ellenspictures

Category: opinion

something to look forward to doing, no matter what. seek happy.

don’t you feel better when you have something that you can look forward to doing? not dread. but something that is cheery and fun? there is a lot of discussion around, about happiness. is happiness some state that once you’re there, you’re there? is it episodic and fleeting? is it a feeling or a state?

it is my belief that happiness is not a state, but is a feeling and is a very complex one, at that. if you focus on the positive and decline the negative (as much as possible) – you may likely have more “happiness” than others who do not use this technique. this is my belief.

this can be a challenge if the stress-monsters are active, or you are surrounded by negativity or people who might constantly chatter about some event or other – bitching, moaning, wailing, sniveling… ahhh – there it goes so easily it can happen!

i recently went through a “dodged a bullet” or “cheated death, once again!” situations. when the surgeon gave me the report, i squealed and did a “high five” with her – as it had been weeks of uncertainty and anxiety that began with a routine doctor’s visit, then tests, then a referral to another doctor (this one), and surgery, and more tests, and finally the report. my mind went through so many gyrations that i know others go through – in fact, i said to one of my doctors, after she concluded a test to send off to the lab, “now we enter the “anxiety phase” of the process”. she laughed.

more data needed to make a decision was the line of reasoning. but this does not prevent those conversations with God and the dredging up of thoughts of all types that take you in places you should likely not go. right. but you do. “get your hands off that keyboard!” “do NOT search the internet!!” “bad! bad!”

it takes working with yourself to not slip into negativity with the constant battering of media that pumps it out to make us a more anxious society – in fact, a more anxious civilization…

but being anxious makes you unhappy. it makes everyone unhappy around you. remember that movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? well, that didn’t work, now, did it? what’s the answer? hide. yes, that’s right. shut off all input from negative sources! don’t read newspapers. turn off the television! listen to calm music. it makes sense. you can tell them NO by doing this! try it for twenty-four hours – i guarantee you will be a calmer person!

in the meantime, feel free to gaze upon these images – to help yourself calm down. imagine yourself there… now… enjoy!

July 7, 2015
decisions, challenges, keeping focus and still worrying, after all these years

personally, i haven’t changed a bit…

all these years. yep. it is a fact, day by day, we never know what comes around the corner.   finding eggs, after hunting for them all over the place… an early adopter. pastel colored eggs were and still are attractive.   not sure why that is. early exposure.

in my life, if I think of it at a certain level of abstraction, there have been puzzles to solve. always.

I can also remember bits and pieces of early childhood vividly. sometimes the smells. sometimes just the scenes. sometimes the voices of my grandmother and mother, talking together, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, or with my godmothers, always doing some sort of project.

it was an interesting early life, always something going on – activity – not much sitting around – mostly, inventive, clever, fun. there was always fun factor. enjoyment was king. maybe since it was just a few years after the war ended, they recognized the value of enjoyment and fun factor.

I grew up around a lot of adults, and kids, sometimes, but mostly, it was adult-oriented – and sometimes alone – left to play by myself, or supposedly napping – sometimes I did nap, but mostly not.

A little uncertain of whoever it was taking the picture. Dad was, too?

I kind of like puzzles. Hard to solve ones, but satisfying if I do.  The life challenges, however, can begin to wear you down – you need a re-charge and once in awhile – you get it, that, sometimes a new challenge is actually energizing, not draining. Change of scenery.

Just when you are greatly comforted, that’s when something happens. Almost if comfortable is a warning sign. This is the anthem of the anxious. Perhaps, I am a bit anxious, but calmly so, if that makes any sense. To those of you out there who share this, it will make sense.

but worrying is genetic, I’ve decided. still haven’t been able to Zen around it… guess I got that from my Dad, he was chief of the worriers – did it for all of us – but, I guess, I take his place in that.  Must surround myself with Zen people. Chill. That’s it. But not easy.

May 21, 2015
the dimensions of time and trouble

Tactical.

That’s a word that really deals with the immediate situation. The “situation room”. You have a problem, you deal with it, you make the problem go away (for now), you get sleep at night. Fine.

Dealing with long-term chronic illnesses – now that’s a concept where we apply both the tactical and the strategic.

So much possibility…

Remember. None of us leave this planet alive.

We go somewhere else and leave the shell. We all hope that the somewhere else is a good place, and not “the bad place”. Sometimes we might rightly feel that some of our human comeuppance has been already held on the planet – if you listen to the news, you think “wow, this is really some weird shit…” – “what will they think of next?”

Very complex. Very confusing. That’s why they call it “faith”. You have to have it in order to survive through those rough patches.

In the meantime, we deal with the strategic (eat healthy, get regular activity – not too much, not too little, just right…) and read all the research that comes out about what we’re doing – coffee is good, coffee is bad; one drink a day is good, drinking is bad; eggs and butter are bad, eggs and butter are good; carbs are bad, you need some carbs, just not some others… good grief…

If you can’t remember your password, you have early onset Alzheimer’s — really? Which password of the thousand that I have set, over the years, so that if/when someone hacks me, they won’t hack ALL of my accounts (naïve)… I am supposed to remember those. yeah. right.

Sometimes I am convinced that there is this great “anxiety generator” out there, making market for the yoga studios – there is something in it for everybody, right? Everybody has to eat. The people that don’t figure this out, and that they have to work to get food end up under the bridge living in cardboard boxes – and don’t call me paranoid, it just seems that there is always someone living under the bridge in cardboard boxes, no matter what we do to try to keep that from happening.

Same thing with the jerks who “beat and cheat” – kids, wives, girlfriends, whatever – no matter how it is quelled on one hand, someone decides that they won’t support the quelling anymore, so it builds up. Harper’s Bizarre. Serial what-cha-ma-call-em’s…

Oh, I digressed.

Back to “long-term chronic diseases” — So you get pushed and pulled by media and news reports. You try not to scare the shit out of yourself by reading too much of this “non” information on the net, complete with ads for drugs that look at what you’re lookin’ at and configure it “just for you” – lovely – and you may wonder, does it really matter after all? Because, in the end of our time here on earth, we will either lose that battle with some sort of “long-term chronic disease” or else we will stroke out, fall down and go boom, have a coronary, be hit over the head, stabbed, or whatever happens that will take us out in an “acute incident or episode”.

Whatever. I guess I wonder why freak out? Maybe its a wobbly. We have not yet reached the Zen of our existence. It’s maybe because we are not getting our way. Its the anger because our dreams of what we thought we would be don’t turn out as we expected. We have to go the other way, not the way we wanted to go, both figuratively and literally.

We live in the clouds the rest of the time, floating through life day by day, as time accelerates to the event horizon, the older you get, the less time you have, so you should appreciate when you wake up and take a breath every day – and make that coffee that smells and tastes so good – and go places, do things, kiss butterflies, chase dragonflies, love your loved ones, and of course, try not to leave a legend that is like “Ichabod Crane”, but rather one that everyone remembers fondly…

Maybe it is just how we are, and we are realizing more about it every day. I wish I could be back in time to interview my relatives who are now unreachable such that I could understand their thoughts, but I can’t right now.

In the meantime, it’s live life to the fullest, get over the bumps in the road, ask for help moving the boulders and love your loved ones, telling them you love them as much as you can, as often as possible.

It’s important for your family – and of course – for your history… and theirs, too.

May 18, 2015