LET'S TALK ABOUT LIVIN'

Sometimes I just like to pick a subject and run with it. Lacking some originality, I often look to other sources. I run all over the www getting quotes to string some thoughts together. I also keep a few quotes I hear from time to time.

Life! Now, there is a huge subject. We think of things that are perhaps bigger than life. Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today. James Dean said that and he did not live very long.

Some folks don’t take the James Dean approach to life. So many people tiptoe through life, so carefully, to arrive, safely, at death. Wikipedia doesn’t know who said that but it is true and I have heard it before.

Here’s one I subscribe to very enthusiastically: Every day is my best day; this is my life. I'm not going to have this moment again (Bernie Siegel). That makes every moment so magnificant. I will just fill them up one-minute at-a-time with living my life to its fullest. That’s what I am doing right now. I love to write.

Hitch appears to be a con but he is a very honest guy afterall. Once he said, Life is not the number of breaths you take but the moments that take your breath away. Awesome! The time we spend with someone we love; the time we spend looking at a beautiful sunset, or a deer in the wild, or a cottontail rabbit.

Just think what it would be if we deliberately chose to take our own lives and missed all that. Your life has no meaning, you say? Remember that is just this minute you feel that way. There are other minutes to be lived. Perhaps you have had many minutes that were wretched and caused you to hate yourself. Come on, there just has to be something to be thankful for. There has to be one tiny thing to get enthusiastic about. There is and you can find it. The man, who in a fit of melancholy, kills himself today, would have wished to live had he waited a week. (Voltaire)

Try a little faith: It is time: time to explore a world that needs one’s talents expended rather than one that seems not to care too much one way or the other. It is time: time to seek new adventures where people are willing to go beyond the inevitable and explore the world of the unpredictable, a world that does not hinge on unexplored faith. Faith is adventure in this context. Try something new. Try some new friends. Try something. That’s faith as I see it. You just can’t not try something! (-Me. Revision correction did not like that statement but I will leave it there anyway. What’s so wrong with a double negative?).

Well, I ran out of space. I remember this Oldie But Goodie called Let’s Talk About Livin’. I will date myself if you find it. I really think it might just be too old to be found. Try it and: Let’s do just that: Think and talk about living. Do it today, a minute at a time and remember, Hitch was right.

I CAN'T STOP THE PAIN!

Do you feel this way? Do you know anyone who feels this way? You do know it is a dangerous feeling that can just go on and on. What caused the pain may perhaps be the focus of attention. That is a normal response. It is quite normal to feel pain due to the way you were treated or because you were just ignored or overlooked.

That does not make you a bad person. You had something bad happen to you but you are not bad. Scarcely a single person goes very long without something like this happening. It is not something to be self-destructive over.

We should never argue with a person over his/her feelings. Whether we might think the feelings are not worth getting too upset about, they are upsetting to the individual suffering the emotions. Do something very positive for yourself or your friend: Validate the feelings! That’s right. Recognize the feelings. If it is another person let them know you may not know how they feel but you know their situation must be very painful. You might even say, I am sorry for what happened that caused you so much pain.

It is also alright to be angry because of the circumstances you are enduring or your friend is enduring. I would probably feel the same way given the same set of circumstances.

It is very easy to fall into the trap of grading everything that happens to us. This is just awful. I can’t stand this. I just can’t go on like this. Do you notice the preponderance of the word can’t in all this? The presence of so many cant's suggests a real need for help.

If it is true you can’t stop the pain, it’s probably true you can’t see a future without pain. There may be other cant’s as well e.g., eating, sleeping, etc.

Let’s just take a new approach and see if that will work. Are the feelings within the person with all the cant’s really helping the person in any way? Obviously they are not. How will continuing to feel this way really help any future feelings about oneself?

Take a little different approach. Flip the Script! Just suppose someone put you down, hurt you, or acted ugly to you? Does that really make you such a bad person or does it not really reflect on the bad taste of the person dishing out the garbage.

I really prefer the latter. These things have happened to me. I can remember when they nearly killed me—though I was not suicidal over it. I just did not think I could go on feeling the way I felt. I just Flipped the Script. I turned it around and looked non-judgmentally at the person who I felt wronged me and, all of a sudden I had a complete paradigm shift. A completely new perspective saved the day.

Life is really great after all!!!