Bad Habits and Addictions

Habits you can’t control are addictions. Smoking is a great example. If you always light up after a meal (or sex), and you get anxious if you can’t, that’s an addiction. Even if you’ve had a cigarette just before you ate and still have plenty of nicotine in your system, if you need another cigarette after the meal simply because it is after the meal, then you have an addiction. And addictions, my friend, will control your Future whether you want them to or not.
Because addictions insist on being a part of your Future, no matter what else is there. They will crowd out other things and take their “rightful” place in your Future unless you kick them out of your life. If you want to create your Future, then do so. Be forewarned that your addictions are creating parts of it, too.
How do you get rid of a bad habit or an addiction? The same way you got into it – you create a habit. If your addiction is partially physical, such as with the nicotine in tobacco, or with alcohol, or with other drugs, then you may need to get some physical help. Get that help while at the same time you create your habit of not doing whatever it is you’re kicking out of your life.
If your habit is to eat two donuts every morning, give yourself something else to do. Do not try to just stop and not fill the void. A void is a powerful thing, and it will call to you, beckoning to you to refill it with your old habit because that’s what you’ve done in the past. You have to fill that void with something else, create a new habit. For some, you could jog instead. The endorphins released by jogging may give you a sufficient boost you don’t need the sugar from the donuts. Or you could eat something else, something satisfying in a different way. I do not suggest carrot or celery sticks unless you really, really love them. Try fruit or yogurt or toast with jelly, something that will give your sweet tooth a bit of a taste yet still be better for you than the donuts.
It could be that you get the donuts for some other reason than a sugar high or a sweet tooth. Maybe you eat two donuts every morning because you stop off at the bakery or diner each morning, and that’s what you order. Change your order. Find something else that they sell that you like. Or, if you really want to get nuts, don’t go there. That could be really tough, because you may have friends there that you chat with, or the smells are so good as you walk past it. It’ll get easier, though, every time you do this new thing, the new habit instead of the old. Each time you make the change, you reinforce the habit, just like you did every time you ate the donuts. And you know how strong habits can be. Make them work for you instead of against you.

Sink Reflections

Sink Reflections by Marla Cilley contains pretty much what's on the site flylady.net but in a format that's easier to read for people who don't like the internet. I recommend a read through. She advocates a "use what you want, leave the rest" philosophy to the book and to her website/group. There's a lot of useful information in that book, and you probably will find something of use to you, even if you don't use everything.

Habits, Part 1

Habits are tools and sometimes straightjackets. There are good habits, bad habits, inoffensive habits, obnoxious habits. Everyone has habits. A life without habits would be too difficult in the current world / society. I’m talking about more than just the skills you learn like walking and driving. These things take a lot of practice in order to do them on autopilot, just like habits, but skills are tools you can pick up and put down as you need them. Habits are more than that.
Habits start out either intentionally or unintentionally. By that, I mean that either you intend for them to be a habit or you don’t. And the lines of good versus bad habits aren’t the same as intentional versus unintentional, though intentional and good overlap by a great deal, as do bad and unintentional. Hmm, maybe I can clarify that a bit.
Most intentional habits are good habits to have – studying every Wednesday at 8, jogging in the mornings, bringing a bag lunch to work rather than ordering pizza. Most good habits were started because people wanted to start them. “I really should exercise more.” “I should eat better and lose some of this weight the doctor’s been on me about.” “I really want to do well in this class. I’d bet study.”
Likewise, most unintentional habits are bad, and many bad habits aren’t started intentionally. You just don’t realize they’re a habit until you try to stop. Smoking, eating while watching TV, gossiping are all examples.
But, you also have the unintentional good habits - brushing your teeth, wearing your seatbelt, things you learned as a kid without really thinking about them.
Unfortunately, some people also have intentional bad habits. Fortunately, I don’t know a whole lot of “bad” people, so examples aren’t popping into my head. But, I have great respect for the vastness of human creativity. I’m sure there are some people out there who have intentionally started a habit that hurts themselves or others.
But what does that have to do with creating your Future? Everything! In coming posts, I’ll explain.

Commitment

There are a lot of people and businesses that clamor for your commitment - cell phone plans, employers, parents who think it's about time you chose a spouse and settled down, just to name a few. In my opinion, though, there's only one commitment you need to make in this life, and life is pretty useless without it. You need to commit to you.

If you're the martyr type, fine, put other people first on your list, so long as you are on that list. If you lie to everyone else, that's your choice, but don't lie to yourself. Don't give up on yourself. Don't try to be good to yourself and then declare it too hard and stop. Commit to being kind and loving to yourself, to making your life better. Commit to yourself, because until you do that, you don't have anything to commit to anyone else.

Appreciation Day - June

For this month's appreciation day, I told the women's cancer support group how much they mean to me. It's wonderful to be able to go somewhere where people really "get it". My family has supported me and loved me very much, but for some things, you really need someone who's walked in your shoes.

I Could Do Anything

I Could do Anything...if I Only Knew What It Was: How to discover what you really want and how to get it by Barbara Sher. This is a worthwhile book to read, and it will be very helpful to any of you who don't know what you want in your Future. It's more difficult to create a Future if you don't know what you want it to look like. This is the second time I've read it, and it's still of interest to me. The later chapters are each devoted to a different kind of "stuck", but it's worthwhile to read the entire book. Even if you're mainly a chapter 10, there could be bits of you in chapters 5 or 13 or any of the others. Or you may find someone you know and it could help you with dealing with them (and if you don't know a "rager", congratulations, that must be nice). One of the things I like about this book over the last one I reviewed is that this one contains exercises that help you discover what you really want as well as exercises to help you get over the block. The Tomorrow Trap only told you how to figure out what's blocking you. I Could Do Anything also tells you what to do about it. The only frustrating part about it is that the Success Teams discussed sound great, but there are none in my area, and I'm still a little too shy to create one of my own.

All in all, a good book.

A Million Things

There are a million things in this universe you can have, and there are a million things you can’t have. It’s no fun facing that, but that’s the way things are – Captain Kirk, “Star Trek”

The glass is both half full and half empty. There are a million good things about this world and a million bad. Where's your head at, though? Seeing just the good but not the bad is looking through rose colored glasses. Seeing just the bad and not the good is pessimism at its worst. You need to see them both but focus on the positive. Why? Because seeing them both and focusing on the negative is a sucky way to live. Now, you're entitled to live your life any way you want, and if you want to throw your energy away into the unending abyss that is the negative portion of the world, that's your business. But if you want to build your Future, you just might want to keep a little bit of that energy for yourself.

Another "count your blessings" lesson? No. That's a great way to get yourself enough energy to begin getting out of the abyss, but it only takes you to the surface. If you want to soar, you've got to do a little bit more.

First, acknowledge that there are good things in the world and bad things. That's a tough lesson for some people. I have attracted some incredibly negative people into my life. I'm not sure how or why. Maybe everyone has them. But, these people believe that life sucks, their life in particular sucks, their past sucks, their present sucks, and everything in their future sucks, too. And don't even bother to try to talk them out of it. They'll just look at you sadly and shake their heads. "Another dupe," they think. They generally don't have good lives, mainly because they refuse to try to have a good life, even when it's within reach. To them, everything's a million to one shot - one million bad things to every one good.

Second, do what you can about the bad things and then let it go. You can't stop your neighbor from gossiping. You can't shorten your commute without changing your job or your home. There's a lot of things you just can't do anything about. And there's a lot of other things you can do some things about, but not enough to change them from bad to good, just from incredibly bad to merely bad.

Third, do what you want and what you can with the good things. Make them your focus. Over the weekend, you need to do the laundry, but that doesn't mean your whole weekend is shot. Yes, the guy in the cubicle next to yours is loud when he's making personal calls, but the rest of your job is great. Don't let laundry ruin your weekend, don't let your coworker ruin your job.

Keep your focus on the million things you can have in your Future, not on the million you can't. You can make a really sweet life with a million things.

Options

Thinking things over yourself is a good idea. Relying on your own judgement and your own opinions about your life is important. But, you have to check out what other people think, even if you don't agree, even if you don't follow what they say. Because other people don't think the way you do and don't see a situation the same way you do, which gives you more options than you ever knew you had.

When you have a problem, you can get locked into a set of solutions. Do I go to college or get a job first? Do I quit my job or continue to suffer? Do I go on an extreme diet or get surgery? And you can think that this is good, that you're mulling over your options, that you're doing a good job of taking care of yourself. But, ask another's opinion, too. They may surprise you.

Go to college or get a job? Why not part time at both? How about the military? How about joining the Peace Corps? Perhaps you could backpack across Canada for a year while figuring out what you really want.

Quit your job or continue to suffer? Why is your job causing you so much grief? Why is it that important? Get something else important in your life so that your job becomes more tolerable. Or set a quitting date in the future. It's a lot easier to bear a burden when you know it's going to end at a definite time. Or transfer to somewhere else in your company. Or get yourself fired and collect unemployment (not a great option, but it is most likely an option you haven't thought of).

Extreme diet or surgery? How about you take the money you were going to spend on the surgery and hire a personal trainer instead. Or take the money and buy yourself a fantastic wardrobe that looks great on you at your current size. Or accept that you're not going to get to your target weight in the next year, give yourself an extra year's grace period, and go on a more moderate diet. Or if someone's giving you that ultimatum (someone other than your doctor, that is), dump the bum. Go find yourself someone who appreciates you or go it alone for a while.

There are more options than you might think out there. Your Future has infinite possibilities. Don't limit yourself.

Self Respect

Life is easier if you respect yourself. Creating your Future is easier if you don't have those nagging voices in your head. How do you respect yourself? Two simple (but not easy) steps:

1. See what people do that causes you to respect them.
2. Do those things yourself.

Doing anything other than this is living a double standard. If you respect people who keep their word, then keep your word. If you respect people who are kind to others, be kind to others.

The same goes for the opposites. If you don't respect people who do certain things, then don't do them. Some obvious ones: gossip, lie, beat others or animals.

It's easier to get respect from others if you respect yourself first. A lot easier. And if you have others' respect (as opposed to their fear or their love), then creating your Future is that much easier, too.

Forget the Past?

Ever have someone say to you, "Don't think about that. It's all in the past. It doesn't matter any more."? The past becomes and stays the past when you're done with it and not before. If you're still angry over something from 5 years ago, then that part is not the past. Your anger is in the present, and thus the event is in some way in the present, too. That's a good thing when you're keeping someone "alive" through memories, but it's a bad thing when you have problems from childhood that you don't even realize you have.

Do you dislike bald men? Or maybe you don't think it has anything to do with them being bald, it just so happens in your life that a lot of bald people are jerks. Uh huh. Or maybe a bald person was very cruel to you long ago and you're still holding on to resentment about it, but you don't know it, so you're taking it out on people who remind you of that jerk. Which can be completely unfair to some bald men. Some of them can be very nice, but with you, they've already got a strike against them.

Or maybe you hate washing dishes, and whenever your roommate/kids/spouse leaves the dishes for you to do, you get in a really bad mood. To you, the really bad mood is because they're being insensitive jerks who don't understand that you have a life too and why do you have to do the dishes all the time? Perhaps. Do you get that way when they don't vacuum? Or don't shovel the driveway? Or don't take out the garbage? Perhaps you have insensitive jerks in your house, or maybe you have a problem with the dishes.

Sometimes "fixing" this is easy. You realize what's going on, see what triggers it from way back when, and the next time you're about to insult the bald guy or go off about the dishes, stop, think, and figure out how much of it is the situation and how much of it is the past. Sometimes, it takes more than just that, but it's a good start. If you're going to lose it and end up yelling at someone, better that you yell at them for the real reason and not kid yourself about why you're going ballistic.

You want to build the present on the past and the Future on the present, and that's tough to do when the past keeps getting in the way. Lay it to rest in whatever way you need, and fill your life with now.

Finishing What You Start

I've often had a problem finishing what I start. It all sounds so good at the beginning. I have plans, I'm excited about the project, and then somewhere close to the end, things go downhill. My enthusiasm wanes, problems come up, and I just don't want to do it. Looking back over the past, I know that I've had this problem often, and I see that I'm doing it with this blog. 3 posts a week plus an extra every other weekend, but this month has been very difficult for me to do. Last Thursday, I put up Wednesday's post, admitting I made a mistake rather than just glossing over it. Last Friday, I didn't post, nor did I put up a substitute post any time later. Monday, again, I didn't post, but I am putting up a post on Tuesday to make up for it. I am getting better at keeping my commitments.

I don't feel that I have to finish everything I start, though. I've had that problem, too, and they're related. An obligation to continue doing something I don't enjoy bugs me, and when I don't have an "out", I get rebellious and refuse to do it (in a passive aggressive, rather wussy sort of way). I've gotten better about that, too. If I think a book sucks, I stop reading it rather than forcing myself to go to the end just because I started it. If I think a movie sucks, I stop watching it. I have better things to do with my time than read or watch lousy entertainment. I'm also starting to develop enough respect for myself than to force myself into doing what I don't want to and don't need to for my goals. There are commitments I have right now that I really don't feel like keeping, but as part of my goals and plans for my life, I need to keep them, and thus I will. It will take a bunch of pokes and prods to do it, but I'm up for it.

Do you have a problem either with finishing what you start or not respecting yourself to say "enough"? There are a lot of unfinished craft projects lurking in the closets of America because people began them, don't want to finish them, but don't want to not finish them either. Limbo is a lousy place for a goal, and it ties up your energy and time. "If I'm not doing it, how does it tie up my time?" Do you think about it? How much guilt do you have over it? How much time did you spend hiding it in the back of your closet so you wouldn't see it and feel guilty? How often have you thought about cleaning your closet out but decided not to, perhaps because then you'd have to see it again? Stuff likes not just dust but also thoughts, especially unfinished stuff. Finish it or get rid of it, but take care of your commitments.

The Tomorrow Trap

The Tomorrow Trap: Unlocking the Secrets of the Procrastination-Protection Syndrome by Karen E. Peterson allegedly is about procrastination and how to beat it. It has a way of dealing with procrastination that I haven't read before, and I've read a good many self-help books. The theory behind this book is that we all have deep-ingrained shame from our childhoods that is causing us to procrastinate. Whether that shame cuases fear of failure, fear of success, belief we aren't good enough for anything good, perfectionism, or any other of a host of reasons, the true cause of procrastination is shame, and once you realize what is causing your shame, you can stop procrastinating.

This book is really about unearthing the shame from your childhood, and no matter how good a childhood you had, this book assures you that you've got shame. What you do once you unearth this shame is not in the scope of the book, although they do advocate going to therapy. You are apparently supposed to unearth your shame and then get some real help from somewhere outside the book.

This book covers a lot of interesting ground in a different way, and for that reason it was an interesting read. If you like self help books, psychology, or philosophy, this would be an interesting book for you. I want to point out a couple of things right away so that if they're going to turn you off, you can prepare yourself ahead of time.

First, the author believes that even infants feel shame, that we're practically born with it. I don't buy it. I can believe a lot of things about infants, but not shame.

Second, the author believes that at that point (1995), we were entering into a golden age of parenting when parents finally know how important it is to foster their kids' self esteem and how to do that all because of self help books like this one. Uh huh. I've seen what parents get when they work harder on the kids' self esteem than on teaching the kid how to be a member of society. It's not a pretty sight.

Other than those two points, this book was pretty neat, but I'm not going to bother with the exercises. If you're interested in them, 1) write with your non dominant hand when you're thinking about your childhood, and 2) go into therapy and ask them about photo history and art therapy. Voila, you're done.

Belated Day

Today I am one day late in putting up a new post. I am also one day late in wishing my sister-in-law a happy birthday. However, despite the embarrassment that I feel about being late in these things, I am putting up a new post, and I have sent her an e-mail. This is true progress over how I used to be. I used to screw up somehow and then retreat within myself, unable to even apologize, much less act in some way to make amends.

I think I'll keep the trend going today. There are a lot of things I've been putting off, but I refuse to overwhelm myself. (When I have a lot to do, I say screw it all and hop online to watch some really bad TV.) Today, I'm going to choose two things I've been putting off and doing them.

One of them is rewriting a plan for my week. I used ot be rather meticulous about getting the house cleaned up at least every other week if not every week, but that's gone quite downhill lately. I'm "going back to basics" in Flylady lingo and giving a couple things of hers a try again. They work, when I do them. The main thing I'm going to be giving a try again is "15 minutes a day, 1 hour a week". 6 days a week, clean for 15 mintes. 1 day a week, clean for 1 hour. As long as you pick up after yourself each day and run the dishwasher when needed, that's all it takes, so long as you do it. So I'm going to give it another try.

The other is to rewrite my values as in the style of the 10 Natural Laws (see a previous book review). I haven't looked them over since I first did them years ago. I am definitely not the same person I was then, though the similarities are there. The first three values are the same - myself, the Deities, and my husband. It's what comes after that that needs a little refreshing.

Whatever you're putting off, I hope you find what you need to get off your duff and do it. If you owe an apology or a letter or a phone call or something larger and scarier like quitting your job or moving, I hope you find it within yourself to do what needs to be done and clear a little space in your life for a better Future.

When Life Changes

It can be difficult when life changes. Sometimes it's very easy, especially when you don't bother changing along with it. That's what happened to me recently. I have a job that used to be very much a "hurry up and wait" job. I'd get through all of my work and send it on it's way and then I would wait for more work to come in. It gave me plenty of time to write, read, and work on my blog. Then one person began preparing to leave and another person's job description altered, and their duties became mine. Now, instead of getting all my work done in less than a morning, I leave at night with work yet undone. There was suddenly a lot less time to read, write, or blog. Yet, I didn't alter what I did in the evenings and weekends, and a lot less important stuff continued to get done like it always did, but other things fell by the wayside. I'm re-rearranging my life to have the good and important as well as the fun.

When life changes, you have to change with it, if you want to continue shaping your Future. Life is more than willing to be the designer, creator, and judge of your Future, if you let it. To create your Future, you're going to have to adapt to your present, because only if you acknowledge what's real in your life can you make conscious changes instead of allowing life to change you.

Regular posting will begin again next Monday.

A Year To Live

A Year to Live: How to Live This Year As If It Were Your Last by Stephen Levine is an interesting book that I just couldn’t finish. It’s not difficult to read, and I even skipped over all the meditations (and there are a lot of meditations), but despite what I thought when I got it from the library (and what I had hoped it would be when I heard about it), I don’t need yet another book giving me the same advice.

Just so you don’t need to read this book (or several others), here’s the basics:
1. Breathe and be aware of your breath.
2. Meditate daily, starting out with a little bit and increasing to an hour or more a day.
3. Look over your past. Forgive yourself, forgive others, leave nothing out.

That’s as far as I got, which is over two thirds of the way through the book.

I’m the type of person who sometimes needs to hear the same thing over and over again from a variety of sources before it sticks. I’m not sure if there’s a specific source that I need or if I just need to be won over like a river cutting through the bedrock. If you’re that type of person too, this is a good book for you. If you’re already meditating and reviewing your past, then this is not a good book for you. If you think meditation and forgiving others is a bunch of malarky, then this is not a good book for you. I think that this may be a good book for me to read again in a couple of years, if I haven’t started meditating by then.

More Equality

I want people to start out as equals, to be given equal opportunities at the start. Later in life? If I have more training than you and am better suited for this job, then I should get it. But, it should have to do only with what the job needs, not with my gender, height, sexual orientation, religious preference, political views, or marital status.

I want people to be able to get a loan based on their ability to repay, get a job on their ability to do it, vote when they’re an adult, marry who they want (providing it’s mutual), and be treated by the law the same as someone else in their position. That’s what I mean by equality.

More Financial Security

Wouldn’t it be great if everyone lived within their means? If no one ever declared bankruptcy or had a need to? If everyone had affordable and sufficient health care? If all companies would be understanding about money owed and work with the person to arrange a way to pay the bills?

Wouldn’t it be great if every company paid a living wage? Offered affordable health care? Took care of their own balance sheets so they never had to have massive lay offs or rob pension plans?

Wouldn’t it be great if high schools taught how to balance a check book as well as what the capital of North Dakota is? How to figure out a spending plan as well as how to do a proper chin up? How to search for a job as well as the pythagorean theorum?

I want financial security for me and for everyone and every business, too.

The Serpent Slayer

The Serpent Slayer and Other Stories of Strong Women by Katrin Tchana and Trina Schart Hyman is an excellent book. I started this blog talking about a book that disgusted me because of its sexism. Some people who see or read this book will claim that this book is as sexist as that one. Perhaps, but not in my opinion. No where in this book does it say men are less than women or beneath them or not as good or any other negative implication. What it does say is that women can be great. It’s a story book filled with fairy tales from around the world, each one with a woman who is strong or clever or both and does what needs to be done. They are well told and do not pander. Fairy god mothers do not always give away wishes. Princes are not always the rescuers. There are plenty of books around that have the men or a supernatural force make the girl’s life amazing. In this book, the girl does it herself, and I like that.

More Opportunity

I would love to have more opportunity for myself, but I would also like to see more opportunities for others, as well. But, more importantly than there being more opportunities, I would like people to see the opportunities that are already there, moreso than they do now. A lot of problems (not most, but a good number) in this world are because people believe that their situation is hopeless or that there is only one solution or that they have no other options or something to that effect. The truth is much better and much more interesting than that. There are an infinite number of opportunities around every one of us, whether we’re aware of them or not, whether we take them or not. The “more creativity” desire goes along with this, because part of the reason people don’t see the opporunities is because they don’t have the imagination to realize what else they could do. Opportunities abound.

I use diets a bunch in this, so let’s take losing weight as an example. How do you lose weight? What opportunities to lose weight are in your life? Most people will think eat less, exercise more, give up all the foods they love. But there are other opporunities. How about taking up a job as a dog walker? You get money and exercise that way. How about volunteering at the library to put away books? Standing up straight to put books on top shelves, bending down to put books on bottom shelves, walking all around the library. No time to exercise? Five sit ups every commercial break of your favorite night-time drama, and you’ve got firmer abs in a month. Fold laundry standing up instead of sitting down. Every time you go up the steps, step up once, then down, then go up as normal. Need something to snack on? Try gum. Try humming. Very difficult to eat while you’re humming.

What opportunities are there for finding a job? Why do you need a job? Because you need money, right? But a job isn’t the only way to make money. Marry someone rich. Rent your body out for medical experiments. Start up a fantastic e-zine. Sing for coins at the subway station. Search the flea markets and second-hand shops for hidden antiques and sell them. But, what if none of that works for you? What if you really want a job? Fine, get a job. How do you get one? The newspapers, the temp agencies, the internet – the usual, right? What other opportunities are there for finding a job? Advertise your interest on telephone poles. Hit up your friends for references. Research the best companies out there for you and send them your resume, whether they claim to have a job open or not. Volunteer at a place you want to work at (that’s how I got my first job after I moved to my current place); they’ll know what a good worker you are and will think of you when they have an opening. Walk the malls; they almost always need help. Join a networking group. Try the fast food joints (I know, you don’t want to work at a fast food joint, but it is true that it’s easier to get a job when you already have one than when you’re in desperate need).

The point is, there are a lot of opportunities out there for you, a lot of possibilities. If you cannot see them, ask your friends, your coworkers, what they see. That’s what I want for the Future, for more opportunities to be seen.

More Creativity

Again, this one is easy to explain. I want to create books and stories and literature and paintings and collages, both for my personal enjoyment and for others’ enjoyment. I want people to figure out and create cures for cancer, ALS, Alzheimer’s, and many other diseases, and I want to provide time and money to help them out. I want people to figure out new ways to fight world hunger, get rid of war, and protect the environment. I want to watch fantastic movies, read wonderful books, see incredible pieces of artwork, and walk through choreographed gardens. I want the Future to hold more creation, less destruction, more amazement, and less drudgery. I want to create and to appreciate the creativity of others for the rest of my life.

More Health

Now, this one should be easy to understand. By more health, I mean healthier people, healthier environment, healthier society. To have healthier people, I stay healthy myself and set a good example for others, and I participate in fundraisers for healthy causes (like finding a cure for MS or cancer). To have a healthier environment, I reduce, reuse, and recycle. I use the freecycle system, I shop at second hand stores (or did before the only decent one in the area closed), I recycle what I am allowed by the city, and I use renewable resources (walk where I can, use the library, etc.). To have a healthier society, again, by example, I tolerate, understand, and promote harmony (see previous posts).

More Understanding

More understanding goes along with more harmony. It’s the intellectual side of the coin. Harmony is the acceptance that they are different. Understanding is the knowledge of how they are different. The way to understand is to learn. You cannot understand something about which you know nothing.

Learn and then share your knowledge. Not in a pompous “I know this obscure fact” sort of way. If the people you are with are discussing something and you know a relevant piece of information, share it. If it has nothing to do with what’s going on, keep it to yourself. People don’t like a show off or a know-it-all, and unfortunately, that’s what you would look like if you spout off random facts. Learn and choose your “teaching moments” carefully so that your listeners will be receptive to what you have to say.

More Harmony

First off, what do I mean by more harmony? It’s difficult to create more of something if I don’t know what it is. I can define it in negative terms – fewer wars, fewer hate crimes, etc. But, I’m trying to be positive, to create rather than destroy. What do I mean by more harmony?

More tolerance for your fellow man, no matter what their religion, political views, or sexual orientation. More negotiations between splintering factions. More “live and let live” philosophers. More acceptance of the non-harmful portions of another’s life, even if they disagree with mine.

Now, I’m not saying that I will tolerate those who think that rape is acceptable, no matter how they claim it’s a political view, or a religious right, or however else they justify it in their own heads. There are plenty of other things that I will not tolerate, also. I’m talking about those views and actions that do not harm anyone, do not destroy.

Again, the best way I can create more harmony in the world is to create more harmony in myself. I will need to tolerate and accept. Perhaps I will be a shining example to others. Perhaps I will be a safe haven for those who face hatred all around them. Or perhaps I will merely keep a little bit of hate out of the world. No matter how grand a scope of my tolerance and harmony, the Future will be at least a little bit better because of it.

More Safety

How do you create more safety in the world? Or, more precisely, how do I create more safety in the world since I am the one who wants it?

I wear my seat belt. I drive a reasonable speed. I make my passengers wear their seat belts. I look both ways before crossing the road. I support laws and lawmakers that promote safety in the world. I refuse to buy products from companies that put the Earth in danger. I take care when using a knife. I stay sober when I drive. I pay attention when I cook. I don’t smoke, so I have no worries about cigarettes burning outside of ashtrays. I make certain that any candles I light are out when I am through. I put away things where they belong so others don’t trip.

I act in favor of shelters for battered spouses and kids. I support places where homeless can go to get off the streets. I support those who speak out against domestic violence. I tell others about self defense classes that are available. I remind myself of my own self defense training and keep fit enough to use it if I need to. I advise friends to leave abusers. I give them any support they need from me to do so – an ear, a place to stay, hands to help move.

I do what I can where I can when I can to ensure that everyone has a safe life.

The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management

The 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management: Proven Strategies for Increased Productivity and Inner Peace by Hyrum W. Smith, unlike a previous book I’ve reviewed, actually does what the title promises. This is the third time I’ve read this book, and every time it has something to say to my life. This time around, I reminded myself that I need to re-review my core values, because people change throughout their lives. The top two have not changed, but the rest may get reshuffled if they still make it to the list.

If you read nothing else in the book, read the “Crossing the I Beam” portion of the Law 2 chapter. It contains an extremely important point in this book – that there are some things in your life that are more important than continuing to live. Once you figure out what these things are, your life becomes a lot clearer.

I highly recommend this book. Seriously, go out and read this book. If you get nothing else from the book, there are amusing stories. But with this book, you’ll probably get a whole lot more, too.

More Peace

Once again, the change you want in the world begins with you. Well, I don’t go around killing or mugging people. I don’t start wars or blow up buildings. I’m peaceful, right?

Not really. I am currently more peaceful now than I have ever been, but I have quite a ways to go to get to as peaceful as I want to be. Peace is more than just a lack of violence. Peace is also about calm and tranquility. Peace is about being able to sit down and do nothing for a little bit. Peace is about being able to handle the alleged crises that come into your life in such a way that people are glad you’re there.

Meditation doesn’t work for everyone, but it is a great way to obtain and maintain inner peace for those who use it. Tai chi is also good for this. Many methodical and repetitive things work well. Knitting, gardening, shooting hoops for fun (not competition), taking a walk, going on a bike ride. Things that help you adjust your inner thoughts and churning stomach (or knotted shoulders or tapping toes) are good for peace.

Allow yourself to relax, really relax. When you’re on the couch watching the TV, don’t stress and strain. Let yourself really sink into the couch. Use pillows instead of muscles to prop you up. Watch something agreeable and entertaining rather than loud and annoying (yes, people intentionally watch annoying things – especially political shows). Allow yourself to get out of the tension that has been sitting on you for so long.

People are grateful for the peaceful people in their lives. The noisy and tension-producing ones just get more talk because it’s more entertaining to complain in this society, and tension is more photogenic than peace on the TV. Don’t be fooled by what you see and hear, though. Peaceful people do a lot of good, and you can be one of those people. So could I. I wish all of us luck in that.

More Happiness

How do you get more happiness in this world? Same way you get more love. You be happier. But wait, I hear you cry. If I could just “be happier”, I’d be happier! Everyone would be if other people/things/situations weren’t making me unhappy!

Um, no. Happiness is an attitude, and you have control over your attitude. You have control over how you react to things, whether you get angry, disappointed, whatever. And, most importantly, you have control over how long you feel angry, disappointed, whatever.

Do you know someone who’s still nursing a grudge over something that’s happened over a year ago? Nursing is the right word. They’re keeping the grudge alive by feeding it time and energy. Their thoughts feed it. Their words feed it. Their actions feed it. Without this person’s constant attention, the grudge would die, and the person would be happier, but they choose to be unhappy. “But you don’t know what that person’s done to me!” Nope, I don’t, but you’re going to have to decide, what’s more important? That you were hurt back then, or that you’re hurting yourself right now.

Do you know someone who has a bad day at the drop of a hat? (Not literally. For you younger readers, “at the drop of a hat” means “for any stupid old reason, and right away”.) The sun could be shining, and their car ran great on their way in to work, and they hit all the green lights, and the bakery had their favorite donut when they went down for a snack, and life in general is pretty good, and then BLAM! The copy machine jams right as they needed to finish this report, and their day is just shot to hell. Everything sucks. Their life sucks. The copy machine sucks. Their job sucks. They don’t even like the tie they’re wearing any more. And what is up with that guy down the hall? And on and on and on and on. It’s as if they wanted a bad day but just couldn’t find a good enough excuse until the copy machine thing. I really don’t like these people and have as little to do with them as possible. Their negative attitude rubs off on me too easily (my fault, not theirs, which is why I take the action to correct the problem).

One of my brothers decided when he was 8 that he was going to be happy. That wasn’t an easy decision to make in the household he grew up in, much less for an 8-year-old. But, he decided it, and today he’s one of the happiest people I know. In recent years, I have tried to follow that example. It’s not always easy.

Twice in my life, for some bizarre reason I can’t quite fathom any more, I played fictional incredibly negative scenarios in my head as I was walking, to the point that I was scowling. And twice – twice! – a complete stranger came up to me and said, “It can’t be that bad.” You know what? It wasn’t that bad, but I played out that scenario in my head, and it made me feel bad enough to show to complete strangers. I’m very glad for these strangers. They made me realize what I was doing to myself. And I hope to make you realize what you are doing to yourself.

Get the negative scenarios out of your head. If you need to plan for an emergency or a possibility, plan for it and then get it out of your head. If you need to have good arguments to counter someone you need to talk with, then do it, and then stop thinking about it. The only two reasons to replay an argument in your head after it’s happened are to see if there’s any truth you can glean from it, and to see how you could have handled it better. If you’re replaying the argument in your head for some other reason, it’s probably not a positive one.

Get the negative words out of your mouth. Don’t talk trash. Don’t say negative things. Don’t complain about how crappy your day was. Was there anything that was good? Was there any bit that you could focus on that would improve your mood? Legitimate complaints are different, but once you’ve complained, let it go. Fix what you can now, prepare to fix what you can for later, and let the rest of it go.

Choose things that make you happy. Let go of things that make you unhappy. Choose a happy attitude, or practice a non-negative one if you can’t quite get to happy yet. You can be happier by choice. Choose happiness, and the world will be a happier place.

April Appreciation Day

For this month's appreciation day, I have sent a note to Midas about the manager at my local Midas location. He has always been very helpful and informative, and I wanted them to know that.

The Small Business Millionaire

The Small Business Millionaire by Steve Chandler and Sam Beckford is a story that tells about a millionaire who helps a struggling family restaurant turn around their finances. If you’re in a small business, it could be of use to you. I am not, but the title intrigued me, and I intend to be a millionaire some day, so I can use all the good advice I can get. The two things that I got out of this (and a discussion with my husband) are go for great and commit to what you want. The family in the story was rather wishy washy. They wanted more customers, but they weren’t sure what to do to get them. So they kept doing the same useless things over and over. And since they felt helpless, they decided they’d take any customers that came in the door rather than go after the good customers. After all, they figured, who were they to go after the good customers when they owed so much money? As for commitment, the daughter isn’t fully committed at first, and the father quits part way through the book. Fortunately, they both learn the lessons from the self-taught millionaire customer who loves Magnum P.I. and manage to turn their restaurant around.

If you have a small business, read it and glean the lessons (there’s a chart towards the end) and also read the rest of this post. If you don’t have a small business, then just read the rest of this post.

You are worth more than you think. You are wonderful and absolutely amazing. You are incredible, and in the entire history of mankind, there never has been nor will there ever be someone like you. It’s not “who am I to go for the gusto” but rather who are you to say ‘screw you, universe’ and waste your life on mediocrity? If someone’s told you you’re not good enough for the good life, dump them. Get them out of your life. And if it’s you that’s been telling you that, get that voice out of your head and kick it to the curb. You’re amazing, and you deserve great things, so go after them.

Just to make something clear – you do not deserve great things without any effort on your part. The universe owes you nothing. It gave you life, this world, and consciousness enough to see the opportunities that abound around you. The rest is up to you.

Commit to what you want. First, figure out what you want, and then go for it. And don’t give up until you get it or realize that you truly don’t want it. And not in that sour grapes sort of way where you try, you fail, and you state that you didn’t want it in the first place. Don’t lie. You wanted it. If, however, you learn more about this thing – job, person, house, situation – that you want and learn that it is not for you, then cut your losses and move on. Just don’t lie to yourself.

You deserve wonderful things, you are good enough for wonderful things, so figure out which wonderful things you want and go for them.

More Love

How do you put more love in the world, in your present, in your Future? By loving. By performing loving acts, by saying loving things, and by refusing love’s two opposites – hate and apathy. Love is a positive passion. Hate is a negative passion. Apathy is a lack of passion. Of the three, go for love.

I don’t mean cutesy-wootsey stuff like baby talk and red hearts trimmed in lace and false compliments. I mean actual loving things. I mean asking “how’s your day” and then listening to the answer. I mean taking out the garbage when it needs to be taken out, even if it isn’t your turn, because you love yourself enough to have a house that isn’t full of garbage. I mean saying no when you mean no, because that’s loving yourself enough not to commit to something you don’t want and loving the other person enough to be honest with them. I mean giving to charity without complaints. I mean mowing your neighbor’s lawn when they’re sick just to be nice. I mean doing nice things in nice ways to yourself and the people around you.

Yes, I do mean that you need to love yourself more. I am not talking about masturbation or any other type of sexual love. Treat yourself and others with kindness, with respect, with honesty, and with attention. Pay attention to yourself and to others. Be kind to yourself and others. Be respectful to yourself and others. Be honest with yourself and others. And if you don’t know how to do those things, keep reading.

To be kind, give yourself a break when you need a break. Don’t say bad things about yourself. Compliment yourself when you deserve it. Take care of your body and your health.

To pay attention, listen when someone is talking. Don’t do something else, too. Stop what you’re doing, turn to the person, and give them your attention. To pay attention to yourself, give your thoughts enough time to find out – am I tired, do I need a break, am I hungry, is something making me anxious and if so what?

To respect, be honest, give deserved compliments, do not criticize without cause, do not gossip, use a neutral tone of voice – not yelling or patronizing. Unfortunately, in this society, it’s much easier to come up with “do not” examples of how to respect than “do”.

To be honest, tell the truth. Do not gossip, even if you believe it to be true. There is almost no way you can know the whole story. Say no when you mean no. Say yes when you mean yes. Give your honest opinion when asked for it, though if you get into a situation where honesty would actually hurt you (like your boss is a baby who cannot handle the truth), be as diplomatic as possible and find a new situation. You don’t have to be brutal about things, but don’t lie.

Love yourself, love others, and more love will be in this world.

What I Want For The Future

Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

You can say you want less hatred, less intolerance, less this, less that in your life, in the world in your Future, but by phrasing it like that, you are focusing on the negative, on the darkness. Putting your focus, attention, and energy on those things just increases both their affect on you and your awareness of them. If you want less of them, instead promote their opposite. Abolish them by putting something better in their place. That’ll be the topic for the next series of posts.

For the Future, I want more love, more happiness, more peace, more safety, more harmony, more understanding, more health, more creativity, more opportunity, more financial security, more equality, for myself and for the rest of the world. In each post in this series, I’ll talk about how to get one of those things. If you want me to talk about something you want that isn’t on the list, let me know.

Negative Knick-knacks

Things have an energy about them. Why else do people keep mementoes? “To remind us” people so. And what’s a memory except energy? Not everyone gets the same feeling from an object as other people do. That’s why there are Elvis commemorative plates and baby angel statuettes and music boxes and many, many other things – because different people get positive feelings from different objects.

However, there are some objects that give you a negative feeling. Again, they are reminders of something that you don’t like. Get rid of them. Seriously. Toss them, burn them, tear them up, give them to charity, hand them over to the neighborhood rummage sale. Just get those reminders of bad times and bad things out of your house and out of your head. And if you say, “But so-and-so will be so upset if I get rid of it, so hurt!”, then you’re going to have to ask yourself why so-and-so’s opinion is more important than yours on what should be in your house.

Some examples – not all of these are negative for everyone, but they can be for others:

An unflattering picture of you. If you have a picture of you that makes you look fat or ugly, why do you keep it? Get rid of it and get some pictures that flatter you.

A postcard from Hawaii. You had a miserable time. You caught pneumonia while you were there and stayed indoors the entire two weeks. Every time you see that postcard, you remember the misery of being ill. Toss the thing.

The lamp. Your ex-mother-in-law gave it to you. You have never liked it, and for some reason your ex-husband didn’t take it with him when he left. The only reason you still have it is because it’s exquisite, beautiful, and expensive-looking. So what? Get rid of it. Give it to someone who’ll remember you for giving it and won’t know its “deep dark” past.

The sweater. Your late wife wore that sweater whenever it was cold. Every time you see it, you cry and wish she was still here. Find something else to remember her by. Something that makes you smile, not cry. Your memories of her shouldn’t be tainted by sorrow.

Your wedding dress from two marriages ago.
Clothes three sizes too small that claim that you’re fat.
Clothes three sizes too big that remind you you used to be fat.
Three dozen porcelain pigs that you don’t like but that friends gave you because you have a pig collection.

You get the point. Make your home your haven, your base of operations, your launch pad for your Future. Get rid of the negative stuff. You don’t need it any more. Fill your home with positive things that make you happy so you can fill your Future with happiness.

Way of the Peaceful Warrior

Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives by Dan Millman. This book comes in three parts. I wish you could skip part one and just go straight to part two, but I think that the contrast between the whiny, annoying, self-conceited guy the narrator is in part one and the guy he becomes in parts two and three is part of the lesson. Which is too bad. I almost stopped reading the book after part one, and I was impressed with myself for having made it that far. But, I had nothing else to read and I was bored, so I continued with the rest of the book. I am almost glad I did, but really, if I hadn’t, it would have been no big loss in my life. I got out of it only a couple of things, things I’ve gotten elsewhere. I believe that if others haven’t read the dozens of self-help and self-actualization books that I have, there would be plenty of interesting, fascinating, and helpful things in this book. But, if you’re like me, and you’ve already read plenty, there’s not going to be much new for you. The story’s pretty good. If you like fantasy novels, give it a shot. It is an easy read. From the title, I was really hoping for more, but I didn’t get it.

Determining Your Future

The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts. – Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

I’m willing to bet that you know some real sour pusses. Grumpy, Mr. Negativity, never has anything pleasant to say, whiner – you know someone like this, right? And if you don’t, I don’t know how you do it, but keep it up!

There are some people who refuse to be happy. The glass is always half full and rather than seeing all the good in their life, their eyes are strictly on the places that suck. I wouldn’t want to be able to hear their thoughts. I imagine their minds are dark morasses of dank and stinking muck and vapor, a miserable place that nothing can bloom and no one would want to live.

Well, screw them. If they want to be sour pusses, let them. But don’t let them drag you down with them. Because, if you let them, their negativity will poison your mind and through your mind your life.

When you see nothing but the bad, you miss out on the good, and you miss out on opportunities because you’re always certain that it’ll fail or worse. You don’t improve anything because what’s the point? You don’t try because what’s the point? You don’t bother smiling or being happy because it’ll be over in just a moment, and it takes just too much energy to bother being happy. Man, that is a sucky way to live.

Life is wonderful. Are there bad parts? Of course. Nothing’s perfect. But don’t dwell on them. Fix them where you can. Accept them where you can’t. Concentrate instead on the great parts. You’re alive. You have at least some health, otherwise how are you getting my blog? You have opportunities to change your life, and obviously (since you’re reading this), you have enough gumption to be willing to change. Perhaps not your life as a whole, not yet, but your thinking, your attitude, your hope, a little at a time.

If you are a sour puss and want to change, don’t expect to do it overnight. Maybe you will, if you have a week to live and need to make the most of these last few days. But, without such a drastic motivator, most people will change slowly instead of quickly. Do one of the following. Then, each week (or month if you have a really bad case), add another one to your life. Say “please” whenever you make a request. Say “thank you” whenever someone does something for you, even if it’s just respond to you about how they can’t help you right now. Say hello to people you know. Smile for a couple of minutes for no reason other than to keep in practice. Give thanks to the Higher Power (or circumstance, if you are an atheist) for one thing every day. Watch an uplifting movie. Read an uplifting book. Toss out one negative book/movie/knick-knack/etc. from your home. Yes, knick-knacks can be negative, but I’ll deal with that next time. Give someone a compliment on their clothes or work or attitude. There are plenty of other ways you can emphasize the positive in your life, but these will do quite nicely as a start.

You can think your way into a brighter, more positive Future, or a darker and angrier one. It’s your choice.

Parenting Yourself

Parents can be wonderful things. Not always, but sometimes. Like with everything in life, take what you can use and toss the rest. Here are a couple of things that a parent would do that you can probably use.

Enforce your own bedtime. Even if you aren’t tired, go to bed at a reasonable hour. Only you can decide what a reasonable hour is. A good rule of thumb is if you wake up feeling dead tired, your bedtime is too late. Make it earlier. If you’re waking up right around the same time the alarm clock would normally go off, that’s the right bed time. Either that or you get woken up partially too often while you sleep. Eliminate the distractions, noises, and lights that make your sleep restless instead of restful.

Eat your vegetables. Not all vegetables are bad. There are some I won’t eat. I just don’t eat them. I eat other vegetables. There is no one food that is the sole source of anything essential. There is also no one food that is a source of everything essential. You need a variety of things. Try out different vegetables, and eat the ones you like. Here’s a big hint: salads are not the only way to get vegetables. I fought against that knowledge for a long time, insisting that I would have to eat salads. But I wouldn’t. And the lettuce would turn brown and the carrots would decay and the celery would become limp and leaky. That did not endear me to vegetables. Once I stopped trying to force myself to eat salads, things got a lot better. Vegetables are also good in soups, stews, in tacos, steamed and on the side, mixed with rice, chopped up and put into a Hamburger Helper, or eaten raw, with or without dip, depending on what it takes for you to eat them. Fruit is also good for you, but higher in sugar. They can also provide a different portion of the “variety” you’re supposed to eat. They’re also easier to eat raw in most cases.

Make your bed. I’m very tired when I go to bed, and the last thing I want to do is straighten out the covers so that I can crawl into them. I take about 30 seconds in the morning to flip the covers back into their “made” position and straighten them at the foot of the bed, and voila, I have a made bed for me to fall into that night. Or, if I get sick in the middle of the day, a great place to nap. I don’t want to make my bed when I’m tired and sick, either.

Wash your hands. Some people will tell you “well, I don’t pee on my fingers” as an excuse for not washing their hands after using the bathroom. There is a really good biological reason for washing your hands, whether or not you pee on your fingers. It’s a little disgusting, so I won’t go into here. Google it or just trust me. It’s the same thing as not eating your boogers. Your body is working really hard to get these things out of your body, why are you intentionally putting them back in?

Maybe your parents taught you these things, maybe they didn’t. But you can teach yourself these things. They’re excellent habits that will make your body and mind healthier and better prepared to do whatever you need to create your Future.

Beneficial Illness

Three posts are being made today, one to make up for the lack of post on Friday, one to make up for the lack of a book review this weekend, and one for today's regular post.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses. – Hippocrates, Father of Medicine

That sounds like one of the stupidest things ever, right? What could possibly be beneficial about being sick? Oh, you’d be surprised.

I’m willing to bet that a lot of you know someone like this: They’d love to help out, but they’re not feeling well. They had every intention of helping you move that weekend, but they suddenly came down with a cold. They would have done a better job on this project, but they’ve had the worst headache. And on, and on, and on, and on. Being sick is one of the “great” excuses. You can’t prove that they aren’t sick, and if you yell at them, you’re the bad guy for yelling at someone who’s sick. Unreliable people are unreliable in all kinds of ways, the person who’s constantly sick is one of those people.

Being legitimately sick can help you as well. Maybe you needed the sleep. Maybe your body decided “enough!” and gave you a cold so you didn’t get pneumonia. Maybe your body is warning you about something. You’re going to have to listen. What is your body telling you?

Sometimes it’s not about your body, though. Sometimes it’s stress. You work and work and work and work and work because it has to get done and no one else is going to do it, but blam! You’re suddenly flat on your back or crippled with a migraine the size of Montana. Your mind has decided it needs a break, and if you aren’t going to give it willingly, it’s going to take it whether you like it or not.

In either of these cases, if you listen to your body, to your mind, you can find out what’s wrong with your situation.

On the flip side, the illness might not be a symptom or a sign from anything or anyone. You just got sick, got cancer, got into a car accident, through no fault of yours, for no reason in your life. That doesn’t mean that this illness/lack of health is a waste. There are things you can learn from even these “out of the blue” health problems, if you’re willing.

You may find out: that people are willing to help you out that you never expected, that some of your friends are great and some of your friends aren’t really friends, that you have trouble asking for or accepting help, that you have trouble thinking of yourself as flawed or imperfect, that you cannot stand relaxing enough to let your body heal, that you have a need to be in constant motion because you are trying to outrun your thoughts, that you actually enjoy a slower pace, that you finally have time to read all those things you thought you wanted to or do those projects that have taken over a corner of your living room but you don’t want to. You can learn a lot from a time of forced lesser activity. If you’re willing.

That’s the big key. If you’re willing, you can learn. You can find out more, and you can take what you learn and improve your life and better your Future. And you can do that for everything, not just illness. There’s a lot of wonderful opportunities for knowledge out there, if you open your ears, heart, and mind.

The Wealth Barber

Most personal finance books are rather dry. I like personal finance books, and I love to read, and I still find some of them too boring to bother with. That is not the case with The Wealthy Barber by David Chilton. His book tells a story about three friends who are learning the secrets to financial success and security. There are jokes and comments made mixed in with the excellent advice, which makes it all much easier to read than some books. There are still some very long paragraphs, but this book is much better than a lot of others. I highly recommend it. It’s easier to concentrate on the rest of your Future if you don’t have to worry about your finances.

Creating and the Creative Muse

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better. – Andre Gide

Anne Rice said that she hadn’t intended to have Lestat be the main character of her series, but the character insisted. Another author, a friend of mine, has had voices in his head offering suggestions about interesting ways to take his story. Michelangelo (I believe) said that when you sculpt and elephant, the elephant is already there in the block, and you remove everything else.

God, Muse, Higher Power, Divine Inspiration, Inner Creator, whatever you want to call it, there is something within you or outside of you that creates, not just art and poetry, but new creations, new businesses, new ways of thinking and solving problems. The less you insist on editing and criticizing and trying to conform to what you think others would insist upon, the better.

Many great ideas have died with their originator because the person didn’t think anyone would listen. Or they took the idea and changed it so it would become “acceptable”. Or they saw it as wonderful but didn’t think of themselves as good enough to carry it out.

Not every idea that comes to you will be right for you and the world as it is. But most of them will be. Take your ideas, your creations, your wonderous thoughts, and make them real. Whether it’s a book, a painting, a business, or just a new way to live your life and treat those around you, be willing to listen to your creative muse and create something amazing.

Materialism

When we worship that “strange god” of materialism – getting things simply because there are things to be gotten – we leave the course of our heart’s desire. – John-Roger & Peter McWilliams

When is enough stuff enough? How many pairs of shoes are enough? I am an American female. I own 2 pairs of shoes. That’s it. I don’t mean that I have 2 pairs of shoes and x number of sandals and y number of half boots. I mean I have 2 pairs of footwear of any type or sort. I don’t understand other women’s need for a different pair of shoes for any different type of situation. But, then, I doubt if a good number of women would understand why I have over 30 dice. Or, over 50. I haven’t bothered to count.

Is there something in your life that you must have more of? A collection that you keep going just because you have the collection? It used to be that you loved the Wizard of Oz, and that’s why you picked the stuff up. But now, you have a Wizard of Oz collection, and you get the stuff to make it grow. Not because you love the stuff, but because there’s one more thing in that category that you don’t have.

Or it’s a new car every three years. Or a bigger house than you really need. Or another leather jacket. Or designer clothes when regular clothes would do. Or every tool made by Sears.

A lot of people are materialistic to some degree. The trouble comes in when you pay more for something that you get back. An old friend had a guideline. For every hour of enjoyment you get from something, multiply it by 2. If you pay more than that for it, it’s too much. That is too strict for some people and for a lot of situations, but it is something to consider. Are you buying to enjoy or are you buying to have?

When you take your focus off increasing your things and back onto everything else, it’s amazing what you can do with your life.

Opportunity and Regret

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. – Helen Keller

Take time to mourn the things that leave your life, the changes that happen both with and without your permission. And then stop. Don’t let the past become your obsession. Your present will fly by and your Future will unfold without you if you continue to see only the past.

Denial is one of the five stages of grief, and grief is not just for death of a loved one. It’s for all kinds of losses. Denial isn’t just a “I can’t believe he’s dead” type of thing. It’s also denying your own reactions, your own feelings, and the changes that are happening in your life. It’s also about denying what this loss means to you.

Some people will lose their high paying jobs and deny that they won’t find something as high paying again. They’ll cling to the illusion that they can find a job that pays just as well, despite the fact that they don’t have as much seniority in a new company. In some cases, they’re in even worse shape because their type of job no longer exists. Middle managers are a good example of a high paying job that suddenly didn’t exist any longer, or at least not in the numbers that had been before. But some people refused to believe that they would have to take a pay cut.

What did that do to them? Well, if you think you’re going to be paid just as much and in a short while, why change any of your spending habits? You can still afford two houses and a boat. And if it takes a little longer, take out a loan. You’ll be able to pay it back no problem. But they can’t. But they’re so busy looking at the “closed door” that they don’t even see other opportunities. The opportunities are not exactly what they want, exactly what they used to have, so they just don’t exist for these people.

Denying that you hate your ex does not mean you don’t hate your ex. You still hate. You just don’t get past it, and the hate solidifies and rolls up into a ball that sits in between your chest and your stomach. Denying you’re upset about a death means you won’t notice that you’re easy to set off, irritable beyond what a situation calls for, or being rather rude and mean to other people. You refuse to accept that you’re upset, so you refuse to see that you are, and you refuse to see the effects you have.

Grieve. Get past the denial as quickly as possible, though be careful you aren’t denying that you’re still in denial. And then look for the other open doors, the other opportunities that surround you. The Future can be bright and brilliant, if you dare to take a look.

Chicken Soup for the Soul

Chicken Soup for the Soul is the first in a series of books by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. Each of them have 101 short stories, most true, that are incredibly touching, moving, and funny. They’re about people, real people, who face the worst and the best of life. I recommend these books. Not all of the stories touch me, but many, many, many of them do. When I needed to cry but couldn’t find it in me to do it, these books helped. When I needed to laugh, these books made me do it. When I needed a bit of inspiration, these books provided it. When I needed to feel and take my mind off myself and put it onto something, anything else to gain a little time and a little perspective, these books helped. There are 6 core, generic books, and plenty of specialty books – for women, for teens, for mothers, for sisters, for country lovers, for golfers, for senior citizens, and much more. Try them out. You won’t be sorry.

The First Wealth

The first wealth is health. – Emerson

There are a lot of different kinds of health. There’s physical health, emotional health, mental health, healthy relationships, healthy environments, and healthy attitudes. All of these are important. Do you need to be perfect in your health? No, you don’t. Eat a piece of cake once in a while. Have a nasty thought about your neighbor’s dog. It’s okay. It’s your habits that make more difference than your “every once in a while” actions.

Being unhealthy is very distracting. Your energy is focused on getting well, and that leaves you with little energy for anything else. Everyone knows how it feels to drag when you’ve got a cold. But, perhaps you haven’t noticed the same sort of lack of energy when you have an unhealthy attitude. If your thoughts are constantly on how everything sucks, do you feel alive and frisky and ready to take on the world? What if you’re in an abusive relationship? How is your energy level then?

The first wealth is the energy that being healthy gives you. Having abundant energy is great. You can accomplish so much or enjoy relaxing that much more. What feels better, after all – laying on the couch because you can’t get up, or laying on the couch because you want to?

But you don’t have to be perfect. Eat healthy, drink healthy, think healthy thoughts, have healthy relationships. And if you’re not doing one or more of those things, then change them. Slowly, if you have to, but do change them so your personal health will sky rocket. What you start now will affect and improve your Future.

Your Enemies

Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much. – Oscar Wilde

Do you have enemies? Perhaps enemy is a strong word. People who dislike you or are jealous of you, or people of whom you are jealous. People you would like to see trip and fall or would like the same of you. People with whom you have a negative relationship.

It’s hard to go through life without being annoyed by someone. That’s the bigger portion of this. The part where someone is annoyed by you – that’s too bad. That’s their emotion, their problem. Unless they make it your problem, then you have to do something about it. But, you don’t need everyone to like you. Really. That may seem to be a crazy notion, not wanting everyone to like you, but it is true. You don’t have to take it to its extreme of “screw everyone else”, but you don’t have to be a doormat. Doormats are, unfortunately, the only type of people some people like. And you deserve better than that.

The most important person to have like you is yourself. The most important person to have as a friend instead of your enemy is yourself. Sounds like New Age Clap-Trap ™ to some of you, I’m sure. But it’s true. You can be your own worst enemy and your own best friend. You can support and encourage yourself or sabotage your every effort. You have to figure out which you’re doing at what times. Because you’re probably doing both – maybe even at the same time.

Figure out how you are sabotaging or discouraging yourself and figure out a way to stop it. That means taking a look at yourself and your behavior, a mirror that some people don’t want to see. But, if you’re going to have the best of all possible Futures for yourself, you’re going to need to get out of your own way. You’ll have to do this unpleasant piece of business in order to get the very best for yourself.

Be your own friend. Support and encourage yourself. Do all those things for yourself as you would do for your best friend. You deserve no less.

Moving

At the beginning of this month, I moved out of my old home and into a new apartment. That is why I didn’t have any new posts. I’d like to offer a few tips to those of you who are going to move or help someone else move, and if you want to do a little clearing up of your life, these could work for you, too.

Start early. This is good advice for any major project you undertake. Whatever you can do ahead of time, do it. This will make the actual move a lot easier on you.

Clean your old place ahead of time. You won’t be able to reach all the nooks and crannies that you’ll need to get to in order to get your security deposit back, but you can clean your tub. You can clean your oven. You can clean your stove top. Just one a day for the week ahead of the move will make it a whole lot easier. When you do things in bits like this, it’s easier to do.

Pack up the things you don’t need as soon as you don’t need them till after you move. While you’re doing this, decide if it is something that you want to move. Is this object something that you are willing to clean off, wrap up, put in a box, seal the box, move, open the box, unwrap, and put away? If you are willing to take each and every step for that object, then move it. If not, then perhaps you should get rid of it. There’s no point in moving something you don’t love or need. The same is true for “keeping”. There’s no pointing keeping something you don’t love or need. Use the “would I move it?” test on your household items when you feel you don’t have enough room in your current place. It could be that you have enough room, just too much stuff.

Arrange for transportation ahead of time. Do not try to rent a van on the day you are moving. Do not count on your unreliable friends or family to provide you with a truck. Make certain that your van/truck/whatever is from a reliable source and will be available on that day. Again, in “real life”, this is a good idea. Do not rely on unreliable people, no matter what they promise. You deserve better.

Take breaks. When moving, when living, at any time. Take breaks when you need them.

Eat something healthy. It’s tempting to go for the quick boost of energy from a candy bar, but you’ll crash. This is good for moving, for living, for being healthy for the rest of your life.

Give yourself enough time. Again, good advice for anything in your life. Don’t try to rush yourself. If you know you can’t do it or can only do it if everything goes perfectly, then get more time. Things do not go perfectly. Ask for more time or do more things ahead of time or ask for more help or a combination of all three.

You deserve to have things go well in any part of your life, whether that is moving, working, relationships, or anything else. Make your present as good as it can be to provide a solid base for a fantastic Future.

SARK

This weekend, instead of reviewing a book, I’m reviewing an author. SARK is an incredible author, and I recommend her to everyone. Her books are vibrant and colorful, and her messages are all about how to live to your fullest, how to have a wonderful life, and how to be happy. She talks about her own life and manages to make it accessible to everyone. Everyone feels similarly at different times, and she shows us how we’re all human, all connected, all alike, even when we’re different. In addition to her own work, she provides suggestions at the end of each chapter – books, websites, quotes. I have found so many wonderful books because of SARK that I would read any book of hers just for these suggestions. But I’d read her books even without the suggestions, they’re just that good. I highly recommend them.

March Appreciation Day

For appreciation day this month, I have sent a note to my hospital praising my surgeon and nurse who took care of me last year when I had cancer and who are still providing excellent care now. If you want to compliment someone who has done a great job for you, you can tell them or their boss, or both.

Tendency Towards Good

The tendency of man’s nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow downwards. – Mencius

Not everyone would agree with this quote. Some people think that humans are inherently selfish or evil. I think they’re wrong.

People point to the newspapers and the broadcasts, showing all the murders and thefts and horrors that go on in the world. They claim this as proof that humans are awful things and that we are destined to destroy one another and ourselves.

I see it as just the opposite. The reason that horror is news is because it is unusual. Horror is horrible because it goes against the normal process of most people’s lives. If everyone witnessed a rape or a murder every day, then so what? But we don’t. While many women are being raped every day, most are not. While a lot of murders are happening every day, the number of murder victims is an infinitesimal fraction of the total number of people. Rape, murder, theft, and all other forms of “news” are not the norm. They are the aberrations. This is why they are news.

Every day, people around the world help out others. They give money and time to charities. They are kind to their neighbors. They raise their kids to be decent human beings.

“There is hope for the future” is such a pessimistic statement. It implies that things are so awful now that we have to wait for the future to be decent. Or, the person saying it means that they were so certain that the future was going to suck and now they are pleasantly surprised that it might not. For pity’s sake.

There is not just hope for the future, there is certainty. Are there more atrocities now than there were a century ago? I doubt it. Not when you factor in the increased number of people in the world. And then toss in the fact that discretion is no longer a virtue to the media. Franklin Roosevelt was never shown in his wheelchair, but we get daily updates on the colon surgery of the vice president. It’s sad. But, just because there’s more atrocities reported does not mean there are more atrocities.

The future will hold many wonderful human beings, and you are one of them.

Improvement

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for? – Robert Browning

This quote troubles me a little. Now that I think about it, I’m not certain that I should include it in the blog. There are two sides to it, or rather one side that continues on longer that I would want.

Trying for something you want, something you don’t have currently – whether that be a thing or a situation or a circumstance – is a good thing. However, never being satisfied with what you have is a bad thing. Improving your life until you are content is one thing. Never being content is another.

Your life (most likely) could be better, and improving your life, going beyond your comfort zone, trying new things, are all wonderful things to get that life that you deserve. But, if enough is never enough, then you are in store for a whole lot of misery. So where do you stop? When is enough enough?

That’s not a question anyone can answer except for you, though there are plenty of people who will do their best to answer it for you. People who want you to stay on the rat race, people who think that you’re getting too big for your britches, people who don’t want you to succeed more than they do – all of these people will tell you when it’s time to stop and when it’s time to keep going. That doesn’t mean that they’re answers are the right ones for you.

On the other hand, your family may have a legitimate observation or two. If you’re working 80 hour weeks to provide for a family who already has enough, then they may call you on it. If you’re headed for burn out, or if you are spurning your former friends because they don’t have as shiny a car as you do now, or if you’re becoming a jerk, then hopefully someone will call you on it. And hopefully you’ll listen.

Listen, when someone says to you “reach” or “be content”, but listen to the “why” behind it. Why are they telling you that? Don’t assume that because they say so that it’s automatically right or automatically wrong. But take the time to make a quick check of your own feelings on the matter. Do you have enough? Should you try for more? Decide for yourself. It’s your life.

The Whole Loaf

Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little. – Putarch

I read a novel where a woman was wondering if she should accept the nomination as vice presidential candidate, since the presidential candidate was offering her only some of what she wanted for women’s rights. A wise old woman told her to take the job. She said that you take the half the loaf and then another slice and another slice and before the other person knows it, you’ve got the whole loaf. That’s perseverance.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Someone ate a bicycle like that. It took him something like a year, but he did it. Is that your aspiration? To eat a bicycle? You can do it. Take one bite first. To make a million dollars? You can do it. Make one thousand dollars first. To write a novel? You can do it. Write one page first.

And then you do it again. You take another bite. You make another thousand. You write another page. And then you do it again. And again. And again. And if you lose the money or your computer eats your novel or whatever tragedy befalls you, you make a thousand dollars, you write one page, and you do it all again. You persevere. Because that’s what it takes to achieve your goals – little bits over and over again.

Circumstances

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. – George Bernard Shaw

There are people who start with nothing and end up brilliant doctors or multi-millionaires or the biggest name on TV and radio. There are people who start with everything in life and waste it all on booze and drugs. There are people who have awful, horrible parents and become a success anyway. There are people who continue to say at the age of 45, “If only my parents had believed in me.”

How long do you think you’re going to get away with it? How much of your life gets to be blamed on your parents or the circumstances of your birth? At what point is it no longer “their fault” and something you’re allowing or causing to happen?

Sadly, for some people, all the bad in their life will forever be someone else’s fault. And that’s not only false but also a trap, because if it’s someone else’s fault, then someone else is in control of your life. And if someone else is in control, then you aren’t, and you won’t ever be able to get out of whatever hole you’re in.

Even if someone else is to blame for how your life is right now, you are in charge of what your life is like tomorrow. Yes, there are things that are beyond your control – car accidents, earthquakes, someone breaking into your house and stealing everything. But there are things within your control, and if you don’t like those things, then change them. If the circumstances of your life are not what you want, then make them different. Take control, take charge, take responsibility for you, your life, and the circumstances in which you live. Only then can you shape your life and create your Future.

Elevate Your Life

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. – Thoreau

Which is more important in this sentence – the “unquestionable” or the “conscious”? They’re both very important.

Your ability to improve your life is unquestionable. It is certain. You can improve your life. No matter how bleak it looks, it is possible for you to improve it.

But, it takes conscious effort. You have to make it happen. It’s not just a “sit back and wait” sort of thing. It takes you consciously – thinking, aware, intentionally – making the effort to improve your life.

Can your life improve by accident? Through no effort of your own? Sure. Miracles occur. Is it likely to? Not really. Not nearly as much as if you put in some effort.

It is possible for you to improve your life, if you intentionally make the effort. It’s a wonderful thing. Don’t give up hope. It may not happen right away, but it’ll happen a whole lot sooner than if you wait a year before you start making the effort. Good luck.

All The Good You Can

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can. – John Wesley

There are always opportunities to help. There are always chances to do good. No matter what the situation, you can make it a little better, if by nothing else than by not complaining unnecessarily. Your attitude can make a slight difference, even if nothing else you say or do does.

Think about all the kind words that were ever said to you, every time someone held the door open for you even though they didn’t need to, every time someone said “Have a nice day” and sounded sincere. Did these times make your day just a little better? Perhaps even your life, in the case of words that were inspiring as well as kind? What if the person had done the opposite? Said something mean, let the door slam in your face, not even bothered to say good bye? Would these things have made your life a little worse?

The ripple effect of a person’s actions has been said so often that it’s in danger of becoming a cliché. However, clichés are also often true. What you do can have consequences you don’t know. You may never know. And it is precisely because you can never know what effect your actions will have that you must do the good you can. You don’t know what’ll happen when you do that good thing, so you do it just in case.

The cynics among you are wondering, “What about all the times that you do a good thing and it backfires on you?” How often does that happen? Really? Every time you do a good thing? Even half the time? If it isn’t every time, then why not do the good you can for those times when it actually does good? Also, check out those times when it does backfire. Why does it backfire? When does it backfire? Is it when you think you know what’s best for someone else? Is it when you don’t ask permission to do something that alters another’s life? Is it when you barge into someone else’s business when what they really want is some privacy? Sometimes, with some people, you need to be cautious that what you do is really good. But not every time, and not with every person.

Do the good you can, because it will ripple into the Future, making it better.

A Little Bit

Yesterday I didn’t go into work as usual. I first had a doctor’s appointment. I left my home 15 minutes later than I usually did, and that made a lot of difference. Traffic, for some reason, is much heavier at that time that it is 15 minutes earlier. It took me half again as much time to get to where I wanted to go.

Recently, I noticed that one of the two bulbs in my bedroom light had burned out. The difference in light quality is staggering. Just one bulb makes a lot of difference in how a room is lit.

A little bit can make a huge difference. What if you ate just 10 calories less in a day? In a year, you’d lose a pound. Just one bite of food less in a day, and you lose a pound every year. What if you wrote half a page every day? In two years, you’d have an entire novel’s worth of writing done. Just half a page. Write just one paragraph, and you’d have it in four years. How many people do you know that are going to write the great American novel “some day”? Most of them won’t. But just a little bit of change in your day can make certain you do.

Do you have seasonal affect disorder? Then you know how much a difference it can make changing a light bulb from a 40 watt bulb to a 100 watt bulb. It’ll affect your attitude, which will affect your life and everyone around you. Just a little bit of change.

One less cigarette – even half a cigarette less. One less shopping trip in a week. One fewer videos rented. One quarter hour less on the computer or the TV. All these things can add up and help you create a different life. The changes you make don’t have to be big to be effective. They just have to be made.

Face to Face

Face to Face: Women Writers on Faith, Mysticism, and Awakening, edited by Linda Hogan and Brenda Peterson, is an excellent book. It covers a wide range of spiritual beliefs, including Christianity, Judaism, shamanism, Wicca, and several others. It’s a series of short essays or excerpts from longer works by woman on their spiritual beliefs. It’s a fascinating read and certain to have something resonate with any reader.

Appreciation Day (one day late)

For this month’s appreciation day, I tried to send word to J. K. Rowling how much I enjoyed her books. Unfortunately, I could not find a way to contact her. Her official site was very confusing. So I’ll say it here instead.

I really loved the Harry Potter books, and I wish there were more of them. I loved most of the movies, and I wish that they could have been done better, to better show all the intricacies and great things in the books. The books and movies have provided me with hours of entertainment, and I appreciate that.

Reaching Out

Very few of us want to appear weak, but a lot of us have different definitions of what weak means. To some, being weak means crying. To others, being unable to cry is a sign of weakness. Some look at physical strength or stamina, others to mental agility. But one definition that a lot of us use for weak is needing help.

Because we don’t want to appear weak, we don’t want to admit we need help. Which means we don’t ask for help, even when we need it desperately. Which is sad, and cuts us off from our friends, neighbors, family.

Think of a basket or a cord. Each time we interact positively with our friends, family, neighbors, we add another reed or piece of twine. The basket is strengthened. The cord is sturdier. Our relationship grows. And when we are in desperate need, we can return to these same people and get the help we need, because we have already created something strong between us.

The tricky part is not asking for help more often than you give. Not just give help, but give at all. You can also give advice, a shoulder to cry on, an ear to complain to, a batch of cookies, and thanks. When you give, you add to the bond between you and the other person, just as they added to it when they gave to you. In giving and receiving, you strengthen what is between you. In taking only, you create resentment that will ruin the good will and spoil what you’ve created.

Some people will give only. They don’t want to take. They don’t want to appear weak. But, they don’t create the bonds needed. They don’t give other people the opportunities to help you. Just as with those who only take, those who only give also spoil what is between them and others.

Giving and taking, sharing, creates bonds that can last you through the good times, comfort you when you feel lonely, and help you when you need it most. I want in my Future a community of people who help and give and care for one another. I will create that by giving and taking, and you can too.

Persistence

I believe that anyone can conquer fear by doing the things he fears to do, provided he keeps doing them until he gets a record of successful experiences behind him. – Eleanor Roosevelt

This message has been said before in this blog, and it’ll be said again. Persistence is key. Don’t give up. Keep trying. If you fail, try again until you succeed. Not in the same way, but improve your tries. Conquer your fears. Again and again, people throughout history and the world have known that to do what needs to be done, what you want to do, you need to do it and not give up until it is done. Create your Future as you want it. Don’t settle for something less, just because it’s easier. Create. Try. Succeed.

When Everything Falls Apart

When everything falls apart, what do you do? When things are going to hell in a handbasket, what do you do? When you’re so depressed that opening your eyes, though you’re awake, is just too much, what do you do?

You boil everything down to the essentials, the basics, the necessities – whatever you want to call it. So very much of our lives are trappings, extras, but they’re needed to live a full life. But when everything falls apart, you buck living a full life and you go for survival.

You eat. Even though you don’t want to. Even though everything tastes like ash. Even though you don’t really have the time. You eat. You grab an apple or banana, you stop at a drive through, you get a protein shake. You do something to get nutrients into your body, because your body will tell you when it’s done, and when it is, you’re going to stop whether you like it or not.

You bathe. Even though you don’t want to. Even though you don’t see the point. You clean yourself of the germs and dirt so you don’t get sick. You make yourself presentable in case someone decides to try to rescue you or you need to go and rescue someone else. You bathe not because it will make you feel better than you do right now. You bathe because it will make you feel better than you would if you didn’t. Maintenance more than improvement.

You take care of your dependents. This includes kids and pets. You make certain they have food and water, that they also are clean (because you don’t need a sick dependent right now), that they are safe, that they have access to toilet/cat box/outside (because it’d take you longer to clean it up than it would to make certain that they had somewhere to go).

You sleep. Even though you don’t think you have time. Because you need to be at your best, or at least as good as you can be, and for that, you need energy. The energy you get from food and the energy you get from sleep. Mistakes are made more by sleepy people than rested people. And do you really need to make mistakes right now?

If you are spiritual, you pray. Even though you don’t feel grateful. Even though you rail against the power(s) that be for your current situation. Even though you don’t think you have time. You pray, whether it’s a plea for help, a damnation for circumstances, or a thank you that nothing else has gone wrong today. Because, like with bathing, it’ll feel better than if you don’t. And, you may get an answer.

That’s it. You do those five things. You take care of your body, your dependents, and your spirit. And when your life has fallen apart, these are the pieces you use to start over. These are the first pieces you pick back up. First, and before anything else, you survive. And that is how you will later be able to Live.