Laughing Medicine

Yesterday’s thoughts missed something important, in fact vital.  Being able to laugh is critical to positive moods, great energy and utter relaxation.  Best of all, if you can laugh at yourself you are well on your way to happiness. 

I don’t know much about other people’s family dynamics when it comes to humour but I fully appreciate my family’s ability to laugh at ourselves and to continue jokes for decades.  When my youngest brother was still a teenager he had a part time job at Safeway as a stock boy.  One evening he was filling the cookie shelves and spotted the fig newton cookies.  Now this was a cookie that my father liked but as my mother did not care for them she would seldom by them.  When Erik saw them, as he related the story to us, he said “fig nut” as his lightbulb moment.  Naturally he bought the cookies but for the rest of the family, his expression of “fig nut” has become our lightbulb moment quote.  Yeah, I know, you had to be there!

You see what I mean?  I can laugh at myself even as I visualize folks reading this and thinking “now what’s so funny about that?”  Humour is in the psyche of the believer.  (right, I just made that up too).  In our family we only have to look at each other upon uttering a certain word and we can start giggling.  Some words bring out loud guffaws.  Film quotes can create whole dialogues that end in laughs.

We are also very forgiving when we poke fun at each other because we can laugh at ourselves.  I am not sure how one develops a sense of humour but I am pretty sure that it can be done.  Our brains are amazing machines as long as we give them the exercise that they need.  So go on, get a laugh on!

January Evaluation

We are approaching the end of January and I just feel the need to do an evaluation.  I have been reading a book on training the brain to move along a different path, a more positive one, and as I do the evaluation for the month I am planning on not being so hard on myself.  Most of us prepare resolutions or goals at the beginning of the year and by the end of the month we are depressed because we have failed.  Someone made a suggestion to me a while ago to put a slip of paper in a jar each day with something great that happened, big or small, it doesn’t really matter because at the end of the year you can relive those happy moments with satisfaction.  Now, practicing meditation even in small doses, looking back on my month, I feel pleased with myself.  Nothing huge happened, but I am being gentle with myself.

So here are some things that I know for sure. 

·         Reading daily positive messages works

·         Writing a daily gratitude journal works

·         Setting goals rather than resolutions work

·         Simple exercise works

·         Being kind to yourself is the best medicine

Things that need fixing

·         Less television

·         Less time suckage (like solitaire or puzzles on the computer)

·         Less not believing in myself

All in all, January has been a good month.  I hope you will be gentle on yourself, daily.

A Sunny Life

I stumbled upon a book yesterday “How to Train your Brain to Be Happy” and thought “why not”?  Happily reading it this morning and so delighted to know that one can definitely retrain our thinking to move in a more positive direction.  Even if one is an optimist and is happy, there is never “too much happiness”.

Key, according to this book, is meditation.  Meditation is starting to become as big of a bugaboo to me as Goal Setting.  For some reason I cannot seem to settle down to actually study the art and then make a conscious effort to practice “mindful meditation”.  It seems to be one of those things that I will do “someday” even though I know that someday should be now.  If one is thinking  about a certain thing, if it is something that continues to hover over your shoulder, it’s time to recognize procrastination and get down to it.

So here goes, today I am going to study up on this vital part of a well rounded, happy person’s life and settle down to practice.

So what’s up with you today?

Assuming Power, Taking Action

If you have been following my blog over the last few years we will notice that in the last few months I have become increasingly concerned with respect to what is happening with our country and the world in general.  Specifically I am very worried about the direction our economy and job market is going.  In a nutshell, our jobs are being migrated overseas to places where companies will pay reduced salaries.

There are a number of questions I need you to consider so that you can follow my concerns.  Back in the 1990’s our government reassured us when we first started to become anxious about our manufacturing jobs being moved to Mexico after the signing of NAFTA (gift of Brian Mulroney and the Conservatives) by telling us that our economy we be “knowledge based”.  Since then tens of thousands of jobs have been lost and industries shutdown in Canada (as well as in the United States).  You wonder why Detroit is bankrupt, it’s because the whole car industry has gone to Mexico and Asia. 

In early 2000 our knowledge based jobs also started to be migrated overseas.  Telephone operators suddenly had foreign accents because calls were being answered in India.  Then accounting started to be done overseas, accounting for the banking industry, payrolls are now being done overseas and you wonder why we have so many compromised banking issues?  Then engineering jobs started to be done in Korea and Thailand.  Yes engineering jobs.  Interestingly enough our IT troubleshooting is also now being done in India and Asia.  Somehow I had the impression back in 1993 that these sort of jobs were “knowledge based” or “intellectual”.  I guess I was misinformed about what knowledge based should mean.

Ask yourself if your position could be done overseas; chances are if you work in an office environment it could be.  Ask yourself how often you shop at Walmart and how often you buy Canadian products.  Ask yourself if you don’t have a job in manufacturing and you don’t have an office job, what sort of job could you do that is still available in Canada?  Did you say it doesn’t matter because you are a professional?  Engineers are professionals and their jobs are going.  Whose to say we won’t soon have virtual schools and teachers will be obsolete?  Will robots soon take the place of fast food workers?  Did you know they are working on robots to clean toilets and windows?  Do you see where I am going with all these questions?

What is the solution? 

Before I answer that, let me just back up a few paragraphs.  When people in the past have argued with me about corporations paying their fair share of taxes they would say “if they pay too much tax they won’t be able to pay salaries and I will lose my job”.  Interesting.  The Canadian banks are still thriving, their top management receive millions of dollars in bonuses every year and their taxes are decreased almost every year and still jobs are being cut and sent overseas.  How is that argument working for you now?

Solution – regular folk need to wake up and smell the lack of coffee.  If we don’t protest the migration of Canadian jobs overseas we will very quickly be reduced to a slave class.  We, the 99% need to be actively working to save ourselves.  The situation is rapidly becoming URGENT.

Get involved, take action, work with a party that will work for the people.  Yes, I mean the NDP. 

Best Laid Plans

The other day I happened to hear that another one of my classmates had passed away.  Oh how very hard it is to get up to an age where one starts to read the Obituaries with shaking heart.  Only a very few years ago my mother and her sister said they were feeling that they had got all the way up the ladder (as in the last of their generation) and dreaded the thought of it being their turn to die.  It was said with that gallows humour we all can experience but my gosh, it only seems to me that was yesterday.  Now it seems to me that it is our generation’s turn to start looking over the shoulder for the grim reaper.

Who am I to advise anyone on how to treasure each day?  It’s so easy to hurry through each day and look forward to the weekend, the evening even, the next holiday and so on but oh, how rarely do we savour the moments when we have a good laugh, when we’ve received a nice comment from a friend or simply appreciated the beauty in nature or in our city?  Yes, another way of saying “stop and smell the roses”.  We hear these wise words over and over again but oh how rarely do we genuinely absorb the content and truly live each day with utmost quality!

I just want to take some time today to send out an appreciation to my classmate who sends out a joke every day and makes me laugh.  I want to say thank you to my mother who makes me feel loved and appreciated every single day of my life.  I want to say thank you to my brothers who call or visit my mother every day to ensure that she is okay while I am away.  I want to bless my sisters who send love and well wishes to both Mom and I every day.  Thank you to my girl friends who are always available when I need an ear to listen to me and have a ready shoulder if I need to cry.  My friend down in Oz these few weeks who always cheers me up and kids me when I need it.  My cousins over the ocean who stay in touch and send me notes and jokes whenever it seems like I need that little up.  You all know who you are, thank you.

To the world in general, spread that quality of goodness far and wide.  There’s more of that than the other and we should never feel discouraged.

 

Two Thousand Books

Over the Christmas break I managed to finish reading my 2,000^th book.  It only took me 32 years to read my second 1,000^th.

I cannot imagine my life without the love of reading.  Whether I read for pleasure, knowledge or simply as a soothing retreat from reality I always have a book going by my bedside table.  Books have taken me into the Middle Ages, to the American civil war, to London Tower with Jane Grey, Elizabeth Tudor and the little princes, fighting with the Outlaw of Torn, in the jungle with Tarzan, pioneering with Laura Ingalls, and of course on the journey to Mordor with Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring.  I’ve read steamy novels such as Peyton Place and Valley of the Dolls and I’ve read paperback westerns like Shane and Hondo; I’ve took to Classics like a duck to water with Jane Eyre, Persuasion, The Woman in White, A Tale of Two Cities.  I’ve read every Jane Austen, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Bronte, Dickens, Collins and Gaskell.  Ditto every Christie, Ford and Rinehart.  I still bemoan that Georgette Heyer died without passing on her baton to anyone worthy of her wit (okay Nora Ephron you had your moments).

Ah, now that’s just the fiction.  For years I couldn’t pass up any English or American history volume until at last I had no more shelving for them.  What I don’t know about any civil war general (confederate side) isn’t worth knowing!  I was exposed to the holocaust way too young, not with Anne Frank’s Diary as one might suppose but with Hitler’s Ovens.  I don’t know what my father was thinking when he lent me that book at the age of 16 but I can tell you I lay awake nights terrified of death after reading it.  Recent favorites include Julia Child’s “My Life in France” and “The Art of Being” but early 20^th century American biographies have opened my eyes to an opulence that I see is being outdone by the mega-billionaires of today.

Reading takes me places, lovely, exotic, interesting, horrifying, questioning, wondering.  Oh my but I can go on and on.

Favorite person of all times truly must be Johannes Gutenberg!  Lest we forget. 

Before a Fall

Have you ever noticed how people will deny they are superstitious just before a “but”? 

Yesterday morning I woke up and bustled about the house and after an hour of bustling I stopped to realize that my leg, that infamous limb of three months of agony, was not paining me.  I went excitedly to my mother and said “Mom, I hardly dare say anything to jinx it but I think my leg is cured.”  Then I continued bustling about and one hour later came crashing down on said limb from a misstep on a new ladder.  Oh the searing agony, the writhing on the bed, the frightful thought that the sound I heard as I crashed “did I break something?” and I continued lying in the bed and calling for mother.

Yes, disaster struck me and a day later despite resting in bed and ice and heat packs galore I can only hobble around on one leg.  Did I jinx myself?  How can a person who generally is so cautious on ladders make such a mistake as to step down from the second from last rung with such velocity as to acerbate the exact same leg that has been compromised for 3 months?  I realize that this experience is not unique to me but I cannot help asking the question – did I jinx myself by making the statement in the first place?  Is there really such a thing as a jinx?

For many people who declare they are atheist or agnostic I wonder if the same is true of them as the non-superstitious person.  They don’t believe in God, but . . .   Capricious perhaps in their belief, as though they could easily become a Believer if He stood among them? 

In any event, I lie in bed with hot bean bags around leg and back and have my Mamma running back and forth with water, coffee, homemade bread, cake and apple sauce.  What would I do without my mother?

My cup runneth over!

Wednesday - Just Marching On

The middle of the week and quickly approaching the middle of the month – how time marches onward.  Forget about the state of the world, forget about everything except that today is here. 

The other day my mother asked me “do you really want to live to be 90”?  I looked at her in puzzlement and replied “the alternative is very unpleasant” to which she began to laugh.

We were having breakfast together, which we enjoyed throughout the holidays.  A sit-down breakfast is really very delightful if both parties are cheerful when they get up.  I understand that many people do not like breakfast table chitchat but I quite enjoy it (probably because I have usually already been up for an hour or so before I sit down to the breakfast table with Mother).

Over the holidays we had a lot of time together and it’s still surprising to hear a new story about her life or something she remembered about my father.  We watched the old Danish series “Matador” and Mom would remember things from the war by something that was happening on the show.  She said that during the war they had more snow than she remembered before or since and isn’t it odd that other wars have also had that in common.  It’s as though Mother Nature conspires against humanity in times when there are going to be shortages of food or fuel.  How is that possible?

Sometimes the best of intentions are foiled by things beyond our control.  But we just keep marching on.

Warming Up and Reviewing Past Goals

I was reviewing last year’s blog in January and not to anyone’s surprise discovered enthusiasm for a number of things and observations on life and myself (qu’elle surpris).  Recently I read a suggestion to throw a slip of paper in a jar with a great day or event, whenever it might happen, to be opened up on New Year’s Eve and thus reveal what a great year 2014 was.  I’m not sure if that is what I want to do but figuratively at least it’s a nice idea.

I started out this week with the idea of “marching into my future” and creating something memorable each day.  It didn’t need to be a huge thing but something that meant I was not sitting in front of the television set.  So here I am sitting in front of the computer trying to write something sensible for my blog.  Placed books on the nightstand, put on the workout uniform so that I can do my new squats as recommended by the therapist and all the while wondering “is this enough”?

Perhaps it’s just a tiny step in the direction that I want to go towards, being active and nimble in mind and body.  The mistake we often make is trying to take on more than what is really possible so in a way, we are set for failure before we even begin.  Reflecting over the last few years I see a pattern of recognizing that big chunks don’t work and I give myself another Wow moment in that I have accomplished more than I at first realized.

It’s very easy to look at all the dismal stories and feel discouraged; it’s not so easy to look at yourself and appreciate that despite failures there actually are successes along this road of Life.  Having said that, I don’t want to let myself off easy because I do think that there is a lot more that needs doing, and I can be part of that.

I’m just warming up.

Quality of Aging, and a Challenge

I’ve finished Jane Fonda’s “Prime Time” which I found okay.  Most of what she wrote about was regurgitated material and often written from an almost naive point of view (as in not really knowing the ins and outs of those living a marginal life).  Nevertheless there were some points that I enjoyed and over all I like that she is thinking along similar lines to myself insofar as working towards a Quality of Aging.  In my opinion the financial aspects of retirement and aging is only a piece of the pie albeit an important piece.

Most people only consider that part of the retirement package when there is so much more to consider.  While reading Jane’s book I found myself thinking about my friends and colleagues and wondering if they were considering what new hobbies they were going to take up, or what old ones they would unearth and build upon.  I double checked the “free university for seniors” and can confirm that yes, one can still go back to school for free once you hit 65.  You can get an annual bus pass for a nominal fee so a person will be able to get out and about.  There are tons of places still looking for volunteers.  There are a lot of things a person can do for free or for a nominal fee but my observation is that most seniors don’t do any of those things.  Rather, they may go to a coffee shop and chat but otherwise, not a lot of activity going on.  My own mother is an example, very solitary and only reading the same old things.  Short of a shotgun to her head I’m afraid I cannot change her.

So why am I writing all this, which I am ashamed to admit is not new information?  Because I cannot help worrying about people.  Besides working on my mini-bucket list I am giving myself a new challenge.  I am going to try something new each month of 2014 – and I have a plan but if I tell it I am going to have to you know what.

Happy puzzling!

Gently, Gently

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. 

One day I ask you to praise yourself and the next I ask you to evaluate your quality time.  What kind of task master am I anyway?  Isn’t the truth simply that this is the way our minds work?  Sometimes we feel as though we are doing everything right and the next minute (day, week) we are giving ourselves a hard time because we don’t think we are living up to our potential, standard, expectations, goals, or whatever.  As ordinary people we are our own worst enemy more often than not.

There are a couple of remedies to start each day that can truly help us keep our balance.  One is having a daily gratitude journal.  I prefer to do this in the early morning because I find that it really helps me start out on a positive note although I know many people do such a journal at the end of the day.  Another valuable tool for staying positive is reading a daily text of some kind, it does not have to be religious.  One of my all time favorites is “Simple Abundance” by Sarah Ban Breathnach which I have read several times but there are dozens of them.  Each of these takes less than 5 minutes, on average and I ask, “isn’t 5 minutes worth taking to give yourself a great day”?  Your day may not end up perfect, but the start will definitely be positive.  If no one gave you a day book for Christmas treat yourself to one, there are always one or two at the Hallmark store or your local drug store.

Another, but harder, step is to give yourself some exercise.  No matter how hard it is to take that walk around the block or ten minutes on the treadmill – make yourself do it.  It truly makes a difference when the blood is circulating and oxygen is getting in there.  I handed my mother the whip and I am supposed to be on the treadmill twice a day when home all day and once each evening after work.  Let’s see how well she will crack the whip.

Gently, gently, let’s encourage each other to start our Quality Life Together.

Focus - or Getting Tough on One's Self

Sometimes some of my younger friends tell me that they admire me because I appear to always be doing something.  I feel a little embarrassed because I know how little I actually accomplish.  It’s embarrassing to tabulate how many hours I sit in front of the television or simply sit.  Be it resolved annually, monthly, weekly or daily, I find myself still sitting around.  How many others have this problem?  When one thinks about the variety of activities available to us, because we have so much more free time than our grandparents, isn’t it embarrassing to find that opportunities are under-utilized, to put it mildly?

Here it is the third last day of my 2 weeks vacation and I have still not opened up my Spanish lessons and I have only been on the treadmill 3 times.  What’s up with that?  Okay, I did spend quite a bit of time making cards but did I send out my full mailing list?  No, I say in a whisper, head hung low.

Yes, I am being harsh with myself but if I can be lax now what am I going to be like when I have 24 hours 7 days a week to fill?  Am I going to become a couch potato?  I shudder at the thought.  Sometimes when a person makes a comment and you are feeling a bit embarrassed, perhaps you should turn your focus inward and ask yourself why you are feeling thus.  It’s easy to take a long lens and say I have accomplished a lot in my life but in the full scheme of things, one should take a look at day to day activities and ask how much is quality time?  One cannot expect a quality retirement if we can’t have a quality vacation.

And how did you spend your Christmas break?

Values

What types of things do we value?  There are Values, as in principles and morals.  There is the value we place on financial security, respectability and education.  We may value celebrity or notoriety.  We may put value on our freedoms, the country we reside in and our ability to vote and govern our fate.  How much value does one put on day to day living, on the way we conduct our lives?

Yes, once again I am asking you to take a look at your life and put value on the things you accomplish daily.  Going to work and earning a living is an accomplishment in itself, if you happen to excel at your work give yourself an extra Wow.  If you are a “working Mom” give yourself another Wow for going to work and somewhere in between sending your child to school, getting them safely home, preparing meals for them and perhaps even getting them to do their homework.  Wow, wow, wow.  Some of you may also be volunteering, be it car-pooling kids around, being part of the hockey set for children, participating in church or school affairs – give yourself yet another Wow.  Are you one of the 44% who exercises their right to vote?  Give yourself 2 wows for that one (Federal and Provincial).  If you refrain from quarreling with your in-laws that’s a huge WOW.

The list can go on, all things mundane and “usual” but when you look at some of the things that go on in the world the fact that you are a law-abiding citizen zooms into perspective as a very big Wow.  After all, we only have to take a peek at the horrendous year in Canadian politics to know that we are living in a world that has gone completely off its rocker.  But let me not digress into smut.  Instead, I just want to pat myself and my readers on the back for being decent and normal human beings.  Let celebrities take a look at us and see if they can raise their own bar up to our standards.  Wouldn’t that be something?

Evaluating Life

There is a real danger in attempting to evaluate one’s life using celebrity benchmarks, and yet it is understandable that one would simply because these are the lives we know about and the lives that are “celebrated”.  I like to read or hear stories about ordinary people being acknowledged for something above and beyond the ordinary and some news programs bring more of that style of reporting into their program.  The other day Global had a story about an 80 year old woman who still teaches dance every day in her Toronto studio.  She sure looked terrific and at least 20 years younger than her age.

As I have written before most people are so bound up in their own lives that it is hard for them to think beyond their own families.  We were having an animated conversation in our home yesterday asking the question “what can you do about the problems you gripe about daily, here in Canada”?  My answer was that a first step is to write your concerns to your MLA, MP and the ministers involved in whatever the concern is (health, transportation, etc.).  For example, something that really upset me last month was when Flaherty adamantly stated that there would be no revision to Canada Pension Plans or Old Age pension plans despite all the provinces finally coming to an agreement on change.  How can he have the right to flatly say “it will be many years before that can happen”?  Let’s just reflect (as my blood begins to boil yet again) on how the disgraced senators fought, and won, their “right” to have their $80,000+ pensions intact.  Are you kidding me?  Honestly, every Canadian citizen should take pen, paper, typewriter, whatever, in hand and write a blasting letter objecting to this ENTITLEMENT.  Yes, this is the favorite word of the current governing bodies around the world.  We ordinary citizens (who, let me boldly remind you, have the power to vote you in or out) feel “entitled” to our CPP, EI, getting on a bus, and so on.  My goodness me, does anyone hear the echoes of Marie Antoinette’s infamous line?

No, this is not a call to revolution per se but it is a call to Ordinary Citizens taking a first step in help make change.  Just write a simple letter to your various representatives asking for a change in pensions because no one can live on $12,000 per year.  Certainly poor Pamela Wallen can’t manage on $225,000.  Yes, you can make a difference and a little tip, if you write to Ottawa you don’t even have to put a stamp on it (or at least, that’s how it used to be . . . I will double check on that for you, my faithful readers).

 

 

 

A Life Review

I had written a mini-bucket list for my 60^th year and have already missed 3 events so I will have to scramble to squeeze 9 into the next 6 months.  I am suggesting to myself that I need to post them on the calendar so I don’t forget about them.  It really is quite disturbing how easily I seem to forget things and gosh, I’m only 60!  I’m sure I will find the lost Christmas items some time in June but despite a thorough search of likely hiding places I was unable to find them.  No wonder I couldn’t remember something so little as going to theatre Calgary in December (which couldn’t have happened even if I had remembered as the weather certainly got in the way of any of those types of activities).

Ah well, time marches on whether we like it or not.

All in all I have had a very successful year and look forward to further fulfillment in the new year.  One of the things that I have plucked out of “Prime Time” is doing my own life review my own way.  Not for me the soul searching on character (why question the perfect?) but rather evaluating what I have accomplished in 6 decades.

The greatest of these is possibly the fact that I have been a Working Woman for 42 years; taking only a partial break while I went to university for 3 whirlwind years.  I’ve had a colourful career in several different sectors (industry, insurance, law, engineering, and oil & gas).  I had a long stint in a family business co-founding 2 very different types of companies.  During my working career I have worked with hundreds of people and made a few friends along the way.  I’ve helped people through marital woes and I’ve been part of 3 major projects building facilities in the north.  I’ve worked in accounting, in secretarial pools, as an office manager, as a project administrator, in marketing and as a paralegal.  I have thrown my hat in the political ring and stayed true to my party colours for 45 years.  I’ve written speeches and I’ve written marketing copy.  I’ve composed legal briefs and compiled documentation and taken my cases to court.  I’ve had judges try to frown me down for standing without “legal representation” and I was still standing at the end of the day.  I’ve stood up to bullying and made the bully accountable.  I’ve been through more than one legal circus and I’ve made more than one lawyer blink.  And yes, I have even made a television commercial and I have been part of several awards in business.  Let’s just say that I’ve had one very colourful career.