Category: frustration

Southern Living

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, appearance, beauty, frustration, funny, weather

Today has been productive…. I think. I spent the morning wrkin in the garden. I completed some planting and cleaned out several flower beds. I felt really good about it although tired. However, at this moment there are some tree surgeons cutting limb from our oak tree. It needed pruning. the bad part is they are right over the beds I just worked on and I will be lucky if my flower beds are still in good shape. Oh well, life is never boring. Nothing like having to do the word twice.

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Some of the flower beds…view from porch

Working in the garden is such a great time for me. There is something about planting and watching things grow that renews the spirit. Maybe someday I will manage to get it looking great. The problem is that it is so big and so demanding. Keeping the vines off the azaleas is a full time job so I seldom have time for the fun things. Today I took the time and planted some things that should decrease the work in the long run.

There is nothing better than sitting on the porch in the evening…watching the sunset and seeing a beautiful landscape. Maybe someday for the landscape but the sunset is always beautiful.

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Birds massing the bird feeder

Spring now bypassed us as our temperature have been 90-100 all week. Hopefully this is not how the rest of the summer will go. A little cooler would be nice.

I hope those of you who are in spring are enjoying it. For us it slips by so fast and summer keeps going through September. “That’s what I like about the south!”

Can we learn soon?

by worrylessjourney, posted in anxiety, connections, consequences, coping, danger, frustration, grief, mistakes, responsible, worry

In Iroquois society, leaders are encouraged to remember seven generations in the past and consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people. 
-Wilma Mankiller, the first female Chief of the Cherokee Nation

I have always admired the insight of Native Americans. Their wisdom seems to reach a depth not always found in our society. When I look around at what we have done to the earth it is apparent that we don’t look ahead at all. Too often it is all about money and/or power. Two things that are so transient.

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To nurture the earth will allow human life to continue. If we don’t we don’t survive. I was talking with someone recently about “Mother Nature” and how she always seems to bite back. If we find an antibiotic to cure a disease it has the potential to change to something that we can’t fix. Eventually the earth itself will kill us off. Either as a direct result of what we have done or by what has evolved because of our hubris.

The Episcopal Prayer Book calls the earth: “this fragile earth, our island home.” The earth is fragile and I weep for what has been done.

I still have hope that people will wake up and change. In my experience we often wait until such a crisis occurs that there is no option but to change. I hope we don’t wait too long. Whatever is in our future I hope that we will learn, change and care for the earth. It is our only home.

 

Do they know how to fix it?

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, answers, calm, consequences, control, coping, electronic devices, frustration, gardening, help, impatience

Technology is wonderful….until it isn’t. The more complex it gets the more can go wrong. I have spent three days trying to resolve a problem with my cable, phone, internet, provider. Their system has become so complex that even the people who work for them don’t know what is going on.

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The first person I dealt with was in the store. A very nice person who admitted that so much had been changed with their offerings that he was unsure about what channels were available with each plan. My husband was adamant about having certain channels and we were assured that they would be there. You guessed it…they weren’t. I had a very unhappy husband when he turned the TV on.

Next I got on a chat session with another agent who assured me that adding one premium channel would fix the problem. Ha! Didn’t happen.

The next morning I again chatted with an agent. In the meantime I had spent time on the web site searching for quite a while to access the channel line up so that I knew what had to be done. I told the agent what was necessary to fix the issue. He agreed but then wanted me to sign up for home security. The total would be less that I am paying now. Because of that I agreed. He made the changes and guess what? Still no channels!

This morning I again tackled the problem with another agent on chat and wrote out step by step what I wanted done. I didn’t give him a chance to decide. By this time I could work for the company. Finally what I needed was taken care of and we are all set.

It is amazing that things have become so complicated that even the people who work with them don’t know what is going on or how to fix things. I am reasonably tech savvy and wanted to just do the fixing for them.

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My level of frustration was high after all of this and I took to gardening to reach a level of calm. Potting plants can sure remove tension!

Entrenched

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, aggravations, comparisons, consequences, frustration

It is interesting to note that if someone disagrees with you in today’s world they may not be willing to discuss it.Instead they may get angry and yell. Divisions are so apparent and people are entrenched so deeply that there is no reasoning with them. Can’t we learn to allow others to have another idea?

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.

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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.

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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,

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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.

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

Fired into beauty

by worrylessjourney, posted in appearance, beauty, calm, coping, empathy, frustration, perspective, strength

swan 2

This is been a strange week. For the first time in forever I didn’t write at all for two different days. Both times life was overwhelming and it just didn’t work. For someone who is retired it seems strange that I have had very little time to do anything. Things are slacking off now and I hope to see a more normal pace. Is there any such thing as normal?

Have you ever noticed how some people seem to have one trauma after another and others seem to drift through life unscathed? I just want to shake my fist at God and say unfair! unfair! It just doesn’t seem right. To make it worse sometimes the ones who have just floated through are also the worst people.

Looking at these things from the outside is probably not logical. Who can really know what is going on underneath. It’s like the saying about the swan. Serene on the surface but paddling madly underneath.

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Maybe the people who have been through the fire have been formed into beautiful vessels. Most of the ones I know have so much more compassion and ability to care than others. With all their trials they can still support and care for those around them. You can actually feel the vibrancy of their empathy. It radiates from within.

No one knows what form us. Some can be broken by events and some make finer. When that happens it is a beautiful thing to see.

Are we willing to wait?

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, expectations, frustration, Uncategorized

I like to bake bread. This week I decided that I wanted some sourdough bread but had no starter. It takes time to make starter. You have to let it sit for at least several days to sort of ferment. The starter did beautifully and I used a recipe for the bread that said let it rise for 12 to 24 hours. I left it for one afternoon and it rose out of the bowl. Needless to say the starter works. (it is what makes sourdough bread rise)

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The process to make this bread takes time and patience. Today most of us don’t want to wait. We don’t want to do anything that takes time. We have little patience. Yet patience pays. Look what happened when I was willing to take some time. The bread not only rose but rose way up. Time can yield results if we allow it.

We have to learn to be willing to wait. Good things can come of it.

A group dictatorship?

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, anger, anxiety, change, complacency, frustration, stress

This may not be a very popular thing to say but recently I have realized that we live in a dictatorship. It is no longer what it set out to be. When the people who govern the nation, even though elected, make laws that do not apply to them, raise their own salaries, have their own healthcare and retire with all the benefits they have been living under while in office then it is not a democracy or a democratic republic. It is a dictatorship by a group.

Dictatorship in this instance refers to an autocratic form of absolute rule by leadership unrestricted by laws, constitutions, or other social and political factors within the state. (I found this on the web with no attribution, sounds similar to what is happening.)

This is certainly not what the founders envisioned. They thought that representatives of the people would serve for a while and return home to their lives. There was no intention that they would live out their lives in government.

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Too bad it didn’t work out that way. The congress and senate have the reigns in their hands and there is no safeguard in the constitution to revoke the process. It doesn’t seem to be an issue for the Supreme Court, our third safeguard, but maybe it could be in some way. I am not a government expert but I have asked some who are if there is any way that the people can demand a national amendment by themselves. They have told me no. If this is so then the only recourse is revolution which none of us want.

I don’t see any way to dis-empower those running the show. And really, would you vote to take all these things away from yourself? The fox is definitely guarding the hen house.

The nation is so divided at this point I doubt that any consensus could be found and most people are too complacent to do anything. Somehow no matter party or any affiliation we must make some majors changes. This is an issue for us all.

We can no longer see ourselves as a “democratic republic” but an Empowered Group Dictatorship. What do we do now?

 

24 hours to rant

by worrylessjourney, posted in aggravations, anxiety, choices, control, coping, feelings, frustration, life changes, wisdom

status-quoI have been thinking about the words “status quo.” There are many people who struggle against change of any kind. They fight for things to remain the same. The problem is that things never stay the same no matter what.

The one thing we can count on is that things will change. Sometimes that change is for the better, sometimes not. One of the greatest lessons we can learn is how to cope with change.

Recently I have used the term “new normal.” This is how I describe the pattern that is present in my life at the moment. I hope that this pattern will hang on for a while. Patterns give me peace. But I can surely count that, at some time, everything will change again.

pity partyCoping with change is one of the critical lessons we can learn. The ability to let go of our previous “normal” and move on to another has a lot to do with our state of mind. For those of us who battle anxiety change is a trigger word. It can send our whole world into a tailspin. Coping mechanisms for dealing with change are a must. I have a friend who says that when change happens that is negative we are entitled to fuss, fume, and cry about it…..for 24 hours. I have found this works. Just being able to rant for a while seems to get some of the frustration out and it helps me to move forward. I may be having a pity party alone or with someone…it doesn’t matter. It helps either way. There is a positive to venting. Let all those feelings out! Then move on.

When change comes use all the coping skills in your arsenal to overcome fear and anxiety.  It can be done!