Will power and won’t power

Posted on by | Leave a comment

It isn’t will power.
It is won’t power.

I won’t eat another piece of pie.
I won’t get a second plate at the buffet.
I won’t let other people control my emotions.
I won’t buy that thing to make me happy.
I won’t blame other people for my anger.

But when you give up something bad, you need to fill that space with something good. Otherwise the bad habit will come back even stronger.

For example –

I won’t waste my lunchtime. I’ll go for a short walk first.

I won’t watch TV all evening – I’ll write or read instead.

Your life is yours to control. Everything you do is your choice. How you respond or react is your choice. And there are repercussions for every choice you make.

Choose wisely. This life is yours, but it is short. There is no reset button.

Mental health day

Posted on by | Leave a comment

I’ve finally realized that my job doesn’t pay me in real money. It pays me in days off. That is part of government jobs.

And while I resent having to work another 14 years before I can retire, I’ve realized that I can kind of “retire” right now. If I waited until I was able to retire, I might be too infirm to do what I want to do. If I follow the path of my parents, I’ll not even make it to retirement time.

So I’ve started taking what in calling “mental health days”. Once a month I take off the Monday after I’ve had the weekend off. This means I have four days off in a row. I don’t do anything I have to do – I do stuff I want to do. I read, or write or work on art. I do the stuff I would do if I was retired.

I’m practicing being retired. But I’m also doing preventive maintenance on my soul.

Happiness is a front

Posted on by | Leave a comment

A Volkswagen bug is a car that brings smiles to people. People smile when they see it. I notice this every time I go for a drive. I think it brings back good memories from their childhood. I also think there’s something special about the shape – all curves and no angles – that is soothing to see.

But the new Volkswagen bug is very difficult to repair. It isn’t as easy as the original ones were. Apparently you have to take almost the entire engine apart in order to fix anything. The designers who created it didn’t think that it would ever break down, so they didn’t make it easy to repair. This means it costs hundreds of dollars in labor every time I have to take this thing in.

So behind the smile there’s a lot of pain for me. The bystanders don’t know this.

This is very true for a lot of happy people. They aren’t happy because nothing bad has happened to them. They’re happy because bad things have happened to them and they’ve grown through them and because of them. The bad things made them stronger. Other people see their happiness and it spreads to them. Meanwhile, they don’t know how much work was required to get to that point.

Let go

Posted on by | Leave a comment

You have to let go to gain. How can you get new things with your hands full? You have to take everything out of the room to redesign it. I’ve gone through a lot of cleaning-out recently, and none of it has been planned by me. I see it as a gift from God. I’m learning that if I can’t control it, I should accept it as being Divinely ordained.

God has a plan. And I don’t know it. I have an idea of what it is.

I don’t want to work for myself. I am afraid of the risk of standing alone, having to figure out to pay taxes on a small business or to trust someone else with it. So is that what I’m being called to? Or is that what I’m being directed away from?

More and more I can see the source of illness in people. It isn’t about curing disease but preventing it. Disease is just a symptom of a dis-function.

I like the shaman on Northern Exposure. He lived with his patients for three days, eating what they ate, doing what they did. He stepped into their shoes in the most real way. Only then did he know why they were sick. People have to learn how to work with what they have.

Feeding them good food while they are in a rehabilitation center is only part of it. They have to learn how to provide it for themselves when they get home, and how to make good choices when they are at a restaurant.

They will not have the stress of dealing with people who aggravate them while at the center. They have to learn how to speak up for themselves and set boundaries when they go home or to work.

It is about past, present, and future, all at once. This means addressing past trauma and mis-learned lessons in the present, to create a healthy future.

Marry out of strength, not weakness

Posted on by | Leave a comment

When you have half a person married to another half a person they don’t make a whole, they make a half. When you have one solid person married to another solid person they make something amazingly strong.

People shouldn’t try to marry to find their other half. They should marry to get even stronger. They shouldn’t marry in order to have someone “complete” them. If you have to have someone else to make you whole then you aren’t whole to start off with.

If you want to get married so she will cook and clean for you, you don’t need a wife – you still need a mother. If you want to get married so he will protect you and keep you safe, you don’t need a husband – you need a guard dog. If you want to get married so someone will cheer you up, you don’t need a spouse – you need a therapist.

Marry out of strength, not weakness.

If you marry out of need and loss and lack, then you will grow into that and get even more needy and even more empty. It will be like getting crutches for your broken leg. You go years with those crutches, and your leg never gets used and gets weaker and weaker. Then when the crutches go away, you can’t stand at all.

Private property

Posted on by | Leave a comment

It seems like people have forgotten some of the basic rules of what it means to be civilized. Remember in kindergarten the phrase “If it’s not yours, don’t touch it.”? That lesson apparently doesn’t translate to everything.

These days property owners have to put signs on the property saying “private property no trespassing”. Otherwise, if someone comes on to their property they are liable for anything that happens. This seems completely backwards. If it is my home and my property it isn’t yours. If I have not invited you on to it then you shouldn’t be there. Private property owners shouldn’t have to put a sign up at all.

Their “sign” is the fact that it is their property.

In whose hands?

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Some of us started talking about our deceased coworker, and I mentioned that his death of a heart attack at 42 just furthers my belief that I need to take care of myself. I said this to the coworker in my department who is obese. She has a Y membership and has been maybe four times. The last time was about a year ago. She eats the same way that the dead one does. About monthly she says she “really needs to go back to the Y.” And she never does.

She said “It is all in God’s hands.”

No, it isn’t. We have free will, and sure, Jim Fixx, the guru of running, died of a heart attack. People die when God chooses. But they have a vote in it. They can take care of themselves. As my chiropractor says, we can’t add years to our life, but we can add life to our years.

We are called to be good stewards of God’s creation. This includes our bodies.

The other person in the department smokes constantly, and is out sick a lot.

I’m afraid I’ll be left by myself. I’m afraid they will both die and I’ll be stuck. It takes a long time to train a new person. We joke “It’s all about me” is our phrase in that department, and that sounds self-centered, and it is. But it is true.

But there is something deeper going on.

To not take care of yourself because you think that it is “all in God’s hands” is bizarre. Let’s compare it with the phrase “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” You shouldn’t do something you know to be stupid just to test God.

Honestly, I don’t know why I bother. They are killing themselves, and they know it. But to drag God’s will into it? That takes their own power out of it. It means they are helpless to do anything about it.

What a life of victimhood.

Grief geyser

Posted on by | Leave a comment

I’m starting to realize that grief can’t be hurried. Like bread, it needs time to rise. Like food, it needs time to go through you. It can’t be rushed. It has to be processed and come out the other side.

I had a dream that I was in the changing room at the Y. There was a large torrent of water coming out of one of the lockers. Fortunately, it didn’t have anybody’s stuff in it. One of the pipes had burst and water was going everywhere.

I had someone call for help, and a worker knew where to shut off the main water valve.

I’ve come to see this as my grief. It might leak out uncontrollably. Who do I call to turn off the water?

I’ve not cried for my coworker yet. I’m not sure how. I’ve gotten misty-eyed, but no actual tears.

It is weird. Every death is different.

I don’t want to be indifferent and aloof, but I also don’t want to be washed away. I don’t know how to deal with this death. I guess I’m learning how by doing it.

I don’t want to make a big mess. I hate making a mess. I hate being a mess. I don’t want someone else to have to clean it up, to clean me up.

But sometimes grief can’t be contained. I thought it could.

I’ve come to realize there is no express train through the town called Grief.

Travel advice

Posted on by | Leave a comment

I was trying to find more Jewish blessings and came across this bit of interesting advice about returning from a trip. This was on the Chabad website, and is by Rabbi Eliezer Wenger. This seems like useful advice for everybody.

1. It is preferable to return from a journey while it is still day.

2. A married man who goes on an extended trip should bring his wife gifts upon his return.

3. Upon returning from a trip, one should not enter his home suddenly. He should notify his family members of his presence by either knocking or calling first.

4. One should not enter his house from a trip while he is hungry. When one is hungry, he is very irritable and may become angry quickly at one of his family members.

I took out this bit of advice because it does not apply to everybody – “One should try to get an aliyah on the Shabbos following his return.” This means that on the Sabbath after you return home, you should try to get called up to read from the Torah. There isn’t a parallel in the Christian community, as the readers are assigned and are never called up randomly from the congregation.

Feminism is sexism

Posted on by | 1 Comment

I am not a feminist. I am a humanist. I believe in equal rights for everybody.

I don’t believe that it is fair or just for women to focus only on the accomplishments of women and ignore half of humanity.

I believe that everybody should have access to healthcare and good jobs.

I believe that everybody should be treated fairly and honestly.

I believe that if we focus only on our victimhood we will remain victims. Men are victims too and they have been excluded as well.

For women to have a female only-God is to exclude the male side of God as well. God has no gender.

A woman is being sexist if she only reads books by women, talks only to women, and worships only a female version of God.

It is important if we are going to move forward in this world that everybody be lifted up. We are not going to get anywhere if one group raises itself above another. If women raise themselves up higher than men that they are being just like the man who they say are oppressing them.