• Economic Equality (A Goal),  Personal Growth

    Judging Success

    April 18, 2015

    What is success, but that that we individually define as success?  At each point in life, we may measure this differently.

    And as life situations and events change, so too does our ability to define ourselves as successful.  There are times when we are loving & kind, and times when we are hateful and mean.  There are times when we are financially wealthy and times when we are bankrupt.  There are times when we are deeply upset by our child’s actions and other times when we are so proud of our child that we feel we can burst.  There are times when we are driven to violence and other times when we can imagine nothing but peacefulness and calm.

    There are times when we feel profoundly loved by another and times when we feel profoundly disconnected and alone.  There will be a time in life when no professional endeavor brings success and there will be a time when everything we do professionally is positive and right.

    For those folks who want to criticize others, for those folks who are judgmental and hateful, for those who would want to tout their success as a sign of superiority, they are quite mistaken in their thought process.  Success is how each of us measures it, not how each of us judges it in others.  Success is a function of time.  No one can always be successful.  We must all fail.  When we fail, are we a failure?  Of course we are not.  We are not who we are because of an event or because of a moment in time.  We are who we are because of what is pervasive in us.  What motivates us?  What actions do we take?  What have we created?  These are questions that define us.

    Wealth and success are not signs of superiority, though in America, we might think that they are.  Wealth and success are simply a sign of the time…

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  • Baby Boomers,  Speaking as a Parent

    The Doneness of Youth

    April 16, 2015

    I am having difficulty recognizing the “doneness” of my youth.  Fortunately, I am not resentful about it, yet there are some things that startle me from time to time.

    I am not going back to school to have a different profession “someday”.  I will never be the sole support of an infant’s nutrition again.  I will not sweat through my kids’ driving test ever again.  I will never be a stage performer or a singer.  Not because my life is over – not even close, but because I recognize my limitations and I am real about them.  I see that I will not start a business and become startling wealthy from my clever investments and management strategies.  I am not closing the door on becoming wealthy though, I also know I can’t hold my breath.

    There is no distant and rosy future.  The future is now.  I realize that nothing important can be put off until tomorrow because tomorrow is limited, it has constraints.

    My body does not wish to cooperate with me so much.  I am slow at healing and I have the thyroid disease.  The disease affects me in many, many ways.  I cannot shrug off the side effects of my medication because they will and they do affect me.  I took a very low dose sleeping pill until I realized that I could not remember anything, whoops… side effects do pertain to me!  Loss of memory is the side effect of taking this medication.  My body, as it is now, is not as resilient as it used to be.

    I’m not done learning, but I don’t need direction and correction.  It’s not that I am not open, in fact, I am very open.  I am also very weary of assumptions.  Often those who are sure, have never asked a question, nor done any worthy research.  So my experience sometimes leads me to impatience.  Don’t come at me if you don’t know what you are talking about…

    A good thing… I’ve lost the need to be unselfish or to martyr myself on behalf of others.  Realizing that I have no tomorrow helps me to understand that if I want diamond earrings, I need to buy them now.  If I want to indulge in flowers, I need to do it now, not later when my house is perfect, or later when I have “extra” cash.  If I want flowers, I need to buy them now.

    I always enjoyed being focused and building things.  I built a life with my kids, near them and dear to them.  I had to let them go, it is the destiny of all parents to relinquish children to their own futures.  All of my building *a family* has gone into the ether, no longer useful to today.  I am not regretful about losing my importance to my kids.  The less important I am, the better off they are.

    What I realize with my age is that, I had no other plan.  It is as if my entire life hinged on raising the kids and having a career.  Now that process is either complete or winding down – I had no other ideas about what to do next.  Now that I am no longer self-sacrificing I do not wish to spend the rest of my life blindly stepping forward to music that someone else is playing.  I want my own orchestra and symphony.

     

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  • Speaking as a Parent

    Has it Been Five Years Already?

    April 4, 2015

    I believed in happiness and it came true.  However, nothing stayed the same, the world changed so much, it’s been frightening.

    Nothing has changed my love for my dear ones.  At least that part remains the same.  It turns out that when you free yourself, you free others.  As I let go of my children, they became parents, and responsible and caring people who do right things.

    There were some losses, as there always are.  Losing a child to drug addiction is like being in this nether world of unreality.  You know your child is alive, yet after all of the lying, cheating and stealing, you cannot participate. It leaves you wondering what the point of all the parental self sacrifice is.  You know your children will only remember what was wrong with their lives.  They will not remember the good the fun and the easy.

    Millenia and more ago we were hard- wired to remember the negative.  It was a matter of survival to know the bad things.  What is good does not threaten your survival – so why remember it?

    Ah, back to the point.  I love my dear ones, all of them, all of you.  Nothing changes that, not miles and not time.  So to each Easter, the same.  I love you.

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