of your life experiences to pull from.

As the electrical impulses migrate opening new channels and closing old ones the chemistry in my brain is changed by this as well. Hopefully, the result of all this electrical and chemical modifying is a refreshing of the inner person that has become stagnate in thinking. I shall see.

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There is No Making Up for It

RecentPosts / Herbert Hilliard

There is no making up for It. There are certain things that have been said and done in the past that cannot be made up for. I may spend time with the elderly and ailing children. I may volunteer to help the needy and the homeless. I may deprive myself of certain indulgences and luxuries. I may do all of this and more in an attempt to make amends for something that I have said and done in the past. But the past is written and there is no changing it.

Yes, do all of the above mentioned as it is good to be considerate and helpful to others, but do not expect these labors to be an eraser for past deeds. I have said it, or I have done it, or both, and that is the way it is forever. Each day of physical life is its own unique chalkboard that we write for ourselves. We make entries as the day progresses and at the end of the day our log is finished and complete. We can review our log to see what we can gain from it and apply that insight to the next day, but we cannot remove anything from it.

No one is perfect and mistakes will be made. However, there are some things that are said and done that can easily be avoided if my thinking is mature and not restricted to “Me”, “I”, “Mine”, “Myself”, and the like. It is natural to take first thing first, which is me, this is how we not only survive but also excel.

However, we must look at ourselves through the broader canvas of existence that has the panorama of other people, the ecosystem of the Earth, and all of Earth’s many other life forms to be fully mature in our thinking. I said it, or I did it, or both. It’s in the record book of life and cannot be blotted out by remorse nor misplaced good intentions.

I wish that I had not said that. And I wish that I had not done this. So, I will drop the change that I receive at the checkout counter into that donation cup atop it as I leave. This is good as our donations are much needed, but do not consider the misdeeds of the past to be purified by this generous, worthwhile act.

I have touched someone’s life in a negative way either accidentally or purposefully. I have said it, or I have done it, or both. Someone is wearing a physical and emotional scar that I have purposely inflicted upon them. This is my guilt and shame that refuses to leave my thoughts because it is clinched firmly within the solidity of the unchangeable past.

Good deeds will not clean the slate of my past childish behaviors because the past is inalterable. My loss of self-control is a personality deficit that I must learn to live with in a way that does not interfere with my daily life. Hopefully, we have reviewed our chalkboard and have highlighted words and actions that we want to avoid repeating. I conduct this self-evaluation often, and guess what, I do and say the very same things over again.

This vacillating behavior is much more than simply not learning from the past it is a nest of damaged brain cells that desperately needs healing. The heart(mind) is active and willing to make amends for past offenses but the past is uncompromising. The chalkboard of our living is engraved in permanent stone. We have allowed our wrongdoing to mark us with a seal of regrets and ineffective penance. Our afterglow is unbecoming and our nature is pinned against a wobbly cartwheel.

There is no making up for It. Our days are numbered and the count is swiftly running out. We would like to start this reality called physical life all over again with the knowledge and understanding that we have gained from this venture. We would like not to say and not to do the things that we have done in the past during this new birth. But it is likely that we will say and do the same things all over again if given a blank sheet.

We have been measured out and calculated beyond the molecular level. Our very essence has been formulated and numbered to a precision point that gives no fault-tolerance in the equation of what makes us, us. There is no making up for it. We have said it, or we have done it, or both, and that is that. The Monkey is on our back and the banana is in our mouth, so we must learn to live peaceably with them.

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The One Mistake That Canceled a Productive Life for Me

RecentPosts / Herbert Hilliard

The one mistake. One night, after being in my drug addiction for a few years, I decided to break into a school in Tampa Florida, where I was residing at the time, looking for something that I could steal so that I could buy a hit.

After getting onto the school grounds, I broke into a classroom via one of its windows. Upon entering the classroom, the only thing that I saw that may be of value was a television mounted on the wall. Using a chair, I disconnected the television from its wall mounts without any problem.

With television in hand, I now decided that I did not want to go back through the window with the set, so I opened the classroom door and walked out into the hallway. As I scanned both ends of the hallway I could see cameras mounted in certain spots close to the ceiling.

I knew that I was being recorded but I didn’t care because I figured that I would be long gone before the police arrived on the scene.

I took my time leaving the premises, and not because I was feeling confident, but because I was numb from drug use. I reached one of the gates leading out of the building structure and was met by a security guard with a gun in hand. He was on one side of the gate and I was on the other.

My first instinct was to run, instead, I obeyed his instructions to sit the television down and get face down on the pavement. I did as he told me to do because I just did not feel like running.

Working as a day laborer during the day, using all of my pay to buy my drug of choice, very little sleep and even less to eat, I was in no physical nor mental shape to make a break for it when I encountered that security guard on the other side of the gate. He unlocked the gate and entered, handcuffed me and then told me to stand to my feet.

Once on my feet, he asked me if I had any weapons on me. I told him that I had a small pocketknife in my pocket, which he removed. Soon afterward a police car arrived on the scene, and I was taken to jail.

When I went before the judge and heard my charges it was like I was hearing a recap of one of Jesse James escapades. The security guard had beefed up his report of the incident in such a way as to make himself shine like a determined Texas Ranger who had just captured one of America’s most wanted.

Even so, I was placed on probation and released in the middle of the night. This, of course, was a felony and also the first time that I’d ever been arrested. This one drug driven mistake in judgment now haunts me relentlessly.

Some years later after completing a six months’ drug rehab program I became clean and sober. Thankfully, I have remained clean and sober for more years than I want to admit because at the moment I am age sensitive. Sobriety did not and has not erased that felony from my record.

That one charge has been like a nail driven into the back of my neck each time I have applied for a good-paying job in my field (Computer troubleshooting and repair). It has also kept me in the reject bin on all other non-computer related employment that pays well and jobs that you can feel good about going to every day.

It feels great to be clean and sober. My decision to use drugs changed the entire course of my life in a most unfruitful and unproductive way. My decision to steal has kept me in bondage significantly beyond my original jail sentence.

One bad decision and a lifetime sentence. A criminal record that cannot be expunged lies in wait at the end of every job application to turn my hopes to dust and keep me at the poverty level.

Yet I do not surrender even knowing that I will be refused the employment opportunity once a background check is undertaken. Hoping against hope for some wayward burp in the system that will allow me to prove myself and show that I can be an asset to my employer, I fill out applications hoping for the best and expecting the norm.

The choices that I have made so far in my life have damaged me almost beyond repair. I decided to be a thief and have had so many precious years of my life stolen away from me because of my choice to be that. Days, weeks, months, and years of life do not come with a refund.

There is only one opportunity to make it good within this physical sphere of realities. If you choose to do drugs, if you choose to steal, you must be ready to suffer the consequences of your actions. One way or another you are going to get it.

There is no such thing as getting away scot-free. The life-slayer is right at the other end of a bad choice and decision, and it will rip your hopes, dreams, goals, and future to pieces. Your rap sheet lurks silently in the background waiting for you to make a charge for upward mobility so that it can zoom face-front and deflate you.

But I have done this to myself. I have leaped upon my own neck and have strangled the crap out of my career ambitions and goals. I have created my own stumbling blocks by the choices and decisions that I have made. I have doomed my life to being unfulfilled and a heavy burden upon itself.

I have given the Grim Reaper my flesh and bones considerably beyond the appointed time of my terrestrial demise. I have done this to myself because I would not take command and control of myself but commissioned my life and wellbeing to be grafted by cravings and passions that are earmarked for my absolute destruction.

The end of me is at hand. The custom-built has been broken and slayed by the butchers thinking. The assassin has chosen himself for the next kill. The bullet was shot from the chamber the very instant that the muck and mire was conceived. The murderer has justly murdered himself. Finished. Complete.

Feel free to read my autobiography “Fatally Pathetic: The Story of an Ill-fated Conception” at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U7YWVC4

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Nine and a Half Years of Fleeting Life Wasted Because Of Lack of Knowledge

RecentPosts / Herbert Hilliard

Nine and a Half Years of Fleeting Life Wasted Because Of Lack of Knowledge became hooked on crack cocaine at the beginning of 1987. From the start of my addiction, I knew that the consequences of my habit would be the total subjugation of my life to it, the wreckage of all my hopes and dreams, the demolition of my computer hardware career, and everything else conducive to a wholesome and fruitful life.

I allowed the weakness of my mind to transform me into a slave in bondage to my own desires. I knew that if there was any hope of me getting my act back together that it must start with the complete abstinence from my drug of choice.

Now, I felt that I was looking at myself from a remote place that I once inhabited. Everything was surreal and lacking any sense of genuineness as I muddled along in the grip of my drug craving. I cried and I prayed for the strength to get out of the ghastly predicament that I had foolishly placed myself within. I was ashamed of myself and kept as far away from my family as possible because I did not want them to see what I had done to myself.

At this early stage in my addiction, there was a faint ray of hope that I would be able to strap my groans and get it back together because I had the desire to do so. During the following year of 1987, this tiny ray of hope was given a death blow when I was told that I was HIV positive. I was informed of this diagnosis at a blood bank that I frequented to get funds to support my habit when I was unable to find work on that day.

Needless to say, this news was like being shot in the head with a cannon. At this time, in the middle eighties, the common consensus was that a person who had HIV had from six months to a year at most to live. I believed what I was hearing about my illness and based on that information I utterly gave up on life.

What was the point in being drug-free when I only had six months to a year at most to live? I isolated myself even when people were all around me. The only thing that I had to look forward to being was becoming very sick and dying miserably.

For nine and a half years I waited for the moment of my demise while living in the wasteland of a drug-controlled life. With every cold, I prepared myself for the coffin as this was the knowledge of the consequence of my scourge that I had. I placed my confidence in the wisdom of mortals and wallowed in my death garment as I went about making money to support my drug habit.

Now my cries and my prayers were two-fold, that I gain my freedom from drug addiction and that this wicked plague is taken away from me. Nine and a half years of an already brief moment to experience physical life was shattered by the use of drugs because I placed my confidence upon the carbon-based and did not cement my cries and prayers with celestial faith.

For nine and a half years I lived as a vagabond, as a vagrant in my disease infected body, as a drifter in my loathsome mind, and as a wandering lifeless spirit because of my lack of knowledge.

This is not an epitaphic discourse concerning physical existence in spiritual death, because it is most laughable as a fool and his or her aspirations are quickly disjointed when they place all their assurances on maggot food such as they are, and not look towards the true knowledge base that surpasses the breath and make void the shovel.

For nine and a half years, the count is finished, and the hours are a complete waste because a little knowledge is a grand destroyer, and if the knowledge that one does have is not seasoned with wisdom, time becomes a looter, but only if one surrenders and does not stand up and fight against the odds and the general consensus.

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Using Your Thinking as Part of Your Anti-Aging Regimen

RecentPosts / Herbert Hilliard

Using Your Thinking. I am not a Bible thumper, however, there is a certain verse in the Bible that I have been considering lately; and it reads, “Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (Psalms:102:5). What is this verse saying that I should take to heart?

The “Who” in this verse, is, of course, God. The word “mouth” in this verse can be inferred as being a reference to the mind, the way that we rationalize and reason, and our thoughts. “good things,” “youth,” and, “renewed,” should be self-explanatory. The word “eagle’s,” in this verse can probably be inferred as being a reference to flight (a free spirit, soaring, unencumbered).

Now that I have a few basic definitions of certain words in this verse to work with, what can I deduce from this Bible verse that I can put to best practices? My thinking influences my temperament and disposition at any given moment. What comes out of my mouth is a product of my thinking. My thinking also has an influence on the way that I physically feel (my health).

So, what does all this mean and how can I use this to combat the appearance of aging that so disquiets me when I see my reflection looking old and ugly back at me in the mirror? Mirror, mirror on the wall, gosh darn it.

This could mean that I have the cognitive ability to manage my aging processes. Not that I can think myself back to youth or stall the aging processes. There comes a point in everyone’s life, if they live long enough, that becoming old and ugly is a given, there is nothing that can be done about this except somehow learning to comfortably live with it. Many factors interact with each other to produce physical aging.

Many of these factors are beyond our ability to control, such as the radiation of the Sun (even when we attempt to hide ourselves behind sealed shelters), micro-organisms that live and breed on and within our dirt bodies, our Solar System and our Galaxy moving into different regions of the Universe, to name a few.

However, if the way that I think of myself when I look in the mirror, how I think of other people, and of my world is unadulterated and wholesome it will produce words of refreshment and renewal from my mouth. Many wrinkles, blotches, dark spots, and sagging skin come from stress and worry. The quantity of stress and worry that is resident within me has a direct bearing on my health as well as on my physical appearance. There are some factors contributing to the processes of my aging that I cannot control, but my thinking is not one of them.

Unconstructive thought habits drain the electrical charges that sustain every cell in my body. As the energies of these cells are reduced deformations began to appear in my physical appearance and the way that I feel. The consequences of this damaging thought habit are many, one being wrinkles appearing before their time that is exaggerated beyond what they would have been under natural aging conditions.

Some people who claim themselves to be in the know attribute sagging skin to gravity. Gravity may be a cause of sagging skin, except for one thing, gravity is just a theory and does not really exist. The loss of collegian and elastin in the skin as we age are two of many factors that result in sagging skin. How positive thinking can combat sagging skin is an experiment in progress. I will give you an update on the progress of this experiment in roughly one hundred and ten years, stay tuned.

“Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (Psalms: 102:5). “Mouth”, a tool used for broadcasting my thoughts among other things. “Good things”, wholesome and uplifting things and personality traits given and received. “Youth is renewed”, reducing wrinkles, blotches, dark spots, and sagging skin and invigorating my mind by thinking positively. “like the eagle’s”, becoming unencumbered by stress and worry as much as possible, taking a lighthearted view of myself, thinking graciously and kindly of others, accepting the inevitable whether I like it or not, soaring in free flight even in the face of metamorphosing into a walking fossil.

Practicing this Bible verse as a daily way of living my life may have the benefit of being an inexpensive supplement to any anti-aging regimen that I may undertake. My thinking both uplifts and deflates me and can turn one day into a number of months of physical aging if the structure of my thoughts is negative, or I am constantly in the company of negative acting and thinking people. Using this Bible verse to hide and improve the effects of aging may or may not work for me, but when I look at myself in the mirror, what the hell, why not give it a go.

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