Learning new things, adapting and changing. Making the best of our situation.

Making the best of our situation. Learning new things, adapting and changing.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Never let a bad situation bring out the worst in you. Be strong and choose to be positive. Unknown

Last night we had our first virtual Toastmaster’s meeting. There are virtual groups that only meet virtually already, but this was our first virtual meeting. We used Zoom Pro which costs $20.00 per month and can handle 100 participants. We had thirty-six people show up about six were guests and most of the guests were Toastmasters from other clubs. One guest was from Atlanta and one person was not a Toastmaster.

We didn’t have the number of problems we expected. The speaker couldn’t be seen until I pressed the right button. There is a learning curve. We can use a PowerPoint presentation which one of our speakers did and it worked very well.

For my speech, I didn’t know if I should stand up or stay seated. I opted to stay seated. It would have been nice to record my speech but we can’t use our camera for two things at the same time. There may be a way to review our speeches in zoom.

One of our evaluators had a hard time hearing the speaker she was evaluating but she handled it well. Zoom appears to work best with windows based computers. Mac users seemed to have more trouble.

We had a complete meeting on Zoom. We had a full slate of roles with four speakers and four evaluators and a great turnout. I was impressed and some of the people from other Toastmaster groups were probably there so they could see how a virtual meeting worked. My guess is there will be more Toastmaster groups having virtual meetings during this time.

Companies are probably already using this technology but if they aren’t it is a way to keep in touch when we need more than a phone call, email, or fax. It may even be more effective for some meetings because everyone who isn’t speaking can be muted and the speaker has the floor.

Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us. Unknown

Families could use Zoom and have up to 100 members join at one time. We are lucky to have this technology. Without technology we wouldn’t know what was going on with other people. How must it have been years ago when we said goodbye to someone it might be for the last time without ever knowing what happened to them?

We need to be careful where we get our information, but it is reassuring to be able to get information. We can know if things are getting better or worse. We can look at how things are going in other countries and our own. We can stay in touch with friends and family. W

We are in this together. We will get through this together. Is it true when we are no longer able to change a situation we need to change ourselves? What are we going to learn from going through this? We may need to walk some walks we never wanted to walk, but here we are. Are we practicing what we are preaching?

Life is 10% of what happens to us and 90% of how we react to it. Unknown

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Martin Luther King Jr

Confidence, courage and a determined spirit are vital for surviving hard times. Lailah Gifty Akita

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, or see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end. Please subscribe, comment, and share.

If you purchase an item through the Amazon link I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

See this image

Tough Times Never Last, but Tough People Do! Mass Market Paperback – May 1 1984

by Robert Schuller (Author) 4.5 out of 5 stars 159 ratings



If we only love through the good times, it isn’t really love. Love is a verb.

Love is a verb. If we only love through the good times, it is't really love.

You’re going to go through tough times – that’s life. But I say, “Nothing happens to you, it happens for you.” See the positive in negative events. Joel Osteen

We thought we were soul mates. We thought we would always see things the same way. When we were young maybe we thought true equality was actually possible. Before we saw that people starting at the exact same place in their life, with the same opportunities, advantages, and circumstances made different life choices and reaped different harvests. Those life choices made a difference in their lives. Then if you throw luck in there, walking away from a car crash that kills most people, or investing early in the one company that became the success of the decade.

Life is about choices. What we learn, who we build our life with, where we build it. Some people get together and they become more than what they each were. Other couples become less than they each were. Some people stay and get through the ups and downs of life; other people only stay for the ups.

If we can’t stay through the tough times, and there will be tough times, we don’t reap the rewards of getting to the best times. We may think that people in long term marriages had it easier, but it is probably better to think they dealt with things better. It is dealing with, not the things themselves that determine where we’ll be.

Getting through marriage if we are critical, contemptuous, stonewalling and defensive will be much harder than if we can try and see our partner’s point of view, understand their fears, and get into the situation with them. We may think we can do it; of course, we’ll do that. When it actually comes time to see things from their point of view, when it is a point of view we can’t wrap our head around we are at loggerheads. They may think, how can you not see what I see, we may think how can you see that?

In tough times, we all hope for knights in shining armor, or the cavalry, to show up and effect change. Dean Devlin

At these times we may have to agree to disagree. We may feel we are betraying everything we believe to take their side. We may have so much of our self, and our identity wrapped up in what we are thinking it feels like a defining moment in our lives. It becomes an “If we don’t stand up for what we believe, what kind of person would that make us,” moment.

We can’t understand why they don’t understand us anymore, why they could think such things of us, how we have come to look at the world completely differently. We somehow have to reassure our self that our partner has a right to their thoughts, feelings, fears, insecurities, values, goals, and seeing things differently from us is not a threat.

When you come from a large family you know everyone saw things differently. It is like every one of us has a different take on the same story. We can only see things from our point of view; somehow we think our partner doesn’t have their own point of view. We think we have “our joint” point of view. That somehow our coupledom should make us one, we should automatically know what the other wants, needs, expects, requires, and is dealing with.

We got together because of the things we were attracted to; sometimes those same attributes begin to rub us the wrong way. Their sense of humor we so loved, seems so inappropriate, childish, etc. Their outgoing nature seems scary as people are attracted to them, and we worry they could get interested in someone else.

Everyone can always do what we fear they will do. We can’t make people stay with us, love us, be faithful, be kind, be considerate, not get ill, or die before us. We can make it so we are easy to love, kind, considerate, loving, supportive, encouraging, understanding, respectful, likable, and warm.

The only person we can change is our self. If we see things about our partner that needs to change, perhaps we should look at our self and see if we are being our best self for them. The power of our life is when we realize we are the change we need to see. When we change the way we look at things when we become the best we can be, when we focus on what we can do, when we deal with what is. We may not like what we have to go through to learn the lessons we need to learn, but we can be better, or we can be bitter.

A great relationship is about two things. First, appreciating the similarities, and second, respecting the differences. Unknown

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end. Please subscribe, comment and share.

If you buy a product through the Amazon.ca link I do receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon.ca affiliate program.

Love is a Verb: Stories of What Happens When Love Comes Alive by [Chapman, Gary]
Kindle App Ad

See this image

Family is forever. Life is what we make it. Opportunity and choice at every age.

Yellow Gardenias stock photo

To subscribe, comment, see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end. Please subscribe, please comment.

If you buy a book I’ve recommended through my blog. I do receive a small percentage of the purchase through the  Amazon.ca affiliate program.

Family is not an important thing. It’s everything. Michael J. Fox

Family day is tomorrow. Every day should be family day and for most of us, it is. Those who are still in the trenches, where everything they do, think, spend, and work for is their children. Here’s to you! Raising children is the most rewarding, energy-sapping, resource-driven enterprise most of us will take on in this lifetime. We get as much as we give and there are no words for the joy we get from our children.

Sometimes it seems like getting from here to there, no matter where here seems is long and hard. Other times that same journey seems short and sweet. If you are past the heavy lifting of child rearing and now enjoy adult children, you know what I mean.

If you are now Grandpa or Grandma you’ve gotten your earned reward. I’m waiting for this one.

If we are lucky we get old. My mom tells me we don’t have to feel old. If we can stay away from a mirror, or at least don’t put our glasses on when we look in it, we can tell our self we’ve hardly changed.  We think certain things come with aging, but is it true? We need to question the ideas we allow to lodge in our brain. Do we feel old because we act and think old?

If we stay fit, active, and engaged, we can enjoy life at every age. The older I get the younger each age I’m at seems to me. I’ve watched my mom and her attitude. She’s never had a weight issue, so that has never taxed knees, hips, etc. She is a naturally happy person and she is engaged with people. Nieces who have lost their mothers enjoy talking to mine.

When we talk to some people they’re problems weigh us down. Mom is uplifting, she laughs at what she cannot change, she talks about the worst that could happen, and in doing so finds peace. Mom isn’t a worrier, she’s already dealt with some of the worst things that can happen. She survived.

Mom was widowed with two kids and a brand new baby, left destitute because the insurance company wouldn’t pay the insurance her husband had taken out to ensure she would be financially okay if something happened to him.

She survived, kept body and soul together, married my dad, had five more kids and built a life. Many of us worry how would we survive if X happens? We’ll do what we need to do. It will be what it is. We will make the best of it. Most of us won’t even worry about the things that will blindside us. It will come out of the blue, and there we are.

We will handle it well, or badly, whatever we are capable of. It will become our new normal. We will carry on. We can’t possibly know how we’ll react if X happens. We don’t know who will be there for us. We don’t know who will be there with us. We don’t need to know. What we need to know is we have the strength and courage to handle whatever comes our way.

This is family; this is what it stands for. Once we become mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, grandmas, and grandpa’s we can never, not be them again. We can be good ones, bad ones, hands-on, hands-off, distant, close, engaged or unengaged. This is our choice, we can’t change what is, but we can be a negative or positive force in our families lives.

I was hearing on the radio that children without father’s in their lives in higher socioeconomic areas, don’t do better than children in lower socio-economic areas with fathers. I’m not sure I like everything being judged by money. There is an amount of money we need to keep body and soul together.

Neither man nor woman is perfect, or complete without the other. Thus, no marriage or family, no ward or stake is likely to reach its full potential until husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, men and women work together in unity of purpose, respecting and relying upon each other’s strengths. Sheri L. Dew

That amount of money depends on where we live, the cost of housing, etc. They give the amount most of us need to be happy at about $75,000.00 per year. Above that our happiness doesn’t really increase. Does the outcome for our children increase?

Getting on the treadmill of more, more, more, may actually only work for those who profit from us working harder. It may hardly profit our selves. As we work harder we have less time to enjoy the fruits of our labor and our families. When people drop out of the labor market and live on what they’ve accumulated or investments they’ve made, they may live more simply but more richly in the things that matter to them.

Life is about choice, we want more choice; does more choice make us happy? Does accepting our lot in life and making the best of it give us the most happiness?

There are always challenges; we can only make the best decision with the choices presented to us. Are we looking at all our choices? Are there choices we need to excavate and examine? There is only so much we can do in this life, but often it is more than we think.

Do we have dreams we haven’t achieved yet, that are still achievable if we have guts, determination, and luck on our side? Is it time to go after a new or old dream? Is it time to stay the course until the children are raised and then pursue something else? Is it time to start smelling the roses, or planting them?

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him. Buddha

See all 2 images

What is truth? Do lies tell truth and does the truth tell lies?

Yellow rose stock photo

To subscribe, comment, see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end. Please subscribe, please comment.

If you purchase a book through my blog. I do receive a small percentage of the purchase through Amazon.ca’s affiliate program.

We are instinctively blind to what is not relative. We are not cameras. We select. Robert Henri

What is the truth? Is it the quality or state of being true? Is it that which is true or in accordance with fact or reality? Is it a fact or belief that is accepted as true?

Jesus said, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”Henry David Thoreau said, “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”

Today we hear about “alternative facts.” Fake news is not new. Mark Antony heard the rumor that Cleopatra had committed suicide, and then stabbed himself in the abdomen – only to discover that Cleopatra herself had been responsible for spreading the rumor. He later died in her arms.

Psychology Today says: The mind does not perceive reality as it is, but only as it can, filtering, distorting and interpreting it. In modern times it has been argued that truth is largely constructed by social and cultural processes, to say nothing of individual desires and dispositions. There are categories and constructs regarding, for example, race and sexuality which may not reflect biological let alone metaphysical realities.

Some people feel if something works, it may well be true; if it doesn’t, it most probably isn’t. Some things work for me, but not for you. Is it possible there is no “truth” only “perspective”?

The greatest thing a human soul can ever do in this world is to see something and tell what he saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, and thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion all in one. John Ruskin

How can we know if we are lying to our self? Of course, self-deception is hard to distinguish from the truth. If it wasn’t we would never deceive our self. We usually don’t believe we are lying to our self, deceiving our self or in any way not dealing with what is. It is so easy to take credit for the good and find someone else to blame for what goes wrong in our life. We can do our best to bring radical honesty into our lives. If we will unflinchingly look at the reality of our life, our relationships, finances, and all other areas of our life and take 100% responsibility for the situation we find our self in. We can then look outside our selves and see the truth residing there as well.

If we can tell the truth, or at least don’t lie. We can try to look at the many sides of something to determine the truth of it. It is a good exercise and the more we practice the better at it we will become.

Psychology Today says, “truth is constructive and adaptive, while lies are destructive and self-defeating. So how useful is a self-deceptive thought or reaction going to be to you? Are you just covering up an irrational fear, or helping to create a solid foundation for the future? Are you empowering yourself to fulfill your highest potential, or depriving yourself of opportunities for growth and creating further problems down the line? Is the cycle simply going to repeat itself, or will the truth, at last, make you free?

Truth is something I question as a writer. At my Writers group, we were discussing true stories versus fiction. My belief is there are no “true stories”, that are absolutely nothing but the truth. There are always three sides to a story and only one is told by whoever is doing the telling. History was written by the victors. It wasn’t the truth; it is “his story”.

At least fiction doesn’t pretend to be the truth as it gives us the motivations behind the actions. It is in fiction we learn about ourselves. As the author not constrained by facts can delve into the heart of who we are, what motivates us, how we think, how our biases cloud our thoughts and actions. It is in fiction where the real truth of who we are is told. Not facts, not deeds as they happened, but the truth of who we are as people. It is in fiction we find ourselves. Fiction can go deeper into the heart of situations because it is not constrained by facts. Most of us do not know and understand ourselves and our deepest motivations; reading about characters and their motivations helps us see our self.

Is fiction the lie that tells the truth? Isn’t it through fiction we get to the motivations behind the actions and realize the motivation behind what is bad, isn’t always bad, and the motivation behind what is good, isn’t always good? Don’t we get to know characters better than we know real people? Isn’t it through those characters, we begin to understand our self and others better?

I believe in not quite knowing. A writer needs to be doubtful, questioning. “I write out of curiosity and bewilderment…I’ve learned a lot I could not have if I were not a writer”. William Trevor

See all 2 images

See this image

Lies That Tell the Truth: A Book of and about Metaphor Paperback – Dec 20 2000

5 out of 5 stars   1 review from Amazon.com |

 

The greatest love. Mother love is the greatest love of all.

Photo of pink daylilly by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Click on the picture to bring the comment section up at the end of this post. Please leave a comment.

 “Encourage and support your kids because children are apt to live up to what you believe of them.” — Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady of the United States

The greatest love of all is a mother’s love. Mom always said, ” the greatest gift you can give your children is to love their father.”

Is there an ideal amount of time to wait before having a baby? I’m sure there is, I don’t know what it is. Our son was born after three years. It seemed perfect. He was an easy baby. One little baby you can take anywhere. If you need a sitter it’s easy for only one baby.

When our daughter came along she was just as good of a baby, but two children are a lot more than one. I never wanted an only child. I love having brothers and sisters, so I at least wanted one sibling for them to go through life with. I’ve always thought an ideal family would be two boys and two girls. Everyone has a sister and a brother.

Life is both hard and easy when they are babies. Communication is pretty easy if they cry they are hungry, wet, uncomfortable or tired. It gets more complicated from there. Some lives get so complicated that communication breaks down completely. I don’t know what one has to do to keep the lines of communication open. It is a two way street, but if we always keep our end open – there’s unconditional love again.

If unconditional love does exist I think it would be between parent and child. In Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules For Life he tells us don’t let your children do anything that makes you dislike them. I think this is really good advice. It is the best feeling in the world when you get a compliment on your children’s behavior.

People love to be around well behaved, smiling, happy children. The magic is gone when they cry, roll on the floor, and thrash about. I was in a grocery store a while ago a young boy was telling his sister what to do and steering her away from things. In a big brother, kind of bossy but not too much kind of way. I had to smile they reminded me of my two kids.

Some people lament about the young people of today but mostly I think they are a great lot. Some of them are finding it hard to find their slot. They are the square pegs in round holes. Many in each generation go through this. Finding our way has never been easy.

When we look at people’s lives we don’t know the angst, frustration, and missteps along the way. We see what looks like overnight success which for many is fifteen years of tough slogging.

When the kids were young most of us were so busy we didn’t have time for hobbies, even reading might be a dream other than nightly bedtime stories and we couldn’t always manage that.

There are so many ways to feel a failure as a parent. When they were babies “the good mothers,” breastfed then made their own baby food. It is easy to feel you don’t measure up. We are good at that, tearing ourselves down, sometimes to the point that we know we could do better but why bother, it won’t be good enough. Good enough for whom? The child, to whom we are the centre of their whole world?

We compare ourselves to others at our peril. We always come up short. If we do the best we can it will be good enough. When I hear children talk proudly about their parents, it is when they knew their parents had struggles, but the child knows they did the best they could for the children and the family.

It is great when we are proud of our children, it might be greater still when our children are proud of us. We set the example for the next generation. How do we expect them to know things we didn’t teach them? No one teaches you about parenthood except by example. Maya Angelou said, “she became the parent her mother was.” If we drop the ball, who picks it up?

Parenthood is a blessing, and a responsibility because we are building the future with our decisions and actions today. No one’s perfect and thankfully perfection is not required. I think we don’t see the result of our parenting until we become grandparents. I look forward to that happy occasion – no pressure kids!

“You’re going to live with this person for the next 18 years. Make sure you raise someone you like.” (grandmother’s saying)