SOMEONE NEEDS THIS TODAY

 I know I did:

THE WORLD BREAKS EVERYONE

 

In A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway wrote 

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break, it kills.

It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.

If you are none of these, be sure it will kill you, too. But there will be no special hurry."

Of late, not too oddly, I have been contemplating how one gets stronger in the broken places.

(Especially since Friday, Walmart informed me that my mandatory heart medicine has gone from $10 a month to $724.79 -- and I had just taken my last pill.)

But I digress.

Perhaps I thought, it has to do with your perspective or world-view.

Viktor Frankl (above) thought we could endure any WHAT if we had a WHY.

He should know: 

he lost his wife in the Bergen-Belson concentration camp; his brother and mother at Auschwitz; and his father in the Terezin Ghetto.

He, himself, spent three years in four camps.

When he returned to Vienna, a living skeleton, to find all he loved gone, he was devastated.

In nine days he wrote A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp and published it anonymously.

"When we can no longer change our situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

Does a belief in a loving God help?

Not for you?

Perhaps this from Jordon Peterson will help:

Dr. Frankl and Dr. Peterson

and me

urge you to realize there

is more to you than you think.

QUESTIONS to ask if you wish a better life

 

“We hear only those questions 

for which we are in 

a position to find answers.” 

— Friedrich Nietszche

If we don’t make time to examine our motives, it may catch up to us. 

 

Why? 

 

Many people are dictated by their unconscious desires instead of making conscious choices. 

 

 

 “Question everything. 

Learn something. 

Answer nothing.”

 — Euripedes

Ask WHO ARE YOU BECOMING? 

The Past is written. The Present is the sum of your earlier choices.  The Future is uncertain.

  

Who you decide to be should be an informed decision not a consequence of following the path of least resistance.

Ask DO I LIKE MYSELF?


“The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.”
 — Joseph Campbell

See the past as a series of events that shaped your life, 

because every experience brings the gift of learning and growth. 

If you disapprove of yourself you cannot possibly like other people 

since every interaction stems from your relationship with yourself.

Ask WHAT MATTERS MOST TO YOU & WHY?

“In all my affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark 

on the things I have long taken for granted.” 

— Bertrand Russell

This is an important question 

because until you clarify what you value most, you will spend your life wandering aimlessly. 

Sadly, many people may never discover what is important to them 

because they are distracted by the swirl of events around them.

To You, 

WHAT IS THE MOST 

IMPORTANT QUESTION 

TO ASK YOURSELF?

 

BETTER DAYS Are Coming

 

"It is what it is, but it will become what you make it." 

- Victor Standish

Yesterday I received an email denying me any unemployment benefits since I was fired.

It was a sucker punch I wasn't expecting.

I walked out to my car, Gabrielle, to sort things out with the Father.

Under my windshield wiper was a neon-pink stickie note with three hand-drawn hearts and the words:

BETTER DAYS ARE COMING

I really needed those words done in a feminine hand.

Who had left it?

The day before I was leaning against my car after my exercise walk when a perky young lady walked by asking, "How are you?"

"Almost good."

"Only almost?"

"At least I'm heading in the right direction."

She bubbled a nice laugh and got into her car next to mine.

Was she the one who left it?

I only know that it was there when I needed it. 

I am glad that I prayed for her as she left just because of the sweetness of her laugh.

I walked into my apartment feeling better. Then, I saw this YouTube which was another gift:

And yes, I prayed then for both the little boy and the small dog.

It's who I am.

WHY DO YOU WRITE? IWSG Post

 

We tumble from womb to tomb ...

    from one blackness towards another,

        remembering little of the one and 

            knowing nothing of the other,

              except through faith.

Life distracts us, with happiness or struggle, 

    from seeing the tides that are drawing us towards 

        those clusters of events called 

Crossroads.

More tragically 

for our being blind 

to them.

The star, the wheel, the butterfly ...

    all are in an unseen state of turmoil,

        waiting for some signal that 
               the time has come.

Then, the star explodes,

The wheel of Fate turns, 

making a poor man rich,

The butterfly mates and dies.

STORY can say all that is unsayable in the world ...

    How can we resist attempting that?

Life has a way of bruising us 

    until we long for some passage out of ourselves.

That's what STORY does ...

    for a few precious moments

        it takes us out of ourselves

            to become someone other than who we are.

Each of us is a myth within our minds.

    We make it up. 

    It is the STORY of ourselves 

         we steer our actions by.

        It is not the truth of our life.  

           We could not bear to look at that.

It is the illusion which helps us 

keep on going in life.

Man alone

    tells STORIES to understand his world.

I believe that there is one STORY 

in the all world, and only one,

 that has frightened and inspired us.

 Humans are caught,

in their lives, in their thoughts, 

in their hungers and ambitions,

 in their avarice and cruelty, 

and 
in their kindness and generosity

 in a net of good and evil. 

 Do they struggle towards the light 

or embrace the darkness?

There is no other STORY.

 A soul, 

having emerged 

from the cocoon of this life, 

will have left 

only the hard, clean questions: 

Did I make my time good or evil? 

Was my life worth

the pain of my birth?

WHAT IS THE PARTICULAR

MAGIC OF WRITING

THAT KEEPS YOU DOING IT?

If YOUR World Was Ending TOMORROW_ IWSG Post

 

"If today was your last day
And tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last?
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have?
If today was your last day.

Would you call old friends you never see?
Reminisce old memories
Would you forgive your enemies?
Would you find that one you're dreamin' of?
Swear up and down to God above
That you finally fall in love
If today was your last day."

- IF TODAY WERE YOUR LAST DAY; Nickelback

If you close your eyes tonight and never re-opened them, what kind of last day would you have had?

 The world will be gone.  Time is set to be an echo.  You have 24 hours left in which to exist. 

It could happen.   The funny thing about life is, trouble never comes from where you expect it. 

You spend two months worried about interviewing for that big job promotion, 

then on your way there, you die of a heart attack brought on by all that stress. 

That's just the way it goes.

Super-volcanoes, a Verne-Shot (which combines the super-volcano scenario with an asteroid strike, fun, right?), 

Gamma Ray Burst from our sun, 

engineered diseases or something totally out of left field could end life as we know it.

But for you ... for me ... the world could end tomorrow.

Heart attack, mugger, or drunk driver.  Any of those three could end your life suddenly.

"There is only one time that is important: NOW.  

It is the most important because it is the only one over which we have any control."
- Leo Tolstoy  


Appreciate your job if you can ...

If you just "Survive" your job, you are wasting 71% of your life. (5 out of the 7 days of the week.)


Forgive if you can ...

What someone did to hurt you was their fault.  Carrying it with you for each day afterwards is all on you.


Focus on the NOW ...

The Past and the Future are illusions.  NOW is the only reality.  

If you grasp after ghosts, you, yourself, are not living.  You are making of yourself a ghost.

Each moment matters for it may be our last.  

Think of all the shooting, bombing, or air crash victims.  They thought their lives would go on for years.

Appreciate what and who you have while you have it and them.

Here is Stephen King on my favorite novel of his, DUMA KEY

Why Does HALLOWEEN Stay So Popular?

 

Halloween has been more Trick than Treat to me of late ...

But I couldn't let one of my childhood's better holidays pass unnoticed.

The National Retail Federation reckons that Americans will pay

a record $3 billion-plus this season on hairy spiders, blowup Draculas and plastic maggots that glow in the dark.

Millennials are characterized by a desire for a prolonged adolescence so it is no surprise that they cling to the idea of dressing up.

In fact, two in three adults feel Halloween is a holiday for them and not just kids.

But I think it goes deeper:

The books and then movies in the 50's of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and WHO GOES THERE? (THE THING)

did not just tap into the paranoia of the Cold War

but also the paranoia of adulthood when aging children realized that their parents, 

their leaders, and those around them were not who they posed as being:

In essence those children lost their innocence in that they realized they were surrounded by people wearing masks ...

and that the real monsters lay BENEATH those masks.

Especially since September 11, 2001, the Boston Marathon Bombing, and endless school shootings,

it seems all too easy to imagine a murderer sitting in the aisle next to you.

Sociologists tell us if you want to understand a culture, look at its holidays.  

 Christmas gift-giving rituals shed light on how we manage social relationships. 

Thanksgiving feasts depend on shared understandings of family and national origin stories.

 Halloween, with its emphasis on identity, horror and transgression, can tell us about who we want to be and what we fear becoming.


Of course, that is not the only reason for the surging popularity of Halloween --

Young adults I’ve spoken with often identify this as their favorite part of the holiday – the chance to be, at least for a night, whatever they wish to be.

There’s no stress to it.

 You don’t have to travel or deal with relatives. There’s not the holiday pressure to find a date if you are single.

You can wear whatever you want and not be judged. There’s the fantasy, role-play element.

 If you think about it, it’s not surprising that 70% of people feel it’s their favorite holiday.


My friend, Darren Comeaux,

tells me that Halloween is quite an event in Japan, a country from which he has just returned.

In Japan, Halloween is not simply an end-of October event.

1.)  It is celebrated more in the form of masquerade parties and parades for adults.


2.) Halloween season in Japan runs for quite a long time.

 In amusement parks like Disneyland, Halloween-themed performances start from early September.

In schools and offices, Halloween parties and related events fill up their calendars for two months.


(While in American Politics, Trick or Treat lasts all year!)


3.) Halloween is still a growing market in Japan.

DEVIL'S NIGHT

Devil's Night is a name associated with October 30, the night before HALLOWEEN in Detroit, Michigan

(a city that both Victor Standish and I have highly violent memories of)

Devil's Night dates from as early as the 1930's.

Traditionally, city youths engaged in a night of mischievous or petty criminal behavior, usually consisting of minor pranks.

However, in the early 1970s, the vandalism escalated to more destructive acts such as arson.

The crimes became more destructive in Detroit's inner-city neighborhoods, and included hundreds of acts of arson and vandalism every year.

The destruction reached a peak in the mid- to late-1980s,

with more than 800 fires set in 1984, and 500 to 800 fires in the three days and nights before Halloween in a typical year.

ANGEL'S NIGHT

Let us resolve to counter-act the darkness a bit and make of Halloween season a time of Angel Nights where we do random acts of kindness.

Now, that's a real treat to a night of tricks, right?

Look for my collections of Halloween tales 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GVFH1PF

only 99 cents

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HM8ZS5Q

only 99 cents