Why I Started a Newsletter

To get email friends, duh

I’ve been writing and publishing for forty years. This began before the Internet came to be. Therefore, my “followers” (a term that did not exist for most of my career) sat in front of me. Face to face.

I called them an audience.

I traveled around the country, sharing words and music in churches, schools and small theatrical venues. The words came from the books I penned (thirteen of them). I also wrote the music.

After the concert presentations, some of the folks in the audiences would buy my books and CDs. (And yes, before that I sold cassette tapes.)

Now, I’m not telling you all this to blow my own horn, so to speak. Rather, it all leads up to a confession of my stupidity. Because now I have a sinking realization:

I could have gathered an email list.

I had plenty of opportunity. I encountered hundreds and hundreds of people over the years. But if you had told me I needed to get their email addresses, I would have said, “What? Why would I send an email to that guy in the back row? I mean, I’m sure he’s a nice fellow and I hope he buys my book, but I’m not gonna write him.”

Eleven years ago, I began blogging. I began Jonathots Daily Blog. I had this urge—this inkling—to share the one piece of common sense I felt this world needed and still needs. Here it is:

“No one is better than anyone else.”

Over the eleven years, I have found dozens and dozens of ways to package this message. I started two other daily blogs. (So as not to appear “the salesman,” I will tell you more about those later.) I put out You Tubes. I spent two years tweeting a cartoon I thought up. I’m scattered all over the Internet.

But I never began an email list.

All of this is to say that like Ebenezer Scrooge, I have seen the error of this non-email-gathering path.

That’s why I am here today.

So do me a favor, if you will:

Sign up for my email.

And I’ll send out some stuff to entertain and inspire you. I call this “enterspiration.” (I love to make up words.)

We’ll have a laugh or two while we’re at it.

As the Crow Flies

Searching for the direct path

Welcome to Crings Things Newsletter by me, Jonathan Richard Cring. I performed all over the U. S. for 40 years and started blogging 11 years ago. I love humor and common sense, and I'm always trying to lose the same 50 pounds.

But I’ve discovered that the only superpower we humans have is being of good cheer. If I don’t have that, I can’t even battle the pounds. So that’s what we’ll talk about.

Sign up now so you don’t miss the first issue.

In the meantime, tell your friends!

1 Thing You Can Do This Week

Stir Your Heart But Lower Your Pressure

It often seems that people become nosy, interfering, nervous and worried because they haven’t settled in their own hearts what their part of life truly is, and what they should do to remain passionate.

They intrude in everybody else’s business.

They increase pressure—on people around them, themselves and even the pressure on their own religion or politics to perform miracles that are not in the making.

What you treasure in your life will be nurtured in your emotions and your passions.

If you haven’t decided what you value, then you’ll try to become involved in everything and the craziness will overwhelm you.

Here’s the truth:

• I don’t care about everything.

• I am not interested in everything.

• Therefore, I am not involved in everything.

My level of activity is limited to my passions.

If you don’t have your heart focused on what your true treasure is in life, you’ll create anxiety in yourself, trying to be proficient at everything.

Stir your heart and lower your pressure.

Tell your heart where you feel excited, where you want to be involved and leave other people alone.

Do yourself a favor–don’t comment on everything.

I don’t have an opinion on everything.

I don’t want to have an opinion on everything.

I don’t want that responsibility.

So I stir my heart everyday to do what thrills me.

And by faith I believe the other parts of life that need to be taken care of are being stirred by the treasures which are in the hearts of my brothers and sisters.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly donation for this inspirational opportunity

Don't bear false witness, says the 8th Commandment.

We are all liars from youth, Cring notes, but points out that when we become truth-tellers, we enjoy three great benefits: trust, simplicity and joy.

Good news and better news: a weekly podcast where we endeavor to put the pin back in the grenade.

We just take a little time to talk some common sense, laugh a lot, sometimes play some music, and leave refreshed. After all, humanity isn't really hopeless--we just have a tendency to act helpless.

Be sure to also check out Cring's daily blog: Jonathots Daily Blog, a bit of entertaining inspiration with a humorous twist--and a different approach every day. It can be found at https://jonathots.wordpress.com/.

Then there's Jonathots, Jr.! "A Thoughtful Way to Start Your Day" in just a sentence of two.

And don't fail to check out Words from Dic(tionary)--Jonathan's mostly humorous take on the definitions of words--in the dictionary order.

We invite you to join us on this journey. We've decided to abstain the race--we just want to enjoy the human walk together.

The B. S. M. G. Report

Jonathots Daily Blog

(4232)

Avoiding becoming insane

But never wanting to complain

BAD

TUA much.

A young man sprawls on the ground, broken, writhing in pain, as thousands of people watch in horror, torn between sympathy for him and fear over what this might mean in pursuing a national championship.

One week earlier, the same fellow played in a game twenty days after having ankle surgery, limping and agonizing along to his team’s defeat.

He needed time.

Don’t we all?

How many of us are eager to go back to work on the sixth day after a cold?

Do any of us want to walk across a room and get a cup of juice after having stubbed our toe?

But for some reason—a very bad reason—selfish, greedy, older men (and maybe women) who are long past their prime, want to relive their youth on the backs and bodies of determined athletes.

It’s TUA much.

It’s TUA much to ask of anyone.

Let’s not blame the coach of Alabama.

Let us admit that we are the ones who pressured him into accepting the erroneous decision of a novice young man when he proclaimed, “Put me in, Coach. I’m ready to play.”

SAD

Working off the answers to find the questions. Truthfully, it’s what human beings are better suited for in the long run.

Maybe that was on Merv Griffin’s mind when he launched a television game show called, “Jeopardy!”

After a very short season, he hired Alex Trebek to be the host.

Alex is the over-stated, ever-loving geek who sometimes—even as you want to hug him with delight—causes you to roll your eyes over his pretentious attempts to utter foreign words in an exaggerated accent, insert little mentions of his world travels or become perturbed when some contestant fails to understand that every answer was to begin with an “O.”

Despite his quirks, we love him.

And when he read, “A fourth-stage disease which requires immediate treatment but is also terminal,” he filled in the answer to: What is Alex Trebek’s cancer diagnosis?

It’s ridiculous to think the world won’t go on without Alex Trebek (or any of us, for that matter).

It just won’t be quite as delightful.

MAD

The Muddle East.

I have often told my children to always try to find a second reason for everything they do. It takes away some of the pressure of thinking that you’re hanging on a limb by one twig.

So with that in mind, if you aren’t convinced of climate change and the need to back off fossil fuels, then consider this second reason:

To keep us out of a region of our world filled with religious fanatics, nationalists and misogynists: The Middle (or as I stated it)—the Muddle East.

It is not a Holy Land.

Rather, it is a soulless, arid climate, manufacturing despair as its only byproduct.

It offers nothing to us but war.

And although it is true that oil and water do not mix, neither do oil and blood.

GLAD

I am tickled pink with rosy cheeks at the prospect of more candidates entering the Presidential campaign. I find myself overjoyed and grateful.

We are closing the door too quickly on the elevator heading up to the Oval Office.

Let’s leave it open.

Why can’t we learn from our very recent error? You know what I’m talking about:

Just three short years ago, when we were convinced that one candidate had the right to be elected President simply because she was a woman and had a predominant name.

And that another fellow was worthy of the White House because he scored high ratings on a reality television show and was fairly adept at hotel placement.

Let us not be foolish.

President of the United States is a calling.

It is a position which requires a human being to free him or herself of the ego of actually wanting the job.