Category: consequences

Hatred again!

by worrylessjourney, posted in anger, anxiety, consequences, divided world, hatred

Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.  Unknown

poison

I don’t remember where I got this quote. I just put it in my quote book. It may have comes from another blogger if so I ask forgiveness but it is just perfect.

With what has happened recently in Christ Church, New Zealand hatred has reared its ugly head. Again we have an example of how hatred destroys lives. There is so much ado when the Muslim extremists carry out a terrorist attack and it is hard to understand why the other side doesn’t see it as the same thing when they do it. Admittedly their anger did destroy others but it also will destroy them. Anger held inside will kill. Not only will it cause problems on an emotional level but it will kill due to physical changes.

I love the song from South Pacific that talks about how this gets passed down.

You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught

When will begin to understand that the world is growing smaller and smaller and we are more alike as human beings than we are different?

When will we be able to turn away from hatred and anger?

Entitled?

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, belief, consequences, ethical, frustration, perspective

Entitlement. A word that raises my blood pressure the moment I hear it. There are so many issues around this word.

entitle

Thee have been many discussions about millennials feeling entitled but they are not alone. The news has been full of wealthy people who have paid to get their children into prestigious schools. Some have paid millions. Money has made them entitled. I don’t think that this is uncommon. Whether it is movie stars, billionaires, politicians or others many today feel that they are special. The problem is they feel they are special beyond their particular world. A great many of them have a “greater than” attitude toward the rest of us.

They believe they are better than the social worker who spends her life helping people… better than the worker who has two jobs to support his family… better than the teacher who takes time to be sure pupils get the best education possible.

They feel entitled to pronounce on topics they know little about because they are smarter, prettier, wealthier. We are expected to fawn on them and understand that they are indeed special.

Some people indeed are prettier, wealthier, more famous or important in terms of popularity or being known. That does not give them the right to  look down on others.

self-entitlement-quote-1

So many people never heard of love mankind more deeply, work harder to help others, work to save the earth, live lives of honesty and duty and many other traits. Let’s let them be entitled.

The flawed plan

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, choices, consequences, frustration, Laugh

bad plan

Today has been quite a day. My son was supposed to come and help my husband fix a leaking pipe in our yard. Unfortunately, he hurt his knee and couldn’t help. My husband is pretty handy but forgets we are aging and decided to tackle it anyway. He also forgets he has had knee surgery and is not totally bendable. Bad idea.

He dug part of the hole where the pipes are and had to quit. I went to help and dug the rest of the hole. We then had to cut the old pipes away to fix the leak. The water was shut off at the main. Somehow that general cutoff for the water wouldn’t close completely although we didn’t know that at first. Since my husband couldn’t get down in the hole guess who did? He gave me a tool to cut the pipes which sort of worked….except I had to finally use a hacksaw to finish the three pipes. After taking away the cut pieces it was time to try and put new in,

pipes

The pipe from the water main just kept running….enough to fill the hole with water. Then to get to the pipes I had to bail water out of the hole (while some continued to run in). I was faster and we got the water down enough to see the pipes but water continued to run. This was the point where I called a halt and said “we are calling a plumber.” The only problem being that this is Sunday. We had to find some way to stop the flow for now and still be able to turn the water back on.

My husband managed to find a shutoff valve that he was able to glue onto the pipe spewing water and get it stopped. Water is back on and so far so good. The plumbers will be called in the morning. I think we started this whole scenario at about 1 pm and finished around 4 pm.

Thank goodness for a sense of humor. If I couldn’t laugh about this I would be ready to let loose with some very bad language. Now that I am out of the hole, showered and fed things look a lot better. This will go down in the family annals as what happens when you overreach.

Sense-of-Humor-864x486

We are both tired and still speaking to each other. Time to put this day behind us.

The things we regret

by worrylessjourney, posted in choices, compassion, consequences, guilt, mistakes, Uncategorized
Following is the prayer we said today at Ash Wednesday service. I think that these words are something that we all need to hear. All of us have things to regret. I have printed it complete on my other blog.
have-regrets
We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others as we have been forgiven.
Our past unfaithfulness, the pride, envy, hypocrisy, and apathy that have infected our lives, we confess to you.
Our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people, we confess to you.
Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to share the faith that is in us, we confess to you.
Our neglect of human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty, we confess to you.
Our false judgments, our uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us, we confess to you.
Our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us, we confess to you.

Testing Christianity

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, change, connections, consequences, expectations, hope, life changes, perspective

It is so sad that Christianity is struggling today. There have been so many issues not confined to one group. The Catholics have been fighting sex scandals for years and this seems to be the most explosive. The United Methodists made decisions recently that may split the denomination. Episcopalians meeting in England were distressed to have same sex spouses barred from the proceedings. These are all mainline churches.

testing

The less united denominations don’t seem to have suffered as much since members who disagree just move elsewhere. However, over the years, they have suffered from what seems to be leaders who took advantage of them.

time for change

Christianity has been tested before. Usually it seems to help people assess what it means to them and what it is really about. The way it looks after this testing we can’t know. It may be radically different. Hopefully people will look deeply into their hearts and draw closer to the deeper meanings of that faith. All I know is that testing usually results in change. Hopefully for the better.

Turn your back on anger

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, anger, calm, consequences, perspective, Uncategorized

Have you had somebody or something make you angry recently. There are some things that can really get me going. Rude people come to mind first. Some people are so angry themselves that they seem to want to rub it off on you. They appear to be angry at everything. The anger just seeps out of them.

That is a sad way to be. I used to get angry more than I do now. That may be because I was in situations where it was easy to get mad about something. Now that I am retired and can just stay away from things that bother me I am much better off.

Frequently anger masks some deeper emotion. If something hurts us we often respond in anger. It masks the hurt and allows us to hide it. Showing the hurt makes us vulnerable.  People who go around angry all the time usually have a lifetime of hurt behind them and their current behavior sets them up for more hurt.

There may be times when anger helps us to get past a bad situation but holding on to anger does nothing but hurt us. Our anger may not even affect the person or situation that caused it. The person it hurts is us.

Think about how you feel when you are angry. Your heart rate increases. Your blood pressure rises. You can feel your body gearing up to fight. This decreases your immunity, takes oxygen and moves it where it will be needed for quick response. All these responses can cause lasting problems. Just writing about it can cause me to feel some of those reactions.

It is not worth it to hold onto anger. Maybe the best response is to not show anger. My father used to say when someone pushes your buttons the thing that will cause them the most angst is to not respond in the same way. They will be frustrated by your lack of response. It is more aggravating to them than anything else can be. You not only save yourself from the results of anger and one of two things will happen… Your “turning the other cheek” will either calm the situation or escalate their anger. Either way you come out ahead.

A useful skill

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, compassion, consequences, kindness, listening, misunderstanding, perspective, Uncategorized

puzzleTomorrow I go to do a Mediation. I volunteer as a mediator for court mandated (and sometimes chosen by people) help with settling problems. Doing this brings an interesting perspective to my own life.

Working with the cases I see opens a world where pettiness and anger are often primary. Money, of course, is at issue but sometimes the silliness is overwhelming. Compromise is not a word that most of the clients have any knowledge of. You would think that the aggravation of filing a suit, having to go to mediation, not settling and then going to court would make someone think logically.

In most cases that I have mediated logic has gone out the window and the opponents are functioning from feelings alone. (Of course this is not the case when the case is about money owed to credit card companies or others similar.) I am talking about two people who cannot settle their differences because of some underlying emotion.

Compassion, understanding and listening are important things to learn and use. Many times just listening allows us to hear what is underneath and find out where the real pain is. Listening to both sides is critical to the mediation process and in our lives. Real listening is truly absorbing not only what is being said, but what is not said.

listening2

I feel useful helping but I have also learned to value the opportunities that show up in my own life where kindness and understanding can defuse the problems. I can see the times where my own willingness to compromise has solved the issue. I am not patting myself on the back but being grateful for learning that, the majority of the time, there there are better ways to handle things than to file a law suit. Sometimes people just need to be heard. This requires someone actually listening.

 

A Serious Problem

by worrylessjourney, posted in addiction, answers, anxiety, compassion, consequences, coping, depression, emotions, help

Caveat: This blog talks about the partners addiction and suicide.

addiction2

Recently our family has watched a (for me) distant member continue to self destruct. From early on in his life he has been addicted. I suspect alcohol at first but quickly drugs. He has been to rehab many times and now in his twenties he was in a serious accident with his transportation. A short while before this he was hospitalized for an overdose. In the hospital following this latest incident it seems he has expressed that he couldn’t cope any longer.

I can imagine that to have spent most of your life battling addiction, always needing drugs, in and out of rehab unsuccessfully, it would be difficult to see anything in your future except continued pain. I can understand the desire to end it all.

Several blogs have talked about that kind of hopelessness. It is devastating to feel that there is nothing that you can do to stop the circle of pain. Most of the blogs that talk about this have suffered from mental health issues and many have found help with medications, therapy and coping skills. Unfortunately, I know several families who have suffered with the problem as it relates to addiction and wish there were more successful help for sufferers. Some people are helped by rehab but there are those for whom rehab is not enough. It has made me suspect that for these people there are underlying problems, possibly mental health issues, that have never been identified and addressed.

touched by pain

It makes me suspect these victims have spent their lives self-medicating their unaddressed mental health problem with drugs and/or alcohol. I hope that as we look more carefully into the people who are suffering with this that more help can be found.

We are a whole not parts

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, anxiety, balance, consequences, coping, medical, strength, viewpoint, wellness, wholeness

It has been two weeks since I was so sick with IBSD. I have been so well in general that the episode completely blind-sided me. Now I am experiencing the hangover. Since these particular episodes always occur between 9 and 10 in the evening I get anxious each night around that time.

The irony is that this kind of episode only crops up, at the most, once a year. It will take weeks for it to fade from my mind and then I will be fine.

journey-to-wholeness

It is so amazing what we can do to ourselves. I am fine physically but my mind clings to the latest event. So what to do? I have increased my prayer and quiet time, continued my regular routine and let that event become a memory that will fade. Learning and using coping skills is such a critical piece to our health and wholeness. We must remember that we were created as whole beings….not separate parts. Everything that we do affects our entire being.

One of the problems with out medical systems today is that we are not see this way but as different parts managed by different physicians. Not only do they not see beyond their specialty but they seldom communicate with each other.

wholeness2

 

We must learn to be our own advocates. Even if a physician ignores or puts you down for your concerns and conclusions about your care remember who sees the end result. Don’t ever be afraid to speak your mind and if you have someone who can’t accept that change to someone else. Never let a caregiver dismiss you. Each of us is just a important as the person caring for us. Never forget it.

What ifs

by worrylessjourney, posted in choices, consequences, control, coping, responsible, Uncategorized

what ifs

It is so easy to fall into thinking that we can control outcomes in life. When things don’t work the way we want we start with the “What ifs.” If I had only finished something at work faster, if I had only been nicer, if I had turned left instead of right. Depending on the situation we can blame ourselves for what happened. We can also blame someone or something else. One way leaves us feeling guilty and the other way exonerates us but leaves us angry and wanting to lay blame on someone.

responsibleThere is also the problem of responsibility. Some families have solved their children’s mistakes so many times that the child has no sense of responsibility for their actions. They have not suffered any consequences. Unfortunately, we need to be held accountable early on in life or when something happens that can’t be fixed then the result can be devastating.

 

Life is unpredictable. When we are truly at fault we need to take responsibility but we can’t take on guilt for the vagaries of the world. Knowing the difference between these two is a critical life skill.

When situations arise take a hard look and sift through what happened. Learn to use some perspective and don’t take on things that are uncontrollable. Don’t lose yourself in the “what ifs.”