Category: Choice

Dancing Through the Grey

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 9 Comments

I just love this gif.

Every time I come across it it makes me smile.

It’s Brad Pitt and his goofy character Chad Feldheimer doing the happy dance in the movie Burn After Reading.  I love this part with him dancing and pumping the air and laughing and being silly.

This is how I’d like to be.

At least most of the time.

I know no one is happy all of the time. Life isn’t always dancing in the street, a bowl of cherries, or the pot at the end of the rainbow. Sometimes life sucks.

But when it doesn’t, it’s a chance to make wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, the (almost) best time of your life.

Now I don’t necessarily do the happy dance when I’m mopping the floor or filling the dishwasher. But when times get tough/boring/ stressful, a little bit of hopping around to “Swing Swing Swing” by Benny Goodman or “Flirtin’ With Disaster” by Molly Hatchet or the ending of the “1812 Overture” by Tchaikovsky can certainly do a number on my emotional state.

I know I sound like the old broken record, but there’s something about waking up every morning that makes me want to dance (after coffee, of course). Well, not all the time, but you know what I mean. Even with the aches and pains and trials of life, the miscues, missteps, and mis-ery, I try and find a reason to smile. To dance. Or even tap my foot, if I so desire.

How do we find Brad Pitt’s level of happiness?

That’s up to the individual.

Good books, great movies, powerful music, all are triggers. So are babies and kids, puppies, kittens, sunsets, oceans, crafts, flowers, phone calls and photo albums. The past, the present, and the future eventually all blend together anyway, so why not find something that makes you smile and feel good and run with it?

I know many hate this simpleton point of view. Life is not just black and white. Happy or sad. Hot or cold. It’s always a matter of gray.

Grey is good.

According to an article in the online magazine Psychreg, “When we attempt to view life in cut and dry terms we end up boxing ourselves into a rigid way of thinking and feeling. Our abilities to resolve our differences become more difficult and we can negatively impact our effectiveness. The more we learn about the grey areas of life, the more we see how it shapes our earthly experience.”

So we need the grey area. But in the end, grey gives up to either black or white. You either do or you don’t. You stay or you go. You live or you die. 

You either dance to the music or you don’t. 

Try dancing. It’s more fun, more liberating, and more addicting than any dark corner of life.

And it sure beats filling the dishwasher.

 

Today Is The Day

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 8 Comments

How many times have you said, “Today is the day”?

Not like in “today is the day I catch a plane to Paris” or “today is the day I see the dentist.”

It’s more like “today is the day I’m going to change” or “today is the day I am going to exercise” or “today is the day I’m going to tackle my insomnia.”

I think more times than we care to admit.

Today I’m going to write. Today I’m going to eat healthier. Today I’m going to take a walk with the dog. Today … Today … Today.

And Today comes and goes and we haven’t done one thing to better ourselves.

I’m not sure why that is. Maybe we’re too busy. Maybe our attention is focused elsewhere. Maybe we are a little more depressed or tired or confused and don’t have the energy to pull off our Today.

I know I’ve said that phrase more times than I can remember. I can’t remember what I was changing, but Today was always going to be THE DAY.

I would sometimes get half-way through the promised land and get distracted. Or up and quit and say who cares. I would give up or plain forget about my life changing vow.

Maybe that’s just being human.

Maybe it’s more than that.

Once again I have started today with good intentions. I’m not conquering the world: I’m not climbing Mt. Everest or working at a hospital saving lives or driving to Chicago to stop the rioting.

I’m merely starting my journey today, one step at a time.

I need to regulate my sleeping. I need to stop drinking caffeine after noon or, better yet, not take it in at all. I need to make a point of walking more, even if it’s around the yard a couple of times. I need to stop shoveling in carbs every time I’m hungry.

You see — your journey isn’t really all that hard. Don’t try and change the world; don’t try and change you. Not all at once.

Hold the words “Today is the day” as if they were sacred whispers. Don’t make your goals bigger than you can handle in one day.

After all, today is only one day.

But it can always be THE day…..

 

Dreaming

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 11 Comments

Vladimir Rumyantsev

This is my first spring being “retired.” I’ve been teased with a few warm days, but today it’s slipped back into cold and sleety and snowy, as spring always does, here in the Midwest.

These days I notice that there are quite a few things that have changed since my work days. 

I dream a lot more about work. Not my last job, particularly, but I’m always “at work.” Sometimes I’m being reprimanded for, I don’t know — misbehaving, I suppose. In other dreams I’m quite successful, pulling off a stunning career at 67. 

I often hear that our most private desires come out in our dreams.

I also hear that our biggest fears come out in our dreams.

I think what’s most frustrating with this quarantined retirement is that I’m not getting a chance to make a final stand, so-to-speak. To join clubs or groups I’ve always thought about but never got around to being a part of. To take classes at the nearby university just for fun. To make new friends that are my age who are going through what all of us go through at one time or another.

And with the weather misbehaving at the moment, I can’t even get outside and putz around making gardens like I promised myself I would. 

That will all come, I know. I talk to family and friends on a regular basis, keep in touch on Facebook. I keep in motion, I keep busy. If you don’t use it you lose it, and all that.

The biggest difference between quarantine and retirement is that I am lonely in quarantine. I mean I have a great relationship with my hubby. But outside of him. I’m not a big social person to begin with, but I realize how much we all need human contact to continue to grow. Everyone doesn’t have to be your best friend, but it’s nice sometimes to exchange pleasantries in person.

Like when I was working.

I might not have been best friends with my co-workers, but we shared parts of our lives with each other. We brought a different point of view, a different life, into the conversation. We shared ideas, places to visit, birthday parties and new craft projects and all sorts of stuff that stimulated my curiosity. We gossiped and complained about work and it was all quite entertaining.

What I miss is the choice of exposure these days. The choice of meeting for coffee or sitting on my deck by myself. The choice of working together for a common cause or striking it out on my own. The choice of asking how someone’s grandma was or minding my own business. The choice of hanging with my grandkids here or at their house.

Maybe that’s the big difference between retirement and quarantine.

Choice.

Working all my life just to have this new avenue of choice open up to me, and finding the gate is still locked. 

I know that sooner or later the gate will open and opportunity will greet me on the other side. But things will have changed. The world will have changed. And my retirement will be different than what I thought it would be.

But at least it will be. Better later than not at all. 

 

 

Faerie Paths — Choice

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

 

There are thousands of directions you can go every day —

Why settle for just one?     ~Dream Regret