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I often wonder why some people seem to thrive on having drama in their lives. Unnecessary drama. I understand busy and complicated lives, and life throwing you something unexpected. But drama for the sake of drama. Bitchiness, fighting, friends, not friends, general nastiness and drama, as I term it. I have enough inner turmoil going on, from all that has happened to me in my life, that I like to maintain as calm an outer world as possible. And life is too short for all that. And happiness too elusive. Maybe all the bad stuff that happened to me hasn't been in vain, giving me a positive outlook and an appreciation of the important things in life.
I love music. I've always wished I was musical and could play an instrument. I taught myself to play the organ to a certain level when I was a child, but never went any further. I love listening to music. Trying to match it to my mood. Sad music helps me cry and sob when I am full of sadness but can't release it. If I'm angry, sometimes loud Def Leppard style music will beat in time with the pulsing anger until it subsides. If I'm in an upbeat mood, especially when I'm driving, it's great to sing along to music and I feel free, alive and happy. Quiet calming music also helps me relax when I am anxious or out of sorts. I just love the way music of all kinds, whether you love it or hate it, invokes emotions. Matches moods. Or just adds to your life. Now I'm wondering why I don't turn the stereo on as much as I'd like ....
Us humans could take lessons from dogs and kids, in particular. I know my dogs, if they have a disagreement, it's quick and it's over with, and they're back to being best of mates. No grudges, no bringing it back up weeks later or walking on eggshells around each other. Kids are the same. They'll have the biggest barney, get in a huff, run and tell tales on each other, then wander back to play, all in due course. Dogs are loving, loyal, playful, fun, comforting - whatever you need in that moment. They are just themselves - consistent. No airs and graces. If we treat them well, we are rewarded ten-thousand fold. Kids are the same - they like consistency, love and support, and they'll be your allies for life. Kids are honest to the point of brutality (my nephew told me I smelled the other day because I had deep heat on). Except they're not brutal or cruel. Just innocent and untouched by society. What you see is what you get, every time. No airs and graces, pretence, back stabbing or gossiping. They are who they are before damage is done and they get tied up in shoulds, oughts, musts, societal rules, politics and conventions that take you far away from your true beautiful spirit. Kids and dogs live for the moment whether it's happiness, sadness, anger, fear or whatever. I wish they didn't have to experience the negative emotions, but the way they experience them is so authentic. Anxiety stems from not living in the moment. Not experiencing life fully stems from not living in the moment. Kids and dogs at least experience life fully and move on to the next moment, whatever that may be, without baggage dragging along behind. Unfortunately for kids, that comes with time. So many lessons can be taken from how children and animals interact with each other, with society and with the world. Be more observant and try to emulate what you see. Who knows, in time we may change the world back to a simpler, peaceful and happier place. Bit by little bit.
I find that the people that vocally claim they are open minded, good listeners, admit when they are wrong and like to keep the peace, are usually totally the opposite. They are willing to listen to others as long as their opinion wins out. They will argue to the death, even if they come out sounding totally ridiculous. Catching themselves out with excuses, justifications and anything they can grasp at a second's notice. They judge people because they're arrogant enough to assume that their way is the only way. Instead of listening they'll talk over you, talk at you or impatiently listen until they can give their point of view. I guess I'm a little jaded as I have come across too many of these people, until my head is spinning with indecision, self doubt and a huge sense of worthlessness. Tolerance and empathy are lost arts.
Gardeners are always great people too. I haven't as yet met a gardener that won't share tips, advice or cuttings from their plants. Never as yet met a gardener who isn't happy to show you around their garden. Or a gardener who will share disaster stories without considering it a reflection on their skill or abilities. Never thinking it as something that dents their ego or lowers their self esteem. But as something that helps other gardeners, sharing the joy around and giving confidence to new gardeners. They are always willing to mentor without condemnation. And always ready with a friendly smile.
I always think that people who own dogs are nice people. Of course I mean people who really look after their dogs and love them as part of their family. If you ever run into other dog owners with your dogs, a conversation is always had. Smiles abound, happy chit chat, patting cute dogs, and your day is all the better for it. True Dog Owners Rock!!
I wonder why people these days have to be so rude. Manners are free yet so many people won't even use them. It's sad as a society to see so many people think it's the norm, to be rude to each other. That being rude, nasty and inconsiderate will get you somewhere faster than being polite. You can be assertive in life without being aggressive. And being aggressive doesn't always mean physical altercations either. How often do you see rude shop assistants, or customers ranting and raving to try and get their way? And how immature it is to hang up on someone when talking on the phone. Did please, thank you and sorry become erased from the dictionary? Swearing, road rage, giving the finger - commonplace these days seemingly. Talking over people, interrupting, walking away during conversations - what is up with that? The cold shoulder treatment - didn't we grow out of that in high school? And making excuses, lying and being late. Come on - just be honest and a little bit more considerate of others. It's not hard. It should be second nature. And saying things via email and SMS that you wouldn't say in person. That is plain gutless!
On and on it goes, modeled for children that you insist must behave another way. The cycle will never be broken if we don't change ourselves, because children model what they see, not what you say.
Children's temper tantrums are hard to deal with but watching the adult version is just plain embarrassing. For them, not us as the viewers.
People just don't care about other people like they used to. Or at least like I hear stories of how they used to. Stories of weekend get togethers to play tennis and eat, Friday night dances, talking with your neighbour over the fence, extended families getting together, cousins growing up together and so on. Life is full of technology to save us time compared with our grandparents. Yet what do we do with that time? It certainly isn't spent caring for other people, being polite, considerate or interested. Life seems busier than ever with all these time-saving devices, technology and gadgets. Common moral fibre's of years gone by have been shredded. No longer do you keep an eye on your elderly neighbour to see if they are OK. No longer do you ever introduce yourself to your neighbours if you move to a new location. No longer to you phone family members or rate extended family as important. No longer is family time considered important - but making sure kids are in every activity is. No longer do you have life-long friendships. People are more fickle and live for the moment these days. People also say what you want to hear, what soothes the moment or what makes them sound good. They may even mean it when carried away in the moment, but don't follow through. And this leads to raised and dashed hopes for those left in the wake of this. People aren't honest, with themselves or others. There is no accountability anymore. No "I forgot" but elaborate tales to cover human fallibilities that we all understand. I've heard people scoff at those in therapy or be downhearted that there is so much abuse and violence, or even be glad it's talked about more these days so people get help. But a lot of the heartache and damage people suffer is at the hands of thoughtless and uncaring people. If we went back to some of those old morals and old ways, valuing and respecting people, so much damage could be avoided. And so much damage could be halted instead of perpetuated.
Because hurt people hurt other people with their bitterness. Or worse, keep hurting themselves, never learning other ways and never teaching their children better ways to live.
Is our society doomed to implode?
Accomplishment doesn't have to be heaps of praise by others or validation by important people or awards won. All that is lovely of course and we wouldn't be human if that didn't stroke our ego's just a little bit. But inner accomplishment is a feeling almost indescribable. When you do something or finish something or even attempt something that is difficult for you, or that you don't know how to do, brings about a feeling that is much more validating than any award. Because it does more than stroke your ego. It gives you confidence in yourself. Brings about self love. Counteracts damaging thoughts and negative experiences. And every little thing you do that brings about this feeling, builds you up inside and allows your true spirit to shine, as you stop berating yourself, hating yourself or conforming to others standards. Bring on accomplishment!
One of my pet hates is when people are chronically late. I don't mean on occasion - I'm not that big of a Nazi or Perfectionist. Because as life is, it throws curve balls at us all on occasion. But I know a handful of people who you can guarantee will be late 100% of the time. It's how late, is the question. You can't plan events, go with them places, rely on them or anything. My opinion is, in these cases, is that it's just plain rude and inconsiderate. These people are arrogant beyond belief and very self involved. They believe, whether they admit to themselves or not, that their time is more valuable than anyone else's is. It is the height of bad manners. And I have no time for this trait in a person's character.
Don't get me wrong - I love to get a funny joke or cute message as much as the rest of us. But what I can't understand is why, in this day and age, when people are mostly so computer literate, at least in the area of emails, that nobody seems to know how to forward an email properly. Even supposed computer experts and technicians. If you're like me, you groan at an inbox full of forwarded emails. Not because you don't want to read them, but for me, it's because you have to scroll through what feels like miles of other people's email addresses in a neverending list, until you get to the actual message. Has it really come to the point in society where we're all so busy or too lazy that we can't take 3-4 seconds to highlight other people's email addresses and hit the delete key, before we forward on the email? Then again, if we forwarded them properly by putting everyone's email addresses in the BCC box instead of the TO box, there wouldn't be that problem. Or the increasing problem of spam with our email addresses forwarded all over the world without our permission.
Come on guys - forward an email properly!
I wonder why being family seems to give us a license to treat each other so badly. Is it because we're comfortable with each other and our standards slip a little? Or maybe we know deep inside that they'll love us no matter what and we'll love them back? Because rarely do we treat friends, acquaintances, employers and others, as badly as we do family, on a consistent basis. Nor do we take as much crap from those people as we do our families. There must be some sort of biological thing going on because we all "keep on keeping on" in the family stakes, no matter how bad things seem to get. A therapist friend once said to me that her industry would be out of business if it weren't for families. How sad is that! The roles we have in our family are often defined very early on in life, and for some reason, we retain these often unwanted titles. "The black sheep, the easygoing one, the one with the quick temper, the brainy one, the capable one, the lazy one" and so on. Oh, as adults, we may shake them off sometimes, or for some of the time. But when the going gets tough and claws come out, for some reason, we're thrown smack bang back into those categories. Family roles, family dynamics - a complicated system. And one we seem to never gain enough perspective to see each member of the family as uniquely as we would someone else in our lives. Shared history can be a good thing, but it can also sabotage what could be. Families ......
This issue is much more complex than I am able to solve, but I just know that something needs to be done in regards to parenting and having children. There are too many cases of abuse, neglect and life-long damage being inflicted on children. We are raising potential adults, the future, the next generation for this world. Maybe parenting classes are something that is needed in high school, or as part of maternity care or as a requirement of receiving child payments. I don't know what the solution is - just that something has to be done, our systems revamped and child care and welfare to become everybody's business. Don't sacrifice anymore children to a life in hell or pergatory as adults.
Sometimes I wonder how local shire councils keep running. If they were a small business, they'd be long since bankrupt due to mismanagement of funds, inability to make decisions, completely absurd decisions and a lack of what would be termed customer service when dealing with the general public. They do not care except about pumping up their own ego's with their perceived elevated status in town because "they're on the Council". If I were them, I would NOT advertise that fact! An example in my town is decisions they have repeatedly made about slowing traffic through our shopping centre, which is a highway.They put brick "humps" in the middle of the road at 'strategic' intervals with signs on them telling you they are there. But oh, did they stop to think that larger vehicles that have to travel that highway cannot fit, so everytime a wide load gets to town, they must call out council employees to take down the signs, guide the truck through and put the signs back up. When the townfolk suggested maybe remove the brick humps. Oh no, not a good idea at all for all sorts of insipid reasons, one being the cost to do so. But we all wonder at the costs incurred for wages alone to call out employees at all sorts of odd hours, let alone the fact they have to repair the humps every month due to the damage the wide loads cause. Go figure.
Then they installed walls at the corners of the shopping centre streets to beautify the streetscape. Blocked views, accidents caused, children playing on them dangerously near traffic etc etc. So they finally decided to amend these. Amazement rang out throughout the township. They put a lot of thought and studies into it apparently, then installed big black iron balustrades on top of them. Supposedly to stop people sitting on them, children jumping, to beautify and match another area in the street etc etc. Now vision is completely obstructed and they're about to spend thousands doing another study because they realise what a huge error this was and "they just don't know what to do."
These Councillors live in our town and use these intersections daily. None are blind. None are deaf. None have impaired brain function. Whatever happened to common sense? Whatever happened to listening to the public's sensible suggestions? Whatever happens to the brains of previously sensible people who join the ranks of the Shire Council?
You have to wonder when after all these things (and more), they tell the public they just don't know why they had to raise the land rates so much this year to balance the budget!
Everyone likes or dislikes people for many reasons. Many of us even like or dislike celebrities that we don't even know. I'm no different in this regard. .One person I have grown to dislike is Tom Cruise. I don't dislike his acting or his movies. But as a person I am growing to dislike his public persona. When interviewed, by many different people, of which he has obviously agreed to, he can be quite rude to them, quarrelsome, pick or look for fights and really, offers the public nothing. Most of the questions are very innocuous yet he'll be prickly or downright rude. He may think he's making the media look as if they're harassing him, but he is in fact making himself look like an ass! My pet hate, is when an interviewer asks what Katie thinks, and he curtly replies every time "you'll have to ask her". They are always light-hearted little pieces of information that any married couple would readily know about each other and their family. Such as "is she happy being a mother?". He is turning into a public pompuous arrogant and controlling ass. And sadly, for me, this rubs off on my inclination to view a new movie he may star in. Boo to Tom Cruise!
I loved Christmas as a kid, like most children. SO excited on Christmas Eve I couldn't get to sleep. But also afraid if I didn't, Santa wouldn't come. Yet trying to also pretend I was asleep and stay away, just for a fleeting glimpse of this magical hero. My brother & I used to get up as soon as we possibly could to rifle through our stockings. Christmas Day always meant presents of course, but Mum & Dad being so happy and laid back, lot's of family around, everyone laughing and happy and heaps of yummy food with the word 'No' banned for the day.
Of course over the years I've watched Christmas become so very commercialised and the true meaning and simpler traditions getting lost or forgotten. This part of Christmas I dislike. But I also don't like Christmas anymore either, as it's a day I find where people in my family are still nice on that day, racing to give you a hug and a kiss, tell you they love you and wishing you a Merry Christmas. Presents come and food flows. But it feels so fake to me now as the rest of the year, as a family, we don't interact or care for each other like that. I feel forgotten, neglected, cast aside.
So on Christmas Day, instead of being able to enjoy what is for that day, I find that inside my heart, a huge void is ripped open, filled with loneliness and despair.
I wonder why we need occasions such as Christmas to be nice to each other. A little injection of Christmas into each and every day, is what I'd love and what I aim for in my interactions with people.
I've smoked marijuana once or twice in my life and it did nothing much for me. Probably because I'm so tight and it costs such a big chunk out of my weekly budget. *laughs* I've also seen what it does to those who experience psychosis, paranoia or extreme lack of motivation due to regular and prolonged use. But if they're consenting fully informed adults doing this, I have less of a problem with it, than if people are growing it to sell and push to others, especially teens and young adults.I don't think it's necessarily great for you or a wise choice, but if someone was growing a single plant or two for their own use, I'm less inclined to get upset about it and demand police resources, than for large crops, drug pushers and harder drugs. Probably because our police are stretched thin anyway, and as wrong and sad as it is, sometimes battles have to be picked and lesser ones let go. And I've had personal experience battling the police to investigate a serious crime against me, and for whatever reason, they were less than helpful. So to stretch police resources and get hardened criminals and drug dealers off the streets, I guess I'm "in favour" (for want of a better description) of letting go some of the smaller personal marijuana users.I'm definitely in favour of marijuana used in cancer treatment and for pain relief. But that of course is another issue.Phew! I'm so nervous typing this as I so rarely voice opinions, that even doing it this way, is scary for me. Be gentle on me *smiles*.Shadow Girl
My View of Life (above)My Sunflower (below)
Sometimes I try and take photos of nature and things around me that express how I'm feeling or capture how truly miraculous nature is. Here are a few I could find fairly quickly.
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