Today I read a new Book called "My ''B'' Book''. the story is about Little ''B''who has a box.
She started filling her box with many things including; a bird, a bee, a bunny, and a baby baboon with a banana. Her box became full, so she put it in a basket on her bicycle. She fell off the bike, and the box emptied. She then found a ball and the baboon played base. ball. Ashleigh
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The above is a Jimi Hendrix quote. I figured I'd roll with the topic my dad chose for today; as he suggested earlier. While Jimi had some amazing quotes, this one stood out to me. I don't think enough people actually take into consideration how short life really is- and that it is SOLELY OURS. No one else's. This quote makes a lot of sense. No one should be allowed to control your life besides you; because in the end, you're the one who dies for it. You are the one who endures the suffering of your actions and gets the results of your own choices- not anyone else.
Yes, your choices may INFLUENCE others in many different ways- but they are YOURS and will affect you more than anyone else. Every single mistake that you make in your life forms you, builds you into the person you become. As a child, perhaps you hear your parents tell of their youth and of all the stupidity they got themselves into. Often times, these stories end with a warm-hearted, reminiscent chuckle and then a stern warning to not make the same stupid mistake they did. However... sometimes you have to make the mistake yourself to learn from it. Like your parents' mistakes affected them in their lives; your mistakes must affect you. You can't always go by what people tell you, even if it seems obvious. Now I don't mean to go throw yourself off the deep end and make ALL the mistakes; I'm simply stating that if you DO ever repeat your parents' mistakes... it's okay. Everyone experiences life differently. And sometimes, you DO need to experience it to find out what you like and don't like. I've mentioned this in previous posts... I have a friend who's parents are forcing her into the Air Force against her will. Because THEY liked the experience. She has no interest in it and gets negative feelings from it. Therefore, she shouldn't be forced to. Experiences work in both good AND bad forms- and we need to realize this. We all. Experience. Life. Differently. Experience it at your own pace. Choose your own experiences. Just make sure they won't be CLEARLY regrettable. At the end of the day, your life is your own and that's all it ever will be. No one else controls your mind or your actions besides you. You have a lot more power over yourself than you may realize. Don't abuse it. Let your death be worth something. ~Maddie I read a new book today, called My "L" Book. Little ''L" had a box. He filled it with leaves,
lizards and logs. He walked to a lake and saw a lobster. He caught the lobster and put it in his box. He met a lion and a leopard and gave them lollipops. When he put the leopard in the box, the lobster pinched him. Then all of the animals leaped out of the box! Ashleigh "It is hard to understand addiction, unless you have experienced it." That is a quote by Ken Hensley. He was the lead singer for Uriah Heep way back in the 70's. He was also a member of Blackfoot for a while, too. Anyway, someone I know sent around a black balloon on Facebook asking people to share it if they know someone who is suffering or had suffered with alcoholism or addiction. I shared the post since my wife died of her addiction. And the balloon has kept me thinking of Sharon since this morning.
Hensley's quote is correct, I think. Most people have no clue what they are talking about when they talk about addiction. People who don't know what happened with my wife have told me that "they can stop f they want to" or "they need to hit bottom first". If you ever hear either of those statements thrown out when talking to someone about addiction, then I can guarantee you that they do not know what they are talking about. I have had counselors tell me that Sharon needed to hit bottom before she could recover. Well, Sharon hit bottom after bottom, and never quit. I truly believe she wanted to quit...she suffered mightily not being able to be around her children. And yet, she never stopped drinking. She lost her house, her children, her husband. She went in and out of jail and rehab facilities, yet she drank until it killed her. Everyone is not the same. For some, a large loss of some type will start them on the road to recovery. For others, nothing will stop them if the issue that started the downward spiral to begin with isn't addressed. I hope that people fill Facebook with black balloons to bring awareness to alcoholism and addiction. So many families suffer from it. A couple of people have shared the balloon so far. I am honestly not expecting many to do so, however. So few people recognize their own addictions, or those of the ones they love unless it is a hard drug of some sort. No one thinks of their smoking friends as addicts...or their friends who like to get drunk on the weekends as alcoholics. If people miss those easy ones, then they certainly won't realize the people who are addicted to carbs or the people suffering from an eating disorder. For those of you who know me, if you see the balloon up on my wall, share it. I doubt it will help anyone...or really make a difference at all for any addicts. What it might do, though, is help to remind someone who has lost someone to addiction that the person they lost wasn't trying to hurt them. That addiction is a disease and that it needs to be treated as such. If you know someone who is suffering from an addiction, don't wait for them to hit bottom. The bottom they hit may be the bottom of a grave. There is no easy answer to addiction, but pretending that the person "did it to themselves" is NOT the answer. If you know someone who needs help, there are places that can be useful. Here is a List of Rehabs. Click on the link and it will show you rehabs in your area. The two that Sharon went to did not help her. Sharon had addictive personality disorder and her circumstances made it very hard to diagnose. We sent her to alcohol rehabs, when in actuality she likely needed a program that was designed for multiple addictions. Share the balloon, and share the above link. Who knows, maybe someone will be helped by it. sThis quote is so true. In today's culture; so many people are fake in an attempt to be "perfect" and I blame TV for all of it. 99% of the shows on TV give us false expectations of what life should be- from fake smiles and looks to fake scenarios that never happen; we live in this horrible reality that our lives must match those on TV or they aren't good enough. I have news for you; what goes on in the television RARELY happens in real life... so if you base your life's expectations on television then you will wind up living a sad and unfulfilled life.
I've also seen people (sadly, some of my friends) base their lives off of magazines and even off of people they knew who they deemed better than them. They wind up being sad and hurting themselves in an effort to reach "perfection". No one has a perfect life and I don't care WHO they are. Everyone has their own issues and struggles to take care of... and while you may find yourself wishing that you could live the life of another... you wouldn't last a day in their shoes. In the end, we are all created unique and different; for different purposes. No matter how similar we may seem, we all have different strengths and weaknesses and the tasks we are given in life are set to how much we can take. Sometimes we get pushed to our breaking points and past them... and each struggle is different. We all have different limits and need to know that. ~Maddie Thanksgiving is coming up in the next few weeks. Halloween is still my favorite Fall holiday.
Christmas is my favorite holiday over all, though. We usually eat turkey on Thanksgiving, followed by pie and ice cream. I give thanks for my family on Thanksgiving. Ashleigh "Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking." That's a quote from Marcus Aurelius. Best known as a stoic philosopher, he was also a Roman Emperor! Out of the two, I'd rather be known as a stoic philosopher. Still, if he wasn't Emperor, I doubt we would know him as a philosopher at all. Why is it we remember the names of generals and politicians that led to the death and suffering of thousands of people, yet never know the names of common people who did incredible things?
The answer to that last question is likely the quote! Think about it, billions of people have lived since the beginning of time. I am certain that many of them lived overly happy lives. Some of them may have been brutally short, but happy nonetheless. What makes for happiness? Do you need to be a stoic philosopher or a Roman Emperor? I think not. And what about Marcus Aurelius himself? He seems to have lived half his life as emperor on campaign, killing people. Does THAT make for a happy man? For a man who espoused a philosophy of service and duty, probably. Think about that. Service and duty. Does a man owe service to anyone but himself or his family? What is a person's true duty? And who decides that? Do we owe service to the state? Why? Most large "states" have become corrupted over time. Should we serve corruption? I believe the best service we can do for someone is to teach them how to think. Not what to think, mind you, but HOW to think. Too many people seem to go through life without taking their individual actions to their logical conclusions. I will smoke a cigarette now, because I like the feeling that the nicotine gives me. Multiply this actions by the thousands of times that may happen over a lifetime and you have a good chance of getting lung cancer. I am not just getting down on smokers here folks. What about the person who relaxes with a beer? Or the person who calms their fears with a doughnut? My wife drank herself to death. Esophageal varacies to be exact. She had first gotten esophageal varacies and was told she needed to stop drinking or she was going to die. She stopped for a while, but her addiction got the best of her, and she eventually went back to drinking and died from it. She isn't the only one. Others have been diagnosed with diabetes and kept eating sugary snacks. They figure, this one doughnut won't kill me...never thinking that it isn't the one, but the compilation of the many. That last example was my Dad. My Dad taught me many things, but the one lesson that had a huge impact on me is a lesson he never knew he taught me. Watching him die from the complications from his diabetes taught me that that is not how I want to go out of this world. By the time he passed, my Dad was taking about seventeen pills a day, He had numerous heart operations, he had had toes amputated and he was on dialysis. His last couple of years were very tough on him. I sometimes wonder if he had ever thought past the pleasure of that doughnut, or that full sugar soda, to what they may cause later. When I was younger, I never thought past the immediate pleasure. I started to look past it, originally when I was in college and I saw how my grades were suffering from a lack of study and too much drinking. I put myself in AA then, to help get past my problem and get my grades back. I did it, eventually. I graduated in five years, but sadly went back to "casually" drinking. Essentially, I was a functional alcoholic. I finally stopped once my wife (then my girlfriend) confessed that she was an alcoholic and asked me to help her stop. I quit right then and tried to help her to do the same. Unfortunately, she was never able to stop and fourteen years later she was dead. Seeing what was happening to my Dad started me on a road to eating healthier. I read up on diabetes and sent him articles trying to educate him on the disease and help him to make changes to his lifestyle that would help him. I don't think he read any of them. I did read, them, though, and made changes to my own lifestyle to help me not to follow in his footsteps. At one time, my blood tests showed that I was just a tad below being considered pre-diabetic. That scared me. I went on a diet and lost weight. I cut out bread and pasta and most sugary snacks and treats. (I occasionally eat a coffee roll or pretzels...hey I am not perfect!). The end result is that I have lost sixty-five pounds and my blood tests have improved to where my levels are at dead center for healthy blood sugar levels. It is a struggle to stay on a low-card diet, particularly when the cook at my house thinks that it is all bullshit. I have tried to give her the literature, but she says she is too old and busy to read it. Thinking past the comfortable is one of the signposts on the way to happiness. The more areas in your life where you can force yourself to think past the comfortable, the happier you will be. Poison with a lump of sugar in it is still poison. There are better ways to relieve stress than to eat or drink yourself to death. We all have our weaknesses. Better to recognize them for what they are and then find ways to combat them. This post has drifted away from where I originally intended for it to go. I think this message is important, though, so I hope you can read between the lines. Life is what you make it. You will make it more by thinking. I usually write these blogs for my daughters, Today, I have written it for them, but also for three other people. Two likely won't read it unless I ask them to. Even then, I am not certain they will read it...or if they do, they won't see the message as pertaining to them. The third person likely will read it. I hope she can think through it and see the deeper message. |
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