A HOT MESS

You wake up and the first thing you see is your hair ‘all over your head’ as they say in the southern U.S. when they comment on what the rest of us call a ‘bad hair day’. And so it begins…

For some mysterious reason, many days that start out late or with some sort of shaky start, run the risk of being dangerous to your health and well being for the duration.

From this vantage point, you might even start to think that today’s small blips and potholes are the story of your life, instead of a few small incidents along a long and relatively happy journey.

Most of us actually know that many of the temporary problems in front of us at a particular time, aren’t really that hard to change. You can always fix your hair, change your clothes, take better care of yourself and, finally get some long overdue sleep.

Until you are ready however, you won’t change your own perception of yourself and all the things you think make you less than some mythical ‘perfect’ person you have conjured up to compare yourself to.

Only you can climb out of the rut most of us, at one time or another, so easily jump down into. The sooner we take steps to do it, the sooner we lighten up and quit senselessly and needlessly trying to lift and carry far more than we either want or need to.

Climbing back out of one’s personal rut, requires that we change our perceptions about ourselves, and usually also those around us. The sooner we do so however, the sooner we can turn the day, the week, the month and probably the rest of our lives around.

28,000 DAYS & 2,500,000,000 HEARTBEATS

Some time ago I heard and wrote about the fact that we have 2,500,000,000 heartbeats in a lifetime. Recently I have heard that the average lifespan is 75 years and is 28,000 days long.

Why do the number of days make this suddenly seem a very short time? Probably because all of us can count to 28,000 and can imagine it but 2 billion, 500 million is too great to easily comprehend.

Even if we aren’t daunted by the 28,000 days in the average lifespan of 75 years, giving a moment to think about where we are at in our lives at this moment, likely does. Suddenly there’s a lot we would like to do, isn’t there? I know I think so.

Recently I have been thinking a lot about Women and aging. Being a Baby Boomer, I am a member of a giant cohort which were ‘Born at the Right Time’ in terms of being such a large group that our numbers alone have changed our society. Now, like it or not, and I imagine most of us don’t, we will be raising the average age of the population towards being considerably older than it has perhaps ever been.

A few years ago when I saw organizations for ‘Retired Persons’, I could not imagine ‘My Generation’ ever admitting to being old or even older. When someone wanted those of 55, and now 45, to consider themselves older (or dare I say it, elderly) many of us scoffed at the mere idea that they meant us.

Around the same time, the banks, in an effort to attract middle aged customers were selling the possibility of retiring at 55. Since I wasn’t 55 at the time I first heard of this, I paid very little attention. It seems now most people are figuring they will be working till they drop and 55 is either approaching fast or long gone.

Nevertheless whenever you stop counting the odd grey hair and decide that it’s time to cover it, you have crossed the threshold acknowledging your are (like it or not) aging.

A few years ago, I was both charmed and surprised that a few gentlemen still existed in my city, evidenced by some younger men giving up their subway seats to me. Today, however, I am a bit chagrined that both young men and young women, give up their seats to me.

Yikes! Maybe the bags under my eyes are the reason and not a sudden (previously unimaginable) outbreak of good manners in the younger generation.

The fact remains, when your youngest siblings aren’t that young anymore and you are attending nieces and nephews weddings, it may be time to look at where you stand in the life cycle and whether you have some unfinished business that you would like to take care of sooner rather than someday.

This reevaluation of priorities is a good idea at any age, but an even better one for us Boomers since the breaths and the days are likely fewer and there’s still a lot most of us could and would like to do.

CUT YOURSELF SOME SLACK

Most reasonably healthy people do not consider themselves to be contestants for the world record as the ugliest, stupidest, most insecure, most needy or most depressed. Why then do we find so much wrong with us and why do we spend so much time pointing out our imagined weaknesses and shortcomings to others?

I sometimes think that the only person that notices that cold sore we feel is coming up on our lips or that every single thing about us isn’t perfect, is us and our strangely negative perception of ourselves.

It’s not that we lack confidence but that somewhere along the way, we seem to have made a list of either what we might improve or started to evaluate ourselves on some impossible standard of perfection.

Let's face it, using this method, any of us can easily find someone more beautiful, richer, more talented, smarter, more successful etc. etc. etc. Depending on what bothers us personally, the list might get pretty long.

To see ourselves as others see us, there’s something a bit harder to do. Maybe we really should relearn how to count our blessings beginning with thanks for the many people each of us knows who love and care about us.

I think reminding ourselves of this, and all that we do have, instead of waging a daily battle against ourselves about what someone else may have that we don’t, is a good way to stop senselessly sabotaging yourself over and over again.

Few of us will suddenly turn this around and go to the other extreme of becoming flagrant narcissists. I am positive however, that most of us could be a lot happier if we let up on what’s wrong and refocus instead on the many more things that actually are right.

Cut yourself some slack and see how it feels to be happy for a change.

LIGHTENING UP

Not that long ago you could open my closet doors and see a typical city girl closet. A sea of dark colours with a few light tops. Although it still applies to coats, I was happy recently when the cleaners lost something and told their office to look for bright coloured things. To my surprise, it seems I had finally lightened up in a recognizable way.

For some reason, a couple of years ago, yellow and emerald suddenly seemed right. Strangely, in a ‘fake it till you make it’ kind of way, putting lighter and brighter colours around me soon meant that I felt lighter and brighter on the inside as well.

I’m not saying that brighter clothing was the only thing behind this relatively newly found optimism, but it sure didn’t hurt. Maybe it works like blue lenses do on sunglasses to help migraine and dyslexia, and we are relieved.

Canada has a long winter and anyone who lives here knows it. Why then do we add to the dullest days of the year with a sea of black and navy coats? Why do we seem to save all of the bright colours for the ski slopes, when we actually could really use them during the weekdays? No wonder we cheer up in spring when bright colours accompany warmer weather.

While brighter colours outside your self help, it is by adding some colour to your inner perspective that can actually change your life and possibly help you to become a happier person. Change your outlook, change your life.

Life is not long enough for some people, but it often seems too long for those who are unhappy.

I think living becomes happier and easier when we walk and live in a sunnier place inside us. The occasional dull day does not pile on as hard when you have taught yourself to habitually turn things around; when you consider what is possible rather than what isn’t. Worked for me. Just saying!.

OUT OF FOCUS

If you don’t define your life, your life might not have a lot of accomplishment in it. You may have a lot of projects you have started but, over time, it becomes obvious that few things ever get finished.

TOO MANY D.I.Y. PROJECTS

I think that a lack of focus, when combined with a short attention span contributes to a great deal of unfinished business. Even when you have a lot of energy, but run out of ideas or direction for those you do have, you can easily become frustrated and restless.

I suspect that never having discovered a defining passion, interest or purpose, may have a lot to do with it. When nothing inspires you enough to hold your interest, many things will be needed to fill the time. Unfortunately, none of them interest you enough to work on and complete them.

HANGING OUT WITH OTHERS

You might also hope, hanging around with others might somehow, find you some inspiration, give you something to do, or if nothing else, help you pass the time in a convivial and amusing way.

However, in fact, you can easily be a problem to others, because some of them are hoping for the same thing…for others to amuse, entertain and occupy them.

This can work for a while, but usually only until somebody needs to get actually get something done. At this point your demands for others attention leads to the risk of your making a nuisance of yourself. Not funny.

A NEW HOBBY

Some of us develop a 'Hobby' of telling others how to do their jobs or interfering in other ways with other people around them. Your helpful ‘free’ advice, is usually neither helpful nor free. I suspect that most who give ‘free advice’ rarely have taken the trouble to understand themselves, or anyone else fully.

If you were them, you wouldn’t be you. If you were them, you would probably not have done it the way they are doing it or did it.

However, you are not them, you are you. Although you have some ideas about what someone else is doing, it is not yours to do, but theirs. Naturally and logically they need to do it their way, not yours.

KEEPING YOUR OPTIONS OPEN

Leaving all of your options open, may lead to rarely expressing an interest or belief in anything.

As the saying goes, when you believe in nothing; you will believe anything. Too often, possibly because of too much, or too little, sleep, you develop and are captivated by whimsical and even otherwise transparently stupid fantasies.

Normally such things are those that most people don’t have the time or interest to waste their time, and often, money on.

However, just as substantial and useful things interest people who understand life better and are focused, these others are willing and have the time to focus on what almost everyone else considers the absurd, specious and useless. 

MISSING LINKS

When you devote the kind of concentration and dedication to something most people can’t or won’t, you can perhaps get credit for having a lot of imagination. 

However a lack of facts, education, knowledge of laws of physics, chemistry, biology, or logic, and possibly even common sense, simply do not validate your unique perspective of the world.

When we think about it a bit, most of us will admit that we really don't believe that the world is all wrong and we are the only ones on the right track.

ADJUSTING YOUR FOCUS

Should you find that you have some 'spare time' on our hands, you might consider that many people around us and around the world do not have this luxury.

We might also notice and acknowledge that many people are experiencing genuine physical and mental deprivation and pain.

With increased awareness and recognition that we could actually be useful to someone worse off than ourselves, we might perhaps use some of our copious free time in helping them out a bit.

The fact that we will actually be helping ourselves even more than anyone else when we extend ourselves to others may be truer than we care to admit, but we can keep it our little secret. 

LIVING YOUR OWN LIFE

There are people that are highly motivated, energetic, accomplished multi-taskers. They are busy but are organized and energetic and often accomplish a great deal. I think they accomplish so much because they are able to concentrate and focus on reaching their goals.

Another type of person never seems to accomplish much of anything. They may even have a lot of projects they have started but, over time, it is obvious that few things ever get finished. I think that a lack of focus, when combined with a short attention span both contribute to a great deal of unfinished business.

I suspect that they may never have discovered a defining passion, interest or purpose. Because of this many things are needed to fill their time, but none of them interest them enough to work on something and complete it.

If however, you don’t take the time to discover something you want to do, to look within yourself to find what really interests and engrosses you, you are leaving yourself open to letting someone else do it for you.

A second hand way of living through somebody else is fine when we relax and read a work of fiction or see a movie. In real life however, how much of someone else’s life do we want to observe. Instead, with a bit of initial effort,  we might be enjoying our own lives and experience.

Steve Jobs the technology entrepreneur lived only a few years beyond the age of 50. At some point he is quoted as saying: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary”.

In the movie Avenue Montaigne one of the characters speaking to his son says: there comes a point in your life where you stop talking about the time ahead of you and start to think about the time left. 

Whatever your age, you can always think about the time ahead and what you want to do with it. A wise woman Marsha Sinetar wrote a book in 1987, called ‘Do What you Want, the Money will follow’; so will the life you want.  

WHAT DID I DO WRONG?

Many years ago, a friend of mine wrote a horrible letter to her ex-boyfriend. She read it to me and I cringed at the doubts she had about herself and how she was obviously wracking her brain to think of what she had done wrong.

The fact that her boyfriend had left her for some ‘chick’ in a ‘string bikini’ made this beautiful girl doubt everything about herself.

Mercifully, I convinced her to wait a couple of days until the weekend was over and only then mail this letter if she still felt the same way. Years later I heard that she had never mailed it. She thanked me.

What happened to her and what happened to him? She married someone else and had two sons, lived a different life from what she earlier expected but, I suspect a happier one. He married the ‘string bikini chick’ who soon was pregnant and convinced him to work two jobs and make her feel secure but putting their property in her name. Most of us can fill in the blanks here.

This morning I read an article on the Internet about why a Man might break up with a good Woman. The writer felt there were 3 main reasons, none of which the Man would tell you. He said he thought that the reasons were that: the Man felt pressured and inadequate, that the relationship felt competitive and that he didn’t feel respected.

I could see why any one of these reasons could be a ‘deal breaker’. You can too if you think about it.

My friend was expressing insecurity, just as we all do about something in our lives that we doubt and worry about in our lives. In our mind there is always somebody more beautiful, thinner, more accomplished, richer and possibly happier than we are. Meanwhile the person others saw when they looked at my friend could be Kate Upton’s sister.

This happened years ago, but it also happened yesterday, will happen today and again tomorrow. In other words, it will continue happening until we figure out who we are and what we are willing to give to have lasting and fulfilling mutual love in our lives.

We need to think about why we either feel pressured or inadequate or make others feel this way.

We also need to seriously decide whether every area of our life needs to be competitive, even our home life? Can we ever trust ourselves or anyone else in our lives enough to give them the benefit of the doubt and let them in? 

Can we ever teach ourselves to be secure and confident enough to recognize that we can have people in our lives who have our best interests at heart and only want us to love them back?

Can we consider that we don’t respect anyone and can’t because we don’t respect ourselves?

Anyone who has ever felt pressured or inadequate, competitive with someone else or felt a lack of respect in their lives; in other words, everyone you know including yourself; can understand why someone (male or female) feeling any of these things is likely to want to get as far away as they can from the person who makes them feel this way.

The writer of the article gave 3 Reasons a Man Might Break Up With a Good Woman (That He Won’t Tell You). Clayton Olson at YourTango.com spoke to all of us Men and Women. He gave us a lot to think about far into ourselves and went right to the place we really live.

Is it any wonder that we wouldn’t tell someone else why we felt this way about someone else and that it was the ‘deal breaker’ when we can’t even tell ourselves? Something to think about.

DREAMING OUT LOUD

There is no time like the present for working on a plan for your future. In fact, I believe that the sooner you put yourself into your plans, the better. In other words, the sooner you determine what you want to be ‘when you grow up’, the better.

Most of us can remember what we loved to do as children and some of the games and ‘make belief’ characters we played and admired. We also usually had an answer for what we wanted to do when we grew up. 

Some of us had a very definite idea about what we wanted from life and this actually never changed. Because of this many of us realized these early dreams. Others of us ended up doing other things, either because our needs and wants changed or out of necessity to earn a living and make a life for ourselves.

I think however, that wherever we are at in our lives, it is a good idea to think about where we really want to be now and in the future. Let’s be honest, most of us have a ‘Wish List’. 

With a win of the proverbial ‘Million Dollars’ most of us have a dozen or more things we can think of to do with ‘all of that money’. However, aside from ‘winning the lottery’, how much of what we dream about can we hope to achieve, should that lottery win not happen? This is an important question.

Stepping back from the fantasy, how can we make some, or all, of our dreams a reality? From within my own frustration and the work in progress that is my life, I’d say quite a lot of it.

To begin with you have to look at your dreams and think about what they are, particularly which are most important to you. Although you can spend a bit of time thinking about this, most of us know what we want the most. Where we get stuck is in trying to figure out how to get it.

I think the best place to start is to ‘dream out loud’. In other words, let your ‘secret’ dream out into your life. This is the scary part. It is actually what is making your dreams impossible. Fear. 

It will take both courage and determination to finally put your dream out there so you, and people around you can hear about and see it. Whether this means writing it down, or gets a little farther by telling your friends and family what you’ve always wanted, you are actually taking the crucial first step in making your dream possible.

Your fear is what is holding you back, far more than what your dream actually is. I am pretty sure that what you dream about isn’t as crazy as you fear it is. Guess what, you’ll never know, if you keep it a secret!

By letting your dreams out, you confirm that you want something beyond what you have now. You may have a few ideas about how to realize your dreams. Why not take them out for a ride and see where you can put them in your life?

As you do this, you may notice those around you start to feel ready to trust you with their own dreams which they have also been keeping secret and unspoken.

You and those around you might be surprised to find that what you want and what they want is either not so far apart, or quite as impossible as you imagined it might be.

This exchange can help you both, to suggest practical ways and encourage and help each other to move your life closer to what you want it to be. You might suddenly find you have the encouragement and support of those around you in finding practical ways to make your dreams a reality.

Most importantly, your own actions, will have taken the first steps in redirecting your life toward making your dreams possible for you to achieve. I’d say your success is more likely than some secret wishes based on some ‘miracle’ windfall to do it for you.   

911

The day most of us currently living in North America remember vividly has come again. Earlier this year several members of my family visited Ground Zero when they were in New York. One of them became sick, as did another woman nearby from the air around the site.

I guess this giant graveyard still, whatever covers it, remains a giant graveyard in much the same way other graveyards old and new do, whether people deny them or not.

If you have lived long enough, you may have attended the first, or last, Beatles concert. You may have been alive when John Kennedy died.

Like me, you may have been awake when CNN reported that Princess Diana had been in a car crash in Paris, and still awake several hours later when the ambulance finally reached the hospital and she was pronounced dead.

You likely remember where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001 and probably what you saw and heard and felt that day. You also know that as many as 30% of some group of people believe that ‘911 was an inside job’. In other words that we have not been told the truth about it.

Many of these same people, or some like them, still wonder whether Princess Diana was deliberately murdered; others have a theory about President Kennedy, UFO’s and a multitude of other events real or imagined.

I personally do not spend a lot of time thinking about who is doing harm to someone else and what person or group may currently have plans for ‘world domination’.

Once you have been given remission from Cancer, each day and each year are what you celebrate and think about.

When you have lost the person people today call their ‘significant other’, a lot of the spurious and fantastical hold no interest to you, however and whoever tries to involve you in their particular preoccupation.

Instead you take a moment, each year to celebrate your birthday, the day you were told your Cancer was probably behind you, the day your dearest love died. Such days are personal to you and are your own. 

The other days, that the world considers significant to the history of mankind are also important because they let us know both how far we have come as a species and also remind us of how much farther we need to go to learn how to coexist peacefully with our fellow human beings.

On historical days, we pause and remember, our place among others but especially the hopes and fears we have personally lived with and moved through. Probably more than any other thing we come to a point that we realized that 'somethings lost and somethings gained in living every day', as someone wisely said in a song from years ago.

Ultimately, we conclude that, it is our place among the living that we note and commemorate and place our hopes for a better tomorrow upon; having noted the value of the past in making our present what it means to our lives today.

GIVE A LITTLE

Our affluent society has made our lives ones that are longer and generally less troubled with the struggle to survive than that of any earlier generation.

Nevertheless hunger and poverty, as well as, physical and mental challenges continue to and will probably always exist among us and in other parts of the world.

With only a little concern and effort on our part, we who have been given so much, might easily help someone overwhelmed by the struggle to even survive.

Can we not give a little of what we have in time, money or effort to those whose burdens are so much greater than any we will ever experience and be challenged by?

I include below a beautiful poem written by Sam Levenson* which was read by Audrey Hepburn’s son Sean at her funeral about her philosophy in life. We might all find some good advice and inspiration from it and incorporate some of it into our lives for the benefit of others and, actually more importantly, for ourselves:

“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness, 

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. 

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. 

For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day. 

For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. 

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of your arm. 

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself and the other for helping other.”

*Sam Levenson 1911-1980 American humorist, writer, teacher, television host and journalist.

ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD

Most of us don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Time. Certainly not before we are around 30 years old. Till then most of us seem to behave fearlessly and possibly even recklessly. I don't know why but most of us behave as though we are Immortal. In fact, I doubt many of us pause much from the business of living our lives to do anything more than plan where we want to go next during our younger years.

For the child time often seems to pass too slowly, especially when they are told to wait for something. In fact, at first they don’t seem to understand the concept of time very well at all. The beleaguered parent can perhaps explain that some event will take place the next day but sometimes even this does not seem soon enough for the child.

We throw away a lot of time daydreaming when we are young. I always encourage this. I think we need a lot of this if we are to have creative people in the world and also because I believe not everything should be serious. In general, encouraging this is my way of hoping the world will ‘Lighten Up’; if not now, some time in the future.

Eventually however, we assume responsibility for our own actions, usually because we need to earn a living. Most of us also consider someone else’s interests, desires and well being when we form a relationship with each other. Earning a living and having a good relationship both consume a lot of our time, often many days, weeks, months and years.

Inevitably a time comes when we suddenly seem to feel that time is flying. We start reflecting that Tempus Fugit, Time Flies and realize we are almost 9 months into 2015 and 15 years into the new Millennium already. How can that be? Where did the time go? Why does the time seem to have passed so quickly?

Einstein created or discovered the Theory of Relativity. It was brilliant just because it described something that most of us either observed in some form or experienced.

Maybe you are at a place where you still think you have all the time in the world. Perhaps though you are reading this thinking, as I do, that time is flying by.

Like me, you might wish you could somehow slow time down long enough to catch a moment the way we can occasionally catch and look at a Snowflake. It would be so good to study and savour and appreciate each day like that.

Meanwhile, what we can actually do, is pay more attention to each day we are living and consciously take a moment here and there to reflect on its individual and singular uniqueness.

I am proposing that we consciously try and teach ourselves to appreciate what we have, here and now. I say this, because most of us are very aware that we don’t actually have ‘all the time in the world’ but that what we actually do have, is this time now.

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED

From time to time each of us feels unappreciated. We realize that we are feeling that those around us don’t recognize or even acknowledge all that we have done for them.

Here we are remembering everyone’s birthday, even our sister and brother in-laws, and then one day we forget one. Suddenly, the fact that we remembered a dozen others, and phoned to remind everyone else as well, is forgotten. It figures. Why are we surprised? We all know that no good deed goes unpunished.

Meanwhile, to add insult to injury, when we tell a close friend or family member that we feel unappreciated, they remind us that we should give freely and not give expecting to get something back. They tell us that we should be happy that we have the capacity and goodwill within us to give. The fact that they are right is even more annoying than the being ‘taken for granted’ we already felt.

Eventually we remember that we have many people in our lives who have been friends for a long time. As a matter of fact, many, even most people we know are usually happy to hear from us too. What we forget when we are disgruntled, is that there are many times when a bunch of people suddenly come through for us.

How could I already be forgetting that, only a little over a week ago I had a Birthday Party, went out for dinner and lunch and was given gifts, including one from a new friend? In fact, I still have several Birthday cards displayed which came from both family members and by mail from several friends, and several other celebrations to come in the near future.

When we are being reasonable, we finally consider that maybe somewhere in our lives, we are actually doing something right. Obviously time to nip the ‘pity party’ in the bud and get back to normal.

It is then that you are able to remember again why waiting an extra two hours for your 10 year old nephew’s rescheduled soccer games hardly matters at all. Besides the Sunburn gives your face much needed colour and Vitamin D. It is so little to give to someone who appreciates you as he does and actually knocked 20 years off of your age in his note on your Birthday Card, just over a week ago.

Besides, you have to be who you are. If you are a Giver, then you give because you want to, and maybe need to. There are worse things to be and the rewards begin, not with someone constantly thanking you, but in the capacity you have to be a better person by giving from the heart to those you care about.

FOREVER AND EVER

We all have important days each year where we pause and remember. For many of us New Year’s Day, our Birthday or name day, our Anniversary or some other special day is one we anticipate and remember.

August 24th is one such day for me. It comes a week after my Birthday on August 16th, but it is always a bittersweet Day of Remembrance of my Husband, his life and his passing away from living and our life together. 

So many happy memories accompany any thoughts about him, that even now on the 10th anniversary of his death, I can't help but smile at who he was and what his being in my life meant to me.

I have few, if any, regrets about our time together. I am happy that I could treat him to ‘double chocolate fudge killer cakes’ in the hope of fattening him up and about many, many other things we shared together.

I will never forget how our Christmas stockings became baskets or boxes of favourite treats and goodies. His delight in having a row of treats and candy that reminded him of his childhood was a wonder to behold on one Valentine’s Day.

What he meant to me as a person and who he was as a person, live on in my heart and that of all of those who knew him. Though I can’t say that he was ‘The World’s Greatest’ man of principles, Integrity, Honesty and Quality to other people; he was to me.

When someone becomes your everything, what they mean to you, while they are with you and when they no longer are physically here, remains ingrained in your heart and mind and soul. They live on always, even 10 years later, because they are in our hearts forever.

What we who have suffered this inconsolable loss as Widows and Widowers know most of all, is Gratitude, because they have enriched and changed our lives and everything about us forever.  

KEEP AN OPEN HEART

Over time most of us get to know ourselves fairly well. Experience usually teaches us that we will, sooner or later, move beyond whatever, obstacles we find in our paths.

Change is perhaps the only thing all of us agree that we can count on. I am encouraged by this. Realizing that each of us learns that just as the best experiences will pass, so also mercifully will those we consider the worst.

Nevertheless, there are times when we all feel quite discouraged. Most of us know, by now, that life is not all sunshine and light. I suspect that each and every one of us has felt that we’ve been knocked down or, at the very least experienced some setbacks.

I am convinced, that our continuing success and also our happiness may depend on how quickly we move beyond what we feel are obstacles in our paths. More importantly, I believe that almost everything depends on how we decide to approach, interpret and translate whatever new things we are experiencing.

In fact, I feel that we can, and actually must, turn almost anything life throws at us into a positive before we can build upon and incorporate it into our lives and move forward.

To give ourselves a chance to see life as a series of opportunities and experiences, rather than as a series of monumental challenges and obstacles we must struggle to overcome, I truly believe we need to keep both an open mind and open heart.  

In most things in life, I am convinced the key to moving forward and having a happy and successful life depends more than anything in how we interpret and act upon what we have coming into our lives, rather than whatever the actual experience itself might be.

SAVE YOURSELF FROM DROWNING - A Longer Essay

Sometimes it seems like we are so loaded down by life that we feel like we are Drowning. Too often have I seen this in my own life and that of those I care about to ignore that it might be something we all share in common as part of the human condition.

It is never a fun experience to have a situation comparable to this in our lives, especially when there is no actual water around, or a shoreline to let us recover on and catch our breath.

YOU’RE PROBABLY ON YOUR OWN

Nothing makes it easy when we feel overwhelmed. Not even the support and encouragement other people offer us, however well meant, can pull us out. Only we can do this. It seems that this is another one of the life lessons which each of us must learn for ourselves.

I don’t think it is so much that we are being shown our limitations as that we are being forced to learn how to exercise patience, and must learn how to deal with whatever we find difficult, challenging or troubling.

Along the way we must also develop the skills we need to work with other people in our lives.

THIS WEEK

On Tuesday, I went to the local library to pick up some books and films I had ordered. I sat down at one of the long tables there and started to look through the many things that had come in.

There was a young girl, who looked surprisingly like a young Angelina Jolie, in her facial expressions, manner and eyes. Although it’s not the point of what I am saying, it happens to be what she looked like.

She was wearing a Hijab and saying something quietly to herself as she worked on some calculation or what looked like a mathematical problem.

When I asked her if she was taking a course at summer school, she told me she was trying to work during the summer break to keep ahead. She said she was feeling terrible stress and worry about this work.

THAT EXPERIENCE TEACHES US …

The many years I spent in the pressure cooker area of finance and stock markets, had taught me something useful I could pass on to her.

I gave her some suggestions. I began by suggesting that she tackle one project at a time.

I told her how, many years ago, an engineer told me that our concentration is only effective for a period of about 1½ hours without changing the subject or taking a break. I still believe this is true.

I mentioned how assigning ourselves a manageable goal helps us feel good. It also encourages us because it lets us feel we can succeed.

WHAT I LEARNED AND WHY

Some of these things which I said so confidently were ones I had to learn myself, both at the time I was determined to get a university education and later to be able to support myself when I had to in the working world.

Because I didn’t have a ‘free ride’ or fallback to support or finance me, I was forced by the ‘school of life’ to learn a few life lessons on organization, as well as, delayed gratification, and patience with myself and others.

All of these and other skills made it possible for me to avoid feeling buried under what in those days was an avalanche of paper. Time, work loads and deadlines, wait for no one.

TODAY’S WORKING WORLD IS BRUTAL

As I watch young kids starting their first jobs after they finish school, I don’t much envy them a working environment even more brutal than the one I had to function in. Some of these people seem to be doing the work of, at least, two people.

Frankly, computer or no computer, a really heavy workload does not get any easier to manage, until you break it down into the sort of manageable pieces a human being can cope with. Without this, even prodigies or super novas burn out.

THE CRAZY MYTH OF HAVING IT ALL

The movie, I Don’t Know How She Does It (2011) is a perfect example of the crazy ‘Having It All’ philosophy which has been plaguing Women for more than 30 years.

When the editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine Helen Gurley Brown wrote the original: Having it All book in 1982, she did not tell us much, especially in her book, about the price, even she personally was paying to try to live a life like this. To not put too fine a point on it, she herself was childless, married late in life to a very successful movie producer (David Brown) and relied on him constantly to help her out of her very extreme reactions to stress.

More realistically, and intelligently, Sylvia Ann Hewlett in the April 2002 issue of the Harvard Review wrote an article called Executive Women and the Myth of Having It All.

FRENETIC AND FRANTIC

Will we never learn that something has to give, whether it is our marriages and relationships, our nerves or the absurd idea of Having It All? All of what?

Too often such a ridiculous goal means we have to decide that we are willing to do everything ourselves. How’s that going for you?

Most of us are too frantic to enjoy any of it much. Too bad for anyone who gets in the way and asks for one more thing of us.

In fact, some people will never get to the mythical time when they are finally going to let themselves relax, either physically or emotionally.

More likely, if and when they do eventually pause, they will see there is no one around them.

Somewhere along the line, they started to be the only survivors in a life that was actually a Shipwreck.

Meanwhile, most people chose sanity and opted out of this relentless manic merry go round. You may have been desperate and this was the only way you knew. To others however, all it seemed to be was someone very driven and filled with inexplicable ambition at any price.   

WE CAN ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

Self mastery involves self knowledge. Each of us, as we move through life, needs to periodically examine what it is we are doing.

Perhaps, even more importantly, we need to explain to ourselves why we are doing it.

HOW TO BEGIN

As I sometimes need to remind myself, even now; assign yourself a small project each day. Do not say that you will complete all of the exercises and problems around you today. You won’t, because you can’t.

You can however, reasonably expect to complete one task or chapter or section. You can complete it and perhaps also even master it.

That mastery will give you a sense of accomplishment. It will encourage you and empower you. It will give you the strength to continue. Eventually you will most likely actually accomplish more than you expected to.

MOVING FORWARD WITH A RENEWED SENSE OF PURPOSE

Once we know what our goals are and have rethought our priorities, we can start to move forward with a renewed sense of purpose and having reinserted some reasonable goals into our lives.

ALONG THE WAY

Along the way, you may actually have enjoyed some of the people you met and things you learned.

Perhaps you will never be someone who stops to smell the Roses; but you just might have enjoyed some parts of the days and weeks you lived and experienced on the way to successfully reaching your goals.

AN UNEXPECTED BONUS

The unintended bonus just might be that you made enough time to have some people in your life to enjoy and encourage you in your goals and you them in theirs. 

BAGGAGE HANDLING - 2

Last year I thought a lot about how UNFINISHED BUSINESS STALKS YOU. I was finding that ‘old baggage’ was still coming back at me. 

It’s almost as though ‘you can run, but you can’t hide’, especially applies to the unresolved issues that each of us has somewhere in our lives.

Like unwanted Junk Mail, that pile of unfinished rubbish, which you hoped was gone from your life forever is back. Inconvenient and unwelcome, it is like the dust you have swept under your carpet and forgot about at some earlier time.

  

Most of us tend to ignore a lot of things or delay dealing with them until later. Life is a helpful accomplice in that, almost as if by magic, some of this ‘junk’ goes back into the background of our day to day lives and we forget about it. The fact that we still have not dealt with it, perhaps a bit too conveniently, bothers us not at all.

Having said this however, from time to time most of us are eventually forced to notice that some things from the past, reappear in our lives again and again. Things that never seem to be resolved or finished, for some strange reason seem to come forward as problems to disrupt our lives and trouble us at the most inconvenient times. Strangely too, each time they somehow again catch us by surprise.

Why is it that we are going along just fine for quite a while and then, can because of some small thing, feel like we suddenly find ourselves reliving our worst nightmare?

Sometimes I wonder whether we are doomed to repeat our mistakes until we learn from them or whether our lives will not move forward properly if we don’t complete and conclude things from the past before we move on. I can’t help but wonder whether not dealing with and closing off the past almost ensures it will intrude upon our lives again at some future time.

When next this happens to us, you and I might pause for a moment and figure out whether or not, we are ready to deal with them finally and let ourselves move forward at last. Some things that pose problems in our lives simply are not ever going to go away on their own. Our continuing to ignore and/or push away, almost ensures that we will still be dealing with these unresolved past issues long into the future. Whenever you’re ready…