A new year rapidly approaches, each new year coming faster than the last. (As we get older, each minute/hour/day/year takes up a smaller percentage of our overall experience, so – wow! can they zoom right by.)
How will we see the coming year? Ever hopeful that it will bring wonderful possibilities? A precious commodity to be nurtured, treasured, treated kindly? Much as we might like otherwise, we cannot control others and have limited control over circumstances. But we have ourselves to bring into the future, complete with the ability to dream, hope, create!!
Several of my favorite quotes come to my mind (paraphrasing here and not always sure of whom to credit…but trying to convey the timely essence)….
**”We can complain because rose bushes have thorns or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses”. [Abraham Lincoln] (The lens through which we view opportunities makes all the difference.)
**”Until the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change, there will be no change.” [attributed to a number of sources] (So simple, but so true.)
**”According to recognized aero technical tests, the bumblebee cannot fly because of the shape and weight of his body in relation to the total wing area. The bumblebee doesn’t know this, so he goes ahead and flies anyway.” [Igor Sikorsky] (This one exceeds even the concept of resilience. Love it!!}
Quite a few years ago, storms came through our area, uprooted two humongous oak trees and dropped them on our house (while I sat, terrified in the basement, under the ironing board, under an i-beam, with a squirrel monkey – Edith Anne – on my shoulder). When my husband was able to get in the door and find us in the basement, I was laughing. “There’s an atrium in our bedroom,” he announced, then asked, “Why are you laughing?” I responded, “It could have been a really nice house.” (We lived in a very old house which was in need of repairs, updates, renovation, etc. It was the only house we had…but we were still alive to have a house! Important, in my book!) As it turned out, we were out of the house for about 6 months — during which time I managed to snap a tendon in my ankle. Luckily we were in a one-story rental at the time because navigating steps to the second-floor bathroom would have been a chore!
Our great grandson, due to an infection his mother developed, was born at 26 weeks’ gestation (during the window allowed by law for aborting a baby, incidentally). His will to surmount the odds and live has made him my superhero. He managed to let the nurses know when he was having breathing problems (the worst of which was when his breathing tube clogged with snot and cut off his air supply). His first 18 months were spent in the hospital with a series of surgeries and therapies. He is now five years and has a sight vocabulary bigger than that of most children in his class. He still has some work to do with motor skills and communication, but he loves books, music, and videos. And he forges on….because it never has occurred to him that he might not.
|So….as we approach the new year, what will we bring to it? Will we appreciate the roof over our head even if it needs patched? Will we appreciate the air that we breathe even if it is not always fragrant? Will we use what we have rather than rue what we lack?
Hindsight is 20/20, they say. But foresight has endless possibilities….
Holidays….Holly Days….Holy Days
As we celebrate our holidays, let us remember why we set aside these special occasions. What is the essence of the day which is important to us? Are they just a day off? (Not a bad thing, of course, as most of us spend quite a bit of energy and need to replenish.) Or holly jolly days? (Also not a bad thing. We need some fun in our lives.) Or are they holy days? (We need the significance of something beyond ourselves.)
Whatever the occasion, celebrate thoughtfully! Embrace the meaning behind the day. Take the opportunity to share that meaning with others — be it loved ones or strangers.
Wishing you all the the best!
Do we have a choice to make choices?
What ever happened to learning via “natural consequences” and “logical consequences”? Somewhere along the line, despite loud proclamations from the general public that people have a right to choose, our choices are being taken away from us — and with our tacit permission. Once upon a time, people experienced the results of their actions and learned what does and does not work well. Moms would tell kids the stove was hot and tried to make it difficult to reach the burners, but if the unruly child burned his finger, he learned pretty quickly that touching the hot stove was … well, dumb!!
Much as we might like to save our loved ones and proteges from painful experiences, often those occasions present the best opportunity for learning and growth, And we need a bit of an ouch now and then to build the resilience that will serve to protect us when the going gets rough — much like scar tissue provides a barrier.
When babies venture forth to take their first steps, they are wobbly and subject to plopping down. (And nature has provided them with a bit of natural padding to soften those plops a bit.) If the baby is always totally supported, finding his balance will be frightening and difficult. It is that shaky step that allows him to learn the limits. Someday he will need to be able to walk alone, so he has to try it out and improve.
Somehow our society (in that “dumbing down of America”, perhaps?) has taken the position that we all need to be protected from ourselves. We have waged such a battle against bacteria that we now kill the good bacteria that our immune systems need to strengthen our ability to fight off infection. We protect people from the consequences of their actions so they don’t learn how to make sound choices. And, pursuant to that, we have somehow come to believe that everything must be the fault of something or someone else. We are led to believe that, if we commit an unconscionable act, it cannot be because we made a bad choice. It must be the bartender’s fault if I drink too much and harm someone. It must be the teacher’s fault if I get a bad grade in school. It must be the other guy’s fault if I lose my temper and slug him. It would, of course, never be my fault that I decided to drink to excess, not study, and/or allow that guy to provoke me.
Our society has begun to legitimize bad behavior by naming it. What would once upon a time have been considered extremely rudeness and (yes!) stupidity while driving, is now “road rage”, something to which one can aspire. Think about the adjectives that are employed today to describe desirable things — “bad” and “sick”. Temptation has been present in the world for eons, but we were taught to resist it. There were shared societal expectations that people would respect authority, show kindness to others, take the “high road”. Where have those values gone, and how do we get them back?
Start with those baby steps. Provide protection, but allow for consequences. Foster opportunities for learning, growth, and accepting responsibility. Cherish choices, and support the positive ones. What have I learned from this particular choice? What might I have done differently? Start the dialogue. Lead by example. Strive for good. Embrace the Golden Rule.
Sock Saga (?)
Finding matching socks. “What’s your secret?”, asks a friend. “Well, buying new ones works for awhile! (But, upon sorting through a sizable accumulation of socks that had been mateless for a looong time, it was quite exciting to find three pairs that had been eluding me!!) Actually, I have found that, because of products being made all over the world and, therefore, inconsistently from country to country, it is possible to buy five pairs of the same brand and style of socks from the same store but at different times and find that when they are separated from their mates and later reunited, they do not match the other “same” socks.
Somehow the world-revolves-around-me syndrome has become prevalent in modern society. Currently we are living in a world which individual people believe revolves around them and their particular circumstances. No assimilation, no accommodation. One-size-fits-all means “my size” because if it’s good for me it must also be good for you.
Interestingly, when the agency I worked for began to implement electronic health records, the format was different for each section. Some areas used narratives; some used bullet points; others used drop-down menus; still others used checkboxes. When I was scratching my head one day about this odd phenomenon, my husband (a techie) explained it to me. “It’s simple,” he said. “They distribute the various sections to their various programmers to complete. Each programmer has his/her own preferences. Some like narratives, some drop-down menus, etc. Therefore, each section of the document is created to reflect the preferences of the particular programmer involved.” Hmmmmm….. Well, that does explain a lot. The fact that each programmer tackled the task according to his/her own preferences without consulting with other programmers to team up to make the product consistent for the user further underscores a trend towards isolation and away from teamwork.
How do we reclaim those societal mantras from the past? E.g. the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” seems to have been replaced by “Do unto to others and run!” How do we look for the intrinsic value in a deed or decision rather than considering only what benefits me? Taking care of only myself makes it a lonely world indeed.
This has been my rant. Please share with me your feelings. Together we can grow. Together we can make a difference.
Searching for Absolutes…Finding Questions, Nuances, Interpretation
What is ever actually “known”? Can two people standing side by side share the exact same experience?
While absolutes may work for a checkbox digital world, humanity is so much more complex. Consider the age-old dilemmas: good vs evil; right vs wrong; “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”; “zero tolerance”… Where we once approached situations from the perspective of a continuum that included choices, extenuating circumstances, relative good, relative harm, and unique blends of characteristics and possibilities, we now seem to be faced so often with the limitations of an array of checkboxes, finite in nature, unyielding, with no opportunity to adapt a response according to the surrounding variables. Is the universe somehow preparing us for the governance by Artificial Intelligence? The digitalization of today’s world is unsettling. People are being bred to accept the list of checkbox options provided. And who gets to supply that list? Whose agenda does it serve? What has happened to the freedom to choose, to explore, to hypothesize, to create? How do we ever expand our horizons? Break free of our limits and shackles?
Instead of looking for the answers, we need to be asking the questions, playing with nuance, creating new recipes for life. Growing! Thriving!
Join me in not joining me! Disagree! Argue! Bring your passion! Find yourself! Be you own list! Perhaps we will find some commonality, perhaps not. Embrace our overlaps, but celebrate our separateness!
The universe is too vast to be stuck in a small corner. Live! Love! Be!
Winter Poem
[1963]
Winter on a whatnot shelf,
Trees of blown glass
Placed upon mirrored streets,
Aftermath of an ice storm, --
Fact frozen into fantasy.
Kangas and Donkeys and Elephants…Oh, My!
Kangaroo babies live in pockets. Many politicians live in pockets. Mother kangaroos are very protective of the babies in their pockets. Special interest groups are very protective of the politicians in their pockets. In either case, the owner of the pocket will likely eviscerate whomever messes with the pocket dweller. Hmmm…maybe it’s the special interests that live in the pockets of the politicians? Overall, I think kangaroos are the best bet!