The Power of the Negative Review

February 17, 2022 / nicholasdaletaylor / Leave a comment

I’ve wanted to write a blog again for years but the perfectionist in me has said “No, you need to rebrand your entire website or scrap this writing project all together.” However, at the end of the day I just have too much to say to flat out stop writing and sharing stories I know need to be heard by someone.

That said, I try to stay positive but recently in my effort to inspire myself to write something I started Yelping.

I had done it before and I don’t know if one considers it a “dead social platform” nowadays but who cares. I like Yelp. Yet, contrary to unpopular belief I do not like everything.

Since moving back to Rutledge from Chicago I’ve went to a handful or stores, restaurants and other entities that I decided to praise and some to which I turned a blind eye but no longer! Henceforth, I am not shying away from the one star or two star ratings and here is why.

Reality check, not everyone who tells you something bad about your business is “out to get you,” in fact it could be quit the opposite. I myself have suffered from illusions of grandeur and being put in your place can be a significant jolt to anyone awake enough to see their is always a way to learn and become a better version of yourself and ultimately your business or brand.

If you are running a restaurant that is violating health codes why would I want anyone to eat at your place? Short answer, I wouldn’t. However, that doesn’t mean I wish you ill thoughts and want your doors closed for good but maybe some people need to face the hard facts that sometimes you have to close the doors to the public and clean up your mess.

I know this is the most random entry on this blog of mine that has spanned decades cause it comes ago like the ebb and flow of most things in my life. However, I know some of you out there may still read things on the internet and I would love to once again participate in that forum with all of you wonderful voices out there. 🙂

Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments or link to your yelp page if that’s your jam. Let’s not shy away from the negative review as it could be just the thought someone needs to hear to turn their house around.

Cheers and good morning friends.

One Man One Economy

July 18, 2015 / nicholasdaletaylor / Leave a comment

Allow me to begin by sharing, “I am not an economist.” I look at the national debt from relative intelligence, as an individual man. “Debt,” to us is allowing a value to drop below zero with a potential for return.

There are those who would say, “You cannot have less than nothing.” How is this possible?

You cannot have less than nothing.

When I was an early, twenty something I got my first credit card and thought it was the greatest thing in the world. I immediately got a new Mac desktop, a very nice video camera and some additional equipment. I was a few grand below zero. No big deal. Right? Everyone around me had debt, student, personal, credit card, etc. Why not me? I figured, of course, “I’ll just pay it off later.” When does later come for the national debt?

During my late thirties I moved to Chicago and after a few years of decent employment I found myself unemployed for a year. Thank goodness for that credit card so I could still go out and party like an American when I needed it. My already amassed debt of an estimated $8,500 seemed like such a large number. What did an additional 20 or 30 dollars at the bar matter? Perhaps that is how many of our leaders look at the national debt. It is an astronomical number that will never go away so why should 1 or 2 more million matter?

At my lowest low of credit card debt I was near negative $14,000. Yet, as ashamed as I was to have nothing to show for this debt I felt lucky when I heard friends talk about student debt over 100 grand. It is monstrous that we view our students, our homeowners and our working Americans as items of profit rather than items of investment. Profiting from a student going to college is incorrect. We, as a nation should profit from their becoming intelligent, productive members of our work force, business owners and developers unburdened from their quest for knowledge. The true profit rests in the individual minds of potential contributors to the conversation, such as this conservation to “fix the debt.” We will not “fix” the problem until we all acknowledge it as both our individual problem and our collective problem. Most if not all of those who possess and horde the vast amounts of wealth in this country will never view this as a part of their individual problem.

What of the individual debt? “Pay it off tomorrow.”

Pay it off tomorrow.

The problem with this American thought is the vast majority have little to no concern with how long they exist below zero. Most Americans are either very knowledgeable of the travesty concerning distribution of wealth in America or they simply have no way of seeing it through the veil of delusion placed over their faces by unseen hands (which is sometimes their own).

After working every day for about nine months, I continued for the better part of three years working most days (across three or four jobs), while developing a personal budget and learning how to manage money. I came out of debt on 12/13/14. While I considered bankruptcy early on I could not get away from the awful feeling of not paying what I owe and regardless of my ignorance as a twenty something year old man I entered into an agreement as a card holder. Ever heard “money is power?” To be whimsical, in close, entertain a quote from the great Stan Lee and Steve Ditko’s Spider Man.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Those with the money can contribute to making America a debt free nation. I did. Will you?

New Years New Tears – Healing the Self

February 10, 2015 / nicholasdaletaylor / Leave a comment

I made a funny comment about Starbucks on facebook yesterday, a couple of days before that I woke up and I did not remember getting in bed and yet here I set listening to zen garden pandora pondering the ways of healing the self.

Years ago I wrote a private blog about how difficult it was to sleep because of this horrible rash that had developed all over my body. Long story short after being on three different drugs and misdiagnosed three times my caretaker had to do a biopsy. Final diagnosis, nummular dermatitis.

What the hell is that?

Who knows? I basically have a “chronic condition” which means I could be allergic to air for all they know. Well, I have my own theory about these outbreaks as during the last few days they have returned. I have no desire to return to that personal hell.

I know why it’s happening again. I’m out of sync with myself. The body doesn’t like how I’m treating it of late. My state of mind is would up in this new-found stress of taxes, insurance, the state of the nation and other things hardly within the grasp of my control. I’m getting old. I feel like this is it. And while part of me has very little problem with that there are a few days when I go back to feeling as if I am “not enough,” rather than just feeling “I am.” My once therapist might remind me of my shame spirals and my tendency to abuse alcohol.

I used to lay there and feel the energy spinning inside of me, hitting the edge of my skin from the inside, nowhere to go.

Put all that aside. Last night I lay there with that same tingling feeling underneath my skin, all of it. I resist the urge to scratch cause I know this just makes welts, bumps and makes me look even more like some lizard person with raised skin all over. It has happened.

Now here’s where I get serious (though this isn’t the Sunday Soapbox). Unless I’m wrong and I don’t think I am, I am on the verge of some new understanding of my body, a greater unity of mind, body and for lack of a better word, spirit.

That old Borders building in Chicago recently made the news as it’s getting turned into a gym; maybe I’ll join that gym. While I was managing that Borders I read about so many things (around 200+ books) primarily metaphysics, physics and religion… in search of some great answer to all. During these readings I encountered numerous texts concerning chakras, energetic centers that exist within the body. I was fascinated.

I explored the idea of these main centers within our energetic spectrum, visualizing them, activating them, making them “spin” if you will. What I have to understand as of last night is that I have a spiritual “blockage” I guess. And I have to say that this “blockage” derives directly from my belief in God, or rather in the Western understanding of God. I have long abandoned my Christian upbringing because it is simply unhealthy but that does not mean that I am no longer haunted with the daunting dogmatic dilemma.

As I lay there last night I envisioned this spinning, these vibrations, the very energy inside of my not just hitting the inside of my skin but rather radiating out of me. I lay there in the night, excepting all my sins, loving my every loss freeing myself of this idea of absolute judgement. I became darkly radiant.

I have a lot to give this world, either on a one-to-one or a one-to-all ratio but what I ultimately give is my own decision, as it is for all of us. Too much whiskey might be fun on occasion but I want to be past that point in my life… plus who enjoys feeling their insides die.

We all have our demons and we all have our angels but none of them hold us to a greater judgement, a know-all, end-all supreme being. I release myself of this nonsense. And a random thanks to Stephen Fry.

Let’s get it all out-of-the-way with new years and new tears and discover better ways of healing the self.