Finding Positive In The Negative

What is positive about domestic abuse? 

There are survivors. 

On average, it takes a person seven attempts before finally escaping from an abusive relationship.

“Only” 10% of domestic abuse is physical abuse — physical violence.  Of course, that is 10% too much.

90% of domestic abuse is not physical abuse or violence. 

Rather, it is non-physical and leaves lasting scars, some that never heal. 

90% of domestic abuse includes psychological abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, spiritual & religious abuse, intellectual abuse, etc. 

My wonderful friend Judy shared the following initiative.  It’s too important not to pass long to everyone who may see this blog: 

 “Verizon Launches Entrepreneurship Program For Survivors of Domestic Violence.  Many people dream of starting their own business. One company is giving that opportunity to those who have survived domestic violence.  ‘For many survivors, escaping an abusive spouse or partner is only half the battle, moving forward and creating an independent, self-sufficient life is a critical next step.’”  Go to this website for more information:  http://www.livecareer.com/news/Entrepreneurship/Verizon-Launches-Entrepreneurship-Program-For-Survivors-of-Domestic-Violence_$$01483.aspx

If you, or someone you care about, might be in an abusive relationship, please read the book by Lundy Bancroft:  Why Does He Do That? Inside The Minds Of Angry and Controlling Men.  Another helpful book is by Gavin De Becker:  The Gift Of Fear.  Both should be available at your local library. 

Are you dating an abuser?  Early warning signs include people who blame others for their problems, people who have a sense of entitlement (“the world owes me”), people who have resentments against others, and people who act superior to others.  A helpful article can be found at this page:  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/anger-in-the-age-entitlement/200812/are-you-dating-abuser

Reach out for help.  Talk to someone. 

You don’t have to spend your life living in fear of the person you live with. 

What is positive about domestic abuse? 

Nothing. 

But you can escape, you can get out, you can survive, and hopefully thrive.

What’s Wrong About Being Right?

Many of us like to be right. 

 Not “right in the head,” or right-handed. 

We like to be right when talking with our friends, family, even strangers, about the information we know, and the beliefs that we hold to be true. 

While it may be essential to have, find or share accurate factual information while at work, in personal conversations, would we rather be right, or happy?

I used to love to be right.  It gave me the opportunity to show others how much I knew, or how smart I was.  Being right made me feel good.

But while I was busy showing or proving that I was right about something, was there another person feeling not so good?  If I’m right, are you wrong?

Gratefully, I realized, I would rather be happy, than be right. 

And that being “right” really didn’t matter. 

What matters to me is experiencing peaceful, harmonious relationships with other people.

If I challenge what someone says, or I disagree with them, or I tell them they’re wrong and share what I think is the correct information, I’m building a wall, not a bridge.

“Love Can Build A Bridge,” the Judds used to sing.

Earlier this year I realized that I no longer cared about being right – having that right answer – in my personal relationships with friends and family.

Even at work, if an opportunity comes up to share information that I know, that another person does not know, I consider if the information is critical to doing our jobs.  If it’s not, then I remember I would rather be happy than right.  We can look up the information together.  Or we can just let it go.

Recently, outside of work, a friend’s brother made a statement I knew was not correct.  For example, that a whale is a fish.  I thought, does it really matter if that’s what he thinks?  Will he and I both be happy if I tell him that in fact, a whale is a mammal, not a fish?  I decided to keep quiet. 

I want to be happy, not right.  I want others to be happy too.

Apart from the workplace, either doing my job, or helping others’s with their work, I have raised the white flag of surrender on my need to be right – long may it wave. 

There is nothing wrong with being right.  But I’ve changed and considered my motivations.  In the past, did I want to demonstrate how intelligent I am, by telling others that I have the right answer, therefore making another person wrong?

It’s only too late if you don’t start now. 

 Would you rather be right, or happy?

Clark Howard Rocks!

The Top Story on Happy News  http://happynews.com/index.aspx  features Clark Howard  http://clarkhoward.com/inside/clark.html  interviewing a family of four that lives a happy life on a modest teacher’s salary (story at:  http://happynews.com/news/6142010/family-four-financial.htm). 

Clark Rocks!  Awhile back I took an evening class at a university and had an hour drive home at 9pm every Thursday night.  That’s when I discovered The Clark Howard Show on AM Radio.  I think I learned more from listening to Clark during those hours than I did in the 18-month course I was enrolled in.  For example, I learned that one of the best ways to prevent Identity Theft is to place a freeze on my credit files.

Clark Howard is a positive person who helps other people – especially those of us who might not know we need the information he shares, or would know where else to go to get it.  He even has a team of more than 150 volunteers that staff his Community Action Center  http://clarkhoward.com/cac//  (“Need Advice?  We’re here to help.  Dedicated to empowering the consumer through advice, education and problem resolution”) 

Unfortunately the radio show is no longer broadcast at night, at least, not in my area.  Instead it is on the air between 1pm through 4pm Eastern Time.  Check for your local station at  http://clarkhoward.com/listen/find_a_station_near_you.html  I am gratefully employed and work until 5pm Monday through Friday, so cannot listen to the Clark Howard radio show.  For anyone who can listen in during the afternoon, you will most likely hear helpful news and information you may not find anywhere else.

Thanks Clark!

A Second Self?

Cicero said, “A Friend Is, As It Were, A Second Self.”

A friend sees us for who we are, and accepts us, flaws and all. 

My friends show me the beauty and humor in life.  They enable me to lighten up.  Friends put my life in perspective, even when I cannot do it myself.

Emerson wrote, “A Friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature.”  My friends are the breath in my life.  They let me know I exist.  Friends, “…get me out of my mind and into my life.”

 “My friends are my estate,” wrote Emily Dickinson.  Friends challenge me to consider and understand different perspectives.  They make me laugh.  They help me to see the truth, even if it is painful to do so. 

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them,” said Mother Teresa.  My friends love me even when I do not.  They give me the opportunity to grow – to become a better person.  My life would not be worth living if it meant having no friends.  Robert Louis Stevenson said, “No man is useless while he has a friend.”

Simple pleasures!  There is no greater joy than spending time with a friend.  Whether over a cup of coffee, over the telephone, or by email, sharing thoughts, ideas, wisdom, questions, perspective, life and loves, there is nothing like spending time with a true friend.  ”A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Someone once told me that I did not have any friends, just acquaintances.  Why argue with another’s opinion?  Opinions are not facts. 

Checking definitions, “an acquaintance is someone recognized by sight or someone known, though not intimately.”   While, “a friend is a person with whom one is on intimate terms and for whom one feels a warm affection.” So, intimacy, and affection, are qualities of friendship.

 That acquaintance of mine, of his decision, had no friends — possibly no intimacy or affection.  

A lovely English Proverb says, “The way to have a friend is to be one.”

Two final quotes in honor of my friends, whom I love, respect and cherish:

“Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together”  - Woodrow Wilson

“When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.”  – William Arthur Ward

Are your friends like a “second self?” 

What does friendship mean to you?

Here is a whole page of quotations about friends and friendship:

http://www.friendship.com.au/quotes/quohis.html

He Who Dies With The Most Toys . . .

There used to be a popular bumper sticker that read, “He Who Dies With The Most Toys Wins.”

Wins what?

Does anyone really believe we “win” the game of life by accumulating more things?

The fact is that we come into this world with nothing.

And we will leave this world with nothing.

I’m pretty sure that our souls can’t sneak our toys away from earth the way we smuggle our own snacks into the movie theatre.

Someone said, “You can’t take it with you,” and it seems to be true.

We can’t take our houses, our cars, our clothes, our jewelry, our jet ski or boat.

We can’t take beer, whiskey or pills along for the ride.  And I’m guessing there’s no gambling in Heaven.

Maybe the bumper sticker would be better worded, “He Who Dies With The Most Toys Has Missed Out On The Real Gifts Of A Lifetime.”

Was there a time before “toys?”  What did people do then?

Share meals together?  Conversation?  Go for walks in the park?

Was there more of a sense of community?

In the end, what really matters?

Does having the biggest house in town really count as we prepare to leave this earth?

Does having more money than you can possibly spend in a lifetime earn you a seat next to the man upstairs?

In the end, isn’t it the little things that count? 

How kind we’ve been.  How much compassion we’ve extended to others. 

The empathy we’ve shared with friends, family and maybe even strangers.

How much love we’ve given away freely. 

Maybe we’ve even behaved in a loving way to people who seem to be unlovable.

How many of us have followed the suggestion to, “love your enemies?”

How many of us truly have everything we want, and, want everything we have?

The game of life is not a competition.

If we cooperated with each other more, would we be happier, more content?

What would happen if we let go of our toys?

If tomorrow was the last day of our life, with the end near, what would really matter?

Why I love NPR

National Public Radio (NPR), www.npr.org,  ranks among my top ten – maybe my top five – best things in life. 

I would never know the story of “Maytag” (cheese, not appliances) if it were not for NPR.  Just in case you don’t know the story either, it’s still available online:  www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4245627

This morning, I heard a term, “cognitive surplus.”  So now, I have something new to investigate and learn about.

I didn’t know about NPR until I was in college.  What a find!  Since that time, and I won’t mention how many years it has been, a morning without NPR (for me) is like a morning without coffee for most of the rest of us. 

While listening to a discussion about “cognitive surplus,” a website was mentioned:  patientslikeme.com  To my surprise, I’ve never heard of the site. 

What I found is so interesting that I passed along the information to my family and friends.  From their “About Us” page, it says, “Patients Like Me is a privately funded company dedicated to making a difference in the lives of patients diagnosed with life-changing diseases. Our goal is to enable people to share information that can improve lives. To make this happen, we’ve created a platform for collecting and sharing real world, outcome-based patient data.” 

Personally, I would have written, “conditions and diseases,” but they didn’t ask me to write their web content.  Maybe next time.

NPR brings a world that I don’t yet know about, right to my bedroom, every morning at 5:00 a.m.  I keep a radio playing in the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, so I don’t miss a word.

The regular, on-going segments, such as, “This I Believe,” always enable me to learn something new and thought provoking.  And the wonderful thing is, NPR stores the stories online (www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4538138), freely accessible to all. 

For example, all of the “This I Believe” segments are stored in one place online along with the following description, “Americans from all walks of life share the personal philosophies and core values that guide their daily lives.” 

In March 2009, “This I Believe” told a story of two people with a common bond.  The first speaker began, “I believe in forgiveness — the kind that has the power to release a person from a place of anger and hate, to a place of peace.”  And the second speaker added, “I also believe in the healing power of forgiveness. I had gone to prison an angry man and gotten real comfortable with it. But that kind of emotion was keeping me a prisoner in my own private jail. I had to let the hate go, and learn to live and forgive.”  Together they wrote a book.

The thing I love most about NPR is, not only does it bring the world to my bedroom every morning, it brings positive, encouraging news to me every morning!  NPR is the opposite of the news on television.  NPR enlightens me, and helps me remember that there is kindness and goodness in the world.

Life Is But A Dream!

Can a nursery rhyme be a metaphor for living a happy life?

 “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,”

Notice that the song says, “… Your Boat.” 

Not your brother’s boat, or your wife’s boat, or the neighbor’s boat.

Row Your Boat.

If I’m rowing my own boat, I have to take care of my own life.  I don’t try to take care of other people, tell them what to do, or try to change them.  I can only change myself. 

So often in life I’ve wished that another person or situation would change.  It never works.

Acceptance is always the answer, and indeed, “it is what it is.” 

Accepting people, situations and things exactly as they are, right now, brings me peace and serenity.

“Rowing” my own “boat,” is the best thing I can do for myself and for others.

 “Gently, Down The Stream.”

Approaching life “Gently?”

People in general, including me, don’t seem to approach life gently.  We want what we want when we want it.  No gentleness about it.

Dictionary.com says, “Gentle has reference especially to disposition and behavior, and often suggests a deliberate or voluntary kindness or forbearance in dealing with others.”

This sounds good, having a gentle disposition and behavior.  I’ll give it a try.

 The second part is, “Down The Stream.” 

Not against the stream. 

Go with the flow.

“Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily,”

I looked up the definition of “merrily” and it means, “full of cheerfulness.” 

We all have problems.  Life isn’t easy. 

But we do have a choice about our attitude.

If I can choose, at any time, to be joyful or to be miserable, I’ll take joyful – and be “merry.”

“Life Is But A Dream.”

 The closing phrase really is inspiring. 

The quote, “If you can dream it, you can do it,” (Walt Disney) comes to mind.  

We can create our own lives.  

Do we forget about our dreams when we reach a certain age?  It’s never too late. 

What are the dreams you have for your life? 

If you write down your dreams, are they more likely to happen?