I have been writing a short story lately. You have probably been reading it as I am posting it as a weekly series on Sundays. I have taken on a new appreciation for proof readers as a result! It’s hard work, made HARDER by spell check, not easier.
If you ever notice a mistake in my writing, be sure to write to someone else who has read it and talk together about what a bad writer I am, ok? Don’t write me about it. JUST JOKING, I want you to write me if you have good suggestions!
Do you know how much money Einstein had? Do you know how big Mark Twain’s house was? Do you know if Florence Nightingale had expensive clothes? What kind of car did Amelia Earhart own?
Chances are you don’t know the answer to those questions. That is because their wealth and worth weren’t defined by their money and material possessions. What about you? Are you under the impression that your wealth and your money are the same? If your money goes away does your wealth go away? How can you protect your wealth even if your money and material goods disappear?
Perhaps your wealth is your legacy, not your money. What does your wealth look like now? What would you like it to look like?
It’s funny how close being self-conscious is to being self-aware. Actually, aren’t they the same? One is conscious of self, one is aware of self. Same. But that really isn’t the case. Self-consciousness isn’t really about being aware of self, it’s about being aware of what other’s think of your self. You are conscious of other interpretations of your self (even if they haven’t ever been thought or spoken by another human).
Having raised 4 girls I can testify to the destructive power of self-consciousness. The concerns of what others thought of them was, at times, paralyzing. Would they think I am fat, flat, false, fearful, fatuous, farty, flamboyant, flakey, fanatical, frigid, freaky, flippant, foreign, figidity, fortunate, or maybe fake?
Self-awareness, on the other hand, is not about what others think, it’s about what YOU think about your self. Being self-aware means you KNOW others will have different opinions about you (when they think about you at all that is). But you also know that it’s YOU who ultimately judges whether your self is the self you want or not.
And in the end, the 60 year old has it right, most people are too busy thinking about themselves and worrying about what others think of them to actually think much about you.
It didn’t take long after news came that Osama Bin Laden was dead for conspiracy theories to come out. They were pretty much what you would expect. It was faked. The military had the body all along and just waited until Obama wanted some political mileage out of it. He wasn’t really buried at sea but is alive and being held in a secret location. Many are continuations and mutations of the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
More absurd theories I have never heard and I have heard conspiracy theories all my life. I even believed one for a while. The JFK assassination conspiracy was one I felt had some truth to it. That is until I read a number of books, both pro and anti-conspiracy books. I came away after my reading convinced there was no conspiracy.
What I have learned is that when your theory contains more than about 3 people, it’s VERY unlikely it will be kept secret. There are too many reporters, citizens, and alleged participants who will want to expose the plot and make a buck off it or use it politically to think it will be kept quiet. It won’t.
I helped raised 4 daughters. There was plenty of drama over the years, but what I loved seeing as they grew is their increased ability to hold on with some degree of peace and serenity when their personal or communal storms were raging all around. They weren’t, and aren’t, always successful, any more than I am, but the maturity to have that peace hold longer and stronger is always growing in them, and I am very proud of that.
The ability to find some peace amid a storm is not just beneficial to you, but to everyone around you.
My family is blue today. I have a cousin, Jim Powell. His only son Gavin died along with his best friend Matt in a rafting accident this week in Walnut Creek, California. He was 17, Matt was 16. There had been heavy rains in the area and after Gavin found an old inflatable raft in his garage they made plans to raft down a local creek. They wore helmets but no life vests and were unable to navigate in the fast rushing waters. Both of them died during their trip. Links to the story are below.
As any parent knows and will tell you, nothing in the complete realm of human existence can be more completely and utterly destructive to one’s soul than losing a child. I have not had that happen and I am very grateful. But I know the fear, as do all parents I have ever known. I may not be as controlling of my kids as my wives have been, I may say ‘you have to let them go do this or that’. I am that father who said that is how it has to be to my wives. But make no mistake, for every time I have said that, and I bet for every other spouse who played the role of the one saying it’s ok to let them go, we knew we were gambling a bit. All of life is a bit of a gamble, sometimes greater odds, sometimes lesser. It’s a sad, sad moment when the odds go bad and something like this happens. The essay below says it better than I can, I encourage parents to read it.
So, why did I illustrate a quote about a dog? I didn’t draw this to say I hope he has a dog. I drew it because ‘blue’ can’t always be explained, even when it is so obvious, as in this case. The pain, the suffering, the what ifs, the if onlys, the guilt, the loss, the anger, the hopelessness, the fear, the emptiness. They can’t be listed out like that in a broken heart. They can’t be categorized and compartmentalized and logically explained one by one. I can imagine that is what one feels they must do when asked ‘why do you feel blue’.
Maybe it’s best to be like a dog, not ask why, even if we know what we think the answer will be, but just comfort and be.
Whose world do you water? There is nothing wrong with watering someone else’s garden, but there is something wrong with neglecting your own. Whether it’s a wife, husband, home, children, community, family, friends, profession, team or actual garden, if you only pay attention to other ones AT the expense of your own, you will end up with neither.
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A shout out to the Napkin Kin from these countries in the Middle East; Syria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Israel, who have been coming to visit the blog over the last month. Thank you!
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote author unknown
Green color jealousy envy desire lust wishes hopes neglect 2011 grass greener
My wife and I had a long discussion today about what we might like to do in the future. We talked about how when we decide to do something new and different we can feel discomfort. Whether it is thinking about traveling somewhere we have never gone, becoming friends with new people, even something as simple as going to a new restaurant or cooking a new meal, it’s easy to feel a bit of discomfort and choose to not go in that new direction so we can avoid that discomforting feeling.
But, in the end, if that becomes your habit, you stay home, meet no one, do nothing and get filled with regret for a life not lived. My wife and I don’t want to do that and so we choose to suffer the discomfort because the pay off is so wonderful. New friends, new experiences and new opportunities to love and care about the people we cross paths with. That is worth it.
Quote author unknown. After I came home from our breakfast together this quote quickly passed in my twitter feed and I knew it was meant to be my quote for the day. I didn’t catch who posted it, but it’s a great quote. The original said ‘resentment’ instead of ‘regret’ but I liked ‘regret’ better so I changed it.
Well, Aristotle IS one of the fathers of rhetoric so who better to ask a rhetorical question, right?
It’s been a tough emotional week for me. Not anything personal in my own life but due to the events in Tucson. I love my country. I have loved it since I was a little kid and learned about George Washington. He was, and still is, in my opinion, the greatest public hero of any age.
I was 8 when JFK was killed. My parents loved him and worked for him. My father even ran for the Senate in 1962, inspired by him.
I was 13 when MLK and RFK were killed. I will never forget walking into a drug store in Darien, Connecticut after MLK was murdered and hearing a man say ‘that N***** deserved it’. I was 13 and as angry as I had ever been at that moment. I didn’t speak up and was ashamed afterwards. Since then I almost always speak up if someone says something grossly offensive.
I was 26 when Reagan was shot. I was not a fan of President Reagan but it had nothing to do with that. I respect my presidents. I start each term with each president just as filled with hope as if I were a naive young man.
I am now 55, will be 56 in a little over a week. It’s weird, it’s almost as if this event in Tucson hurts more than the others. I know Giffords is ‘just’ a congressional representative, not a president or candidate, but it’s almost because of that that it hurts more. She ‘represents’ and it’s as if someone was trying to kill that, not just a person. Add on to that that people who had every reason to believe they were doing something uniquely and gloriously American that day suffered death and injury for no other reason than they wanted to connect to their representative.
I love rhetoric and the power of words. I love how they can inspire us. I hate how they can turn us on each other. I hate how they can be used by selfish people for selfish ends. I hate how they can mask lies and evil deeds. But I think the power of good in words can overcome that power of evil. And I won’t ever give up believing that, ever.
The napkin above is light, it’s funny, it’s absurd. It’s rhetorical. I had to lighten my emotional load a bit by drawing it. Don’t forget though, that it is not a rhetorical question to ask if we can’t be civil with each other.
