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Choices and decisions made today give us tomorrow

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Every choice you make has an end result. Aristotle

One of the problems of so much opinion available to us is deciphering what the truth is. Everyone puts their opinions out pretending to be facts, hoping for maximum visibility, which also means maximum divisiveness.

They say the truth is the first casualty of war, and figuring out truth from propaganda is one of the most difficult things. We have some historians revising history because they say the lens the history was viewed from is incorrect. But revising history doesn’t mean they are now telling it correctly; they may only be viewing it from another side.

We are always the good guys in our own mind, and we appreciate things about our history others may not, and we don’t appreciate things about someone else’s history they may see in a positive light.

As East meets West, and North meets South, we have clashes. How could we not? Everyone wants their civilization to win, and winning often means someone has to lose. Even in a fair deal, someone probably comes out a little better, and how often are deals between nations fair? Is it rare that the smaller economy gets to take advantage of the larger one?

Bullying takes place in families, the schoolyard, and throughout our lives. We may think we don’t want to have to deal with bullies; we may even think we aren’t the bully when others think we are.

I grew up in a family where we counted Smarties so everyone got the same amount; the big kids couldn’t eat all the Smarties before the little kids got any. Life isn’t about no one losing when they play a game. History is filled with winners and losers, tyrants, and leaders who did the best for their people they could.

Choices are the hinges of destiny. Pythagoras

Ideas that work in one era might not work in the next. We might always be trying to find balance as the pendulum swings. Traditional values versus progressive ones, protectionism versus open trade, and moving toward religion or away from it. If we are in sync with the direction society is going, we may be happy, but what if we rail against the direction and see what others see as progress as a disaster?

How do we take the long view, when we don’t know what the long view is? Look at all the students who got into programs leading to jobs AI is now eliminating. Their choice of study looked like a good decision when they made it, but “progress” pulled the rug out from under them.

Reshoring manufacturing to the U.S.A. means pulling auto manufacturing from Canada and Mexico. What does a world based on protecting our industries, our borders, and our culture look like? But what does it look like if we don’t protect our industries, borders, and culture?

There is always a price to be paid for dependence and independence. There is no free ride for individuals, societies, or countries. We have to decide what is important, and we have to be willing to pay the price. Decisions made now will impact the future, and is taking the long view usually the better decision? Even if we make what we think are the best decisions, circumstances can change, and history might say we should have taken a different route.

Are we at a crossroads where decisions made today are hard to reverse, not just for ourselves but the world?

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. Nelson Mandela

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. Theodore Roosevelt

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide. Napoleon Bonaparte

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                                 The price of a deal

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

You must never try to make all the money that’s in a deal. Let the other fellow make some money too, because if you have a reputation for always making all the money, you won’t have many deals. J. Paul Getty

How do we calculate the price we will pay when we make a deal? We make deals all of our lives; marriage partners make deals, business partners make deals, and countries make deals. When we look at the past, we probably think some of those deals weren’t very good.

Years ago, the Canadian arm of the company I worked for had purchased the American head company. When the Free Trade deal went through, they promptly packed up and moved to America. Companies have been playing musical chairs for years, moving for cheaper wages and fewer rules and regulations.

Was Free Trade good for Canada? It probably comes down, as it always does, to those who win in a deal and those who lose. What takes the place of good manufacturing jobs? You can’t remove the resources out of the country, so mining, lumber, and oil jobs stay.

The single most powerful tool for winning a negotiation is the ability to walk away from the table without a deal. Harvey Mackay

Some say what is going on in America is that the “American system” is trying to replace “British Imperialism.” Canada is, of course, under Britain, and this might be why we are in America’s crosshairs.

Whatever deal eventually gets made, we will have to pay a price, because dealing with the Americans, we’ve always paid a price. Will we be stronger for having to deal with a bully?

After World War ll deals were made that weakened Canada. Did we have other choices or did the leaders at the time make the best decisions they could? Are we paying the price now for bad decisions we’ve made over the years?

Over the years how will we look back on this time? Will we look back with pride that we took a stand? Are we at a cross roads in global politics? Is American Manifest Destiny at play? When William McKinley said, “We need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California. It is Manifest Destiny.” They’ve always wanted to say the same about Canada.

What is the best possible outcome for Canada? Our leaders have a tough job. We might not think they always make the right decision, but I believe all our leaders want the best for their province and the country. Knowing what is best in the long term is difficult, and whatever deal gets made, we will debate it for years. When America says we were offered a good deal, I wonder who it was good for.

Deals work best when each side gets something it wants from the other and the worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. Donald Trump The Art of the Deal

There are no extraordinary men, just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with. William Halsey

At the end of the day, nobody cares how much you tried, what the deal was, or if you were a good guy or a bad guy. David Lichenstein

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 Are we making the future better, one decision at a time?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

One of the primary reasons why the human brain has evolved to look so far into the future is so that we can take actions in the present that will bring us to a better future rather than a worse one. Daniel Goldstein

“Did you watch a movie Grandma?” my grandson asks.

“Yes, but it was slow and I fell asleep.”

“Was it about a sloth?”

How do we make sense of what we hear? Not everyone hearing a movie is slow would think it is about a sloth. Is everything we hear and everything we say open to interpretation? It seems we don’t hear the same things, or at least we don’t interpret them the same.

How do we get back on the same page? How do we discuss some of the big issues of the day? If we aren’t willing to discuss contentious issues, are they likely to become more contentious or less contentious?

How do we discuss making reparations for past sins? Where do we start and where do we end? Many people are not just part of the majority group, nor the minority group. What of the people who aren’t part of either group?

If we do well in life, but everyone we know also does well, and sometimes even a little better, are we going to feel we did that well? When progress raises all boats, we won’t feel we moved up. If we aren’t ahead of everyone else, how did we move ahead?

Equality sounds great, but I don’t think a lot of us want to be equal because if we only have what everyone else has, then another term comes to mind: mediocrity or average, and somehow being average doesn’t seem good enough.

But why isn’t average good enough? Most of the people in the world will be average in height, weight, income, etc. Because if they weren’t, we wouldn’t have an average. If we were born poor, getting to the middle class is a big accomplishment.

Would we rather be a big fish in a little pond, or a little fish in a big pond? How do we interpret success? Is it only money and high positions that count? We might think hierarchies are terrible, but they are everywhere. Have you noticed the plants in your garden? If you let nature take over, will one plant become dominant?

I believe that Canadians have the common sense to see that a better future cannot be built on fragmentation. Kim Campbell.

This is why we have to watch planting invasive species with more delicate ones. Life is always changing, the landscape changes, and species who adapt best will do the best. We might wish we didn’t have to adapt and change but what other choice is there?

As the world turns, the world changes and we must adapt and change with it. We might like the old ways better than the new ways, we might be nostalgic for what was. But, who would like to get their light from a coal-oil lantern, or a candle before that, or no light at all after the sun goes down? Water from a bucket and a well, or carrying it home from the river, and have to kill something before making dinner?

I don’t like all the changes I see, but we can’t pick and choose the parts of progress we like. The good comes with the bad, and as a society we have to figure out how to handle the messiness and the fallout.

If we continue to progress as we have in the past, there will be winners and losers. One century we might be up and another century we might be down. Our garden doesn’t remain stagnant, and nor does the rest of life. We have choices to make, and how the fallout of those choices plays out might not be what we expect. But we won’t know until we look back over a few hundred years.

Those who view the past from a few hundred years in the future will not be looking at the present with the same eyes we view the future now. We hope the future is bright; we won’t see it, but if we are lucky, our ancestors will, and we hope they will be proud of who we were and what we did.

What if every choice we make is made to make the future we won’t see better?

We can do things the cheap way, the simple way, for the short-term and without regard for the future. Or, we can make the extra effort, do the hard work, absorb the criticism and make decisions that will cause a better future. Mike Rounds

Everything you need for a better future and success has already been written. And guess what? All you have to do is go to the library. Henri Frederic Amiel

Leaders don’t look backwards to condemn what has already been done, they look forward to create a better future. Mark Cuban

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What would our best life look like?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Steve Jobs

On Saturday, I attended the Writers Group. I’ve missed many meetings, but I’m always inspired when I go. On Saturday, the workshop was creating a Vision Board. We started last August, and by writing the questions down, by November’s review the question was answered, and a direction charted.

Having a plan, even the inkling of a plan, is a start, and it can take a long time to implement, but if we know where we want to go, we are on our way. With our compass pointing North, we take steps that move us closer and closer, until we finally reach our goal.

The end of one journey is often the beginning of another. As we continue to set our goals, our life moves on. If we forget to set goals, our life can seem stagnant. If we don’t break our big goals into smaller goals, we can feel like nothing is moving us closer to the end goal.

Small actionable steps move us forward. We might get discouraged along the way; everything takes so long, costs so much money, or something keeps getting in the way of our progress. Life happens on the way to our goals; sometimes we get derailed, and that derailment may last a lifetime because something bigger and more important got in the way.

How many people’s dreams of what they would do in life got derailed by marriage and family? Then marriage and family become the bigger dream. How many people didn’t have much of a dream but things happened, and they ended up with a life they never expected.

Love the life you live. Live the life you love. Bob Marley

We don’t know what will happen even if our plans work out, and sometimes when we hear about other people’s plans we think we haven’t been thinking big enough.

We are each unique, with our own view of the world; could we do more than we are to lead a more adventurous life? What would adventure look like to us? Would we choose a day in a city somewhere in the world or an outdoor adventure? Do we want to see wonders someone else has created, or do we want to try and create something ourselves? Does simple appeal to us, or opulence? Do we like to be in a group or alone? Do we want to be part of a group sometimes but also value our alone time? Too much togetherness or too much alone time doesn’t fit.

I find when I have the house to myself, I always seem to be looking for something to eat. Food is comfort; does this mean I am not comfortable alone, and if I had to get used to living alone, could I? People learn to have adventures alone, to travel, to create, and to thrive.

One of the ways to have a good life is to make the best of what is; more choices don’t lead to more happiness, the experts tell us. No matter what happens, in about six months we’ll be about as happy as we were before. This is good for all of us who face change and worry we might never feel comfortable again. We can move and create a home we love again. Can we meet new friends, find new activities, and find creative pursuits to feed our soul? We adapt and grow; a new chapter might be ending, but a new chapter is also beginning. We might wish the ending chapter could be longer; we knew who we were in that chapter, we knew what to expect, but what if a bigger adventure is around the corner?

Will choices we make today improve our lives? We need to be willing to make those choices; it might be the food we eat, exercise, groups we are part of, activities we participate in, and actions we take. What if we looked at our list, or made a new list, and did one thing to improve our life? Not try to do everything on the list, just one thing.

Today is a fast day for me; last week I had cream in my coffee, some call that a dirty fast. Today my coffee is black. One twenty-four-hour fast, from Sunday dinner to Monday dinner. It’s a small thing, but I let it slide, and only started again four weeks ago. I think it makes a difference. How many small things can we do that will make a big difference to our health and life? Not all at once, one at a time, and they will build on each other. If we document our progress, we can look back and figure out what works best. Our foot hurts when we eat that; maybe we shouldn’t eat that, but maybe we can try it again in the future.

We need to be our own control board, our own experiment, because what works for someone else won’t necessarily work for us. Building a life we love, in a body that works, making our dreams come true is the goal. Not someone else’s dreams, or someone else’s body; we have to work with what we have, who we are, and what we want.

Do we need a plan to figure out what we want in all areas of life, or do we figure it out as we go along? We get to choose how we live our life, what we focus on, and what we change. After all, it’s our life; live the best one you can!

The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination. Carl Rogers

You do not find the happy life. You make it. Camilla Eyring Kimball

When we do the best we can we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another. Unknown

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Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

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Silver and gold friends add so much to our lives.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

A good friend is like a four-leaf clover; hard to find and lucky to have. Irish Proverb

The power of friendship, when I see it in a movie or read about it in a book, a tear comes to my eye. What would really make me cry is not having any friends. The book club got together last Tuesday. A friend I met long ago recently reached out to me, and she came out. What a great addition she’ll be to the book club, and it seemed like all the time we haven’t seen each other disappeared. There were three of us laughing that night; sometimes there are five or six, but it’s always fun.

Last night we watched a Netflix movie, “Hail Mary.” Its sci-fi, but at its heart it’s a story about friendship. How we develop a friendship, rely on that friendship, and will sacrifice for that friend.

How lonely life would be without friends. Some friendships crumble over outside influences, but other friendships weather whatever comes along. How many friendships are fractured over politics right now? The divide seems unbridgeable, but what if we leave that division alone and focus on everything else? We can spend our time trying to convert people to our way of thinking, but we don’t need to have the same philosophical view or religion to read a book, and discuss it, or do any number of activities friends do. We need to spend time together and let them be themselves, and love them warts and all, like we hope they love us.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. Friedrich Nietzsche

It is wonderful having a friend come back into my life; we met at work when we were about twenty-four, and attended each other’s weddings. Life gets in the way, and in the busyness of raising kids and keeping a household together, we lost touch.

Sometimes our childhood friends live far away; time and distance are a challenge, and we might not be able to do more than loosely stay in touch, but that adds to our lives.

We meet people as we go through life; we might never become close friends, but we see their accomplishments grow and applaud them. Life is what we make it, and making friends is one way to build a great life. Whether we like to meet our friends face to face or shoulder to shoulder, they are important in our lives.

We need to keep reaching out to old friends, new friends, and people who can become friends. A friend tells me about the famous Girl Guide song, “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other’s gold.”

There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship. Thomas Aquinas

Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget. G. Randolf

You can’t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes. A.A. Milne

Thank you for reading this post. 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.

Thank you to those who read my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale.

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Giving advice, taking advice, and being an example.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

We may give advice, but cannot give conduct. Benjamin Franklin

The journey continues; today is my third twenty-four-hour fast since I quit them last November. I didn’t consciously quit; I got sick and never got back to it. We have to watch giving up our good habits; the walk we used to take doesn’t happen. The water we used to drink doesn’t get drunk. The books we used to read don’t get read. Book club is tomorrow, and I haven’t read the book.

I’ve been asked if I can give a speech at Toastmasters in August. I’m going to say yes, and if I wasn’t asked it probably wouldn’t happen. Why do we let some of the good things we have in our lives slide? It’s one thing trying to change bad habits, but when we let our good habits slide, it seems even worse.

It is easier to keep doing what we’ve been doing than to change. If we no longer take the time to exercise, read, walk, make a phone call, write in our journal, or do something creative, it might become a good habit we used to have, instead of one we currently have.

I find the things I let slide are the things that benefit me. I don’t let getting dinner ready slide, because my husband would be affected, but when it only affects me, I’m letting things slide.

What would my life look like if I didn’t let anything slide? Too many carbs seem to affect the pain I was feeling in my foot. When my foot was sore, I couldn’t go for a walk. Now my foot is no longer sore; is it a result of changed eating? It seems so to me, and it might not work for everyone, but if we each figure out what works for us, we might be able to tweak our health. My husband has lowered his carbs, and I think he’s feeling better as well. He’s willing to continue into the second week, and I think that speaks volumes.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself. Oscar Wilde

Is being willing to experiment in our lives a way we can make our lives the best they can be? We can’t control someone else’s life, and sometimes that’s the life we’d like to control the most. We know what they should do or change even when we might not know what we should do in our own lives. Funny how we can see the changes someone else needs but not the changes our own life is crying out for.

Trying to change others doesn’t work; we can tell them what works for us, and if they decide to try it, we have to be okay if they say it doesn’t work for them, or they no longer want to continue. Everyone is their own control board, and one of the ways people don’t change is when they feel if they do, they’ve given up autonomy.

Do you know how much better you’d feel if you did everything I’m telling you to do? It’s not likely to work. Sometimes I wonder how many people might change their lives if we quit telling them they need to change their lives, and the change would be their choice.

Does this mean we have to support them in their bad choices? Is it manipulative to say, “You can’t live in our house and do drugs?” How do we handle it when we see people we love destroying their lives?

Is doing the things that work and being an example better than trying to tell people what works? Is giving advice one of the things we love most, but also one of the most destructive things we do?

We hate those who will not take our advice, and despise them who do. Josh Billings

Never give advice unless asked. The wise won’t need it, the fool won’t heed it. German Proverb

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. Henri Nouwen

Thank you for reading this post. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Is moderation the key to health and all the good things in life?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book. Irish Proverb

Health is the first wealth; we’ve heard it all our lives, but it doesn’t really hit home until we feel we are in danger of losing something we’ve always taken for granted. If we are lucky enough to have been robustly healthy throughout our lives and only had to deal with bouts of not feeling well, we are blessed.

When it looks like a bout of not feeling well is not going away as quickly as it did, or a sore foot stays sore. We might start wondering whether we are beginning the slow, or worse, quick decline into poor health.

When going for a walk is no longer a pleasure because of a sore foot, or every time we turn, we wince because of a sore side or back, life is no longer easy, comfortable, or fun. I’ve been listening to podcasts that tell me that insulin is often the culprit for many of our health problems, and most of us become insulin-resistant as we age.

We live amidst plenty, and too much of too much is leading to health problems. It might seem like we need to starve ourselves to be healthier, and it seems our bodies were built for times when food would be scarce. Food has never been scarce in my life; I’ve always been able to have as many meals a day as I wanted, and as many snacks and treats, and herein lies the rub.

In life, it seems there is always a cost; there is a cost if we have too much, and there is a cost if we have too little. Finding balance is often difficult. Last night I had the option to say no to ice cream, but did I? No, and I could have had a small portion, but did I? No, I had an unhealthy helping.

The groundwork for all happiness is health. Leigh Hunt

It seems I’ve come to a point in my life when I can’t just continue on without considering consequences. If I want to feel better I have to eat less, and even less of some of the things I love most.

Sugar and fat are not a good combination for most of us. It doesn’t mean I’ll never have a bowl of ice cream, but having one every night, I’m going to have to decline. In one of the podcasts, the doctor said, “You have to track your own progress; no doctor will care as much as you about your health.” Even if we have the most caring doctor in the world, their caring does nothing, our action is what is needed, all they can do is point us in the right direction and perhaps help us measure our progress. But, what is the right direction?

Mom didn’t follow fad diets; she told me not to diet when I was young. She’s been right all along. We need to feed our bodies, not overfeed or underfeed, and when we have a problem, we have to figure out what caused it. When Mom had a problem, she would eat cream of wheat porridge and not much of it until her problem resolved. The longest she went was twelve days. She had a gallbladder problem, but took her gallbladder with her to the grave. She ate a low-fat diet because her gallbladder required her to, but she found as she got older, she felt better if she ate more fat, and started buttering her toast.

She listened to her body; she experimented and found what worked for her. She took as few medications as possible and lived healthily to the ripe old age of ninety-nine.

I’ve followed diet gurus like Susanne Summers and Dr. McDougall, but neither of them made it to ninety-nine. Mom watched her mother die of breast cancer at a relatively early age, and thought she would have had a better quality of life without the operation the doctors said she needed. So, she didn’t look to doctors to improve her health.

In life, we need to be our own control board, we need to figure out what works and doesn’t work, and we need to be willing to pay the price for our decisions. There is a price to pay for eating that ice cream, drinking that milkshake, or sugary drink. We might have to figure out what diet works for us, and it might not be the one that works for everyone else. Could Mom have gone on a keto diet and eaten the amount of fat recommended? Not likely with her gallbladder.

One size does not fit all; we are unique, and we have to figure out what works for us. It might be easier if we didn’t have to figure it out, but I think it is up to us to work with our own metabolism, our strengths, and weaknesses.

My goal is not even to live to be ninety-nine; my goal is to live as healthily as I can, for as long as I can, without becoming frail. Diet and exercise are at least part of the answer, but what diet, and what exercises? This is where trial and error come in, and documenting our progress. We can listen to gurus and try something and see what results we get. We need to conduct our own experiments, look at what works for other people, but if it doesn’t work for us, work on finding something that does.

What if some of these extreme diets, like keto, work in the short term to fix a problem like insulin sensitivity, but what if keeping carbohydrates too low for too long is also not good? Fasting is good, but taken too far leads to starvation.

Moderation in all things is probably the answer. But, how many books could be sold if moderation were the theme of every book?

Moderation sees itself as beautiful; it is unaware that in the eye of the immoderate it appears black and sober and consequently ugly-looking. Friedrich Nietzsche

Everything that exceeds the bounds of moderation has an unstable foundation. Seneca

Follow the wisdom provided by nature. Everything in moderation – sunlight, water, nutrients. Too much of a good thing will topple your structure. You can’t harvest what you don’t sow. So plant your desires, gently nurture them, and they will be rewarded with abundance. Vivian Elizabeth Glyck

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Forty years go by in a blink

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

In the blink of an eye, everything can change. So forgive often and love with all your heart. You may never know when you may not have that chance again. Zig Ziglar

Our fortieth anniversary was yesterday, and we thought we should do something to celebrate. We took a couple of day trips this weekend, nothing spectacular. One day, we went East and saw the Peterborough lock system. This is a hydraulic lock; it took eight years to build and was finished in 1904. The boats come in on both sides, and then a foot of water is added at the top, and it goes down to the bottom, like a hydraulic teeter-totter. There are only eight in the world, and two are in Canada. What a feat of engineering.

The next day, we went west. There are a lot of towns and cities to visit, and we haven’t been big day trippers. We’ve been talking about it, but haven’t done it. The big trip to England and Paris hasn’t happened yet, but we have a Paris in Ontario.

Dinner in Paris sounded like a great idea. Maybe we didn’t know what to look at in the places we drove through because we didn’t stay long, and found ourselves in Paris long before dinner time. It’s a pretty little town, not as pretty as I was expecting, as some have said it is the prettiest town in Ontario. It sits on the Grand River and has some pretty lookouts, and a restaurant we wanted to eat at sits on the banks of the river with a lovely view. But, it was only two in the afternoon, we stopped into a new home showroom, and saw what they have on offer.  We walked through a little farmers’ market, down to the lookout, and we bought an ice cream. The girl serving us assured us we didn’t want the single scoop, it would be too big. Sure enough, we bought the kiddies cone, and it was a massive amount of ice cream. Too much ice cream never seems like a thing, but on a hot day, with it melting all over you, the larger cone would have been more of a mess, and the kiddie’s cone was bigger than a lot of double scoop cones we’ve had.

My husband looked at me and said, “You really want to eat there?”

The obvious question, “Where do you want to eat?”

“I think we should drive back to Elora, the first place we visited, and eat there.” So we did, Elora was the prettiest town we saw, it’s on the same Grand River and has a gorge we’d walked beside in the morning. When we got back, it was packed with people. We walked by a few restaurants and went back to the first one, which we liked best, had a wonderful dinner with an entertaining waitress, and drove home.

Life is what we make it. I see Facebook pictures of people living their best lives; it can make some of us feel our lives aren’t big enough, full enough, or fun enough. Comparisons are odious. What is the point of comparing ourselves to others? We don’t know their suffering, what brings them to their knees, and if we could swap our lives for theirs, we would have to give up something we truly love about our own lives.

There is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return. Marcus Aurelius

Living our own lives, crossing off our own bucket lists, and making the most of the time we have with the people we love is what’s important. We never know what the next day will bring. Even our best laid plans may be altered. I still haven’t had dinner in Paris, and it’s okay because I think dinner in Elora was the better experience.

Forty years have gone by in a blink; we have choices ahead of us, until we don’t. We have to make the most of them. We’re not competing with someone else, but what do we want out of the next year, five, ten, or twenty years? What have we been putting off we need to deal with? What changes would make our lives better?

Those elephants we haven’t dealt with are still there, creating havoc; some of them will always be there. We might not see eye to eye on history, politics, religion, or the future. That isn’t likely to change, but none of those affects our relationships unless we let them. We have to agree to disagree, and it seems to me most of us want the same things: peace, prosperity, love, respect, a future for our children and great-grandchildren, and a society that works for all. Our ideas about how to get there differ and cause a lot of the problems.

Making the most of our lives, one day at a time, is what we can do. A merry heart doth the body good. We can try our best not to be contentious or argumentative. After all, what’s the point of arguing about the same old thing continuously and ending up more set in our opinions, yet upset with someone else about theirs?

There is so much to be grateful for, and when we are grateful for what we have, we get a better perspective on our lives. It might even give us space to make the changes we need to make, which, when we focus on what is missing, we somehow can’t manage.

When we have more years behind us than ahead of us, we need to be careful we don’t focus on the shoulda’s, coulda’s, and woulda’s. Instead, can we focus on what is still possible? What if it’s more than we might think?

Life is a cycle, always in motion, if good times have moved on, so will times of trouble. Indian proverb

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain

Life is precious, and there are no guarantees about how much time you have left. So, live each day to the fullest, take good care of yourself, and most importantly, be grateful for the chance to live another day. Unknown

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Unmet expectations, frustration, and planning

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Remember all frustration is based on unmet expectations. If we did not expect anything we would not be frustrated. John Lund

Plans rarely work out how we think, but planning is indispensable. If we don’t have a plan, how do we know where we want to go? But, don’t some of our best adventures happen when we veer from the plan? We go down a road we didn’t know existed, we explore something new, and we take a chance on something that turns out unexpectedly well?

We used to look at maps, and now I just plug something into my phone and out jumps what I want. But when we look at maps, we see places we want to go and things we want to see.

The computer is great for planning a trip, but last night, planning a little weekend getaway, or maybe it will only be a day trip, I finally pulled out my old map book to see how where we are thinking of going lines up on a map. Looking at that map, I could see how little we’ve seen of the province we live in.

We often think the adventure we want is a plane ride away; we need a passport and a hotel. We’ve been talking about day trips for a while; we even talked about travelling in a small motor home. But nothing has come of any of it.

There was a point when I said to my husband, “You know, we are the most boring couple.” We were at an anniversary celebration, and we didn’t get up and dance. The music wasn’t good enough. As guests, we were expected to help make the party fun.

Life is what we make it, marriage is what we make it, and adventure can be found anywhere. Do we have enough adventure in our lives? We probably have as much as we want, because we are in charge of the planning and implementation.

Sometimes things seem like such a bother, but when I make the effort, I always feel good about the result. Is it too much not bothering that creates a boring life? Sometimes our expectations are so high that the adventure can’t possibly be as good as we expect. Do unmet expectations play a big part in our dissatisfaction with life?

We thought things would be better and different. Maybe we thought if we spent enough money, we would receive whatever we think is missing in our lives? The chasm in our relationship would be bridged, but if we have a chasm in our relationship, why would we think going to a new place and spending lots of money would fix it?

We’ve all experienced the letdown of unmet expectations. An expected reward that fails to materialize is worse than a reward that was never anticipated in the first place. Anna Lembke

How do we get the life, relationship, and adventures we want? Jordan Peterson says, “You will never fix some of your problems. You can manage them.” I think he’s right. When we don’t see eye to eye on things, how can we fix that? We need to be willing to agree to disagree. It might seem incredible that someone doesn’t see what we see; it’s so evident, are they blind? I’m beginning to think it isn’t blindness, it is seeing through the lens of what they think is important. Some of us take a wider view of our society, and some take a smaller view; those two views can be at odds. But, aren’t we talking about the same thing? Not really, because if we are hanging onto the leg of the elephant in the room, and someone else sees the whole elephant, the conversation will seem like we aren’t talking about the same thing at all. If we happen to mention they aren’t taking a big or small enough view, how will that go?

We might think we need them to focus on the leg, and they think we need to see the whole elephant, but what if we need to realize there is more than one view of many issues? Is the problem thinking our view is the only one? Conversations come around to these contentious issues, but what if I learn how to worry more about what I can control than what I can’t?

Planning a weekend getaway or a day trip, I can do. Control where the conversation goes on said trip might not be so easy, but what if I learn to control my reaction to how someone else sees things and quit trying to get them to see things my way?

We must respond to the unmet expectations of life in ways that create solutions by finding ways to heal the wounds of letdowns and injustices. Rev Larry Kreider

The source of almost all conflict comes from unmet expectations. Brenda Hewitt

Anger always comes from frustrated expectations. Elliott Larson

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Canada, our great and glorious land. Happy Canada Day!

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Canada is the homeland of equality, justice, and tolerance. Kim Campbell

Canada Day is coming, a day we celebrate with pride. This country of ours we’ve built together with those who were here, and have come later. We are here, and we aren’t perfect, but as long as we can discuss our imperfections and elect leaders with free and open elections, we will continue.

One of the things many people across the Western world appear to worry about is that they can’t discuss problems in their society that are considered an ism. We especially need to talk about the isms, about expecting things from some groups that we don’t expect from others. How much are we willing to have our society change to make other groups happy?

If we can’t talk, it will devolve into something else. The conversations might even get ugly, but if we don’t talk about issues important to us, and let them fester, and hard feelings develop between groups, how can that end well? If I want something that appears to take something away from you, how will you be happy? If we talk about it, debate it, and fight about it in the public sphere, and come to an agreement, then we can live in peace. If we don’t talk about problems arising in our society and the world for fear of offending someone, it will end worse, and it won’t be words hurting others, but violence.

In England, it looks like to keep the peace, the elite have tried to muzzle the common working-class Brits with hate speech laws, etc. It doesn’t look like it is working to me, and I don’t want to see that level of division come here. Different groups can live together in Canada if we all agree on Canadian laws and Canadian values. We don’t have to look the same, eat the same food, or follow the same religion, but we do have to live together without infringing on each other’s rights. Mutual respect, mutual responsibility, and mutual love for Canada are required.

Canada might not be a good fit for people who do not like Canadian Laws or Canadian values and want to impose their own on their part of society or all of society.

Is the Alberta referendum positive?. Talking about Alberta’s complaints might be a good idea. I grew up with sentiments like, “We pay the freight when we buy it, and we pay the freight when we sell it. The West always pays the freight.” Canadian elites, Eastern Canadian elites, have created this problem. Rightly or wrongly, the West believes they aren’t getting a fair shake. It’s coming to blows because they weren’t taken seriously, after all, what could the little Western Provinces do?

Canada is like an old cow. The West feeds it Ontario and Quebec milk it. And you can well imagine what it’s doing in the Maritimes. Tommy Douglas

Ignore concerns long enough, and you’ll see what they can do. If you ignore concerns by trying to make people think they are horrible people for even seeing an issue, let alone voicing it. Soon, you will have people who don’t care what you call them, and they will do more than use their voice.

How do we deal with the issues facing us? Not by pretending we don’t have problems. How do we address the disparity between the rich and poor, housing prices outpacing wages, and immigration outpacing opportunities? These aren’t the only problems facing Canada, but they are here, and if we want to continue as a country that people want to come to and live in, we have to make choices that are good for Canada and its people.

We are at a time in history when it seems the common people are the least catered to. Look at the Albania controversy: a protected island is now being sold to be developed as a playground for the rich and famous that the average Albanian will never be able to afford to visit.

Tourism brings in money, but it doesn’t always benefit the common people. We need to balance all the interests to keep Canada the great Canada it is, and the greater Canada it has the potential to be.

Canada Day is a day to reflect on where we came from, where we are going, and who gets a say in the decisions.

Happy Canada Day!

As a woman in Canada, I get to do whatever I want to do, and I’m used to that. I’m used to not having my government tell me my life is going to be restricted because I’m female. Deborah Ellis

It’s like Canada is the little brother to the United States and one day they are going to show the world they’re just as cool as their successful big brother. Dustin Milligan

The truth is, I’m someone coming from a spoiled society. – the worst thing we deal with in Canada is winter. Denis Velleneuve

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more, and 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.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.