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the first in a series of bogus advice posts
1. It's all relative. Usually.
2. What goes around, comes around.
[2a. Writers who use proverbs like the above should be taken out and shot.]
3. There are very few absolutes. Nature is an absolute. Beards grow, weeds grow, and cats & babies transcend all kinds of social rules about adult behavior. Whether they bring pleasure (so CUUUUTE!) or pain (sheer annoyance factor due to "infinite cry setting with no 'off' switch").
4. Everything you do can be excused as research. For better (actually used) or worse (rationalized -- did it make you a better person? Good for you!).
5. Ask five friends. Get five answers. Feel more confused than ever.
6. If you stick to something long enough, it'll probably rub off on you.
7. Did you make a mistake? Does it remind you of a similar, previous mistake? Then find a new way to make the same mistakes. That's progress.
8. If you feel stuck, you can draw a bigger circle or fold a smaller box.
9. And when real life fails, there's always the Internet. For now.
What's your excuse? The world awaits your brilliant insight.
Post a comment below!
Wishing you a beautiful day,
Bill Brent
[this page last updated: 2011.12.12, 11:15 p.m. Hawaii time | photo credit: Bill Brent]
As I write you -- in limited doses, as too much typing activates my repetitive strain injury -- it's a gray, rainy week. And I'm feeling very gray, and nearly rainy, so this is what I do to deal with it.
I suspect that my RSI was brought on mostly by two years of intense eBaying circa 2006, right after I moved to Hawaii Island and lacked a proper desk. I was using a ripped-down plywood sheet atop twin two-drawer file cabinets as a makeshift desk -- about six inches too high for keyboarding, it turned out.
That experience launched my recovery from shop-a-holism, when one day, the pain hit me all at once, at which point I knew I had to quit for good. And I got myself into physical therapy for six months, which helped. And now I'm starting it again, because I've forgotten most of what I learned there.
And I learned from that recovery that, regardless of my finances, I deserve the best tools and support that I can afford. So I don't cheap out on myself anymore.
THIS is what I have my eye on right now. Has anyone else here heard of the Swopper chair? (Yeah, it's pricey, and I know it appears to contradict what I just said about shop-a-holism. I wish someone local had a used one on Craigslist; I'd love to try it out.)
Sometimes getting what we want entails sacrifice in another area of our lives. (Can I wait another year to replace my faded yet fully functional shoulder bag? Okay, but just one more year. And then I can pass it along to someone who needs it more than I do.)
And sometimes (maybe because we're stubborn), we have to diminish physically before we can grow psychically. Harsh lesson, that one, but if we can get it, we can integrate it. Overall, then, we can enhance our quality of life, even as our physical capacity lessens.
So I am working on identifying less with my physical issues. It'll come. Already, it's getting to the point where I look forward to new ways to do the same old things ... or to ask for help ... or delegate 'em ... or just not do 'em anymore! Heh.
Bouncing Back
Just as with any form of recovery, we do it one day at a time. For me, often this means, "Don't push too hard." Today is a good example. I have time on my hands to structure as I please, yet I don't feel up to starting any new, big projects. Scan those grade school photos that I have been carting around for decades? Perfect. I can start and stop that project as time and energy permit. Before long, they are on the computer, and I don't have to drag those moldy oldies into the next phase of my life.
As we age, once simple tasks can grow difficult. Accepting this can be rough. (For instance, I did get minor pain from one round of scanning, but I was good to myself and stopped when I had finished one batch, rather than starting another stack.) So when I accept that limitation, as best as I can today, I can slowly integrate it.
Read the section in THIS ARTICLE, at the end, titled "Being Frustrated With Progress," to see how someone uses the "10% solution" concept to reinterpret incremental progress as success. I mean, really, doesn't this make sense as a "half-full" rather than a "half-empty" approach to everyday life? The most important concept here is this:
"It is important that we don't turn our issues into “we have it or we don't."
In other words, keep an open mind. Are there REALLY only TWO choices? By becoming less binary with our thinking, we learn to see hidden possibilities. This shift in perception leads us to new options and a radically different way of examining our lives.
Often we have more than "either-or" choices. Recognizing this allows us to make more choices from a position of power. So when we find ways to think more creatively about our so-called limitations, they can serve as portals to new possibilities.
What's an example in your own life today?
[Related article:] ~ HERE ~
Wishing you a beautiful day,
Bill Brent
[this page last updated: 2011.11.16, 11:44 p.m. Hawaii time | photo credit: some grade school photographer!]
