I totally understand the art of whining being a black belt in the sport myself.
What I do not and will more than likely NEVER understand is doing nothing after the period of whining is over.
I try very hard to be an understanding and sympathetic person to the difficulties of life that people wade through from dawn till dusk on a daily basis. My ears are listening to their problems and circumstances without trying to turn on the inner knob for quick answers and problem solving in their behalf. That's hard.
And without making things be greater than they are in their own natural setting, I diligently attempt to sort out the vagaries of what information is being told me realizing that I am only getting the side of the truth they wish to share.
What is a constant source of frustration is seeing people who DO have the power to alter their destiny and course waiting for external forces to take the helm and chart the course their personal ship of state should take as if that would somehow absolve them of the responsibility for the heading.
I have experienced the darkness of feeling like you had no options. But like I was talking over with my extremely long-suffering husband tonight, I may not be heading in the right direction, but, by God, I am MOVING to do something about my circumstances.
This doesn't mean I don't find my own ship wrecked upon the sandbars and submerged logs of life from time to time and am compelled to bail bilge water from the hold of the ship in order to prevent being scuttled.
But I can't wallow in it. I just feels dirty and unnatural.
I credit my parents for that.
They didn't make it an attractive option to just sit and whine over my life without having a plan once the tears were dried to tackle the problem, however insurmountable it seemed at the time.
However, it seems that we have become so interested in societal wallowing that we have misplaced our personal responsibilities to do our best even when we aren't really making visible progress.
That is the real issue here. Because we can't see just what progress has been made, we tend to negate anything as being 'too minor' to count.
And in doing so, we make our journey forward that much harder.
No one wants to feel like they are going it alone. We need each other. But when that needing turns into desparation that prevents motion without the interference of a committee, it has become enabling and not support.
Though I have my days where I have misplaced both the boots and the bootstraps which I am supposed to pull myself up with when down, I try not to make them the sole feature of my existance. I know people who do create that lost boot scenario. It's like there is never anything they can possibly do for themselves.
While that works some of the time for a little while, it isn't sustainable. Sort of like keeping a garden variety helium balloon forever. Eventually, it shrivels and looses its form to the ravages of time and osmotic pressure.
We suffer the same sort of issues ourselves. If we whine without a purposeful plan of what we can do for ourselves, we loose that inner fullness and certainty of our mission and become emotionally deflated and adrift.
I have nothing against whining.
What I have something against is whining about the same thing, in the same way, all of the dadgum time without being willing to take the bull by the horns and MAKE something different happen.
And when you grab the bull, you sometimes get gored for your trouble. Which is precisely the reason most people shrink from the task.
The comfort of a familiar misery is infintely preferred over the nebulous quality of what if's that may or may not occur. We don't like change.
But, like the quote says, "Sometime, the best helping hand we can give someone is a nice, firm push."
I look in my mirror sometimes to see if I am the one needing the push and then I pray for the courage to recognize it and be humble enough to try something - anything - new in my direction.
It helps.
Life still isn't perfect, but at least I am learning.
As my English teacher from high school used to say to "Get over yourself!"
We are often our own biggest stumbling blocks on the highway to heaven. And we tend to dig our own potholes and then complain about the bumpy ride.
Asking for help is a great thing. But being willing to do the uncomfortable to change our ways is so much harder than it looks on television.
There aren't any magic potions to rub over our crises and make them all better in 30 mintues. Some take a whole lifetime to solve and some just never get solved at all. Because in the final analysis, we have to determine ownership of the crisis at hand and be willing to say, "That isn't mine!"
Our job when people have lost their way is to offer them an hand up and a push toward a new heading. We don't help them or us by making their problems ours.
That job has already been taken by the ONE who is mighty SAVE. Only Jesus Christ can take the weight of another's burdens and carry those burdens for them.
All we can do is share the load by being there when needed and standing back just enough to let them learn to walk independently.
May 4, 2008
May 1, 2008
Generically Speaking
I was looking on a website for a television station that purported to offer shoppers real help in saving money buying their groceries. Some well intentioned, even-toned, highly made up beauty on the 5 p.m. broadcast reports gushes all about how you can save 'real money' buying generic brands. Well, duh.
Without her special skills and help, I might have been forced to pay higher prices because I am obviously too stupid to do otherwise. Thanks to her timely report, lo these 25 years into married life, I am now free to save my husband's money which he labors tirelessly to provide and to serve nutritious meals for mere pennies.
By the way, I have a revelation for you: generic milk prices are lower than name brand. I can hear you now, "DO WHAT???"
And the weeping now begins for those who have paid full price (or more) for milk in fancy cartons or from special organic dairy operations where the cows sleep on heated water beds to reduce that pesky flatulence from their all vegetable diet. Again, the leap of logic here is staggering!
It's not like there really are 'special cows' out in the field that can only be milked into the generically labeled bottles! Can you imagine the frustration of the farmer trying to grow the generic grasses and hay that are required? What if he plants the name brand seed and feeds the crop to the generic cows? Will there be a mutiny? Are the cows savvy enough to know they have been duped into eating 'the good stuff'? And if they know, is there some conspiracy to keep silent and simply offer generic milk from a couple of udders and high grade milk on the other side? MAYHEM!!!
Milk is milk. Grades may differ based on fat content, but they all come from a processing plant to a bottling facility that slaps labels onto the carton depending upon who is paying to have their milk made that day. We are paying the difference because we, as consumers, have been duped into believing that one brand is so staggeringly different from another that it is worth more of our money to bring it home.
Have you seen the price of good old fashioned toilet paper? While I am a total advocate of its use and the need for sufficient comfort on delicate areas of the body, I can't see paying the premium price for something that just goes down the toilet. It's not like you can wash and reuse it and besides - Ewww, GROSS!! So, the job here is to strike the proper balance between comfort and discomfort relative to anatomy and wallets. We have to decide the comfort level we can adjust to while keeping enough money in our checking account to pay for things like bread, milk and eggs.
The same can be said about paper towels. Since they aren't really sturdy enough to rinse and reuse (no matter what the slickly produced Madison Avenue advertisement shows) we shouldn't feel like we have to bankrupt the family budget to buy the name brand only. There are some perfectly acceptable alternatives and, by the way, did people forget how to use rags to clean stuff up and WASH THEM??? We keep a basket full of assorted washcloths and rags to wash and reuse all off the time. The really stained ones move from the house to the storage building for a new life as auto detailing rags before being turned into ashes.
While grocery cereal is another item that requires a leap in logic regarding prices, I must confess that for years I have been putting generic cereals in the plastic stay-fresh keepers boldly labeled with the NAME BRANDS. At first, there was some resistance to the store brands, but when I indicated that they would eat the food placed in front of them or starve, resistance became futile.Call me Queen of the Borg.
There is so little difference between most store brand generic labels and the name brand ultra priced items that it is a no-brainer to save the money and skip the name brand. However, now that full disclosure has become an amendment right, I must say there are some generics that most certainly are not worth the time of day nor the agony of purchase when you know they are just plain awful.The trick here is to buy one of the generic and give it a road test. If no one notices any appreciable difference, it's time to save the money. However, if said generic produces projectile vomiting or a sudden urge to make a home atop the chandelier, then you'd best stick to the trusted, if expensive, name brand.
Just remember that when you take your shopping buggy around the store the next time. There are some bargains and some surprises and it's up to you to figure out which is which.
The reality of generic purchasing was well known to our forebears who knew that they would save money by shopping local and pinching their pennies for the rainy days ahead. They used flour sacks for dresses and you couldn't find a single runway model who would deign to wear something that once held all purpose flour these days. It needs a big name label to count for them.
Sadly, I think that is the root cause of most of our problems. We have forgotten that name brands don't really mean as much as their manufacturers would like them to mean. They want us to believe that their processed and expensive food is somehow better and more nutritious than anything offered for a lesser price or at the local farmer's market.
The truth is, whether we purchase store brand or name brand, we still have to pay the bill at the end of the shopping trip. The difference is just how much money you are willing to part with, generically speaking.
Without her special skills and help, I might have been forced to pay higher prices because I am obviously too stupid to do otherwise. Thanks to her timely report, lo these 25 years into married life, I am now free to save my husband's money which he labors tirelessly to provide and to serve nutritious meals for mere pennies.
By the way, I have a revelation for you: generic milk prices are lower than name brand. I can hear you now, "DO WHAT???"
And the weeping now begins for those who have paid full price (or more) for milk in fancy cartons or from special organic dairy operations where the cows sleep on heated water beds to reduce that pesky flatulence from their all vegetable diet. Again, the leap of logic here is staggering!
It's not like there really are 'special cows' out in the field that can only be milked into the generically labeled bottles! Can you imagine the frustration of the farmer trying to grow the generic grasses and hay that are required? What if he plants the name brand seed and feeds the crop to the generic cows? Will there be a mutiny? Are the cows savvy enough to know they have been duped into eating 'the good stuff'? And if they know, is there some conspiracy to keep silent and simply offer generic milk from a couple of udders and high grade milk on the other side? MAYHEM!!!
Milk is milk. Grades may differ based on fat content, but they all come from a processing plant to a bottling facility that slaps labels onto the carton depending upon who is paying to have their milk made that day. We are paying the difference because we, as consumers, have been duped into believing that one brand is so staggeringly different from another that it is worth more of our money to bring it home.
Have you seen the price of good old fashioned toilet paper? While I am a total advocate of its use and the need for sufficient comfort on delicate areas of the body, I can't see paying the premium price for something that just goes down the toilet. It's not like you can wash and reuse it and besides - Ewww, GROSS!! So, the job here is to strike the proper balance between comfort and discomfort relative to anatomy and wallets. We have to decide the comfort level we can adjust to while keeping enough money in our checking account to pay for things like bread, milk and eggs.
The same can be said about paper towels. Since they aren't really sturdy enough to rinse and reuse (no matter what the slickly produced Madison Avenue advertisement shows) we shouldn't feel like we have to bankrupt the family budget to buy the name brand only. There are some perfectly acceptable alternatives and, by the way, did people forget how to use rags to clean stuff up and WASH THEM??? We keep a basket full of assorted washcloths and rags to wash and reuse all off the time. The really stained ones move from the house to the storage building for a new life as auto detailing rags before being turned into ashes.
While grocery cereal is another item that requires a leap in logic regarding prices, I must confess that for years I have been putting generic cereals in the plastic stay-fresh keepers boldly labeled with the NAME BRANDS. At first, there was some resistance to the store brands, but when I indicated that they would eat the food placed in front of them or starve, resistance became futile.Call me Queen of the Borg.
There is so little difference between most store brand generic labels and the name brand ultra priced items that it is a no-brainer to save the money and skip the name brand. However, now that full disclosure has become an amendment right, I must say there are some generics that most certainly are not worth the time of day nor the agony of purchase when you know they are just plain awful.The trick here is to buy one of the generic and give it a road test. If no one notices any appreciable difference, it's time to save the money. However, if said generic produces projectile vomiting or a sudden urge to make a home atop the chandelier, then you'd best stick to the trusted, if expensive, name brand.
Just remember that when you take your shopping buggy around the store the next time. There are some bargains and some surprises and it's up to you to figure out which is which.
The reality of generic purchasing was well known to our forebears who knew that they would save money by shopping local and pinching their pennies for the rainy days ahead. They used flour sacks for dresses and you couldn't find a single runway model who would deign to wear something that once held all purpose flour these days. It needs a big name label to count for them.
Sadly, I think that is the root cause of most of our problems. We have forgotten that name brands don't really mean as much as their manufacturers would like them to mean. They want us to believe that their processed and expensive food is somehow better and more nutritious than anything offered for a lesser price or at the local farmer's market.
The truth is, whether we purchase store brand or name brand, we still have to pay the bill at the end of the shopping trip. The difference is just how much money you are willing to part with, generically speaking.
April 28, 2008
Another day, another strange thread
Ideas aren't the problem.
Knowing what to do with them, if anything, is.
Sometimes the stories fly through my thoughts so fast that I can't possibly write them down. Like the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", they fly by so fast and, lacking a tricorder to record and save the information for later retrieval, they are usually lost.
I console myself by saying that maybe those flashes of 'inspiration' were meant only for me as a gift from God telling me that He is mindful of me. I am not sure that is true, but not having a complete playbook for this life I am living, it will have to do until greater knowledge and understanding distill upon me through my life experiences.
Other times, I take the ideas that come and put them down in terms that for me are so vivid, I can taste the cotton candy and feel the cool breeze across my skin all these years and miles later.
I see in Technicolor. I don't know if that is normal for anyone else since I don't inhabit either their life or their body. But for me, that is both a blessing and a curse. When my dreams and thoughts are pleasant, that sensation of seeing things in real world hues is amazing. But when the nightmares come, that wonderful palate of color and brilliance takes on an ugly quality that renders the scary into the terrifying in simple brushstrokes of fear.
Sometimes, I can recall enough detail to write it down and scare someone else. Other times, the horrible images are my own private horror movie that replays in my head until I pray it away.
Do others share that same relationship with daylight and darkness within the world of their dreams? I don't know.
But I do know that there are times that what I see is more than just a dream.
Knowing what to do with them, if anything, is.
Sometimes the stories fly through my thoughts so fast that I can't possibly write them down. Like the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", they fly by so fast and, lacking a tricorder to record and save the information for later retrieval, they are usually lost.
I console myself by saying that maybe those flashes of 'inspiration' were meant only for me as a gift from God telling me that He is mindful of me. I am not sure that is true, but not having a complete playbook for this life I am living, it will have to do until greater knowledge and understanding distill upon me through my life experiences.
Other times, I take the ideas that come and put them down in terms that for me are so vivid, I can taste the cotton candy and feel the cool breeze across my skin all these years and miles later.
I see in Technicolor. I don't know if that is normal for anyone else since I don't inhabit either their life or their body. But for me, that is both a blessing and a curse. When my dreams and thoughts are pleasant, that sensation of seeing things in real world hues is amazing. But when the nightmares come, that wonderful palate of color and brilliance takes on an ugly quality that renders the scary into the terrifying in simple brushstrokes of fear.
Sometimes, I can recall enough detail to write it down and scare someone else. Other times, the horrible images are my own private horror movie that replays in my head until I pray it away.
Do others share that same relationship with daylight and darkness within the world of their dreams? I don't know.
But I do know that there are times that what I see is more than just a dream.
April 24, 2008
Hypochodria and other internet fun
Jared's therapist and I had a hilarious conversation about what happens to those of us who have taken medical classes and the diseases chapters are discussed.
Most of us would swear that we have all of the signs and symptoms to everything we study even when there isn't the most remote possibility of it being true.
Now, all hail the Internet!
Without having to take pesky medical classes and do icky dissections, you can indulge your couch hypochondria with just the click of the mouse!
I was looking up a legitimate medical issue today for a friend (no, really!) and as I read the list I felt sicker line by line.
The beauty of this is that even the layman can access the most aggravating and distressing conditions with a simple web search and have something juicy to discuss at our next appointment. Doctors just LOVE patients who are well versed in the latest Internet lore. It makes them happy to think that they have patients who are armchair doctors in the diagnosing arena.
Back in the day when I worked as a physician's assistant, there was a lady who came in frequently to discuss the latest, greatest deadly malady that had most certainly befallen her and would cut her down in the prime of her life.
God bless her, she must have either subscribed to the Journal of the American Medical Association or sniffed out past copies in waiting rooms and libraries like a bloodhound. Absolutely convinced of her signs, symptoms and condition, this poor woman came into the office looking like death, and, due in large measure to the patient skill of the doc I worked for, she would leave feeling like she had been on death's door and was snatched by his merciful care to live yet another day in the bosom of health.
The Internet has lots of wonderful medical information on it. Some is life-changing and helps the average person to well up their courage and get that misshapen mole checked out. Other information is just a way to scare other people who aren't willing to do their own research and ask the questions that should be asked to take charge of the life they have been given.
I confess to a certain vacillation between the extremes. When I am feeling particularly maudlin, I look up the latest horror stories of seemingly simple conditions that rapidly progress into horrible circumstances leading to malformation and/or death.
Other days, I am content to ignore the siren song of the diagnoses Q&A segments.
Really, I haven't looked at them in days. Weeks even.
It's just that I haven't been feeling well for the past 24 hours. My stomach aches and I have a swimmy head and my ears are ringing, but I am not a hypochondriac. I promise!
Most of us would swear that we have all of the signs and symptoms to everything we study even when there isn't the most remote possibility of it being true.
Now, all hail the Internet!
Without having to take pesky medical classes and do icky dissections, you can indulge your couch hypochondria with just the click of the mouse!
I was looking up a legitimate medical issue today for a friend (no, really!) and as I read the list I felt sicker line by line.
The beauty of this is that even the layman can access the most aggravating and distressing conditions with a simple web search and have something juicy to discuss at our next appointment. Doctors just LOVE patients who are well versed in the latest Internet lore. It makes them happy to think that they have patients who are armchair doctors in the diagnosing arena.
Back in the day when I worked as a physician's assistant, there was a lady who came in frequently to discuss the latest, greatest deadly malady that had most certainly befallen her and would cut her down in the prime of her life.
God bless her, she must have either subscribed to the Journal of the American Medical Association or sniffed out past copies in waiting rooms and libraries like a bloodhound. Absolutely convinced of her signs, symptoms and condition, this poor woman came into the office looking like death, and, due in large measure to the patient skill of the doc I worked for, she would leave feeling like she had been on death's door and was snatched by his merciful care to live yet another day in the bosom of health.
The Internet has lots of wonderful medical information on it. Some is life-changing and helps the average person to well up their courage and get that misshapen mole checked out. Other information is just a way to scare other people who aren't willing to do their own research and ask the questions that should be asked to take charge of the life they have been given.
I confess to a certain vacillation between the extremes. When I am feeling particularly maudlin, I look up the latest horror stories of seemingly simple conditions that rapidly progress into horrible circumstances leading to malformation and/or death.
Other days, I am content to ignore the siren song of the diagnoses Q&A segments.
Really, I haven't looked at them in days. Weeks even.
It's just that I haven't been feeling well for the past 24 hours. My stomach aches and I have a swimmy head and my ears are ringing, but I am not a hypochondriac. I promise!
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