Holding grudges

Being disappointed is a normal part of life. It’s something that happens in our professional lives, in our personal lives. It’s something that happens by an ill-timed word or words, or differing opinions. It can appear to happen out of nowhere. You think things are going well and suddenly…POOF!  There’s a disappointment.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I have dealt with being disappointed by people recently. I’ve been bad about holding grudges, which don’t do anyone good, especially me. The definition of grudge is (noun) “a feeling of ill will, resentment.” That has been me recently. I got annoyed by someone and instead of letting that annoyance slide off into nothingness, I steamed about it and held onto it, nurturing an unhealthy feeling.

Releasing resentment is hard. I spent so much time with the resentment that it became a part of my life. I didn’t like the way I felt while I was holding on to that negative energy. I wasn’t happy and lashed out at my family and friends. It was ugly. I finally made up my mind to let it go, to open the door and usher it out.  All the resentment does for me is make me physically ill and exhausted.

I’m working on being a better person, which means I have to leave the pain of the grudges behind. I don’t want to be tired and grouchy all the time. If I have time to hold in all the resentment and let it fester, then I darned well have time to let it go, to be a nicer person.

To that extent, I’ve made an effort to reach out to people who I may have disappointed, to people who may have disappointed me.  I am making the effort. I can’t say I’ve been one hundred percent successful, but I’m trying. If I reach out to someone I’ve disappointed and don’t find my efforts rewarded, then I’ll take that as a sign that it wasn’t meant to be.  Will I be happy about it?  Not likely, but I’ll take it as it may be meant. The relationship is either meant to stay together or it’s meant to disintegrate. As long as I’ve TRIED then I know my karmic role is not as tarnished as it could be.

 

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Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Catalan Cebuano Chichewa Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hausa Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Kazakh Khmer Korean Lao Latin Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maltese Maori Marathi Mongolian Myanmar (Burmese) Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Sesotho Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Somali Spanish Sundanese Swahili Swedish Tajik Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish Yoruba Zulu

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I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one

I love the “what would you do for this condition?” posts I read on social media. It seems that people don’t want to go to doctors for help these days. They’d rather depend on a potentially undependable social media network for advice. There’s a variety of symptoms one can Google™ out there. Medical sites abound. You can go to WebMD, hunt up symptom A, go to some other site and hunt up the same symptom. You can be sure you won’t find the same answer to the problem.

When I  had an issue with a condition, I did what any normal person would do. I visited “Mr. Google.”  It was amazing how much information was out there. I took the information with a grain of salt. I depend on the medical professionals who went to school for 10+ years to diagnose me and come up with a treatment plan. I don’t claim to have that knowledge. I depend on these people to treat me. I haven’t always been this way. I’ve been in the “What do you do about this, this or this?” club. I’ve tried to avoid doctors. I guarantee it was a mistake for me.

Why are people so resistant to seeing people who are dedicating their lives to helping others? If someone has gone to the trouble to go to school for that long, they’re not in it for the “look what I’m doing!” factor. They’re doing it to help others.

I guess I’ve lucked out. I have doctors who don’t jump into medicating first. My doctors listen to me, ask questions and don’t tell me to “take two pills and call me in the morning.” They are geniunely interested in treating me as a whole person, not as a number. Could it be that I’ve just lucked out? My general practitioner tries to keep from prescribing meds. He has it as an alternative, but will tell me, “this could work but let’s try this first.”  He referred me to another doctor whom I positively adore. She is the best doctor I’ve ever had. She spent a lot of time with me last year, discussion options for me for a problem I encountered. Ultimately, the cure was drastic, but that was the last option on the table. We explored other options until it became impossible to manage.

I’m not saying that the Internet isn’t a good source of information. I’m just questioning why there are so many “doctors” without medical degrees out there.  I questioned someone this morning about whether they’d seen a doctor and had the condition they were asking about verified.  It’s easy for us to say, “do this, do this, do this, it worked for me.” What works for one person may not work the same way for another. The one thing people tend to discount is that humans are different. Yes, anatomy is similar, but it’s also different.  Your eyes may be blue. Mine are green. My hair is gray-ing. Yours is just as vibrant as the day you were born. What works for me, (visiting my doctor, getting  a lecture about my weight,  talking about the problem I’m there for, getting advice) may not be the choice for you.

Ultimately, you have to use your head and either see a doctor and take the advice you’re paying for or don’t. Whatever you do,  please don’t blame a real Medical Doctor for the advice you’re taking from a social media “doc”.

 

What defines “family?”

What is the definition of “family?” The traditional definition is parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins. That’s the most common definition. It’s the people related to you by shared blood and DNA. The ones you expect to have around all your life.

Sometimes that doesn’t happen. Sometimes your family unit is torn apart by different things.  Perhaps a family feud occurs and causes your blood family to distance themselves. It happens.  Is it pleasant? No, not really. The ones being left behind might feel confused, wondering what they did wrong.

Then you have people who walk into your life at a possible low point. They’re the ones who are there for you, who listen to you and allow you to call at odd hours of the day. They’re the ones with the patience to tell you, “You’re doing this, this or this …” They don’t hold back on criticisms or compliments. They don’t say you are making mistakes.  They’re there for you when you need them most.

I have several people I consider my “heart” family. These are people who have been involved in my life for many years. They were there when my kids were born, they held my hand, figuratively, during surgeries. These are people I trust implicitly.

There are a handful of people I would love to meet in person. They’ve given me immense support and have listened to my frustrations when other people have betrayed my trust. These people are the ones I feel the most comfortable with.

I cannot say that every single person I know is a “heart sister or brother,” but I can say that I have several people I would call to bail me out of stressful situations. These are the people I call my “heart.” They’re the ones who stand up with me and give me emotional support when I need it.

One of my best friends, I’ve known since high school. Another one, I’ve not met in person (YET), but she’s my rock. She gives me advice and offers herself unconditionally. This is the type of legacy I’d like to leave to my kids. I want them to have people they know they can lean on when their blood family isn’t available.

 

Random thoughts

My thoughts this evening:

I have one person who constantly tells me how I’m “so good” at various things. That kind of makes me feel awkward, like I’m on some sort of pedestal and if I do just one thing wrong, I’ll be tarnished or fall off that pedestal.

I’m really not as good as all that. I’m argumentative. I’m guilty of holding grudges.  (I think it’s a safe thing to say that’s a learned habit.) I don’t let things go. I yell at my kids. I yell at my husband. I rant a lot. Definitely not pedestal worthy.

We’re born into the human race. It’s up to us to treat each other with respect. I promise to respect you if you’ll reciprocate. Being human and not a mechanical being, I can guarantee I’ll make mistakes. That’s how I learn. Please don’t lift me up where I know  I don’t belong. I may fall and get hurt. Then I’ll get mad and hold grudges and all sorts of other ridiculously human behaviors.

These are just a few of the things that are running through my head tonight. What are you thinking about?

 

 

 

January 1, 2018

Another year is in the books, and a new one has started. It’s going to be a good year. I am going to do my absolute best to not fall into the negativity traps I found last year. I am moving forward with a better mindset.

I started my morning out with a walk. The state of Texas has been visited by an Arctic front. I’m not saying it was cold or anything, but my phone said it was 14 degrees F and the wind chill was +1.  I went out at 7:30 AM and at 1:25 PM, I’m still not warm!!  That’s how cold it was!! I walked a mile and a half in 34 minutes. When I got the first “halfway point reached” notification, I almost dropped my phone. I didn’t think I’d been out that long! At the one-mile mark, when my phone told me I was averaging 20-minutes a mile, I had to laugh.  Only for a second. Breathing hurt!!

So why was I out at 7:30 AM on January 1st? I have decided that for my health, I am going to continue to walk 1.5 miles a day, or I’ll walk it twice a day.  Sitting around, not moving is not healthy and as part of my taking back my health plan, I’m going to “move it, move it.” (Madagascar HD All rights reserved to Dreamworks.)

People often talk about “making resolutions.” I have a good friend who doesn’t believe in resolutions. She plans to make changes since realistically, resolutions only last until mid-month when it becomes tedious and boring. She makes small changes at any given time. I decided that I was going to emulate her. No more “resolutions” to be broken when I get bored and tired of things. I can tell you from experience that I get bored quickly.

I’m working on my daily step goal today. I lack only about 2000 steps or so to hit that, which I should do before the end of the day. I’n not sure I’ll go back outside since I don’t care to freeze again. I’ll either start dancing or get over to the trampoline. I will get my steps in!

Day one is not quite in the books yet. I am on track today to keep up with my personal goals.

364 1/2 more days to go.

 

 

 

Happy New Year’s Eve 2017

It’s December 31st, 2017. It’s the last day of a most challenging year.  My family has had to deal with a lot in the past twelve months.

January: I started my last semester of college. My application to graduate was accepted. I showed to have a  grade point average which allowed me to graduate Cum Laude. (go me!)

February through April was more or less uneventful for us. My son and I had school; there were concerts, and assorted crises to deal with that came along with that. As the semester wound down, tension built for me. I am not a fan of math, which was my Kryptonite that semester.

May. Graduation was May 12th. My class was roughly 800 people. It was long (but shorter than my daughter’s graduation in 2013!) and exciting. I can honestly say that I remember this graduation much more clearly than my high school graduation. I think it meant more to me.

About two weeks after graduation, I went in for a minor procedure.  I had to take some time off work for recovery. I kept in touch with my co-workers and a couple of people who knew what was going on during the time I was out.  It wasn’t bad. The worst thing was trying to make sure I kept physically active. My husband got me out walking a lot during that period. I was able to finish a couple of virtual races, which was my favorite thing this year.

The rest of the summer was uneventful. Our daughter stretched her legs and traveled overseas by herself in early August. She’s already talking about going more places. Since she’s an adult, I am cheering her planning. It’s good to see her testing her wings out.

September and October were difficult months for my husband. He spent two nights at the hospital.  We are now re-learning how to eat, how to exercise, how to live. He’s on long-term medication and has had to make positive changes in his life. I’m starting to get onboard with this as well for myself.

Now it’s the end of December. We’re heading into 2018 with its assorted challenges and trials. I am looking forward to it. We have a graduation on the horizon. There will be many things to do before that happens.

I wish you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Blessings!!

Stepping up to the challenge

I’ve gotten a lot more active in the months of September, October and November. I go out and walk at work for two breaks and lunch. I don’t sit at my desk without moving for prolonged periods of time now. While I don’t have a standing desk, I make it a point to get up and move more at work. I have been known to take toner orders standing up. I have music in my office and dance around. Of course, anyone seeing me dancing will likely think I’m insane (I probably am!) but I’m not sure I’m going to worry about that any more.

After my foot surgery last year, I’ve bumped up my steps from 5000 a day to 6000 a day, then went up to 7500 a day and finally 8000 a day. I’ve been blowing past the 8000 steps routinely. My Fitbit has been known to see 10k+ steps. I also use an app on my phone to document my start times on walks and map my routes. I walk a mile and a half at least twice a day. Sometimes it’s three times a day. It usually takes 20 minutes to walk a mile unless I’m dawdling.

I’m more interested in getting myself healthier so that I can keep up with my husband and be here for him for another 26+ years. Once the kids move out, we’re traveling, so I have to get in shape for that.

I haven’t been telling everyone that I’m “working out” because it’s just walking. However, it’s “just walking for my health” at this point. Once I get a few pounds down, then I’ll be more comfortable exploring options like gyms and things like that. For now, I’m doing what works for me…walking and walking a lot!