Have a great Christmas! If you don’t celebrate Christmas, have a great week anyway, and see you after!
Posts Tagged ‘life’
Merry Christmas!
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009Clothing and weather: just an observation
Monday, November 9th, 2009As the weather gets cooler, it’s interesting to watch how people adjust their mode of dress.
Some people habitually wear as little clothing as possible, and continue to wear shorts and tank tops well into fall. Personally, I like to wear as much clothing as possible, because a) I like cooler weather, and b) I like the aesthetically pleasing effect of layers, with all the different color, pattern, and texture combinations.
So on any given fall day, you might see the whole range, from shorts and tank tops to jackets and furry boots. The other thing I notice, however, is that people tend to respond more to clouds vs. sun than to high vs. low temperature. It could be cold and sunny, and you see a tendency toward less clothing. Warm and overcast, however, and you see more clothing.
I have a feeling that this is more psychological than an actual sensation of being hot or cold.
Just an interesting observation.
Missed opportunity
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009Today I stopped at my local Grocery Outlet to pick up a few things. I usually go there once a week to see what bargains I can bag, then get the remainder of my list at the regular grocery store.
As I pulled into the parking lot, I saw a guy standing in one of the planted areas holding a sign, which I slowed down to read. I may not have seen the entire message, but I did catch the word “homeless.”
I used to not pay too much attention to homeless people, thinking that a lot of them are probably substance abusers and too scary to approach. But these days, it seems there are so many of them. This young man looked about the age of my kids; in fact, I thought for a moment that I recognized him. I think I was mistaken about that.
After finding a space, I looked in my wallet. I had only a single ten-dollar bill. Not wanting to give him everything I had, I figured I’d come up with a plan while in the store. In the end, I came up with the simple solution of getting another ten-dollar bill at checkout.
When I came out, the young man was gone. Sadly, with the ten-dollar bill on the passenger seat, I drove around the parking lot; perhaps he’d relocated to another corner. No luck—he was simply gone. I drove home, wanting to cry. This guy could’ve eaten some decent food for ten dollars, especially if he shopped at Grocery Outlet!
Then I realized my stupidity. I could have simply given him the original ten-dollar bill, and gotten a new one for myself. I can only hope he found something better. Or that I’ll see him again. Or, best of all, that his fortune changes.
What a wonderful world
Monday, October 12th, 2009I went to San Francisco Saturday with my family. I had not been to SF just to “hang out” (although I’ve driven through it, and once attended a seminar at a hotel near the airport) in at least 25 years. That is pretty unbelievable, considering it is only about a three-hour drive away, even with a reasonable amount of traffic.
What an experience for the senses! It would require a large amount of space to describe even a little of what there was to see, hear, smell, etc., in the short time I was there. So I’ll focus on one small area: Ghirardelli Square. Ghirardelli’s claim to fame is, of course, chocolate. But the fascinating sight was the people!
Star Wars characters were there: Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and some storm troopers, in absolutely convincing costumes. There was a quartet of men in jackets and ties playing instrumental music; just out of earshot of them was a younger man singing and playing guitar. Little kids finger-painted at some tables set up for the purpose. People sat around drinking coffee drinks.
And most of the people there frequently stopped what they were doing to look up and watch the Blue Angels, who were doing maneuvers overhead—sometimes very close to the surface of the water. Everyone, I’m sure, was marveling at the skill possessed by the pilots of those jets, who were using their skill for no other obvious reason than to entertain us. And it cost us nothing at all beyond whatever it cost just to get there.
The world is full of amazing “stuff.” Sometimes we forget to notice!
Like riding a bicycle
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009We’ve all heard the saying, “It’s like riding a bicycle—once you learn how, you never forget.”
I recently joined the local fencing club. Last night was my first class. (For the uninitiated, fencing is like pretend sword fighting.) I had learned a bit about fencing way back in high school, in an acting class. So here we were, at the first class, practicing en garde, thrust, and lunge.
The instructor, inspecting each student’s form, asked me if I’d taken fencing before. I answered, “Yeah, 35 years ago.” (It was actually a bit more than that.) “Everything is just right,” he said. Imagine that! 36 or 37 years after learning these moves, I can still do them correctly. Apparently fencing, like many other things in life, is like riding a bicycle. You never forget.
So what’s the broader application here? It’s that we can “remember” how to do anything we’ve done before. What are you struggling with? Whatever it is, surely you’ve succeeded at something in your life, and surely you remember what success feels like. Practice feeling successful. You’ve done it before. You never forget.
As I discuss in my e-book Help! I Need a Hug, we can re-learn success by re-living the feeling of success. Try it!
The curious concept of aging backward
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009Have you seen the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? If you haven’t seen the movie or read the story, then just briefly:
Benjamin is born the size of a newborn baby, but looking like a little old man and having numerous old-age afflictions such as arthritis. As time goes by, he grows in size accordingly, but becomes more youthful and robust.
The explanation for this phenomenon is that on the day of his birth—the final day of World War I—a clockmaker unveiled a clock he’d created for the city’s train station. The clock ran backward, because, you see, the clockmaker had lost a son in the war, and he desperately hoped that time running in reverse might bring back his son and all the other young men lost in the war.
Of course, Benjamin’s condition has never actually occurred in medical history. Yet in a way, it’s merely a magnification of what happens to all of us. Part of Benjamin’s burden is that he cannot form long-term relationships. Very few people know about his condition; an acquaintance of more than a short time would need an explanation, which was difficult to give.
All of us, if we live long enough, see people around us growing old and infirm and dying. Some people, by reason of genetics or lifestyle, age faster than others. And sometimes we may be tempted to avoid forming a relationship with someone simply because it’s so hard to watch them go before us. (This is truer still with pets, of course.)
While I didn’t particularly love this movie (it was too long, I found the part about Hurricane Katrina a distraction, and I wasn’t terribly fond of any of the characters), I did find it philosophically intriguing. Benjamin is really just an extreme case of the human condition, and on that level, I empathized with him.
The Mary Poppins effect, part 2
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009Another aspect of Mary Poppins that didn’t have a significant impact on me as a child—but did now—was Uncle Albert’s peculiar habit of laughing so hard he levitates up to the ceiling. Remember the scene? Mary, along with Jane, Michael, and Bert, goes to visit Uncle Albert because he’s having a particularly severe spell of…what? Jollity, merriment, the giggles? Anyway, he’s up there, telling corny jokes and laughing until he tumbles head-over-heels, just below the ceiling.
Then the others catch what he has—first the children, then Bert, and finally Mary—and they all end up having a tea party while hovering in the air.
It all reminds me of Marci Shimoff’s book Happy for No Reason. Do we really need a “reason” to laugh so hard that we float—if not literally, at least figuratively? I say no! So be happy, laugh, and infect others with your happiness.
The Mary Poppins effect, part 1
Monday, September 14th, 2009I watched Mary Poppins on DVD over the weekend. I’d seen the movie as a kid, when it was new in the theater. I can’t remember if I saw it again, perhaps on TV, in the intervening years.
When you watch a movie again as an adult, of course, you get something rather different out of it. Such was the case with Mary Poppins. As a kid, I grieved along with Jane and Michael Banks as Mary packed up to leave. “Don’t you love us, Mary Poppins?” they asked. I figured the Banks family had found their perfect nanny at last and that they’d all live happily ever after—until Jane and Michael outgrew the need for nannies, anyway. But it was not to be; she left just as everyone was getting happy. How mean! Yet she must have had her reasons, I figured, even at that age: someone as sweet and wonderful as Mary Poppins wouldn’t be mean on purpose.
Now, of course, I understand. Mary Poppins had other kids to take care of, other families to “fix.” The Bankses were forever changed; they had been a dysfunctional family with unruly kids who’d frightened off a whole string of nannies. During Mary’s brief stay, Mr. Banks learned to appreciate his kids, and the entire household was left in a better state than it was before her arrival. And this is how it is with many of the people and events in our lives—we’re happy when they come, and sad when they go, but, if we are wise, are forever changed.
Retroactive validation
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009One of the really cool things about social media (like Facebook) is our unprecedented ability to find people. We can find people from the past, old friends and classmates, former colleagues, all kinds of people. And with that, sometimes, comes a special kind of validation.
We might find people from high school who were “too cool” to associate with us, and now they’re older and don’t look so cool anymore. We might find people we weren’t particularly friendly with, and now they’re more than happy to be friendly. We might find old colleagues from a job we left, and make a new business contact.
Reconnections, closure, retroactive validation. It’s all good.
Tweetup!
Friday, August 28th, 2009Have you ever been to a Tweetup? If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s simply a “meetup” of people who use Twitter (and/or other social media platforms).
It’s a really cool event where you meet in person people you previously knew only online. Of course it will include only people who live in the same local area. But that’s kind of the idea: combine your virtual world with your real world. And it’s something that couldn’t have even happened just a few years ago!
Tweetup: it’s like making new friends in your neighborhood faster because you already “know” them online…or at least someone you know knows them. What could be more fun?