SPECIAL PEOPLE

Today two special people called me, my best friend and another friend who I worked for before 2000. Both of these people have been in my life a long time and I am grateful that I deserve their friendship.

My ecards for New Year’s are wending their way and getting in touch with people I haven’t seen for a while or won’t see today, but the replies have been lovely.

Earlier today I went out to try and do a couple of errands. At this time of year a lot of things seem to be done at the last minute. These two weeks also are peculiar since Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve are mid week and most of us are confused about what day of the week it is.

While I was out, I knocked on the window of the dry cleaners my Afghani friends operate. We waved and smiled at each other. To my surprise, the face of the man preparing the sandwich for me at a local café lit up when he saw me. I didn’t know him before now, but I am glad we exchanged a few words and cheered each other up, at the same time.

I am as gregarious (or more so) in person as I am in print, so I tend to have long discussions with cab drivers & often speak with almost anyone I meet.

About 5+ years ago, I created a small project of photographing the regular people in my life that I met as I went through my days during one of the autumn months. Whether it was the Mailman or the Dry Cleaner, the Pharmacist or the Receptionist at the Doctor’s office; the coffee ‘Barista’ or the Superintendent where I live; everyone I saw in my daily life was part of the project.

I wanted to do this because these are the very important people in our lives and yet they are the ones we usually take for granted. They are the ‘unsung heroes’ of our days. They get us where we are going and they serve us as we proceed through our days.

Perhaps the next time you see the ones in your life, you will share a Smile and Thank them for being the glue that keeps us functioning and our lives running smoothly as we proceed through our days. 

LIFE - THE ULTIMATE D.I.Y. PROJECT

This year I’ve thought a lot about our life’s journey and the travels we make, literally and metaphorically.

I think it’s good from time to time to reflect on how far we’ve come. It constantly amazes me to realize how much more life, so far, has given me beyond what I ever dreamed.

At the same time, I am happy to look forward and make plans, and new Bucket Lists. To my surprise, I seem to have the energy and willingness to realize my dreams. What a revelation that has been! That first step really took me to places I couldn’t have imagined I was ever to see.

I have been writing more than I ever have this year. I have also fallen in love again…with Venice.

Coming back to Paris, a year earlier than expected, proved to me that you don’t realize what you are missing until you are without it for a while.

I also ended up travelling around the Mediterranean area twice, visiting some places for the first time and also revisited several again.

You see how heavy your Baggage is when you travel. You finally realize how much weight you are carrying. While I knew that some I had tried to put down almost 5 years ago was still chafing, I did not realize how overloaded I was by all of the old unresolved rubbish I kept moving around and repacking from as far back as my 20’s.

I learned also that we all need an outlet for our creativity. Where you find it may depend on what we can do well and have ability and talent for. It may also involve taking a risk and trying something new.  

  

As we all know, Life – no one gets out alive. Meanwhile, whether we are participating in life or not, time flies. A look at the new Calendar as another year ends, sometimes shocks us into realizing how much time has passed. The singer Chantal Kreviazuk wrote a song – TIME – in 2003 which spoke eloquently to me about how time streaks by.

In my family, our two nieces are suddenly 16 and our nephews, well, several years older; a tangible reminder that time does fly…whether we are paying attention or not.

It’s wonderful to see that some of the work done before to simplify my life has paid off in making it less complicated and that I actually am freer than ever.

While it is true, like so many people who are survivors of very happy marriages, that most of us would give up almost anything for a moment more with our loved one; the present is a very good place to be living.

I think there is something in human nature that relates well to moving forward and experiencing new things whatever our ages.

When you move forward into the future after you have sorted through the things we all accumulate along the way, you give yourself some room for new ideas and new people in your life.

Meanwhile, what the past has taught us, allows us to move around easily using the skills we have mastered. Each new day opens up before us as one with possibilities for new experiences, making life a challenge and an adventure.

It was writer Henry Miller who said that ‘your destination is never a place but a new way of seeing things’. I know he was right.

As T.S. Eliot said in his poem, Little Gidding: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time”. (T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets, 1943).

I believe that each of us can be happy, we just need to learn enough about ourselves to find out how.

Life is good; it is also what you make it. It is possibly the ultimate D.I.Y. project. 

THE REAL POWER OF A MAN

Many wonderful quotes are shared with me on my blog. My favourite this year has been: THE REAL POWER OF A MAN IS IN THE SIZE OF THE SMILE OF THE WOMAN SITTING NEXT TO HIM.

My education, my work and my life have given me wonderful opportunities to talk with and work with more Men than many Women do. Even socially with my love music and in a social organization I belong to, Men are 90% of the membership.

When I think of Men therefore, I tend to have warm feelings for them. I like the fact that most are very direct and straightforward and that most are honest, trustworthy, truthful and do not hold grudges or gossip.

When I think of strength, it is not about physical prowess or brawn that I think of. As a Woman I think of strength of character, courage, bravery, fortitude, tenacity and of someone who is trustworthy and honourable.

Someone else sent me a quote attributed to ‘The Optimism Revolution’. I don’t know much about The Optimism Revolution except it sounds a great name but the quote was:

BEING MALE IS A MATTER OF BIRTH, BEING A MAN IS A MATTER OF AGE, BUT BEING A GENTLEMAN IS A MATTER OF CHOICE.

There are many jokes about the perfection of the spouse of a Widow growing with age until all those Women remember is the SUPERMAN they were married to. I get the point of the anecdote. 

I understand that the only PERFECT MAN is the one the Woman has built up in her memory and put up on a pedestal as a paragon to whom no real living, breathing person will ever compare.

While the people who tell the story about THE PERFECT MAN have a point, like much in life, it is based on truth. A person loved so much years after they are gone, must have deserved the Love he inspired. Something for other Men to consider when they try to define what in life is worth being remembered for.

I’d say being a Gentleman will eliminate many Men who long ago decided it was beyond their abilities. The MAN’S POWER and WORTH, will never be in how many toys a Man has accumulated or much of the rubbish that the media shows us, in whatever passes for the Rich and Famous these days, but, in Men who we admire because they stood for something they showed us in the quality of their character.

We know these few extraordinary Men when we see them. We hear of many, or even most of them in the History Books. Sometimes we learn about them and hear others speak of them in our own lifetimes. Occasionally they are known to live in our cities and, if we are especially lucky, our communities.

The most important Man of all is the one in our own home. He is the Man we know and admire, respect and love personally. He is the one we still love and admire after we have looked him in the eye, lived with him, and loved him. 

We know this Man well and we know he isn’t perfect, but then neither are we. We love him still long after he is no longer with us and lives on only in our memory. That is the REAL POWER OF A MAN.

STUFFED

I have just been writing about how I doubt very much whether anyone’s happiness is contingent on how many possessions they have.

If you are like me you got more ‘stuff’ for Christmas. My favourite is my little nephews Christmas box which I unwrapped to find his latest drawing. What perfect timing; my refrigerator doors needed a new piece of art and my 9 year old buddy provided it just in time.

As usual, I need to see if Godiva Chocolates are a publicly listed company since I bought 3 gigantic boxes of 103 chocolates each. They were received with elation and great happiness by the chocoholics among us. In return I got a more manageable size from my niece and nephew along with other loot and goodies.

I look around and can hardly wait to tear my overcrowded shelves apart and start to purge this place of the magazines and brochures and flyers and stuff that weighs both the shelves AND me down. There is so much of it that I am dismayed that I can’t pile it up today and begin.

However, although I feel like it might be the only way to begin the New Year as a fresh start, I have to wait until the Christmas/New Year/Christmas/New Year season is finally over on January 14th, our New Year.

Although I am looking forward to the event, on the 10th of January I am hosting a combination Ukrainian Christmas meal and 16th Birthday party for my niece/goddaughter. For a change it is not on traditionally meatless Christmas Eve (December 24th and again January 6th) and I can serve meat and a variety of food.

The clutter really can’t be dealt with until the ravenous hordes (my family) depart. 

The timing gets crazy because by the 6th and Christmas Day, the 7th of January each year, most of us have just begun to recover from all the food over Christmas and New Years. Luckily we don’t add much alcohol since most have a drive and our laws on DIU are justifiably severe, so not many hangovers are expected.

In general I suppose it is nice that I have all these things. Like anyone else with a lot of stuff though, I am very aware that 5 minutes, no even one minute with my lovely husband would be worth the whole lot and so much more than all of the junk in the world.

Cancer in remission and love and loss long ago taught me what was most important in life.

May we all learn it more easily than some of us had to in order to get our priorities straight.

In the meantime, consider one of your New Year’s resolutions to purge or recycle or regift some of the stuff you have accumulated to the kind of ‘good home’ I am looking for when I FINALLY get to my purge mid January.

DECIDING TO BE HAPPY

A Documentary about being Happy says that happiness depends 50% on our genetics, 10% on our environment and the other 40% on what we choose to do with our lives.*

Whether you see this DVD or not, there is a lot we can reflect on about where each of us personally is en route to happiness. Beyond this, we might also consider what we want to do to consciously introduce more happiness into our lives.

Considering what we are now learning about happiness it is important to recognize what our nature tells us about how we approach life.

Most of us usually know whether we see life as full of possibilities or whether we see it as a challenge and a struggle. Generally we are either approaching life as optimists or pessimists; the glass is half full or the glass is half empty so to speak.

Living with yourself is one of life’s learning experiences. Sometimes it might seem as if it is life’s greatest challenge. However, at some point it involves making some conscious decisions about who we are and what we want out of life.

I believe that in life, each of us should work towards knowing ourselves fairly well. The better you know yourself, the more you will understand what works for you. At some point it involves making some conscious decisions about who we are and what we want out of life.

Most of us thankfully will have the basic necessities of life as we work for them.  I don’t think however, that any of us becomes really happy until we understand what it is that we need as opposed to what we (think we) want.

I think that many of us eventually conclude that the material things are not going to provide us with enough personal satisfaction, however many possessions we have.

Whether others might admire or possibly even envy us, many of us realize that without people around us who accept and care for us as we are as individuals, we are not likely to personally feel that our lives are successful.

On the other hand, someone who is generally less optimistic about life may have reasons of their own which enable them to be very self motivated, goal oriented and single minded. Others though become extreme Type A personalities and appear relentlessly driven.

Although I personally don’t admire, or even like most of them very much, I accept their different approach to life as a personal choice they have made. Possibly they will find their happiness and satisfaction in reaching their goals, just as I do mine.

Knowing as we now do, that we have a great deal of control over the quality of our lives, especially based on the way we choose to approach life, there may be ways in which we can make ourselves happier.

For example, how long it takes us to recover from the ‘small things’ that sometimes upset us and disrupt our lives and get our sense of balance back, is apparently an important factor in our ability to be happy.

Considering that we have more potential control over our own happiness than we realized, it is worth reflecting and thinking about the deliberate ways we might introduce more happiness into our own lives.

*HAPPY, 2011, by Director Roko Belic, and Executive Producer Tom Shadyac, complete with Happy Face smile on a blue sky background, is a very good way to spend 75 minutes, learning about how people in various parts of the world describe their lives and find happiness in them. 

TIME TO CLEAN UP MY ACT

What a ride this year has been. I can’t remember any year recently that has taken me on more of roller coaster ride than this one has. I hope to write about this fantastic year soon.

At the moment however, I need to immediately settle down since Christmas Eve is tomorrow and I have had to eat a lot of crow this week already.

I’ve never seen my temper flare up as it has the past couple of weeks and I am not saying this because it was a good thing either. Up and down, sometimes within a few minutes. Not a pretty sight, I assure you.

Yes, another $18 postage more than the $46 I had already put on the envelopes on the Christmas/New Year’s cards I FINALLY took to the post office, later than ever, may have been a good reason to get angry.

Yes, it was a disgusting waste of money! HOWEVER, it’s not much of an excuse in relation to starving people who couldn’t consider wasting this kind of money under any circumstances.

Were this an isolated incident I could cut myself some slack, but I am ashamed to say that I have been at best hot and cold for over a week now. I can’t justify it, and know actually I shouldn’t even try.

While I will not suddenly turn back to my regular volume and what generally passes for normal for me, at least I might stop losing my temper every time I stub my toe, get the wrong sized coffee and other stupid things that will not change the world dramatically.

Meanwhile, awareness can get me to slow down and settle down and give myself, and those around me, a break. Either that or I should go soak my head until I am fit to be among other people again. Sometimes that’s the best advice we can give ourselves until we settle down.

I'M STARTING WITH THE (WO)MAN IN THE MIRROR

What better place to start than with where you can do some good; the face you see in the mirror is the only one you can actually change.

People speak about you’re being either part of the problem or part of the solution. Again only you can decide which you are going to be.

It’s always that first step that’s the hardest. We all know this and so we think we’ll begin later today, or tomorrow or the next day or the next year.

Remember last Christmas, or more importantly, what we thought about last New Year’s. Surprise, here we are again. As Chantal Kreviazuk says, ‘TIME, where did you go?’.* Chantal, you and I both are wondering the same thing.

When James Morrison wrote The Man in the Mirror** in 2006, he said what had to be said, that change has to start with you. His recording is softer than the very famous version of Michael Jackson’s and interesting because he wrote it and is telling us from his heart and soul what we know needs to be done and how to start.

Join me for a few seconds this New Year’s and start with the (WO)MAN or MAN IN THE MIRROR. 

Let’s meet next year as different people because we actually did something this time to bring about the changes in ourselves and around us to make our world a better place.

*song – TIME - Chantal Kreviazuk – 2003 & 

**song – MAN IN THE MIRROR – James Morrison - 2006

DO YOURSELF A FAVOUR

Healthy self interest is not the selfish thing that neglects everyone else. Rather this kind of self interest involves taking care of your health and your attitude and is a form of general maintenance which all of us can and should do to stay happy and healthy.

Whenever you are feeling/looking dull and lacklustre, some simple things can lift you up and out and soon put your glow back into your look and bounce back into your step. It can also put your smile back on your face too.

To begin with, of course, an occasional checkup, physical and mental often works wonders. Beyond this, the steps you take to look better, can go a long way to making you feel better too.

It is actually a gift to yourself and those who care about you to know that each of us is living a healthier and therefore better life.

Among the benefits is the extra energy we have to get out and do things instead of having to save our depleted energy for essential tasks.

When you start living a life that you are defining inside yourself by what you don’t think you can do, rather than by what you think you can, you will make your life much more limited than it needs to be.

For example, at the annual university book sales (during which donated books are sold to the public to raise funds for the libraries), I have had to accept that I can no longer buy 38 books. I simply can’t manage to carry this much any more, even by weighing down both arms equally. This practical realization is sensible and logical. Though it means I have had to cut back to what I can carry, it does not seriously effect my life. Brooding about it, however would.

We all see people around us and are amazed when they tell us their ages. I am not referring to the type of person enamoured of plastic surgery or who has a whole team of people to make sure they are sporting the latest new look. That is usually reserved for the celebrity and movie star culture.

The group I am talking about is the one that tells us their age, and shocks us because they look so much older. I can’t imagine how you wouldn’t if your hair and clothes style is the one you sported 25 years ago. That date is long passed and you are past your sell date if you don’t see it.

Our appearance changes as we age, but it should also deliberately be changed by us because we want to look our best. To feel we are moving forward we need to change physically and mentally as time passes.

Physically and Mentally looking after yourself, involves breathing in new ideas as well as fresh air. 

Helpful Slogans try to inspire us by telling us to: just do it, go for it, get moving. This we can, and need to do, both physically and mentally.

To keep us in good shape physically, we should invest in ourselves; in our physical fitness by doing some form of exercise, and by consciously eating good foods.

There is a lot of help out there which we can enlist to help us. Through books and people, including doctors, dentists, medical support staff and referrals for other types of help which is readily available.

Mentally we can refresh our thinking by seeing and doing new things, including having at least a brief look at new ideas with openness and interest.

Art and artistic and creative inspiration can also help us. Each of us has within us the capacity to be uplifted and inspired by something.

Not all of us can have a goal of climbing mountains (as some people I know do and have). The rest of us could give our Wish Lists serious consideration and pick at least some small item that we can accomplish easily and without much effort.

This is usually something that not only does not cost a lot, but may involve making time for. Sometimes it is a small thing we always thought we would get around to doing some time, possibly even in our own city, but have not yet done it.

I hate to say it, but every once in a while we get a reminder that time is passing. In my case, 2 nieces turning 16 (within two months of each other) is giving me quite a jolt. When I prepare a portfolio for each of them of the drawings they made for me over the years, I expect a lot of memories will come together for them and me.

Letting time trickle through our fingers is something we all too easily can do. As another calendar year comes to a close, the realization that another year is passing can make you land with a thump.

Even if it is and has been a wonderful year in a dozen ways that immediately come to mind, it is still another year passing. This may give each of us a reason to reflect upon it. This should not however, give us a reason to delay our excitement and anticipation of the year ahead.

Meanwhile, there are still Christmas and New Year cards to write, for the procrastinator in my place, decorating to do (of my place and myself) meals to plan and a couple of landmark birthdays to celebrate.

I am looking forward and hope you are too. 

HOLIDAY DECORATIONS

Decoration is welcome at this time of year more than at any other time. Luckily, this carries over into what we can decorate/wear ourselves.  

Whatever personal ornaments and decorations you like to have around you for the holidays, a little bit extra could give you and your spirits an immediate lift.

Changing, or adding to the colour theme is an easy way to refresh your ambiance. I had blue and silver for several years and changed over to gold and green and liked it. Now I am considering some touches of ruby red. The colour choices are wonderfully wider than ever.

In today’s casual world, most of us don’t dress up much. All the more reason to make the holidays a time when we take some extra steps, whether we are having guests in or going out or the usual combination of both.

For Women this is a chance to add sparkly to their tree and home decorations and as a bonus some to ourselves too in clothes, shoes, hair and makeup.

For Men, it might be nice to see a bit of sprucing up too, in grooming and having the jeans replaced by good casual and also dress shoes for a change.

I love the spirit at this time of year and the way we seem to feel happier and warmer.

We have many incredibly happy memories of our loved ones and also decades of family celebrations which we add to each year as we share the beauty and spirit of the season.

This year, putting some extra effort is something that can enhance all of our celebrations. We still have time to surprise ourselves and everyone else with our good attitude, the decorations in our environment and also by adding a bit more sparkle to ourselves too.

MY WAY

The lyrics to a song were written by Paul Anka and made famous by Frank Sinatra. We all know it is called My Way.*

One of the lines I really liked was ‘regrets I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention’. I thought this was inspired and the mark of a good life.

When recently I quoted from the Robert Frost poem The Road Not Taken or when I think of Billy Joel’s song My Life, I feel that I totally identify with this view of life, or have, at various times in my own life.

The Billy Joel song was one I thought that my father would totally relate to after so many years of telling all of us that all he had to do was pay taxes and die and that all of what we wanted he actually did not have to do. He was right and I was wrong, including about my song choice.

What I may have thought he felt with 7 children over many years was probably not what he felt at all. In fact, I was amazed, and touched by his great humility when he stated that the Prime Minister had much more responsibility than he did.

For me, however, in my first years of freedom from my community and the demands of my extended family, the Billy Joel song was an anthem, which on one occasion of terrific wrenching dismay and pain, gave me something to shout from the rooftops at the top of my lungs.

Oh well, we all have days like this, especially when we are young and have a hopeless love affair crashing down around us en route to it’s painful end.

I still believe that each of us can have the life we want…starting now, if necessary. We all make choices and want things and people around us.

I truly believe you can live your life your way if you commit yourself to giving what you really want priority in your life.

You have a much better chance of getting one thing you direct your energy, concentration and resources toward than hoping to snap your fingers and magically everything you ever wanted will somehow appear, including winning the lottery.

I think however, that over time a couple of things will happen if you focus:

Some of the things you thought you wanted, you will decide you actually don’t want, either after you get them or along the way. You will get quite a number of the things you wanted and went after. You may, like I have, get a lot of things you never dreamed you could get or imagine for your life.

Doing things ‘My Way’ gives you a lot of freedom and makes you feel you are accomplishing things you want. To get what you want you often cut out a lot of distraction and debris and useless talk and wasted energy.

The simpler you make your life, the easier it gets to focus on those things that really make you happy.

Along with being happier yourself, you are most likely making others who cared for and continue to care for you happier also. Meeting with you has suddenly become a better experience, and often you are likely to be in a positive and cheerful frame of mind.

Life, none of us gets out of it alive. Maybe so, but it can be quite a good trip even though we will perhaps have some regrets. Compared however to the incredible number of experiences, you too might say as Paul Anka did, ‘Regrets I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention’. Sounds good to me.

*Songs - My Way – Paul Anka lyrics 1969;My Life – Billy Joel 1978 and poem The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost 1916

ANGELS ON YOUR PILLOW

It never ceases to amaze me how many really nice people are out there in the world. Like everyone else, I suppose I have my moments of doubt, but then a moment later something nice happens to restore my faith in humanity. 

I assure you the kindness and courtesy of strangers is alive and well, at least where I live.

The title of this piece comes from the wish a friend of mine used to wish me and other friends good night with. It is fun to remember how if she met me on the street we had to turn back and go and buy 2 bottles of Henkell Trocken Sparkling Wine, one of which we would immediately share and another for her to have another time.

I was always impressed by the friends that travelled when we were in school or after I graduated. I was always working all summer to pay for my education, since I had zip in the way of encouragement for my decision to continue my education in an area of my own interest.

I marvelled at my youngest sisters travels while still in school to several places in Europe though when I was 40, I could finally take her to upper east side New York to celebrate that landmark birthday. Fun to watch her photographed immediately in front of Van Cleef and Arpels jewellers too.

Strangely we lose touch with people. I hear of daughters of friends working in various cities and off to Paris to headquarters of LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennesey, parent company of the luxury brands consortium); sometimes with their mothers in tow. As time passes however, the moving around breaks the connections and the address book gets to be a crossed out puzzle to decipher. Memories remain but they are from before not now.

Meanwhile, new friends surprise us. They, and we, are different people. Even the old friends we meet again have done a lot of living since we last saw them.

Marriage and other’s divorces and remarriages change the tone and mix as do children they have had, and now their children’s children come into the obligations they have. We meet in phone visits sometimes. Though still pretty good, we are not connected like we were in our misspent youth.

Still great though to think of table totally covered with glasses full of rum and cokes in Cuba and being able to tell the group to come and get some since we had so many waiters dancing attendance and were, as usual, accumulating friends effortlessly. Being drunk at 9 a.m. in St. Lucia with a dozen other fellow sufferers on a very bad trip was novel and thankfully never again necessary in later travels together.

Meanwhile, some of us have had to say goodbye to both our parents, though mercifully only I had the prostrating pain of losing a younger brother. Then again, others lost their siblings to sisters-in-law and estrangement in a different way, that was almost as final as mine, since some of them no longer ever meet as a family. Who could have anticipated or predicted any of this.

When you wake up smiling, more days than not, you can’t help but feel that life comes together as a mixture of hard work and some play and eventually you have more good days than bad and more good friends that stick with you than you ever expected.

You go to sleep grateful for being blessed with another decent day and wake up hoping it won’t be too cold or windy even though it’s winter. The sun obliges sometimes in shining down and cheering us all up when we most need it in this cold season.

I go to sleep thinking that Marianne, wherever she may now be, long ago gave me something I have used for all these years as the best wishes ever to those I love, that they might sleep and dream of beautiful things and have Angels on their pillows. 

LOOKING OUTWARD

Even with all of the technology and service providers willing to deliver almost everything we want to our doorsteps, for a price, the one thing that can’t be bought or delivered is our ability to live in the world. For this we have to look outside of ourselves. Our participation is also required in order for this to work.

For some of us, this does not seem too difficult most of the time. We have learned over time what works for us. We have made a few friends, had some good and bad experiences and generally have learned how to function socially and with relative ease in many situations.

I believe that people everywhere seem alike in many ways and that most of our wants and needs are similar, although the details differ.

From time to time however, life takes a detour, we hit a roadblock, or we have to accept large changes around us. Usually the social skills we have mastered make it possible for us to quickly reestablish our comfort zones and move forward once again.

However, in a crisis or when larger changes occur in our lives, such as when we change jobs or careers, move to a new area or begin a new relationship, we might encounter situations that are too unfamiliar to easily adapt to.

Some of these may demand that we find a new way of doing things and/or relating to others around us. At such times, we might find ourselves, at least temporarily, disoriented.

If we feel a need for defensiveness, we may hunker down, hide out or find a number of other ways to withdraw into ourselves. We might also become deliberately anti-social and not let anyone get through to us.

When we permit ourselves to be accessible and open, to new and often interesting ideas, we have an excellent opportunity to extend our boundaries and incorporate exciting changes and positive growth into our lives.  

When life brings us into what for us are uncharted waters and unfamiliar situations, we can increase our chances of success immeasurably by being open and willing to allow change and new experiences into our lives, as we again venture out from and look outside ourselves. 

LOOKING INWARD

Most of us are familiar with the self-help section of book stores and the vast number of books and theories that are out there. 

Each of these, or probably most of these, had suggestions, ideas and/or theories about a way to turn your life around. None seem to work permanently. Most of us eventually hear of another theory, and go on to that one, particularly if it is ending up on talk shows or the best seller lists.

Ultimately however, the person who turns us around and motivates and inspires us is not the book writer, or the advice giver in our lives; it is ourselves when we are ready to change.

No one knows any of us better than we know ourselves. We constantly present ourselves to the world in order to function and especially to earn a living. We have a large amount of latitude in how we decide to do this.

However, the self we see, when we are alone, in our beds or at, what I think of, as three in the morning, is the person we know we actually are.

To change, the person you need to ‘have a talk with’ is yourself. There are a couple of psychologists suggesting we do this out loud.* 

Regardless of the base environment or belief system we come from, all of us need to try and find a way to live happily with and within ourselves.

Self knowledge helps. We get this first from experimenting with our new found freedom when we are first on our own and later from the experience(s) we have accumulated, sifted through and adapted and incorporated into our lives.

We adapt to the external circumstances which our jobs and business relationships demand of us, but internally, on our own time and within our own lives, a bit of introspection from time to time will help us to declutter our personal house and mindset.

It’s a good way to stay young, energetic and enthusiastic. It is actually the way we can tailor our lives to make them fit us better.

It is a positive use of the introspective process and gets us ready to Look Outward again, renewed and refreshed after a good decluttering of things we don’t use in our lives any more. 



*What to Say When You Talk to Yourself by Shad Helmstetter. He (and incidentally one other psychologist) feel that we can reprogramme ourselves and change our perspective permanently. He suggests a step by step approach and having two way conversations out loud with ourselves. Other psychiatrists and psychologists don't seem to use this approach.

YOU ARE NOT HELPING THE PROBLEM

My city Toronto Canada is in the middle of an unprecedented building craze. Someone said 800 new Condominium buildings are being built. Since it seems, these are all going up at the same time, there is a lot of scaffolding up over sidewalks.

Meanwhile, additions to the streetcar system our politicians favour is being put underground for part of it’s long route along one of our main crosstown thoroughfares.

All this makes for a lot of delays in getting where we are going but also hope that when all this is eventually ready we will have a lot of nice new buildings and better transportation. We can only hope.

Meanwhile, it seems a lot of parents nearing retirement have finally found a new way of getting their adult children out of the house. They are ‘loaning’ them large amounts of capital to make down payments on a house. Some also give them loans and various chunks of money for their expenses.

This ‘borrowing’ is effecting the price of houses significantly since, easy borrowing (from short sighted retirement aged parents) is turning the next generation into perpetually indebted people buying houses they can’t afford. The added problem is that the price of houses is being artificially inflated as well.

No one it seems, wants to pour water on these ideas by considering that a change in the mortgage rates or interest rates will spell disaster for an even larger number of people who were already living beyond their means. 

In addition, the parents who were ‘only trying to help’ their adult children have taken great chunks of capital and ‘loaned’ it at just the time they will need to begin drawing upon it themselves in retirement. 

I very much doubt that this is not being done all over North America and possibly the world for people's adult children.

Somewhere along the way parents seem not to have learned to let their children grow up and make their own mistakes. The law and the school system also enabled them to be much older before assuming any adult responsibilities.

Someone has told them that they benefited by boom times and their children can’t live the same kind of life they are used to, without the parent’s continuing help and financial support.

Unfortunately, the hand up, is too close to a hand out or early inheritance by seniors who are likely to live longer than ever and with less capital remaining because of their misguided ‘help’ to over indulged ‘children’.

Adult children it seems are never to learn that earlier generations only got the benefits of long years of building but spending long years, saving and building up from the starter home to the one that became the established family home.

I’d say that because this is not being taught or understood, we will have a generation of new home owners heavily mortgaged despite unearned help from their ageing parents. They will also have unrealistic expectations of being able to live lifestyles they could never afford. Meanwhile, a change in the market for property and/or interest rates may leave both the ‘children’ and their parents in financial straits when the financial market changes,  taking their large benefactions to their children with it.

A SLIGHT CHANGE OF PLAN

Sometimes in life you just have to turn around and go back the way you came. I don’t mean that you try and relive the past but that you think about it a bit and perhaps, and as a result you change course.

Before you do however, you may have stopped or been stopped along the way. Whether this is to look at something you are approaching, to look over what lies ahead, to look over your shoulder or simply because you don’t feel you are heading in the right direction, you are currently stopped. You may even be lost, or feel you are.

In any case, until now you have been walking along in a direction you have chosen. Every choice/action has a consequence. What I am trying to say is that choosing one course means that we have not chosen an alternative one. The choice we made changes the result.

When Robert Frost wrote his poem The Road Not Taken* he was talking about coming to a crossroads. He saw two paths in front of him. Because he knew he could not take both and had to choose one, he tried to see as far down each one as he could. He knew that, life being what it was, he probably would not return to the other. He selected one path and went forward on it. This choice made all the difference in his life.

I don’t think that most of us think much about the path ahead. Some elements are already in place because of earlier choices we made. Sometimes we just ‘go with the flow’. Especially concerning unimportant matters, we usually just put one foot in front of the other and move ahead. In interacting with other people, we adapt some parts of our actions to go along, and get along, with others. 

Most of us, especially if we are relatively happy with ourselves and our lives, don’t spend too much time wondering what it might have been like had we taken a different route, approach or course of action in life. Beyond wanting to feel we are moving forward, many of us just move, act and react, as a day unfolds.

From time to time, however, perhaps on New Year’s or at one of the annual celebrations with which we mark our year, we might consider how different things might have been had we made a different choice.

The writer Tom Wolfe memorably said, ‘you can’t go home again’. Possibly he felt this way and possibly he is right. Whether we can backup or turn around and ask whether there is still time to do something else may however, be possible. Sometimes it is not too late to backup a bit and take another approach or direction.

Being an optimist I rarely think that anything we say or do is permanent. I know others have said the same thing many times and sometimes think that the only thing we can predict is that things will change. Others say that the more things change, the more they remain the same, perhaps because of our essential natures as human beings.

I feel positive about the fact that there are many times in life when we get a second chance to correct or modify a decision we made and generally resume our journey with a slight change of plan or direction.

Sometimes we have to be gentle and kind to ourselves, sometimes to others and let ourselves, and them, change our minds and try something else. Our happiness might just depend upon it.

In any case, something that might make a difference when we feel delayed, or stalled or stuck or lost, is a choice we make to get moving again and I think it is a good idea.

*http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173536

The Road Not Taken

BY ROBERT FROST

    

    Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

    And sorry I could not travel both

    And be one traveler, long I stood

    And looked down one as far as I could

    To where it bent in the undergrowth;

    Then took the other, as just as fair,

    And having perhaps the better claim,

    Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

    Though as for that the passing there

    Had worn them really about the same,

    

    And both that morning equally lay

    In leaves no step had trodden black.

    Oh, I kept the first for another day!

    Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

    doubted if I should ever come back.

    I shall be telling this with a sigh

    Somewhere ages and ages hence:

    Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

    I took the one less traveled by,

    And that has made all the difference.