BLACK FRIDAY is DEAD_ It is now GRAY NOVEMBER

I got assaulted DAYS before Halloween by 

"Black Friday" sale announcements 
in my email and mail!

You see, there’s no such thing as Black Friday anymore, not in a literal sense.

It long ago escaped 

— or transcended — 

its original meaning and location, leaping beyond United States borders to establish itself in other countries and continents,

 to become just another shopping day in a sea of shopping days.

So much so that even Cyber Monday has

been lost in that ocean of buying days.

The term is now a conceptual synonym for the idea of “sale,” a Pavlovian cue to

get you in the right frame of mind to open your wallet. 

 Just a few years ago, Black Friday had the aura
 of a FOMO event. 

Now it seems more symbolic than significant 
in the pantheon of retail holidays.

And is that change really a bad thing?

I'M THANKFUL THAT I'M NOT A BEST-SELLING AUTHOR

Yes

You see I do not have to worry 

that my next book won't outsell 

my last one

nor do I have to continue a series 

of which I've grown weary!

I can roam wherever my imagination

 takes me at my own pace 

and in my own way.

The whole concept of weight training

is that our muscles grow stronger

by fighting resistance to them.

We achieve success after repeated attempts 

and failure.

The Snowflake Generation:

Young adults of the 2010s, 

thought of as being 

less resilient 

and more prone 

to taking offense 

than previous ones.

Resiliency is a key indicator of success.

 for we are made stronger

BECAUSE

of the struggle not in spite of it.

THE JOURNEY 

IS THE DESTINATION

Be thankful for the little things along the road in our struggle for whatever goal is in our sights. 

 Imagine all the small things you overlook because you’re caught up in the daily grind. 

The soothing sight of the season’s first snowfall, the joy of a playful puppy, 

a delightful birdsong in spring or 

the pleasant patter the raindrops make as they hit the parched ground. 

When it comes to life,

 the critical thing is 

whether you take things for granted 

or take them with gratitude

May you have more blessings today 

than you thought possible!

THE SCIENCE OF THANKSGIVING

Angelina Jolie took her children out of the country during the Thanksgiving Holidays 

as she found what the pilgrims did to the Indians offensive.

I cannot blame her:

But she missed the point behind Thanksgiving:

GRATITUDE

Thanksgiving may be the only major American holiday focused on giving thanks for all of life's blessings, 

but gratitude isn't just a good excuse for chowing down on turkey and pumpkin pie; 

it's also a way to promote good mental and physical health.

Gratitude can improve your sense of well-being and fight depression ...

unless you really hate your in-laws who are visiting or they hate you!

Grateful people engage in more exercise, 

have better dietary behaviors, 

are less likely to smoke and abuse alcohol, 

and have higher rates of medication adherence.


A feeling of thankfulness for the positive things in your life 

can improve your sleep and lengthen its duration --

likely in part because you are consumed with fewer negative thoughts,

 and more pleasant thoughts as you drift off at night. 

 People who report more gratitude also show better cholesterol levels and blood pressure numbers.

A key to the effect, however, is that it must be other-focused.

 In a paper published in June 2014 in the Journal of Positive Psychology, Dr.Watkins and his colleagues 

showed that keeping a diary of three blessings worked much better to boost happiness 

than recalling three times when a person felt a sense of pride in his or her own accomplishments.

He says, 

 "What we believe is happening is that the habit of gratitude 

makes people look for the good in their life more, so it trains their attention towards more good things."


Gratitude is linked to optimism, which in turn, is linked to a boost to your immune system.

And during this flu season, making each day Thanksgiving could spare you sore throats, coughs, and trips to the doctor.

You see:

Gratitude is a gift that you can daily give yourself and your body.

Laughter is as well:

TRAGEDY HAS STRUCK ... FOR WHAT IS THERE TO BE THANKFUL?

Life is laced with the fault-lines of unpredictability. 

At the drop of a hat, disaster can strike. 

Everyone encounters death, heartbreak, devastating illnesses, job instability, and financial crisis. 

Perhaps it’s a personal situation that arises and then knocks you down. 

Maybe it’s the stress of your job that keeps you up too late at night.

Whatever it may be, we all experience the whirlwind of unpredictability at times.

I will not give you the litany of my own griefs.  

When your heart has been cut out of you, someone counting off their own woes is just salt in an open wound.

But when it happens to you, you may feel:

            Consumed
            Shattered
            Lost
            A Total Mess 
            Devastated
            Like a Failure
 
And when our lives feel like they are spinning out of control, 

it’s not always easy to think of what may be secretly waiting for us on the other side of our Valley of the Shadow. 
 

It’s difficult to feel hope or see the bigger picture.

At those times some talk of the Silence of Heaven ... as if.

 Pain never whispers or is silent.  

It shouts.  

And sometimes what we think of as a Silence to our pleas to Heaven is but a silent nod 

that there are Paths of Blood we must walk to go where ...


We learn the lessons we would learn no other way.

We teach those lessons to those who observe how we respond to what they will later encounter themselves.

We have hurtful walls we have erected around our hearts demolished by pain, anguish, doubt, and despair. 

We learn humility in an area where we thought we were healthy ... but were anything but.

 Prosperity is a window to a bright world.  

Tragedy is a mirror showing us who we really are.

What we have lost, we have lost.  

What we gain from the tragedy is up to us and our responses to the pain we wish would just go away.

No matter how tough you are, it is very easy to feel vulnerable, confused, or lost.

When things go terribly wrong, 

it is hard to feel anything but the chains of grief on your shoulders with no prison bars between which you can see the light of day.

REMEMBER:

1.) EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO US  FOR A REASON

I do not mean this as a cliche.  

It happens for the reason we assign it in our thoughts.  

In my World View, we are never alone.  

We have the Father guiding us down needful, and sometimes bloody, paths.

But that may not be your take on Life.

 Still, it is up to you to make what has happened in your life empowering or dis-empowering.  

Your thoughts can either help you or hinder you further.  

Your thoughts can either fan the flames of courage 

or stamp down whatever embers of it still remain.  

Your mind, your choice.

 2.) PAIN IS INEVITABLE; SUFFERING IS OPTIONAL

No season lasts forever ... not uplifting spring nor bitter winter.

Focus on pain and your concentration acts as a prism increasing its flames.  

Focus on a task outside of yourself no matter how simple, and the pain ebbs a bit.

There are always others worse off: focus on some small way to help them.  

Not up to helping out at a food kitchen? Phone for donations to it or another good charity. 

Your tragedy is not your whole story:

 try to make this but a small chapter of your story, headed to a healing ending.

3.) "IS" -- THE ONLY VERB YOU LIVE

This one moment is all you have.  

Is it full of pain?  

Each throb of pain is but a link in the bicycle chain of your life bringing you to healing -- 

if not of your body, then of your heart.

Are you still breathing? Of course you are. 

Then, great, you’ve just handled that moment. 

Are you ready for the next one that will bring you one step closer to engaging in your life again?

I do not have all the questions, much less all the answers to them.  

I merely hope that this has helped in some small way not to make the very thought of "Thanksgiving" a mockery.

 All of you are in my thoughts and prayers.  Roland

WHEN DID WE FORGET TO BE THANKFUL?

A sad reality of human nature is that those who have the most tend to be ungrateful 

and those who have the least tend to be the most grateful. 

I have met people with so much and still yearn for even more.  

On the streets of New Orleans, I met people who had lost nearly everything, yet shared what little they had.

My mother once was a waitress and told me the wealthy gave few tips and then very little while those clearly pinching pennies were generous.

Perhaps they knew what it was like to have little and to work hard for even that.

We live in a culture that is becoming devoid of gratitude. 

You will be hard-pressed to find it on social media. 

Facebook has become a platform for sharing grievances and tirades. 

It might be more accurately called "Spitebook".

We celebrate Thanksgiving by stuffing ourselves with food in mouth-bulging amounts 

rather than feeding people who don't have enough to eat. 

We desperately need to recapture the lost art of gratitude.

How do we do that?

During the course of a day we could look at whatever is in front of us and say,

 "How easily and quickly could this be taken from me?"

Our job. Our eyesight. A child, a loved one. 

A place to live

A pet.  Our health.  Our car.  Our security, our nation at peace.  Our marriage.

Now, try to imagine attempting to live with those losses. 

Perhaps we would be more appreciative of those blessings in our lives.

And more compassionate with 
those who do not have them.

 “At times, our own light goes out

and is rekindled by a spark 

from another person. 

With that remembrance, 

we should pass that spark 

to another 

who currently

resides in darkness."

 - Albert Schweitzer

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, 

EVERYONE!

DEATH OF INNOCENCE

There are not many of us left who saw the assassination of John Kennedy, 

but only those of us who were alive before that awful weekend can really know how much it changed America.

We had been a confident nation. 

We had won World War II. We believed in our leaders. We came to see our presidents as all but invincible. 

Because of television, we had come to know John Kennedy and his family more intimately than any of his predecessors.

 Then, in a matter of seconds, he was killed 

by a madman. 

The entire nation watched in horror and shock as the events of that weekend unfolded on television in real time 

-- the FIRST time that had ever happened -- 

our national confidence was shaken to the core. 

 That weekend began one of the most violent decades in our country's history

 -- more assassinations, Vietnam, 

the beginning of Watergate -- 

a time Americans came to question almost everything we had once taken for granted.

 Now, as I look at the current political scene, America seems to have fallen into nightmare.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Why So Many Young Do Not Want to Leave Their Apartments

There are quite a few

There is even a newsletter GIRLS NIGHT IN https://girlsnightinclub.com/

which features “recommendations for a cozy night in” alone or with girlfriends, including books, recipes, gratitude exercises, and candles. 

One study found that Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 spend a whopping 70% more time at home than the general US population.

Another study found that 28% of millennials between 24 and 31 said that they preferred to drink at home 

because going out was too much effort, compared to just 15% of baby boomers who agreed with that statement.

Netflix and its ilk are facilitating our desire to stay in, rather than compelling us to do so. 

They’ve thrived because they tap into the comfort-craving, risk-averse portions of our psyches.

There’s no doubt that some people simply prefer to stay home with a murder mystery and a nice big pizza 

while their friends are out hitting the dance floor. 

What’s remarkable is not that such preferences exist, 

but the glee people online seem to take in shouting about a night in from their digital rooftops.

 It is odd ...

there is a part of us that wants to connect. 

So we reach for our phones, wanting to share the pleasure we take in being alone.

Be honest, how many of you went to the Girls Night In link?   

What do you think of this trend?

WRITERS PROFIT FROM LISTENING TO AUDIO BOOKS?

DID YOU KNOW AUDIOBOOKS CAN IMPROVE YOUR WRITING?

A) NO SKIMMING ALLOWED


     C'mon, admit it: you skim over the "boring parts" as you read print.  It's instinctive by now.

     But skimming robs you of the power and purpose of the words you skim!


B) AUDIO LETS YOU CATCH THE PACE, THE FLOW OF THE WORDS


     The sounds of the words will bleed into your own writing.  You will begin to "see" words as images.

     It will limit your use of HE SAID/SHE SAID in every line of dialogue.

     Don't tell me those words are invisible to readers -- only to you as you block them out as you write.

     You'll discover new ways to add pauses to the spoken lines.


C)  YOU'LL HEAR THE WORDS AS YOU WRITE THEM


     Maybe in your voice.  Maybe in the voice of your favorite narrators.

     It will spotlight "kinks" in your paragraphs.

     The audio's will create a Theater of the Mind letting you see words as images.


D) YOU'LL "READ" MORE


     Stephen King stresses that the more you read the deeper your perspective will be in your books.

     You'll read in places you couldn't with a print book: in bed, exercising, gardening, commuting.

     You'll discover favorite narrators and seek out books they narrate no matter the genre and 

your literary horizons will expand, enriching your prose, breathing new ides into your future novels.


E) YOU'LL LEARN


     AUDIBLE has its DEAL OF THE DAY:

     I got Arthur C Clarke's 2001 for $2!  The intro was by Clarke himself, detailing the unique way he wrote the book.

     I got BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S read by Michael C Hall of DEXTER fame (great narrator) for $2!

     Craig Johnson of LONGMIRE fame detailed at the end of one of his books the origin of his hero and how he writes.  Great lessons.


F) YOUR OWN AUTHOR READINGS WILL IMPROVE FROM LISTENING TO PROFESSIONALS.


G) YOUR VOCABULARY WILL IMPROVE

     You'll learn new words from their use in context of the action of the novels.  

     You'll repeat crutch words less as you insert the new words into your prose.

OH, BEFORE I FORGET WHY ALL THIS TALK ON AUDIOBOOKS!

HERE'S MY LATEST ONE!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EUFRKKI

ONLY $7.49!

Elu finally escapes his Mirror Prison only to face an insane Abraham Lincoln and 

the eternal prankster Mark Twain ... which fate is worse would be hard to call!

 Here is John Two Hawks with lyrics