Ducks In A Row

For most of my life I've had an illusion that one day I will have everything in my life set up just how I like it.  I will have just the right amount of food in the kitchen.  Everything will be clean.  All my bills will be paid.  I will have just the right amount of clothes with nothing that I don't enjoy wearing.  I will have just the right amount of spare time.  I won't have any aches and pains, and my body will be in a perfect state of health.  I will have everything organized ideally.  Etc, ect, ect.

Like I said, I know this is all an illusion.  Some people believe that heaven will be a state of perfection kind of like this.  I don't know if that's true, but I do know that my brain keeps telling me that somehow I can reach this goal on earth.  I always feel like I need to be one step ahead and eventually everything will line up just right.

I guess some people would simply call this being a perfectionist.  But I feel like it's something else.  I don't necessarily care to have everything perfect in my life.  It's more of a feeling that there's some unreachable position where you will feel perfectly at ease with no worries that there is something that still needs to be done.

I realize that this condition will never be met physically, and I must learn to feel at ease within myself, even when there are still things to get done.  That, as you may have figured out, is easier said than done.  It's more of a zen disposition than any outward achievement.  I hope to eventually learn this way of thinking, just for my own sanity.  Because it's never healthy to constantly feel like you need to do more.  And maybe if i don't get to experience it in this life, I will at least get to in the next.

My Feelings On Feelings

 I realize it's been quite a long time since I last posted.  I've found that as I get older, ideas for writing are much harder to hang on to.  They pop into my mind occasionally throughout the day, and unless I write them down immediately, they leave forever.  Maybe it's just me, but I think that my mind works just a little bit less efficiently the older I get.  I guess that is to be expected with aging.  Of course I do my best to keep myself healthy and active.  I've been doing yoga every day for over a year now!  That is really amazing to me because I'm not the kind of person that ever liked working out.  Generally I avoid it, and getting on the yoga mat is still hard some days, but I'm so proud I've stuck with it.

So I wanted to write about feelings today because I once read that some people (specifically introverts) feel things more strongly than other people.  I'm not sure how true this is with introverts, but I do believe that some people feel things more strongly than others, and I think that I might be one of those people.  

Throughout my life I've often noticed that I seem to be feeling more than those around me.  A song will move me strongly, or I will cry more than others at a funeral, or I will feel a very deep emotion that I don't observe other people expressing.  Of course this is all just based on my perception.  I realize that people can be feeling one way, and showing something else entirely to others.  I know I do this.  I also know that people can get emotional about different things, so it doesn't mean they are less emotional, just emotional about something else.

I guess, in the end, I doesn't really matter how emotional we get.  We just want to feel heard and understood.  Although, it is probably a little harder to feel understood  if you don't think others feel the same as you.

I once watched a true crime show where a young man murdered a girl who was his friend.  Later he admitted to a friend that he thought he would feel something when he took a life, but he didn't feel anything.  First of all, this showed me that there are those who are not capable of feeling as deeply as others.  Second, it made me very sad that there are those who are not able to feel how sacred human life is.  Lastly, it made me wonder if human life even is sacred if there are those who can't feel it.  

I'm not saying that murder should be OK, or even that human life isn't sacred.  It just made me wonder how some people can believe human life is so special while others could seem to care less.  How can human life be sacred if it is not a universal truth with all people?

I know I will probably never have the answers to these questions.  It's just a little food for thought.  I have a feeling that our lives are sacred, for whatever that's worth.  

No Mistakes

 When we are kids, I don't think most of us give much thought to making mistakes.  If it isn't a terribly bad mistake (and let's face it, most childhood mistakes are not serious), then we just brush it off and move on.  It's when we move into adulthood  the stakes become higher, and the consequences more serious.  

Suddenly, we are "legal" and we can be arrested for mistakes.  They can cause serious physical and mental pain, and cost us dearly in loss of money.  Also, most adults don't have a caretaker like children do, so there is not that extra set of eyes to see when a mistake is likely to happen.  Of course we need laws and consequences to keep people safe.  However, this idea that we need to make mistakes to learn from them is suspect, in my opinion.

I hear so many people these days saying that it is good to make mistakes because we learn from them and thus become better people.  While I do believe that much can be learned from mistakes, I also think we are an intelligent species, and we don't necessarily need to make mistakes to learn things.

Think about it.  Do you need to be badly burned to learn that fire is dangerous?  Do you need to be homeless to learn how to get a home?  Do you need to have a heart attack to find out that eating bad food and smoking is not good for you?  Is it required for you to get into a car accident to find out that seatbelts are beneficial?  NO!  Of course not!  We can learn without experiencing.  It's called SCHOOL.

Sometimes experiences are helpful, or even necessary to learn something.  But most of our learning can be done without putting ourselves in serious danger.  In fact, we can learn many many things, just sitting on our couch on our laptop.  Imagine that?

I've had a fear of making mistakes most of my life, and I don't think there is not a reason for that.  I have been hurt, embarrassed, and cheated enough times to know that I don't want to make the mistakes that cause those things.  And why should I, if it can be avoided?

Mistakes may play some role in our lives, but I don't think they are as important as many people make them out to be.  As for me, I am perfectly happy making as few mistakes as possible.

Living Life

 As we come to over a year since the pandemic first started, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.  There are many people getting vaccinated and many public places are loosening their restrictions on face coverings.  This is all to be taken with a grain of salt, however, because many experts are still saying this is far from over.  There are new varients of the virus, which are more contagious, and it it is still unclear if the vaccine will protect against those.  Also, there are many people who, for whatever reason, still don't want to get vaccinated.  So I look hopefully towards the future, but still stand at the ready for further trouble.

I appologize for the long delay since my last post.  I guess you could say I had a drought of ideas, and only today have I thought of one of interest enough to me to bother writing about.  

I greatly dislike the saying, "Live each day as if it's your last".  I understand the sentiment behind it, and I agree that life should not be wasted.  But I find several problems with it, the first being that if you lived that way, you wouldn't get much accomplished.  Think about what you would want your last day on earth to be like.  I don't think many people would choose to go to school or work as usual, have sub-par food, and end the day with a boring t.v. show.  You would probably want to do something memorable like have a party, go somewhere beautiful or exciting, or doing something you love.  However, it is not practical to do things like  this every day.  Life is a combination of mundane tasks and pleasant moments.  There is no way to elimiate the mundane and still accomplish anything worthwhile.  The best you can do is try to have more good times than bad.

Now maybe when people say, "Live each day as if it's your last" they they don't mean it so literally .  Ok, well that still doesn't work for me.  If you are living that way, you are probably thinking a lot about death.  It is my theory that most people ignore the thought of death 99% of the time, because if they did think about it frequently, they would be very depressed.  Thus defeating the whole purpose of living a happy life.  I know there are those who can think of their own demise without much aggitation.  But, for the vast majority, I think those thoughts are not helpful.

I have heard of people who have had near-death experiences, and some say it is so wonderful on the other side that you would be begging to go there if you knew what it is like.  Where, then, does that leave the living?  Deeply unhappy because they can't yet have what they long for?  Unable to find purpose in life knowing that what waits on the other side is so much better?  I'm not here to debate the existence or non-existence of an afterlife.  I just think that it would leave most people in a precarious position if they felt caught between one world and the next.

For me, taking pleasure in the little things, helping others, working hard, learning, loving, and not dwelling too much on the past or future is the way to go.  It may not be a perfect philosophy, but I don't think there is one.  My hope for you is that you find what works for you, and when the end comes you are content with what your life has been.

Relocation Admiration

 Here we are one year into a pandemic, and I never could have imagined how this all would change our lives so profoundly.  There is hope on the horizon, however.  A vaccine has been developed in record time, and it is being administered as quickly as possible.  But, the trauma will still be there forever.  Millions of people have died or lost loved-ones.  Doctors have been pushed to their limits.  Riots and protests have become commonplace.  Everyone has had to quarantine, many have lost their jobs, and everyone's lives have been profoundly changed forever.  Let us all pray for healing and better days ahead.

Now on to the topic of this post.  I am often very interested in the reasons people move far away and stay in certain places.  Lots of people move for a job opportunity, and from what I can tell, that seems to be the main reason someone moves out of state or out of the country.  Still, many others move just because they want to be with a friend or lover, go to school somewhere, or they just want to experience a different place.

Not being a very brave person myself, I am often awed by those who make a big move and a new life for themselves.  Aside from the difficulty of just getting all your stuff to the new place, there are so many other challenges.  You have to register your kids for school if you have kids.  You have to learn how to find your way around the new place.  You have to start a new job or a new school.  You have to meet new people and find new friends.  You have to find the right stores where you want to shop.  You have to get your car registered and get a new drivers licence.  Also, if you move to a place dramaticallly different from what you are used to, you have to adjust to a new culture.  It all seems so overwhelming to me.

I suppose it isn't very stressful for some people.  Others are probably stressed, but they still take the leap.  I don't know if I could even do that.  Then again, I guess you never know until you try.  For now I will just marval at those who have the guts to try, and listen with great interest to their stories.

The Princess and the Pauper

 I remember not too many years ago, when I was just starting out on my own, money was very tight, and I had to make every cent count.  Fast forward to today, and most of the time, I can spend reasonably without worrying if I will have enough money in my account.  I am grateful for this every day.

As a poor twenty-something in my first apartment, I would go to great lengths to save money because there were times when it came down to a few dollars in my account, and I had to decide what food or medication or bill was most important to pay for.  I have been on food stamps and have gotten free food from a food pantry.  Don't get me wrong.  I was never destitute or homeless. My health was good for the most part, and luckily I had my dad to fall back on if I got in any real trouble.  However, I know many people don't have all of that, and they suffer far worse consequences than I ever did.  That's why it makes me feel so amazed, happy, and blessed to be in an excellent financial situation now.

When money was tight, I always took a calculator to the store and added up every item I wanted so I wouldn't go over what money I had to spend on food.  (Which wasn't always very much.)  Often I would have to put food back before checkout or buy a cheaper item rather than an expensive one.  I dreaded going to the doctor because I couldn't afford it, let alone any medication he or she might prescribe.  Buying a treat for myself like a new item of clothing or going to a movie was a very rare occurrence.  If I got money for my birthday, I would sometimes spend it on food or bills.  Going on a vacation was out of the question.

These days I have a job that I have been at for over 13 years, and Mike makes a very good living at his job as well.  We have medical insurance, a home, two very nice cars, and money in savings.  We eat out frequently and buy things for fun just about any time we have extra money.  We even get to go on vacation here and there.

I'm not saying all this to make anyone jealous or angry.  I can hardly believe my good fortune myself.  I'm only saying that when I hear of people struggling to get by or who are even just a little strapped for cash, I can relate in a big way.  I try to give back when I can, and I never judge or look down on those who have few material possessions.  I only sympathize and hope that one day they can find a way to also turn from a pauper to a princess.   

Whispered Words and Petty Power

 Whispered words.  Sideways glances.  Low tones.  Concerned looks.  We all know the feeling when we know we are being left out of something important.  It's not a good feeling.

Why does it happen?  I feel like if it happens at a business or workplace, it's usually under the guise of being "professional".  People seem to think they are being professional when they withhold information from the lower rank employees.  However, in my experience, it is less about professionalism and more about personal feelings and a petty assertion of power.   

It seems to me like when a person has a little bit of power over someone else, they like to rub it in by whispering about things that don't need to be whispered about.  This makes people with the secret feel more special and important than the people around them.

All these secrets really aren't being kept as much as they are being used to manipulate people.  This bothers me to no end because it only leads to misinformation and negative feelings.  Why not just be honest and open with all your fellow humans?

I can concede the need for some secrets in life, but I think they should rarely, if ever, need to be exploited to make others feel bad.  Maybe I am blind to the inner politics of certain groups.  However, if being in the loop means being secretive and hurtful, leave me in the dark.