Books I'm Not Reviewing

I want to review books that actually have some meaning to this blog. I want to review books that have to do with creating your Future, about making those changes in your life that you want to make, about living your dreams. But I don't want to read garbage. If the book is great or fun, it's easy to tear my eyes from the computer screen. If the book is merely good and practical, then it's a whole lot tougher. If I just plain don't like the book, then I'm not likely to finish it. I don't want to give you a review on a book I don't at least read most of, but I don't know if I'll finish it when I pick it up. My life and my time are too precious to bother reading bad books, just like yours is. So, here's a list of some of the books I'm not reviewing, because I'm not reading.

What Matters Most by Hyram W. Smith. I started reading it, but it was a lot like a previous book I reviewed, and I don't feel like reading the book again. There's nothing wrong with this book to my knowledge, and if you couldn't read his other book, give this one a try. It may be more your style.

How to Survive the Loss of a Love by Peter McWilliams. It's online at http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/books/sur/ I skimmed it. It's a lot of basic advice I've gotten elsewhere, but this could be the right package for you.

How to Heal Depression by Peter McWilliams. It's online at http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/books/dep/ I skimmed it. Turns out I'm not depressed according to their checklist, so I didn't bother with the rest. If you're depressed, give it a shot.

These next three I picked up at the library when I was in a bad mood and looking for a Cinderella remake with Jerry Lewis. The titles popped up, however, once I got them home, I just couldn't get myself to bother with them, even for a review. They were too depressing. But, perhaps they'll spark your interest like they did mine, and perhaps for you the interest will stay. Cinderella Was a Liar: The Real Reason You Can't Find (or Keep) a Prince by Brenda Della Casa, Slay Your Own Dragons: How Women Can Overcome Self-Sabotage in Love and Work by Nancy Good, The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence by Colette Dowling. I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of being told I have hidden fears. The vast majority of the self-help genre is based upon the premise that you are a flawed and bad human being that must be saved from yourself and your hideous soul. Then there's the victim genre that says your soul is great, but you and your life suck, but that's okay, because it's all their fault. You know what? They can just stick it. You and I are amazing and wondrous human beings as we are right now, and if we want to change, we'll change. Not because we're flawed or because we're stuck waiting for prince who won't come or because others have held us down all our lives, but because we want to. We will change because we want to.

I'll keep doing book reviews, and now and again, I'll give you a list of books I just couldn't be bothered with. If you want to suggest some, I welcome that.

Your Corner

You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope. – Thomas Merton

Like I talked about in the previous quote, you have a corner of the world that you can influence, affect, change, and make sparkle. You don’t need to know how your corner will affect the world or even the next corner over. You just need to do the best you can with your corner and make it as amazing as you are.

The Future is being created by a whole lot of people, and you can’t know what all is going to happen, no matter how big or powerful or influential or psychic you are. But you can build and influence and affect in the now. You can help shape the Future here and now and take all the possibilities and challenges that are here now and make them something unique and in service of your plans for the Future.

You don’t need to know everything in order to do what you can. Even a small step will help to open your eyes and to brighten your corner. And, most of all, to shape your Future.

Time to Fly

Why be content to crawl, when we were born with wings. It's time we learn to fly. - Daniel Whiteside

“I can’t.” “Not me.” “I’m not good enough.” “I’d just fail.” “Someone else is so much better at it than I am.” “Who am I, after all?”

That is such a load of hooey that it’s almost sickening to even try to address it. You are an amazing person. In the history of the world (no matter how old you think it is), there has never been anyone exactly like you. You are unique and wonderful. You have plenty in common with others, but you are still the one and only you. To not be you, to reduce your ability from doubt or despair, hurts not just you but the world. The world could be so much more than it is right now if only people would realize that they could make a difference.

“I couldn’t change the world!” Who’s asking you to? Just change your little corner, or your big corner if you’re ambitious. You change your corner, and I’ll change my corner, and he’ll change his, and she’ll changer hers, and so on and so on, and pretty soon a whole lot of the world has changed. You only need to do what you can where you are.

You are wonderful, and if anyone tells you otherwise, get them out of your corner. Let the pigs wallow in the mud. It’s time to fly.

Other People’s Opinion

People always want you to be who they think you are. – David Cross

It’s easier for a lot of people if you would just quietly and consistently fit into a nice neat category so they can label you and not have to think about you. But, if you go against their stereotypes, they don’t care for you too much.

These stereotypes can be racial, sexual, sexual orientation based, religious, nationality based, or even what side of the city you’re from. Let’s not forget height, weight, and occupation. Whoever insisted that all fat people must be jolly should be shot. By the way, not all cops are Irish, either, nor are all tall people basketball players.

A lot of people are lazy and would prefer to put you in a category than get to know you as a person. Do I care what the cashier thinks of me? Not really. I’m fine with the cashier putting me in the category “customer” and thinking nothing else of me. That’s as far as our relationship goes – “customer and cashier”. But, if I have a coworker who decides that I’m “female” hence I am x, y, and z, then I have a lot of issues and problems. Unless x, y, and z are “has ovaries”, “has an x chromosome”, and “should be referred to as ‘she’ when speaking of her in the third person”, I’m probably being stereotyped. I am a person, not a category. I fit into a lot of different categories and labels, but what my label means to me and what it means to you could be very different things.

That’s the problem. My perspective on the world and yours differs. Some people don’t get that. They think that the way they see the world is the way it is AND the way that others see the world, too. That just ain’t so. But, they don’t want to bother, which makes me not want to bother with them. Because in my life, I need people who see me as a person, who are willing to deal with me as a person, who will respect me as a person rather disrespect me as “one of them”, and I’m not going to settle for anything less than that.

You shouldn’t either.

Not Enough Time

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of ours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Do you have enough time? Yes. To do everything? No. To do those things that mean the most to you? Yes. To do everything that means a lot to you? No.

If there is something that’s really important to you, but you’re doing nothing about it, then that means one of two things. It’s not as important to you as you think. Or, it’s not as important to you as something else. “That’s not fair,” I can hear you screaming (or perhaps it’s just me). “I want to do this and that and the other thing, but I deserve time to relax after my hard day…but I need to take care of this other obligation … but, but, but…” Whatever. And I say that to myself too – if only you knew how much time I waste watching TV and playing computer games.

Now, computer games and TV are not as important to me as writing. No, really. Despite the fact that I spend more time playing computer games and watching TV than I do writing, writing is more important. So, why the games and TV? Because mixed in with the games and TV are other things – fear of failure, fear of success, inertia, depression, victim-attitude, desire for instant gratification (I love rereading what I wrote, but it takes longer to write it than it does to watch a TV show). When you take all of these things and you combine them, you get a mass of ugly ooze that unfortunately adds up to something more important than writing.

How do you defeat the ugly ooze? One little bit at a time. Each five minutes you spend on the truly important thing is a little bit carved out of the ooze. Keep it up, and slowly you will starve the ooze until its power lessens and suddenly it becomes more important to you to X than it does to do something else.

It also helps if you add things to your very important X to make it stronger in the face of the ooze. Self respect. Self esteem. Making yourself a promise and being the type of person who keeps their word. Rewards (don’t underestimate rewards or consider them beneath you – if it takes an ice cream cone to get you to X for now, then do it). And, very important, habit. Eventually, that inertia will switch sides, betray the ooze and come over and help you build your castle. That which is at rest tends to stay at rest. That which is in motion tends to stay in motion. If you are moving towards building your anti-ooze castle around your very important X, then you will keep moving.

You have enough time, if you use it right. Build your Future. You’ll be glad you did.

Too Many Things To Fix

The world is simply too full of worthwhile projects, injustices in need of justice, and unfairness in general for each of us to conquer them all. – John-Roger & Peter McWilliams

So don’t conquer them all. Just because there’s a lot to be done doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do anything. So what if you can’t do everything? Do something, and the world and your life will be better for it. That guy over there, he can’t do everything either. But can do something, and you can do something, and together you can get a lot done. Is it everything? Maybe not, but that woman over there is doing something too, and with the three of you, a lot is getting done. And you attract the couple down the street, and the social group itching to go out and do something together and him and her and the other one and, and, and… You get the point?

Pick one thing. It doesn’t have to be the most worthwhile thing or the best choice, but choosing is better than not choosing at all. Then, work on that one thing. If it’s the wrong thing, you can change your mind later. But do something, and that’ll be one less of the “everything” for someone else to do.

Complacency

We think that hope – in the form of complacency – is one of the greatest evils. Without hope, humanity would have gotten busy and cleaned up all the other evils long ago. Hope provides the environment in which the other evils can flourish. – John-Roger & Peter McWilliams

The hope that they talk about here is the hope that “it’ll all go away” or “someone else will take care of it”. People hope that things will get better even if they don’t do anything about them. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes crime statistics get better, even if you don’t create a neighborhood watch program. Sometimes people do get into better moods, even if you don’t be nice to them or see if you can help. Sometimes your noisy neighbors do get quieter (usually by moving away), even if you don’t go over and speak with them. Sometimes it happens.

But it doesn’t happen as often or as quickly as if you had gotten off your butt and done something about it. Hope is wonderful. Hope is great. Without hope of things being better, there’s no incentive for you to do anything. But, hope needs action or else it’s just an excuse.

Don’t let hope fall into the same category as “I’m too tired” or “I just didn’t have enough time”. Don’t use hope as an excuse to do nothing. The Future will be created, whether you act or not, with little regard to what you “hope”.

The Weekend Novelist

The Weekend Novelist by Robert J. Ray is a method of writing a novel in one year by working on the weekends. A lot of people want to write, believe they could write “the Great American Novel”, if only they had the time. You do have the time, according to this book. It takes you step by step through a creation process that will give you a completed novel in one year.

I will most likely pick up a copy of this book, because it has a lot of good ideas. The problem is, it’s so programmed, so sterile that it’s hard to think of writing as fun. Sure, it advises you to write with abandon nearly every weekend – for ten minutes at a time. It’s not as bad as an instruction manual for sex would be, but it’s dry and sees all novels as having the same recipe.

On the other hand, the three and a half novels I’ve written aren’t good enough yet to be published and could do with some improving that I couldn’t figure out on my own. This book will be an excellent guide for me to improve those novels I’ve written. I’ve had the fun of writing, and now I’ll use the cookie-cutter book to help me shape things up. Not a bad thing at all.

One word of caution – if you don’t like having novels spoiled for you, their ends revealed before you read them, then read “The Great Gatsby” and “The Accidental Tourist” before picking up this book.

If writing a novel is one of your dreams, you can make it come true. And when you’ve made one dream come true, the others don’t seem quite so impossible. With that in mind, your Future can become very bright indeed.

Overnight Success

"Overnight success" is just another way of saying "no one noticed until now". – S.L.

J.K Rowling wrote for 2 years before Harry Potter became a household name. A good number of other writers wrote using pen names as they wrote half-baked quickies in order to pay the bills. I don’t recall how long Alex Haley wrote until “Roots” became a success, but I believe it involved decades. Painters in the previous centuries would paint over their previous works that didn’t sell so they wouldn’t waste the canvasses – even the great ones. Many musicians practice for years and years before they get their big break that launches them into “instant” stardom.

But you don’t hear a lot about those parts of the stories, and it’s given to many people the gimmees. They want success now, just like they heard their favorite actor, singer, sports star had it. They didn’t hear or glossed over all the hard work that went with the raw talent in order to create the big break, the fabulous career, the fame. Someone once said that success is when opportunity meets preparation. Too many people believe that success is when opportunity meets raw talent. You can be as talented as Picasso, Bruce Springsteen, and Magic Johnson combined, but if you aren’t willing to do the work, if you aren’t willing to prepare what’s necessary, your opportunities won’t come along.

If you want something in your Future, prepare for it. You’ll get more opportunities that way.

The Inbetween Time

The inbetween time sucks. I know the platitudes and the advice. “Make the best of this.” “Find something you enjoy and do it.” Uh huh. It still sucks. What is that “inbetween time”? It’s that time while or after something has ended and before you’ve gotten used to it. You keep expecting life to get moving again, though in reality life keeps moving along no matter what. But you expect to feel alive again or something. You keep waiting for that signal, that “a-ha!” feeling to come and let you know that the waiting is done, that the new phase of your life has begun.

It doesn’t happen.

There are very few times that this happens. You move into a new house. You have a baby. You start a new job. But for every one of those, there are other “inbetween times”. You are house hunting – you don’t want to spruce up your current place any more than you need to but you still have to live there. You are pregnant – you no longer can do certain things but you don’t have the reason why quite yet. You start a new job – some people find a new job before they start a new one, but a lot of others are out of work and waiting, trying, to find a new job while they balance their checkbooks again.

And there are plenty of other examples. How many people do you know get dumped by a significant other and then mope for months afterwards? Are stuck in grief for a lost loved one to the point that they neglect those still alive? Just sent off their last kid to college and have no idea how to be alone in the house? Started a job in the new city and don’t have friends to hang out with yet?

My advice? Wallow. Get some ice cream or whatever, hop on the computer or the TV, and wallow for a little bit. Let yourself be in the middle of then and when, of what was and what will be. Yes, you will need to get off your duff and do things in order to bring about the Future that you want and desire, but if you’re inbetween and need a break from the waiting and the transition and the plans and the “what if”, wallow for a little bit. Get off your butt tomorrow for a while and then reward yourself some how that works for you.
Life continues always, and your Future is being shaped by everything you do. But give yourself a break now and again. You deserve it, especially when you’re inbetween.

Overweight or Tofu

60 pounds overweight or eating nothing but tofu again. Some people say that any diet works if you work it – if you don’t cheat, if you follow the guidelines exactly, etc. I disagree. I do not want to even try the “all air” diet or the “all grapefruit” diet. I doubt they’re healthy for me. Nor do I want to take up the McDonald’s challenge as depicted in a recent documentary, for reasons I’m not going to go into, just in case their lawyers read this. The real problem with diets is that they work only for as long as you are on them, and then they stop working when you stop doing.

There’s some middle ground between “I’ll eat everything in sight” and “I’ll eat only this very strict and regimented program”. Give yourself permission to eat whatever you want – but stop eating when you’re full. If you don’t know what full feels like, experiment. Why not? You’re going to eat anyway, and what’s a diet, really, except an experiment someone else suggested to you?

Yes, red meat is worse for you than tofu when it comes to fat content. Does that mean you should have tofu instead of red meat? Not if you don’t like tofu. Which I don’t. I don’t eat it. I also eat very little red meat. However, if I want to eat red meat, I do. If I want to eat ice cream, I do. But I also pay close attention to what I really want and what’s convenient. Sure, drive by fast food is convenient, but when I stop and really think about it, about how I feel afterwards, about what the food tastes like when compared to home made, it’s not always my first choice.

I also make healthy stuff as convenient as possible. It’s better for me to eat the skins on carrots. I know this. It’s cheaper for me to buy carrots by the bunch rather than buy the skinned baby carrots. But you know what? I don’t eat carrots by the bunch. I do eat baby carrots. They’re easy and convenient. Do I get as many vitamins and nutrients as I would if I ate “adult” carrots? Nope, but I get more than if I didn’t eat carrots at all.

I buy frozen foods that are healthier for me than other frozen foods. That way, when I don’t feel like cooking, I can just grab something from the freezer and make it quick. I have access to plenty of marinade recipes. I use bottled marinade. Why? Because I know me. I know I’m not going to make home made marinade. I don’t like cooking that much. But, I do enjoy making a quick stir fry, which is something I can do with a bottled marinade. Or mix it into burgers. Or mix it into some otherwise plain rice. I use white rice. Why? Because it’s easier than brown rice. I also like the taste better. Does that mean that I’m not eating healthy? No, because I do use this rice in making easier healthy dishes than I would if I tried to force myself into using brown rice. I wouldn’t use the brown rice, just like I don’t use that half a bag of beans sitting in my cabinet because I don’t like the taste. Would eating beans be healthier for me than eating turkey, yes. But eating turkey is better for me than eating red meat, and I will eat turkey. I don’t care for beans – at least not those.

You don’t have to eat everything that’s bad for you, but you don’t have to deny yourself everything you want. There is compromise everywhere, a middle ground that you can reach. Some people may taunt you when you order a diet coke with your fast food burger. Screw them. Little things add up. Make small adjustments, and if the jerks say “I don’t see a difference”, remind yourself you’re not doing it for them. You’re doing it for you right now and you in the future, and that’s what matters. You.

Abusive Spouse or Lonely Spinster

“Nothing is worse than being alone” is the rallying cry of every spouse who stays with someone who belittles, hits, rapes, ignores, or otherwise abuses them. Really? Some people believe so for a variety of reasons, but one of the biggest is that the person just doesn’t like the company they keep when they’re alone.

Dump the loser. Dump him, dump her, dump them, just toss the trash out into the street. If you feel you cannot live without them, if they tell you you cannot live without them, if they threaten to kill you if you leave, dump them, dump them, dump them. But I believe I’ve already talked about that in a previous post.

This post is about the middle ground. “I don’t want to be one of those old ladies with 35 cats.” Then don’t be. I know two ladies in their seventies, neither of whom ever married. They live together not for financial reasons but because they enjoy the company. They don’t date (to my knowledge), but they do travel extensively. They’ve been to more continents since they turned 50 than I’ve been to in my entire life. If you want to know about what you can do when you’re old other than knit blankets and pet your cats, contact the AARP or the Red Hat Society. They’ll be happy to help you find something fun and social to do, so you won’t be lonely. And if you want to find a little romance, then you won’t need to be a spinster either.

Some people feel more complete when they’re in a relationship than they do on their own. Which is sad. I’ve been there, and I know that in my case at least (and for too many of my friends), it’s because of a dislike of one’s self, a lack of self confidence, a need for someone else to take care of you, even if that someone else depends on you more than you do on them. But you don’t have to stay with an abusive loser just to have a relationship.

The problem is, too many people who grew up in abusive homes became adrenaline junkies. They just don’t know how live without that constant crisis mode. Nice, stable people who don’t do drugs or drink or hit or whatever just aren’t “exciting” enough, because they don’t give that surge of adrenaline whenever they walk through the door – because you already know whether or not you’ll finish the night in the emergency room.

Contrary to what a lot of bar patrons say, especially around midnight, one in the morning, there are decent guys out there. There are decent women out there. And these decent people are single and looking for a relationship. They might not be at the bar at one in the morning, but they are somewhere.

You don’t need to stay with a loser to have a relationship. You don’t need a relationship to have fun. There are other options.

Break from Obligations

Normally it's Fridays that I skip, but this week it was everything else, including the book review for tomorrow, because I'm still reading it.

So why do I do this? Why do I bother? With so few comments, really this is very little more than a public journal, as far as I know, except that a few people have said they have read one or two of the posts. Is that enough?

Right at the moment, not really. I have so much other stuff going on that I rather need a break from obligations. But, that's getting better.

Normally, though, yes. Because even if no one else reads this, a good number of the posts are things I needed to read. If it helps no one else, it helps me. So, it is worth it, when things are good, great, or even average. Right now, not so much.

Thank you for bearing with me during the "not so much". Regular posting is coming. Irregular posting will continue in the mean time.