• Economic Equality (A Goal),  Love and Relationships,  Management,  Psychology of Life

    How to be Useful to the Revolution

    June 10, 2019

    We already know that it is propaganda that has convinced the American public that those who work in fast food and in grocery stores deserve poverty.  We know that the ultra rich have worked very hard to protect property. They do this by ensuring that the vast majority of Americans believe that people deserve minimum wage, because they don’t work hard enough, or haven’t gone to school or aren’t good enough to make enough money for a life.  These are false beliefs. People deserve to have a life. Working people deserve a living wage. We know this.

    We also realize that we Americans are all products of an effective and expensive marketing system that works hard to convince us to attend to our own needs and not bother with the needs of others.  Other countries are poor because they are dumb, or animalistic or ignorant and undeserving.  We have been sold a humongous pack of lies about how to live successfully.  We are the most selfish country on planet Earth.  We use the most resources and do the most damage world wide.

    Please don’t stop reading and don’t start wallowing in guilty.  Let’s take action, real action, effective action.

    How do we help our revolution?  How do we change America?  How do we give truth to power?

    In every work position that we hold, think of people first.  If you are a supervisor, hire at the maximum starting pay.  Give raises, give them lavishly.  $15.00 an hour is but $31,200.00 a year.  Make sure that every human being that works for you earns at least $15.00 an hour.  If someone makes $18.00 an hour, give them 20.00 an hour to increase their abilities in life.

    If you work for a government entity and you can help people by approving applications for food stamps, for college financial aid or any other such agency functions, do it.  Over-approve your budget and then demand more!  Many government positions I have held, I worked with people who were parsimonious, and who treated government funding as if it was their own bank account.  No, this is tax money, taken from the people to be used for the people.  Give it away!  All of it.  Each and every time, you get a chance to approve an application, think of this baby, who will be hungry if you say no.

    This baby deserves your positive vote.

    If you are woke, help others to be woke.  If you don’t have a job that can help others, surely you can speak truth to power.  Demand answers that take into consideration the human factor.  Ask Victoria’s Secret why they use child labor in their cotton fields.  If you don’t receive an answer, then stop buying Victoria’s Secret.  Then spread the word, always, spread the word.  Let us let everyone know who and which companies are taking advantage of human beings.

    The wealthy can only take advantage of us with our permission.  Stop giving legislators and capitalist permission to rape your bank account.  Speak the truth.   We know that the only tax breaks promulgated this year (2019) were for large corporations and wealthy families.  Do everything in your power to vote against those people who made these unfair taxes a reality of our American life.  Do everything in your power to let people know who robbed us of a fair tax economy.  Tell everyone!  You can change this awful reality, just by speaking, talking and helping others.

    Lastly, spread kindness.  Every single time that you want to be angry and punch someone, STOP, reach deep inside of your heart and pull out kindness.  You are in traffic because you have somewhere to go.  Leave others to their ugly behavior.  Be the one, who gives care and thoughtfulness into the universe.

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  • It is What it is...,  Love and Relationships,  Personal Growth

    Unidimensional Point of View, I Hope That’s Not You

    May 21, 2019

    A UPV is a point of view that you have developed on your own with no input from any other person.

    Notebook by Marcus Spiske, Unsplash

    If the only way you know how to argue is by being aggressive and mean, you are suffering from UPV: Unidimensional Point of View.

    I don’t care who you are, if all you want to do is talk about your own point of view, you are suffering from UPV.

    If you have “heard it all before”, you are suffering from UPV.

    If you are smarter than anyone else, then you are probably suffering from UPV.

    Society serves the purpose of diverse and original thinking shared among others. This sharing helps us to check one’s self. The point is that we live so much better when we are in congress with others. We must have others that are different than we are, and it must be others who are willing to be honest. A sycophant doesn’t help you to learn. A sycophant simply agrees with your unidimensional point of view.

    Notebook by Fabian Grohs, Unsplash

    You can only have a UPV if you are alone, or are so powerful that no one is willing to disagree with you. This is a problem only for anyone who is interested in learning or growing.

    This doesn’t alarm some people. Some people would rather have their own unique point of view than to have humans in their life. They would rather be alone than to invite others into their verbal space. Still others will contrive power and use that power to keep their own opinions without conflict. These are the weak. These are the people who cannot handle a point of view that is different than their own. These folks live inside of their own mind. No other mind invited, nor welcomed.

    Sometimes, many people suffer from UPV as a group, and that is called groupthink. This happens when everyone has the same point of view and no dissenting opinion is allowed.

    If you are comfortable with your belief system, then you are probably suffering from UPV. It takes challenge to be open minded, it takes an uncomfortable feeling in order to consider other beliefs, other opinions and other points of view than your own. It’s painful to hear someone else’s opinion, particularly when it doesn’t reflect your own. Yet it’s healthy.

    If you want to learn, if you want to be part of others lives, if you want to be part of this wide world, you must be practiced at listening. You must be capable of listening to others in order to have them in your life. When this is true, when you want others in your life, when you are open, you can no longer be unidimensional and you become multidimensional. Is this you?

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  • Economic Equality (A Goal),  World Affairs

    Why We Allow a Madman in our Midst

    May 8, 2019

    We do not have to participate in this process of government that continues to steal from the poor and give to the rich. This society is capitalism gone mad and the madmen have taken over. It’s all about power and only the wealthy get power.

    Depressed minimum wages are an instrument of the wealthy corporations. Many say that when minimum wages go up, so will cost of living. So far, in all locations that have increased minimum wage, this has not been true. What has happened in wages is not related to the cost of products actually, what is happening is that the minimum wages allow owners to be ridiculously wealthy and shareholders to profit, on the backs of the poor.

    Please note all of the latest crimes against the middle class: a tax package that promised a tax cut, but has Gold Star families scrambling to pay for a dramatic increase in taxes over last year. A system that has suppressed DEA’s ability to go after and prosecute the opioid manufacturers. A system that continues to “outsource” human service issues such as education and the care of immigrant children. The people who are on the front lines are NOT making a profit from these government sanctioned travesties. The largest corporations along with their shareholders, the banks and Wall street are taking home the wealth. Let’s not belabor the point, the question really is:

    Why do we participate? We have lost all respect for our president; he is a liar and a thief. Even his previous supporters must admit that he has helped no one but himself. He is only an instrument of the one-percenters. We have respect for the “position”, for the “president”, not the man. This does not serve us; it gets in our way of effective action.

    We are like the Christians, in that we are now worshipping the empty vessel rather than the true and authentic body of holiness. America is NOT great today.

    The well worn belief that we cannot do anything about weapons in this country is due to our love of the Constitution, yet today’s weapons have no resemblance to those weapons discussed in the Bill of Rights. So, while we love the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we abhor the murder of innocent young children. We have done very little to prevent the murders of our children.

    Instagram photo from Facebook 5-8-19

    According to the Washington Post:

    Firearms per 100 people: 88.8
     
     Firearm homicides per 100,000: 3.21
     
     Percent of homicides by guns: 67.5
     
     While the U.S. houses less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the country has approximately 35–50 percent of civilian-owned guns worldwide, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. 
     
     The U.S. has the highest firearm related homicide rate among developed nations, continued the Council on Foreign Relations, “though some analysts say these statistics do not necessarily have a cause-and-effect relationship.”

    Why do we continue down this path? I believe there are two reasons for this mistake: one is that we believe in the authority of the position, two is that there is a war in this country for power, we are the unwitting pawns in this war.

    We must stop honoring old institutions and bring order to our country based on what is going on now. Not only must we look at new inequities (our founding fathers were considering the recent independence from England), we must reconsider everything that is outdated. We must review the Constitution and we must add a new Constitution, one that honors all that we are now.

    Bill of Rights states:

    “AMENDMENT VII

    In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”

    We understand that twenty dollars of two hundred years ago is very different than the twenty dollars of today and so we have updated our standards in relation to Amendment VII.

    We must consider this update for every single Amendment in the Bill of rights. We must. Yesterday is not better, nor more important than today. Quite the contrary, today is more important than any yesterday has ever been.

    Donald Trump and the Republican Congress are liars and thieves, stop respecting position and treat them like the people that they are.

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  • Baby Boomers,  Psychology of Life,  Wise Words,  World Affairs

    Screams from Somewhere Else

    April 12, 2019

    WAR, What is it Good For?  Absolutely Nothing.

    War & Peace Edwin Starr, 1970

    Why aren’t we listening to the leaders that we say we admire?  Why aren’t we taking wise advice into account when we make decisions about this great country?  Martin Luther King and Dwight Eisenhower both counseled against war.  For Martin Luther King, it was a warning against a perceived evil, for Dwight Eisenhower, it was a warning against the military industrial complex that sprung up in response to World War II,

    “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.”

    “we must learn how to compose differences not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.”

    Jan. 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower 

    Eisenhower has a fan in his fellow Kansan (previous) Secretary of Defense Robert Gates — who keeps a portrait of the former general in his office at the Pentagon, Bowman says: Speaking at the Eisenhower Library (2010), Gates talked about America’s insatiable appetite for more and more weapons:

    “Does the number of warships we have, and are building, really put America at risk, when the U.S. battle fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined — 11 of which are our partners and allies?

    Is it a dire threat that by 2020, the United States will have only 20 times more advanced stealth fighters than China?

    These are the kinds of questions Eisenhower asked as commander-in-chief. They are the kinds of questions I believe he would ask today.

    In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr:

    Many years ago I read an article in Time magazine about human compassion for each other.  What I remember most about the article was the term “screams from somewhere else”.  The enduring message was that humans will often dismiss a scream from a victim, as long as the scream is coming from “somewhere else”. 

    This was an important concept that could be applied to almost any human interaction and certainly could be applied to macro human interactions such as war.  Almost always, those who make decisions about war do not have to personally, go to war.  These decisions makers do not ever send their own children to war (is an eighteen year old an adult or a child?).

    AMERICAN TROOPS KILLED

    Four Americans — including three service members — were killed in a blast in Afghanistan. Three other American service members were injured when the bomb went off. An official reportedly said the attack targeted a convoy of trucks transporting American service members. NY TIMES

    https://mailchi.mp/theneed2know/de7h9ok091?e=5559a60a57

    Decades ago, when war was fought over land (literally) and evil dictators shamelessly murdered their own, we had reason -literally- to fight and fight in hand to hand combat.  People’s lives were on the line and people needed defenders.  These situations are still real today, however, the weapons have changed dramatically.  We don’t need a gun and dead people to shut down evil dictators, it is easily done with economic and electronic sanctions.  Why do we continue putting “boots on the ground”?  Each and every one of those troops is a brother, sister, father, husband, son, daughter, mother, wife, cousin.

    We are still, sixty years later, a society that doesn’t hear “screams from somewhere else”.

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  • Baby Boomers,  Economic Equality (A Goal),  Psychology of Life,  Wise Words,  World Affairs

    Why is Everyone So Mad?

    March 4, 2019

    Simple Facebook posts are turning into days long disagreements that often distill into name calling and facetious insults.

    Photo by Dollar Gill on Unsplash

    We seem so mad, and yes, there is good reason to be.  There is so much about life that is truly difficult.  There is so much about the world that is unfair, ugly and unjust.  It is daunting for anyone who has a healthy support system.  For those who do not have those supportive relationships, it can be so much more than daunting, all the way to disabling.

    Because American culture is rooted in the love of capitalism, so many myths have grown up around capitalism.  There is the myth that if you keep on trying by working, you will one day be successful and by successful, we mean financially successful.  The other myth is around the rugged individual who needs nothing and no one, but who is so cool (think Clint Eastwood and John Wayne) all success comes to him.  These myths make us spurn the disabled and look down upon those who have not made financial success.

    Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash
    “THE RUGGED INDIVIDUAL”

    We have wholeheartedly been betrayed by our own system of love of money.  First, those who will benefit from legislation are, in fact, writing and passing legislation.  This creates an unfair playing field for all Americans.  Tax deductions go to the highest corporate bidder, the corporation that lobbies the most and bribes the most, wins the legislative game.  How did Americans allow this to happen?  How did we allow those we trust to become those that we must not trust?

    I know how I, personally, let it happen.  I trusted.  I trusted those that I elected to take care of all Americans equally and justly.  It wasn’t until I read John F. Kennedy’s book, Profiles in Courage, that I saw that legislators were NOT to be trusted.  In fact, shockingly, Kennedy’s brief autobiographies were about exceptional people, not the average legislator.

    It wasn’t enough to convince me that community leaders might not be genuinely interested in leadership.  As a matter of fact, many community leaders have only been interested in making themselves wealthy.  No one challenged it because for a very long time (and certainly throughout the 80s and 90s) everyone thought that if you made money that it was a good enough reference for your character.  The whole country loved money and if you had it, no matter how you made it, you were admired.  This was part of the cult of success.

    For decades we Americans have been dimly aware that something is wrong with the center of our government.  An entire group of professionals (called lobbyist) grew out of our lack of oversight.  We overlooked training physicians in ethics, and it appears that we have overlooked the ethical life of our lawmakers.  We have made no demands on legislators and we Americans have not commented on the wealth and benefits that they heap upon themselves (lifelong paychecks [no matter what], excellent healthcare, etc., etc.).

    Behind this behavior by our lawmakers are the wealthy constituents who have bought and paid for a wide array of immoral and unethical laws.  We have drug companies creating the opioid crisis, we have other drug companies charging a 1000% mark up on life saving drugs.  We have health insurance companies giving people a death sentence by denying or postponing coverage for their insured.  We also have food companies putting such strong insecticides on their crops that that same insecticide is showing up in children’s cereal.

    It is no wonder that the millennials do not feel that their parents have done right by them.  The vast majority of Americans have been legislated from the middle class into the lower classes and won’t admit it.  It takes the fresh eyes of the millennials to see what we have done to the future.  They see the compromised middle class because they live it.

    Photo by Stephen Radford, Unsplash
    “THE HOUSE HAS ALREADY BURNED DOWN”

    Somehow the powers that be have almost convinced us that this is a race war, or a class war or any other type of war that you can dream of.  That is why we are so angry.  Because we know what we have lost, we know that we are in a hole that it will take decades to get out of.  The current American political system demonstrates to us how far down the rabbit hole that we have fallen.

    What we must do, so as not to destroy ourselves while we recover, is to see the truth of what has happened here in America.  Everything that can be done to take away from the middle and lower classes has been done.  We are not in a war with each other, we simply want what is ours back.  We want to live in a fair and just America, where we can trust our legislators to be true to those who elected them rather than to big money.

    We are not even in a war with corporate America, we just want what is ours back.  We don’t want to give our tax breaks to the mega faceless corporation that paid our senators a million dollars each.   We want that tax break for ourselves!  We don’t want healthcare reserved only for the privileged few, we want healthcare for all.  If pharma pulls out the boogie man of research and innovation, just know that American tax dollars pay for most of all research and innovation and Americans have never benefited from it (except to pay for overpriced medications).  We just want our tax dollars back.  We the American taxpayers want to benefit from the research and innovation that our tax dollars pay for, that’s all.  We want what is ours to be ours.

    A Storm is Coming

    So, let’s remember, we don’t need to be angry, there is no race war, there is no class war.  We just want our country back from the greed of the few.  We want our country returned to the benefit of us all.  That’s what America stands for: the benefit of us all, each and every one.

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  • Psychology of Life,  World Affairs

    How do we start thinking in a way that prizes human life above all else?

    February 25, 2019


    Photo by Shahzayb Qureshi on Unsplash

    It seems that all over the world there is a problem with this thinking.  First, we indulge ourselves in judgments.  Judgments are useful for making oneself feel better than, but they are not useful for valuing the sanctity of human lives. Judging others fools us into thinking that that there is a “better” and a “worse” human. For those in America (and perhaps in other places) this becomes a valuation.

    How do we bring recognition to how the world thinks about human life? How do we get world leaders to recognize that war that kills human life is a crime? How do we change this thinking so that all peoples, particularly those in power, understand the sanctity of human life? Human life must be held over all other values, whether it be gold or the valuation of the stock market. Nothing on this Earth equates to the value of the human life.

    “In religion and ethics, the inviolability or sanctity of life is a principle of implied protection regarding aspects of sentient life that are said to be holy, sacred, or otherwise of such value that they are not to be violated.  Wikipedia”

    Someone told me once that “Ethics is not the powerful committee, if you want corporate power, get on the process committee.”

    There it is again, ethics, not so popular and not so powerful in today’s world.  If we look at religion, we really lose authority, because of the state of religion today.  The Catholic church must review the thousands of claims of sexual abuse and must admit to the thousands of children born from these crimes. So, it is for good reason that the Catholic church has lost moral authority in the world.

    We live in a world where millions are thought to be “underclasses”.  In America, we must fight and fight hard for the rights of women and people of color.  (Not to mention the hundreds of others who are not quite upper class.)


    Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash

    How do we help humans to prize human life above all else?  How do we get from where we are to that place where each and all human life is sacred?

    1. Get all known leaders to buy into a framework of prioritizing human life as first above everything.
    2. Make war an impossible path for any nation to take.
    3. Prioritize the punishment of those who commit war crimes.
    4. Create a national conversation around the sanctity of human life.
    5. Acknowledge our human tendency to judge, but don’t allow judgment to be used to harm others.

    We cannot continue the world ways as they are now.  We cannot continue to judge each other as “less-than” or “more-than”.  We make these judgments only as a means of increasing our own egos.  It then leads to a whole host of crimes perpetrated against the “less-thans”.

    How can we stop using our judgments about others as justification for bad treatment of those others?  How do we convince people to leave judgments out of decisions about humans?

    Let’s take our judgments out of the way of our feelings for others.  Let’s not take our judgments seriously as a means of evaluating the value of humans.  Judgments serve no purpose other than to our own minds.

    How do we move forward with an undeniable respect for the sanctity of human life? We all, each and every one of us, must take a stand. We must stand for human life, our own, others and every one on this Earth.

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  • Womens Issues,  World Affairs

    Who are these People?

    February 9, 2019


    Photo by Trym Nilsen on Unsplash

    Who are These People? And What are they Thinking?

    They take advantage of anyone and everyone to serve their own needs.  They do damage to people in order to be sexually satisfied.  In their own minds they are doing something that is quite right.  How?  How do they justify raping people, taking advantage of vulnerabilities in others, in order to have their own pleasure?  What do these people say to themselves?

    Do these people say to themselves “I am better than her, I have so much more money and she is just a peasant, why shouldn’t I take her body for myself?” or “I am better than him, he is a busboy, I am a wealthy actor, why shouldn’t I satisfy my own needs with his body?”

    And for the rapists who buy children, what do they say to themselves?  “I have bought and paid for this body, it is only an object for my pleasure.” Or, “I had sex when I was ten years old, there is no reason why I can’t have sex with this ten year old girl.”

    Or perhaps there is no awareness, nor conversation, maybe it is just animalistic instinct with no intellect to intervene.  Do people turn off their consciousness in order to perform these heinous acts on others?

    Each of the accused profess innocence loudly and voraciously.  The victim can have a video recording of the rape and still the perpetrator claims innocence.  How is this the norm for humans?  Depraved sexuality without consequence?

    Why aren’t good people more capable of stopping these activities?  Recent investigation into the Catholic church revealed staggering numbers of priests who have been accused by the faithful.  How, why and who?

    Every 98 seconds an American is sexually assaulted.

    • On average, there are 321,500 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year in the United States.1
    • Ages 12-34 are the highest risk years for rape and sexual assault.3

    Studies by David Finkelhor, Director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, show that:

    • 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys is a victim of child sexual abuse;
    1. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, 2012-2016 (2017).
    2. i. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sex Offenses and Offenders (1997); ii. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Crimes Against the Elderly, 2003-2013 (2014).
    3. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sex Offenses and Offenders (1997).

    Who is perpetrating these crimes?  How do they believe that it is okay to sexually assault others?  Do I know any of these perpetrators?  Do they work at the 7-11, or perhaps at the dry-cleaners?  Was my doctor a rapist?  Have I met these perpetrators?  The chances are that yes, I have met many of these perpetrators.  Most certainly, I have met the victims…

    Who are these people?  Who are the people who believe that it is ok to have sex with an unwilling participant, or worse yet, someone incapable of giving consent?  Who do you have to be, to purchase child pornography?   Who do you have to be, to have sex with a woman who is unconscious?  Who do you have to be, to take advantage of a drunk bus boy?

    What will it take to stop these criminals from acting?   As a society, what do we need to do to stop sexual assaults from occurring every 98 seconds?

    We must keep talking about sexual assault, when someone reports, listen and believe.  Support assault survivors with kindness and appropriate resources.  When survivors must testify, make it safe for the survivor.

    We must punish sexual assaulters to the fullest extent of the law.

    What we must do, if we really want to address this issue is to work hard for economic equality.  People who can afford attorneys, people who can afford life, are less likely to suffer abuse, because no one will abuse someone who can strike back.  No one will abuse someone equal to them.  Currently, those who are abused are the vulnerable and the weak.  Those who cannot strike back, those who cannot speak for themselves, they are the sexually abused.

    It is because of this, that we must make victims equal in power to their perpetrators.  We must give victims, equal say and the power to fight back.

    We must also take away raw authority.  There is no reason to teach children that they must obey authority.  By teaching children in this way, we open them to the worst of vulnerabilities and that is to teach them to agree with any who may have authority.  We don’t want a society based on these concepts.  We want a society where reasoned discussion can take place and children are taught to think for themselves.  We don’t want our children following the instructions of the Catholic priest, the teacher, the police man, unless those instructions make sense.  We must ensure that our children respect their own bodies and respect their own thinking.

    And what about the adult vulnerable, those who have less strength, or less money and power?  How do we rid ourselves of those who would assault them?  How do we get men to stop drugging and raping women?  What are these men saying to themselves?  “She deserves this, for not talking to me.”  What are these men saying to each other after they have assaulted a woman?  “Way to go, I can rape girls too.”

    I am encouraged that brave people are finally talking about the assaults and taking perpetrators to court for their actions.  I am encouraged that we are finally talking about sexual assault in the open.  I am relieved that we have such a powerful tool as DNA to stop attackers from repeating rapes over and over again.  DNA gives us the power to stop the serial rapist from being successful.

    Lastly and finally, we must change the conversation.  Whatever it is that the rapist or the pedophile is telling him or herself has to be changed.  We must have a human conversation that says it is never okay to sexually assault another human being.  And for those that are incapable of joining the conversation, those who cannot intellectually reason, we must enforce the means necessary to protect the innocent from them.  We must ensure that people are not damaged by the deranged or mentally ill. 

    Our human conversation must be clear and must be universal and it must state unequivocally that all humans have the right to protect their own body.  This right is unquestionable, whether a person has the strength, the power or the money, does not matter, each person has the right to their own body and the safety of same.

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  • Love and Relationships,  Management,  Personal Growth,  Philosophy,  Psychology of Life

    14 Things to say Yes to in 2019 to have a Better Life

    December 27, 2018

    Sunset 2018
    • Say yes to Love.
      • Love centers every interaction with calmness.  When you love everyone, it changes how you think of them. 
    • Say yes to Abundance.
      • The world is full of abundance and anything you can wish for is available.  Believing in abundance gives you abundance.
      • Commit to challenging and changing beliefs that limit you.
    • Say yes to Honesty.
      • Lies are obvious, you have to be in denial to believe them.  It is hectic and stressful to sustain lies, even if you are the receiving party.  Honesty is easier and healthier.
    • Say yes to Responsibility.
      • Responsibility will bring you security.  When you decide on responsibility, you give yourself a home and something to build upon.
    • Say yes to Action.
      • Procrastination stops you from accomplishment, why indulge in procrastination?
    • Say yes to Boundaries.
      • When you work, work.
      • When you play, play.
      • Circumscribe your activities with purpose.
      • Consciously choose what you absorb.
      • Focus on the moment, in the moment.
    • Say yes to Relaxation with a purpose.
      • Find your relaxation response, explore meditation, or yoga, or massage and acupuncture.  Whatever your relaxation response is, find it and use it.
    • Say yes to getting rid of your mad.
      • One event deserves only one mad: spend it wisely.  Don’t regurgitate your mad over and over and over again.  Once you have completed your mad, find a way to solve your feelings and be committed to your resolution.
      • Where your attention goes, energy flows.
    • Say yes to Self Love.
      • Be loving to yourself in thoughts, words and deeds.
      • Do whatever it takes to remind yourself, that you matter and deserve love just for being you.
      • Don’t deny your true worth.
      • Do what you know is best for you.
    • Say yes to Respect for yourself and others.
      • All interactions become positive with the addition of respect.
    • Say yes to Oneness.
      • Allow yourself to see that your spirit is a part of the whole, when you see this, your place in the universe becomes infinite.
    • Say yes to Non-Violence.
      • Violence can be verbal, physical, mental or emotional.  Leave violence behind to live longer and to keep your loved ones close.  Violence separates humans from each other.
    • Say yes to Imperfection.
      • Perfection will cost you your peace of mind.  Allowing yourself to embrace the ups and downs of life will give you freedom.
      • Accept that you are perfectly imperfect.
    • Say yes to Integrity.
      • The definition of integrity is the state of being whole and undivided.  How wonderful it is to be clear and purposeful about your decisions in life?
    Girl dancing in Waves
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  • Baby Boomers,  Personal Growth,  Psychology of Life

    Inalienable: The Inherent Value of Humans

    December 13, 2018

    Inherent Value of Humans

    I studied inherent value as an undergrad, so it is a concept that has been around for eons, I’m sure.

    It is this idea that living things have value unto themselves.  There is no need for performance, no need for earning money, no need for work, just a belief that there is value because you are alive.

    It’s a difficult concept for me to wrap my arms around for myself.  Since I can remember, my parents drilled into my head that hard work is rewarding and self-sustaining.  Those who do not work are “lazy” and “irresponsible”.  I lived in a time and place that did not have the luxury of financially supporting anyone.  All had to work.  Finance became the measure of value, those who made $5.00 an hour were less important than those who made $10.00 an hour.

    Those who are educated are more valuable still and society rewards them for their education.  The more education, the better a person could be.  The other option for people included, beauty and wealth. The beautiful could find usefulness by attaching to wealth, either through matrimony or work.

    Adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, puts her shoe back on after passing through a security screening, as she arrives at federal court in the Manhattan borough of New York City, April 16. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

    On the non-financial side is parenting.  There is very little that is more gratifying than a young one who needs you desperately.  Small children look to their parents for everything.  Mothers and fathers often measure themselves by the satisfaction of their children.  They feel their worth increases with happy children.

    When faced with the concept of inherent value, as an undergrad, I failed.  It was hard for me to understand and to believe that the value is in being alive.  I kept wanting to assign value based on work and performance.  I was chided by my professor, but he realized the concept was obscure for most.  The exam question was about the intelligence of dolphins and the ethical obligations of humans to protect them from extinction.  I kept coming back to the dolphins’ value to humans.  “No”, my professor iterated, they are valuable unto themselves without humans.


    A belief that I am sorry for…Each person has their own possibilities, not to be judged by others.

    And so, it goes that such beliefs touch every single part of any life.  Believing in work as the redemptive human quality means that those who do not work have little value as humans.  It creates exactly the kind of staircase of values that I am stringently opposed to.  I vehemently believe that all are equal.  So how do I maintain two opposing beliefs?  I probably do it the way that most people do, and that is to ignore one of the beliefs when the other belief is dominantly active in my life.  In other words, we all change our values and beliefs in our lifetimes depending on circumstance.

    Now, I am not working.  I was forced to take a retirement based on my illness.  I don’t have the money to retire so I depend on my husband for my livelihood.  This is exactly the kind of life that I sneered at when I was in the throes of a successful career based on my own hard work.  I believed everyone was capable and should be working and working h.a.r.d.

    Full circle.  All people are equal and have a right to life and living.  Our way of living is our own private decision and not to be interpreted by the beliefs of others.  As a human, I have the right to be.  I may not perform, I may not work, I may not earn money, these facts do not change my fundamental right to live.

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  • Economic Equality (A Goal),  Womens Issues

    “Baby it’s Cold Outside” and other such Gender Misunderstandings

    December 9, 2018

    Why “Baby it’s Cold Outside” is so Confusing

    Men sometimes do not understand the consequences of the economic inequities of power. They sometimes believe that being dominating is just part of their own personality and therefore cannot realize the effect on others. While women, not only recognize the power of economic inequity, they become hyper-vigilant because the chance of surviving the inherent difficulties of economic deprivation are better with vigilance.

    Here is my story that illustrates the blindness that can occur on both sides. This story takes place in the 1970s, I had no phone, but I worked long hours and people often called me at work.

    I lived in southern California with my brother and my sons. I was a waitress in an American restaurant, the kind that served breakfast 24 hours per day. I was 19 years old. My brother and I moved to California because, at the time, junior college was free of charge for California residents. My brother played football and attended college, and though I wanted more than anything to go to college, I had not found a way to do it while working and taking care of my sons. For a long time I worked two jobs just to get by.

    If you’ve never been to California, you’ve missed some of the most beautiful scenery there is in America. I would often drive into the mountains on the odd day off just to look at the streams that bubbled throughout the rugged rock formations of the hills and mountains. The water was perfectly clear and clean, cold and crisp. When you looked into the streams you could see the rocks and pebbles at the bottom of the flowing surge as the water rushed over them in a hurry to the floor of the valley.

    Photo Credit to NOAA

    On one such trip I planned on staying over night with friends who lived north of Los Angeles. My brother was keeping my boys over night and so I took off after work for those beautiful mountains. As I traveled the Pacific Coast Highway, I hummed and sang to the radio, elated to have a moment of free time that was just for me. It is a thrilling journey, the mountains soared to my right and in places, the beach dropped down off of the mountain as if placed there by a giant hand. The beaches lay flat against the soaring vistas of the mountain. It was amazing to see both the beach and the forested mountain at the same time. I am Gulf coast born and bred and had never seen land that reached higher than an ant hill, in Florida.

    And then…my tire blew out. I was an intrepid explorer, think “seventies” when people were still hitchhiking to get from one place to another. I felt safe, secure and happy. A young man pulled over to help me with changing my tire. We found that I had no spare, my brother had already used it to replace a rear tire that had gone flat. (Had donut tires been invented yet?)

    The young man was very generous and offered to help me. I only had enough money for dinner, I had no money for a flat tire. He paid for my tire, and by the time we were able to get it arranged, it was late and I was forced to spend the night where we were. With the tire being incomplete until morning, I welcomed the young man’s offer of shelter for the night. He was an attractive man and we had sex that night. I got my tire repaired the next day and drove home.

    No one could have been more surprised than me, when a week later, the young man called me at work. Apparently, I had told him where I worked. I answered the phone somewhat confused. He said that he wanted to see me. I didn’t know why? He heard some of my surprise and said “I thought we shared something special.” In my mind, he was a man who had taken advantage of a situation that I had no control over. He wanted to help me, but for a price. He was not altruistic, kind or even generous (as mentioned earlier) he was just someone who would take advantage of a lone woman in a bad situation on the side of the road. I had zero interest in seeing him again, why would I? He saw himself as a rescuer and someone who had done something well and good. He saw himself as someone who liked this girl who was economically disadvantaged.

    No, I don’t think so. He wasn’t happy when we hung up.

    Wow, what a misunderstanding…my picture of him was of someone who had taken advantage of me in a bad situation. His picture of himself was someone who was generous and good and had met this nice woman on the side of the road.

    I’ve seen this kind of misunderstanding one million and one times since then. I saw it within my leadership group when we were given instructions to sell a product to a stranger, and told NOT to engage in selling to waiters, waitresses or anyone in a serving position. Several men in that leadership group ignored those instructions and directed their efforts at selling, only towards those that had no choice but to listen to them: waitresses. When they were called out by the leadership group, those men got angry that the group didn’t understand their efforts.

    Are you kidding me?

    Lecturing someone who is forced to listen to you is not the same as selling something to a stranger, how do you not know that?

    Economic inequity creates power inequity. Strength of body creates power inequity. Women know this, why don’t men?

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