ARE YOU STAYING STRONG? CHANGING YOUR LIFE WITH WORDS - DAY 154

There are days when I feel as if the world is spinning out of control, and that unless I keep hanging on tightly I will be flung out into space.  This feeling comes because it seems so many things which should be easy to deal with or accomplish have become difficult due to bureaucracy, stupidity, incompetence, unemployment, or technology.

What are you trying to do?  Start a business?  Save a relationship? Be a good parent? Pursue your life's dream? Deal with your own illness or that of a loved one?  Are you discouraged for any reason?  Are you thinking you won't realize your objective or have the opportunity to live your dream?  Are you feeling you will never find a job in your field at the salary level you need?  Are you afraid that the outcome will not be that for which you are hoping?

It is so easy to find so many things wrong in the world today, but I encourage you to focus on the positive rather than the negative.  Talk to yourself, and think positively even when you don't  feel like it.  Hang around with positive people rather than naysayers, and determine what you can do about the issue and do it.  Most important

REFUSE TO GIVE UP!

My Heartfelt Sympathy And My Growing Hatred

The niece of a dear friend of mine is expecting her first baby in about a week. Her young husband was murdered last week after being robbed in their driveway as he arrived home from work. There are no words to adequately express my sorrow for his young wife, their unborn child, their parents and siblings, and their friends. I find more and more that my feelings of disgust and disdain for the wicked, evil people of the world are evolving into feelings of actual hatred for their actions and attitudes. I hate their crimes, their lack of respect for anything or anyone, their failure to value any life, their cowardly inability to face life and accept responsibility as decent human beings, their stupidity, their arrogance, and the burden they become on society when they are finally apprehended, found guilty and punished. I hate that they live on while their innocent victims do not. I hate that our judicial system is not always just, and I hate that our prisons are overflowing. I hate that we coddle criminals and provide them with better living conditions than homeless families with children whose only crime is poverty. I hate whatever happened or didn't happen in the lives of the wicked people that caused them to make such wrong choices. I hate that some parents abuse and/or neglect their children. I hate that some parents fail to teach their children right from wrong, that they tolerate and encourage disrespectful behavior, that they do not set good examples for their offspring to emulate. I hate that we have a society where deceit, duplicity, greed, avarice, and corruption flourish among those people we elect to represent us and govern our cities, counties, states and country. If good people still outnumber bad people (and I believe they do) then we must do whatever it takes to ensure this new baby and all children can grow up in a better world. We cannot do everything, but each of us can do something and all of our somethings can add up to everything.

I Did Not Vote For Meanness, Vulgarity, Stupidity and Trash Talk. Did You?

More and more I am less and less pleased or impressed with the veritable garbage dump that the Internet has spawned in terms of people leaving comments on websites, in forums, and in chat rooms, etc. When did it become okay to spout vulgar insults at strangers? When did it beome okay to pepper every blurb with profanity? When did it become a badge of toughness to see how many times the "F" word can be used in a sentence? Who decided and when that it is unnecessary to respect other peoples' rights to their own opinions regardless of how much they differ from one's own ideas? When did we become a nation of self-appointed experts droning endlessly on and on about topics for which no research or fact-finding has been done? Who decided that it is okay to make pronouncements as if they are indeed the Gospel truth when in fact they are either half-truths or blatant lies? Who ? Who voted to change from professional, polite, intelligent, sophisticated conversation to rudeness, interrupting, talking over other people, never listening or allowing audience members to listen, and that mass stupidity would be on display for the entire world to see? There are millions of children in this world and in our country, and we are raising them in what is looking and sounding more and more like the City Dump. I did NOT vote for these changes, and in truth I don't know anyone who did. SO HOW HAVE WE ALLOWED THIS TO BECOME THE NORM? WHY ARE WE TOLERATING IT? IS THIS HOW WE WANT OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO BEHAVE AS CHILDREN OR AS ADULTS? I for one say, "No, no, a thousand times no!"