Everyone Has A Story

When I watch people and I used to love to just sit and watch people…in the mall, in the park..wherever.  I have found that everyone has a story but we often do not take the time to even look. We are so busy that we zoom on by.

When was the last time you really looked at those around you…much less strangers?  When was the last time you noticed the slump in a friend’s shoulders, or the held back tears in another person, or the extra sparkle in another person?  Were you so wound up and involved in what happened to your day that you saw no one else?  Have your own children wanted your attention and you got mad at them because you were so busy? Have you ever watched your loved ones and seen things you had not noticed before? Everyone truly does have their own story….even the strangers on the street.

One of the things I have learned through the years is that people do one of two things…they either act on something or they react to something. And learning to tell the difference takes really watching them and trying to look behind the action to see.

The cashier in the store that was so rude to you may have just lost a loved one, or had a sick child at home that they were worried about, or had a health issue or any number of things. When I realize these things can be the cause of people’s behavior, it helps me to understand and not get so upset with them. For, if I do not look for the reason behind, then I allow myself to react to what they said and it becomes reaction…reaction…reaction and no one wins.

I watched a video of a song and I think the name was “hello in there” but it was about how society no longer values and cherishes the seniors in this world. And so they do not bother talking to them and they live the loneliest life of all. I thought how sad. The song went on to say we should stop and say “hello in there” and sit down and talk to them. We would be amazed at what they know…for everyone has a story.

video by Adamfulgence

I love the part about old trees grow stronger but people just grow lonely waiting on someone to say…hello in there.  I want to be a tree with my roots deep in the ground and my branches reaching out full to cover all those I love from the storms. I want to have blooms with wonderful scents that make you all smile when you see me and smell the fragrance. And I want my branches to be filled with love that say “hello in there”  to those that sit quietly and no longer tell their dreams or what is going on in their life.

Do we take the time to really look?  Or are we missing the most wonderful people in the world who are sitting there not saying a word…like some “forgotten dream”?  Are we so absorbed in our lives that we see no one else? For everyone has a story and many no longer talk for there is no one to listen.  If we are so caught up in life that we do not pay attention to people’s silence, then we certainly are not paying attention to their words and both the silence and the words tell a story.

image from mayaxhoyt.blogspot.com

Everyone has a story. Sometimes it is good…sometimes it is sad…sometimes it is bad…sometimes it is funny…but it is still uniquely each person’s story. I believe we were given two ears and one mouth for a reason…that we should listen twice as much as we talk. But just think what you miss. One Thanksgiving, we ate at the community dinner and a family sat next to us. They had their great-uncle with them and he sat there eating quietly. My son started talking to him and mentioned airplanes and the man’s face lit up. He started telling us the story about when he was a pilot in the war and about all the places he saw and what it was like. His own family stopped talking and sat there listening in wonder. One of them told him afterwards that they had never heard that story before and he told them “you never asked”.  What we miss when we allow the world to become too busy for those around us….for everyone has a story. What is yours?  One day, we may all want someone to listen to our story.

 

As Long As There Is Life

A friend posted this picture to me along with the words for me to not quit and to keep hoping and keep my mojo going. Hope…such a fragile thing but it is what keeps us going. Hope can be as fragile as the little chick’s one leg in this picture below or it can be as strong as a steel bridge…but either way…it is still hope. All I know is that this picture reminds me to never give up and to always hope for the best.

I love what this says…as long as there is life….there is hope. Reminds me of the answer I give people sometimes when they ask me how I am coping…I say that I am alive and that is what counts.

I am blessed by a group of friends and loved ones that have rallied around me and surrounded me with love and support. That is all it takes to lift us up when things are tough. And I could not ask for any more love than my family, loved ones and friends are giving me.

This is my motto now.  Mojo is on full blast and I am exploring every possibility for I am a survivor and I intend to keep on surviving if there is any way possible. And with the group of loved ones I have…the energy and positive forces and prayers are mounting higher and higher. I have an army outside loving, praying and supporting me and an army of fighter cells that I am visualizing fighting for me on the inside and the tons of prayers from everyone for me. What more could I need. Thank you from my heart. Love you all.

image from shanaprincefitness.com

By Your Side And In Your Heart

“Friendship is not about who you have known the longest–It is about those who came and never left your side.”

I loved this quote for it says far more than the words themselves say. I have been blessed with some wonderful friends in my lifetime. One might read the quote and think that a friend is only those you see all the time but it is not. I have friends from high school that have never left my side nor my heart. We may not talk for months or even years on end but when we do talk, the time evaporates and you never knew there was any time-lapse in seeing each other. They are still in my heart and my life.

image from http://www.knowcrazy.com/2010/11/friendship-quotes.html

I think friendship has become an underrated or perhaps overrated word. It is used to mean all the people who click “Friends” on Facebook and is a term without any meaning. To me…a friend…a real friend is someone who I know I could call in the middle of the night and say I am in trouble and they would try to come help me. I could call and say I am stuck here in such and such place and out of money and can not get home and they would find a way to come pick me up or get someone to me.

I have met a lot of nice people through my many years that I liked but I would not call them friends but more like acquaintances that touched me briefly. One day someone asked me what it was I thought was in a friendship and I researched it and wrote down what a friend was. In the Bible I found the quote that said :

image from http://www.zazzle.com/greater_love_hath_no_man_than_this_that_a_man_tshirt-235370978162490930

Now that is a pretty powerful statement…that I would lay down my life for my friends. And to me..my loved ones..are family and some of that family is friends or family of choice. So, yes, I think if the circumstance warranted it, I would lay my life down to save a friend.

A side story on family being friends too. My son told a woman he dated briefly, who did not want him to even come visit his sick mother…that not only was I his mother, I was his friend and part of his life. That made me cry but it also brought home what I said above. Family is friends too..very special friends.

I have read a lot of mushy quotes on friendship, some even stating that a real friend will lie for you and to you and will follow you into trouble and will let you run into trouble. I do not believe that. I believe real friendship is based on honesty and if you really love someone…then you will tell them the truth and will try to stop them if they are doing something that is going to get them in trouble.

“It can be hard to break the friendship code of secrecy and make your friend mad at you, but you must do what you feel in your heart is right.”
—Amanda Ford

Being totally honest with a friend may not be easy, but if you love them you will be. That is the best present you can give a friend….your honesty and your love for when we are honest with friends then they know exactly how we feel. There are no hidden thoughts or feelings between friends.

image from http://www.knowcrazy.com/2010/11/friendship-quotes.html

A real friend also believes that you are capable and believes in you when even you do not. I have had people I considered friends to tell me they were not as strong as me and could not do what I do. And my reply was that yes they could if they wanted to.  I had seen them be strong when they wanted to be and I knew what was inside them and I believed in them and encouraged them and pushed them to be all that they could be.

image from http://www.knowcrazy.com/2010/11/friendship-quotes.html

Being real friends does not mean that you never argue or disagree. That is human nature. The real test comes when there is a disagreement.  It is then that we learn the truth of our friendships.

“A true friend is someone you can disagree with and still remain friends. For if not, they weren’t true friends in the first place.”
—Sandy Ratliff

The people I call real friends stay by my side…in my heart and close. We may not talk daily or even monthly but we do talk. And even when we have argued and they have left mad or I have told them to leave…they still stay by my side for real friendships endure these things. The ones that leave because they are mad and never come back become the ones that are a sad lesson for me for I learn then that they were not really friends at all. And that is a hard lesson to learn.

image from sayingimages.com

The most important thing to remember about friends is that it does not matter who is friends to your face…what really matters is who remains your friend behind your back.

image from http://www.knowcrazy.com/2010/11/friendship-quotes.html

Crimson Tides and Autumn Leaves

CRIMSON TIDES AND AUTUMN LEAVES

The seasons change and minutes tick by

Living life until the day we die

Crimson tides and autumn leaves

Minutes falling like droplets from a sieve

Grasping as hard as the hand will grip

Wanting to stop them as through the fingers they slip

The day comes when we hear each click

That sound of the closing hours leaving tick by tick

So many dreams of things we want to do

The list is long and the hours are few

Every bite is savored as if it is the last

Every scent devoured and every shadow cast

The crimson tides and the autumn leaves have a clock

And like us humans, all will hear the last tick tock

danLrene  2012

image from thrivenotes.com

Waves, Views, News, Words,

Reblogged from Dr. Sherry E. Showalter - "Keepin It Real":

• 
• 

Tropical Storm Debby has left us; heading east and we are ever so happy here. We are now cleaning up, assessing damages; hearing from those we care about news of

"sinkholes" appearing in backyards, of warriors of this page now staying places other than their homes,

of being stranded at Siesta Key and feeling yukky and mukky and out of…

Read more… 1,672 more words

Thank you Sherry. You unwittingly added to what I had just posted recently on well meaning comments. GREAT BLOG. Hope you all enjoy it. :)

Feeling The Spirit of The Pioneers

It has been a hot, hot afternoon and son was on his end of the house resting and cooling it and I was on mine. We had turned on the swamp cooler to blow out the hot air. Keeps from taxing the AC. And I was laying here in the coolness of my room with my eyes closed resting from the hospital this morning.

Suddenly I got a whiff of something and it made me sit straight up. I sat there just sniffing for a minute and then I got it again. My feet…all four of them..LOL..hit the floor and I was headed towards my bedroom door when I felt myself snatched back onto my hospital bed. I had forgotten to take off the oxygen hose that I use when I am in bed. I snatched it off, grabbed my oxygen backpack from the bed and headed out my door yelling to son to hurry up and come here.

As son came out of his room, I kept saying..do you smell it?? do you smell it?  and he stopped and looked at me and took a deep breath through his nose and grinned and said “RAIN!!!!!!”  and we both turned and excitedly headed to the side door to step outside and see. You would have thought it was Christmas morning.  I could feel the excitement the pioneers must have felt when rain was needed to badly for their crops…for we need it here.  It is hard to imagine getting so excited over the smell of rain in the air but we were.

As we got outside we could hear the thunder and see the clouds so heavy with rain that they were black and lying low in the sky. The wind was blowing hard and the trees were bending over and occasional splats of water would hit my face as I stood looking up into the sky.  The sun sails were flapping in the breeze and the small of rain was everywhere. It was wonderful and fragrant like the smell of roses when your heart is heavy.

Fires are burning in Colorado Springs. The fires seem to be contained just around there but now with rains coming…they fear because of the dry parched ground all over that we will have flash floods. I stood out there thinking about what our pioneers had to endure that we take for granted. The heat..we go inside and turn on AC or swamp coolers, the drought…we water with our hoses, flash flood warnings…we can get in our vehicles and drive to higher ground.

And yet, I felt like the pioneers from long ago were standing outside with me looking at those dark, heavily laden clouds and feeling the splats of rain hit us. Life goes on and generations live on after generations and yet they never truly leave us. I have seen this more out here when I started seeing all the people in the clouds. They are still here…just a breath away. And there are times like today when we will have memories that are theirs like smelling the rain and knowing our crops need it and rushing to go outside and see it. Life is beautiful and to me…life goes on forever..just in different plains.

Through The Eyes Of The Chronically Ill or Disabled

This topic is one that some of us in my chronic illness group have been discussing…what does a chronically ill/disabled person do when people have misconceptions about their health or refuse to accept their condition? It is a real issue and many people who are chronically ill/disabled just feel helpless because they do not know what to do.

Many well-meaning loved ones can say and do things that make it harder for us because of their inability to accept that this is the shape we are in. They do not mean to hurt us or make it harder for us…but the truth is they do. I have friends that have cried tears of pain and frustration because of these things…I have cried tears of pain and frustration in the past too because it is such a helpless feeling when you can not make your loved ones understand how sick you really are.  I have been chronically ill longer than most people I know since I started when I was 32 and am now 63 and so I realize why our loved ones do this but it still can be hurtful.

When someone implies we are not as bad as we are and we should be up doing more…it hurts and makes us feel like we have to defend our health. When someone tells us that they have a relative/friend etc that has the same symptoms that we do and they are doing just fine…it hurts us and makes us feel like those we love think we are faking or lying. When someone makes comments that our health issues are not all that serious when they are, it hurts us and we feel helpless to make anyone understand what we are suffering.

When someone who can go up and down stairs, go to flea markets and anywhere they want and they take every symptom we have and claim it as their symptoms too, it diminishes what we are going through for if they were as sick or as disabled as us..they would be like we are and not able to do things. When someone does what I call the over the top Pollyanna and makes statements like on the days we do feel a little better that it is great and must mean we are getting well….it hurts us and puts expectations on us to be something we can not and are not capable of doing and that is miraculously heal ourselves to make everyone else feel better. If we could, the first person we would do it for is ourselves and we would have already done it.

I told someone just recently that what it takes is sitting your loved ones down and saying…”I love you and I know you love me but when you say these things you make it so much harder for me. I know you want me well but I am not well and I never will be well again and so it takes all my energy to fight and keep going and when you act like it is not that bad or that I should be doing better than I am, that creates in me this feeling that I must defend myself and must explain myself over and over and sometimes it makes me feel helpless”.  I have done this with loved ones and  yes they were upset at first but when they realized that I knew they meant well but that it was making it harder for me, they stopped doing it. Many have cried because for the first time they had to admit that I am this sick and in this much pain and suffering and it will never be any different.

And now, I will use a real life example…me. Today I had a pulmonary function test to check the status of my pulmonary fibrosis and the test results were not good. My capacity of the lungs is a little more than half of what it was two years ago and two years ago I already had moderate pulmonary disease.  They said the nebulizer medicine is not doing any significant good. I was really not shocked because of how I have been lately but the written word is a lot more impacting than what you think you know. And someone just told me to take a nap and then I would be better in this sunny Pollyanna voice. Can you imagine the impact of those words when you have just received word that you have Severe pulmonary disease and it has deteriorated a lot since the last test.  My response was “no, I will not be better after a nap but I will be a little more rested”.   And the words just flew on by as they made another Pollyanna remark about how wonderful that I would be more rested and how healing it was. So, I did not bother replying. I just changed the subject.

Words …even well-meaning ones can be hurtful and put expectations on the chronically ill/disabled and make our life so much harder. Tomorrow (when I am more rested…LOL)  I will sit this person down and try to explain to them what they are doing to me when they do that.  The person means well but it is for their comfort that they said what they said…not for mine. It made them feel better to talk like that for it helped them to deny the reality of the news I just got.

Guess I sort of became the spokes person on this topic for a small group of people who all are feeling the anguish and are trying to figure out how to tell loved ones that their denial of their illness or disability made their life so much harder and created stress for them. I do not know if all of you can understand what that is like because sometimes people take it as saying to not love us or support us and it is not. It is saying that denying we are sick or getting worse or disabled and we can no longer do what we used to be able to do hurts our hearts and takes away our fight because we feel helpless if those we love can not understand and accept how sick we are, then how can anyone else.

I guess the best way to say this is…when someone does not accept our health or disabilities it diminishes us. It makes us less than we are and we have already lost part of ourselves when we became ill and/or disabled and can no longer do what we used to. We fight so hard to prove to ourselves that we are still worthy and still have something to contribute to life but when those that love us say these type of things it can make us feel worthless and hopeless. And that is the last thing we need for the fight is so hard every minute of every day. We do not need more to fight.  I hope this all makes sense. I hope it helps those who are chronically ill/disabled and I hope it helps those that love those that are chronically ill or disabled.

Life In Farmer Brown Land and Other Ramblings

Son came in today so excited because he has his first Roma tomato on the vine. He brought me pictures as it was almost 100 degrees outside and something that I can not tolerate well. I loved seeing his exuberance for the gardening. At the same time, I feel bad for him as he struggles to do it with his back like it is. Shows he takes after his mama a lot in that he pushes to do as much as he can.

Below are pictures of the Roma Tomato and lots of blooms on this plant. It is in the upside down pot.

Also son is very proud of how much the plants have grown. His corn and other plants are getting bigger and I can see them from the other side of the yard at the patio. This picture is taken from the patio.

His corn has really shot up.

This year has been a learning year on what works and what does not. He dreams of having next year raised beds with good soil hauled in and a green house. Yes, we keep on dreaming.

He also unrolled the fence and gently attached it to the new poles that he put up to widen the upper yard and remove the chicken wire fence we put up when we first moved in here for Jack. I said gently because he needs it to loosen up from being rolled so tightly so that he can stretch it to be tight on the poles. This fence will keep the deer out of the Jack area and the garden area.He has connected it to the “Back Forty” gate entrance to the lower level. I will get him to take some pics tomorrow and post them.

He has sprouted gourd plants that he hopes to sell come fall with my help. Some are bird house gourds, some are bottle gourds as they call them and look sort of like a water carafe and the third kind is called bushel basket gourds and makes huge basket shaped gourds.

 Bird house gourds are shaped like this:

image from treehugger.com

and vase gourds are shaped like this and some even decorate the cut off top as a lid.

image from grit.com

and bushel basket gourds are shaped like this an actually get as big as a bushel basket.

‘

image from gourdartgalleries.com

We hope that I am able and strong enough to paint a few of them in decorative form like these pictures are. I have a wood burner to make designs on them too and this will help to sell them. The bushel basket gourds you have to cut the plants down to about four or five gourds to funnel them into larger gourds.He is planting these on the outside of the new fence and going to let them grow off the small bank and down into the back forty. I say new fence but we have had the posts and fencing since last summer but just now got this metal fence up. If he does well growing these, we hope to add some new ones next year like the snake gourd which we were told is quite popular on the market.

which can be decorated like this and other ways.

image from gourdsbyann.com

Son also has pipe bending equipment that can do the chrome bumpers or things as small as wrought iron stands for the gourds and he hopes to make a few stands to sell them on like this:

image from shopsecondtimearound.com

One of our dreams is to have the shop in the back forty that he can work out of as he wants to work from home. He says he wants to take care of me and does not want outside help until the day comes that he can no longer do it all. And if he can work at home, then he can do this. He has several ideas for home based work that he hopes to implement once the shop is there. He just needs a small one. This is the days I wish that the “barn raising” concept was still going on and people would arrive in buggies to help “raise” the shop from the materials he is slowly buying to make his shop. We know the shop will be here and we are just holding on to our dream like we did the dream of selling the house and moving here. It will happen when it is supposed to happen and things will come one step at a time.

Tomorrow is produce drop day and son is very excited as we are going to can the vegetables we get this time. They let people take extra after everyone goes through the line once and so we hope to have quite a bit. I can no longer do the canning work but will be helping by telling him what to do as he has never canned before. One of our dreams is to widen the kitchen by removing this long useless closet off my bedroom and once the work is completed on my bathroom, my closet will be in there. This will make the kitchen close to three feet wider and have a wall for shelves that we hope to have from floor to ceiling and the canned food will go there plus other things.It also will give son room to put the island in so that he has workspace near the stove for all his chopping and cooking that he does.

Tonight has been sort of rambling. I am up in the middle of the night again with very high pain. I call it spasms but it is not just muscles in spasm. Most is very sharp intense pain from the stenosis of the spine where nerves are being pinched by the large amount of stenosis I have and that causes stabbing sharp pains like on the insides of my legs, my feet and even the tops of my shins. It almost makes me think of someone touching you in different places with an open electrical chord and sending painful shock waves through the areas. Add to that the muscles that decide to contract and it makes for a night that is definitely not on my top ten list. It is nights like these that sleep is impossible and I work hard trying to distract myself. Medicine does not touch it and sometimes all I can do is lay here with my body jerking with each sharp pain and tears rolling down my face. And now that son has my TENS unit electrodes on my back and I have it cranked up high hoping to divert some of the nerve signals to help ease things, I am going to try a little Laverne and Shirley to distract me and give me something to focus on besides the pain.

Related articles

• Video! How to make the base of a Mermaid Gourd tail (katcanpaint.wordpress.com)
• Craft a Colonial Water Cooler (education.com)
• Gourd Art! Welburn Gourd Farm GourdMasterTransparent Acrylics review (katcanpaint.wordpress.com)
• Gourd Pottery (katcanpaint.wordpress.com)
• Gourds bring Paseo Arts Fest ‘best’ award to Dover woman (newsok.com)
• Pampas Gramalote Gourds Now Available on NOVICA! (peoplenotstones.org)
• For the (Discerning) Birds! (mintchevron.com)
• Farmers’ crops struggling with lack of rain (channel3000.com)
• My First Born, The Back Forty And Gardening (workthedream.wordpress.com)
• How To Grow Tomatoes (answers.com)
• Progress on the tomato front (lydiastreet.com)
• DIY Project: Our very own vegetable garden (theitalianfork.com)

Tolerance-A Dual Concept

I was watching a National Geographic show this morning about a photographer searching for a person that he took a picture of in Afghanistan 17 years earlier and the photo made Time Magazine. He had wondered about her for she was a child there in a war-torn country and he wondered had she survived. She had and was married with children. But, more importantly, the show got me thinking about tolerance.

Tolerance is a dual concept. Some things we should have no tolerance of such as crime, mistreatment, drug use, child abuse, etc. And yet, it seems that the intolerance we should feel about these things is stemming over into all of life. People in general have become so judgmental and intolerant of others that there is constant fighting, fussing and hate going on from some.

So, what causes this intolerance. Are we unwilling to tolerate that which is different?  Are we unwilling to tolerate others from different cultures or different lifestyles? Are we unwilling to tolerate people who believe differently than we do? I remember reading posts on a forum and people were complaining of people from different cultures. One complained that this race or culture was too loud and over the top and another complained that this race or culture was too emotional. What makes a person intolerant of things that are different?

I see this when someone believes differently and people will shut others down because they do not believe the same thing as them. I have to wonder if their belief or faith is as strong as they think or do they secretly fear that others who say something different from what they believe will cause them to change their view and they can not stand that thought. I have strong beliefs such as on honesty and integrity. It does not threaten my belief system to hear someone say that it is ok to lie or steal. My beliefs are intact. But, I do have some beliefs that are not as strong and when others start talking a different path…I have two options…listen and either cement my view or change my view…..or totally deny them the opportunity to express their views thereby keeping me from feeling uncomfortable because someone disagrees with what I think.

I personally choose the first one. I listen and sometimes I change my view because the person talking has given me enough proof to show that what they are saying is true. And sometimes I just smile and nod and listen and know deep in my heart that what I believe is true. I do not have to shut them down or scream over their words that my way is right nor do I have to convince them that they are wrong. The world is made up of different beliefs. I do not have to belittle someone’s belief or tell them they are wrong or shout over them to keep them from expressing their views. I see this often on social media sites and it becomes like a war zone. And I want to say…just because someone has a different opinion than you does not make you wrong…it simply means you have a different opinion..so why are you being ugly and attacking the person who believes differently?  So, I wonder…what makes some people do this.You know me..I am always wondering.

I sometimes believe intolerance of different beliefs and cultures is just another word for fear. People fear what they do not know and fear what is different and the fear comes out in intolerance. I see people who literally put their fingers in their ears and start humming loudly so they can not hear another person state how they feel. While they may not physically do this…they are mentally. What are they afraid of?  Women would not have the right to vote if intolerance had ruled. Someone somewhere had to have a different opinion on the voting laws.  Many things have changed because someone somewhere has believed differently. Child labor laws changed because someone believed it was wrong and convinced others and a law was passed.

So, what makes us intolerant of some things and makes us tolerate other things. Why are people tolerating drug abuse, child abuse, crime, crooked politicians?  Why do we tolerate these things and do not tolerate simple differences in people because of culture or race?  Why are we not out there screaming that child abuse is wrong? Why are we not voting out of office politicians that are crooked or who do not serve the people they are there to represent? Why are we not reporting crime, abuse, fraud etc?  What makes us that way?  Is it because we feel like we can not do anything to those things but we can control how we act towards people?  What do you all think?

The Reality of Life

” Life is the reality you are creating for yourself.
Through your thoughts, feelings and actions – those thoughts, feelings or action, whether honest or dishonest, moral or immoral, with integrity or without integrity create the life you live in and that is the reality you have created for yourself- You have created your world and only you can change it.
Make a wonderful world that you would want to live in.”

Accepting responsibility for the life we have created is hard for some people because it is easier for them to blame others for the things going wrong instead of looking at their own choices and actions that caused their problems. It is never too late to correct the things we have done but that again is another choice….to stand up and be accountable for the mistakes we have made in life.

image from https://www.facebook.com/BelieveInYOU.BIY

I love this quote for it is about being accountable for our actions. Whatever we do…is that what we would want to do knowing we would no longer be here again?  For me, that means facing my creator and being accountable for the things I have done and makes me think about what I am doing on this side of heaven. I certainly do not want to be doing anything dishonest, immoral or unethical and know that will be what people remember me for. I realize that those that are this way all the time do not care what people may think when they are gone. But, I want to know that I am remembered for good things so it matters to me.

image from https://www.facebook.com/BelieveInYOU.BIY

Our lives are short in comparison to eternity and people think I am funny when I say I do not hold on to hate and anger. I find them wasted emotions. Now, I am not talking about righteous indignation over someone being injured or hurt. I am talking that hot anger …frothing at the mouth and losing the control of our mouths and saying and doing things we later regret. And hate?  I can not think of anyone I hate. I dislike certain people and certain behaviors such as lying, manipulating and unethical behavior but I do not hate anyone. To be honest, I have found I feel sorry for people who resort to this kind of behavior. Now, if you had asked me twenty or thirty years ago, I would have said I did get angry and I did hate. But time and age has taught me much and those are two things I just do not have the time or the effort to do.

I personally find that people who do those behaviors are the ones that also carry hate and anger because they believe they deserve this or that no matter how they obtain it. I am afraid that I am so honest that when a clerk has given me too much money back in change….I hand it back to them. If I have to obtain something from dishonest and manipulative methods, the true joy that comes with obtaining something really good is lost and I can not feel good about it.

‘The BEST “feeling” comes when you “realize”
that you are “perfectly” HAPPY without the things
you once thought you needed the most…’
- unknown

Now, I openly admit that son and I live simply and we are poor, living off of my disability and his 8.5 hours a week he gets paid for taking care of me. We are very happy and we have learned to wait on things. An example is my rollerball mouse got shorted when I spilled my coffee on it and the cordless regular mouse makes using the computer hard for me because of my coordination and it inflames my shoulder I injured when I fell. Now, not to worry for I will get another one on the third when my disability check comes in. We have learned to wait on things and to get it ourselves rather than do the woe is me and expect others to take care of it for us. But, I have seen people in my lifetime that use being poor as an excuse for dishonest and unethical behavior. It is not a good excuse ….in fact, it is no excuse in my book. It is the poorest excuse of all to me for just because I do not have something does not mean that I should deceive anyone to get it. Son and I have learned that many things we once thought we wanted we are perfectly happy without. I am sure I will make some people angry with this paragraph but it is the truth. Being poor is no excuse for being dishonest.

‘The PURPOSE of Life is to “Enjoy it”…
Enjoyment of life comes from feeling good about yourself.
Feeling good about yourself comes from doing the right thing.
It’s that simple! ! !’

- Dorothy Mendoza Row

No matter what shape we are in…monetarily, physically…our happiness is ours inside and up to us to foster it. Happiness does not come from the new car. Joy comes from the new car. It does not come from the new house or the new clothes or the raise…joy does. Happiness is something we have when we have nothing at all. I have seen people lose everything and yet they are still happy and you see it on their faces as they work to start over. You can not buy happiness, you can not steal it and you can not manufacture it with things. It is an oasis in the heart where there is peace and contentment no matter what you are enduring. We can be sad and still be a happy person. Sadness is like joy…it comes and goes. Happiness should remain intact within us.  It is a dance of the heart.

image from https://www.facebook.com/BelieveInYOU.BIY

Dancing with the heart is something we all should do. It is free and joyous and is where our happiness lies. Anyone can learn dance steps to dance with the feet but within hearts is our conscience and so when we dance with our hearts, we are dancing with our conscience and following what is right and good and that increases our happiness.

‘You never find yourself,
until you face the truth of being who you are…
Know yourself and the world knows you…as you really are’
- Hemanth Joshi

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