Is It Time?

I think it’s time to write again. Maybe, kinda, I’m thinking about it. Sorta. I guess I should write about writing. That would be a novel idea. Hah! Novel!!

We’ll see about that.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

I don’t like that I haven’t written in over a year. I’ve even had another Covid shot! Maybe I got complacent. Maybe I ran out of ideas. Maybe aliens took over my brain. There’s no explanation. Maybe I just ran out of things to say.

Nah. Not me. I’m an observer and can always describe things in my sight.

Besides, if I do start writing again, it will distract me from so many troublesome things: the war in Israel and the rise of antisemitism; the war between Russia and Ukraine; the frightening dog fight for candidacy in the 2024 elections; and my brittle fingernails. Distraction. What a noble goal!

MEANWHILE… I cannot leave this page without commenting on the tragedy that befell my fellow Jews and other innocents on October 7th by Hamas terrorists. The murders of Israeli innocents and capture of hostages was the largest attack on my people since the Holocaust. As of this writing the hostages have still not been returned. Alive. The United States government is urging for a ceasefire and wants to send supplies to Gaza. I fear the “peace’ and supplies will only be used to further strengthen the terrorists.

Another painful knot in our history. THERE ARE NO WORDS. Prayers for the victims and their families. May Hashem avenge their blood. #StandWithIsrael

Photo by Oleg Vakhromov on Unsplash

Happiness is My Choice, 16

I make my own frame of mind, and therefore, I choose to be contented. I want to be a force for Good. If I am dependent on others to determine my level of contentment, I will lose my serenity when (not if) they change their moods. I will cede my desires and my capability of being a source of Good, and follow the whims of others. That is not how I wish to live, nor how I see my role on the earth.

Driving, with happy thoughts. © JustHavingFun

Yesterday I tried an experiment. I drove toward home after an appointment. The sky glowered, low and gray, and the wind whipped up a chill. From inside my cozy car, I decided to bless all I saw. I thought about each person I saw and stated something positive aloud:

• A man sitting on the bench at a bus stop, huddled over: “Stay warm.”
• The UPS delivery van driver coming toward me: “You help so many people.”
• A group of teens standing at the corner after school: “Have fun with your friends.”
• Someone getting into a car: “Drive safely.”

At each utterance, I felt a frisson of joy. I was sending good wishes, blessings, into the universe! I changed the world.

HaSameach b’Chelko: One who is happy with what he has. © JustHavingFun

Focusing on the pleasant readjusts my attitude, too. I could have been vexed by the pokey driver who was somewhat erratic, seeming to pull over then come back to the center of the road. Instead, I said kindly, “I can understand your confusion, but next time, please use a signal.” I do it other times, too:

• Hearing sirens in the distance: “I pray nobody is ill or in need. Please help them and may the responders be protected.”
• Seeing a flock of birds whirl above: “How beautiful your flight is.”
• Commenting on a person’s appearance: “Your hair looks so nice.”
• A helicopter circles above: “Let the police be assisted in their duties.”
• At an intersection: “I am glad all cars stopped and drivers are patiently waiting.”

Our words have power. When I choose to focus on the pleasant, or on the condition of others, not only do I change myself, but I also let loose power in the world. We understand that the Creator used words to create everything. Modern science shows that our thoughts change our brain biochemistry. Nothing is random, it is all connected.

So for today, I choose to manifest Goodness and Pleasantness. May my comments inspire others to be positive, embrace serenity, and be happy.

Possibilities

Today I’m focusing on what is possible. We control an amazing force—the potential to do something! In physics, an object’s potential energy relates to its proximity to other objects. How will it act? What will it be capable of doing? What factors act upon it?

Possible Sunflower. © JustHavingFun

As we age, we find ourselves conveyed into increasingly narrow channels. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. We become specialized. Certain decisions will collapse other options. If you turn right, you obviate the choice of turning left. If you choose fish for dinner, you will not have eaten beef. And so on.

Here’s a career choice example. You start school as a blank sheet of paper. Then you take a full slate of classes—biology, art, sociology, and computers—and one will pique your interest more than the others. In college a course in developmental biology seems fascinating. You end up working for a professor who studies chick embryo neural tube development mutations, which leads to your Ph.D. research in genetic defects that cause spina bifida. You didn’t start out to become a research scientist. You simply liked biology class and decided to pursue that area of study. At some point, access to time and resources for delving deeper into art history, organizational hierarchies, or computer natural language development, say, becomes less available. Few people have the wherewithal to pursue a second field with the same verve as their first. Or, they wait until later in life and take it on as a second career—or not at all.

But the potential still exists. Possibilities don’t vanish completely as long as intellectual curiosity propels us forward.

Every choice we make hones us and refines us in ways we can’t imagine. That doesn’t have to make us narrow people. The rhythm by which we live is not a steady, monotonous drumbeat. The rhymes we repeat to ourselves don’t all end with the same syllable. The songs we sing have more than one stanza.

Possibility opens us to different ways of looking at things: a ball of yarn becomes a sweater, a calendar photo becomes a vacation, an appeal for charity becomes a passion. Our personal potential becomes expressed because of the choices we’ve made, the roads we travel down. But the other roads still exist.

Stem cells are plenipotent; they have the capability of becoming any type of cell in the body when they mature. So, too, are humans. We are born plenipotent, able to become any type of person and fit any career, following manifold interests. The beauty of humankind though, is that once we do fit ourselves to some mold, we can branch out. We can explore our possibilities. We can expand our world to include aspects outside of our immediate circle of knowledge. We can let other aspects into our consciousness, work on them, enjoy their possibilities.

The sunflower has no choice but being a sunflower. Its fate is predetermined and set. We, however, can enjoy the variety of knowledge, reflect upon the various possibilities that the world presents us. Just because we research spina bifida doesn’t mean we’re excluded from writing songs. Our rhymes are not squelched; rather, they are enhanced by the bits and pieces that total the world of possibilities.

For today, it is possible for me to break out of my mold, to incorporate various possibilities into my life song.

 

 

Happiness Is My Choice, 9

What difference does it make? – Peanuts © Charles Schulz

I could have put my pedal to the metal and sped up when being asked to slow down. I could have seated the guests on the right, facing a painting, instead of the left, across from the bookcase. I could have sliced the dessert lengthwise instead of widthwise. I could have worn my hair styled in a fancy manner instead of wrapped in the bohemian scarf. I could have done many things just for spite, control, or defiance.

For some reason, all of these mild requests irked me and had me thinking to do the opposite of whatever the request was. My back arched and my fur bristled. “Who do you think you are?” my inner control freak screeched.

A well-meaning person made a request of me and I bristled internally with hubris: “I’ll darned well do it my way!”, “Harumph! Who are you to tell me what to do?”, “No, I’m not going to kowtow to you”, and “Who asked you?” I could have worked myself into a fine tizzy, gotten angry, spit out unkind words. What was happening? What set me off like that?

Do I have ODD: Oppositional Defiant Disorder? No. It’s more simple than that: I felt irritated.

Irritation, a feeling of not being in control, led to arrogance. My way or the highway. Conceit, pride, haughtiness, and egotism all raised their crusty, creaky voices to get a piece of the action. Hauteur, contemptuousness, smugness, disrespect, and self-importance yammered for attention. My self became more important than you, her, him, them, and those others. My yetzer hara, the “evil inclination,” the nether self, that lying, poisonous snake coiled in the pit of my gut, took over my brain and implanted insanity.

“Diagram of a Poisonous Snake” by betsy.maher, used under CC BY 2.0

Oh dear reader, don’t think I’m a saint because I identified the snake. He still lashed and slashed. I recognized the beast, then let him feast anyway. I fumed; he gnashed and snarled, gurgled and fussed. I stewed in smug self-righteousness… until it tired me out. I don’t want to be that person. Happiness is my choice. Lest I let the beast and chaos rule, lest I get into an accident or hurt someone’s feelings, I needed to oust it. I needed to choose what to do, how to respond.

But the first step was recognizing what was going on.

I’m not normally offended or offensive. I’m typically calm and not snide. I want my life to be pleasant and placid. I choose to surround myself with good: good intentions, good wishes, good feelings. I want to have the pure joy you get from recognizing someone else’s good fortune, taking pleasure in the beauty and good surrounding us. I want to dance at weddings, reveling in the gladness. I want to spread smiles and good cheer. I have the discipline to put myself in a place to harvest joy.

What difference does it make?
—Charlie Brown

I consciously remember good events and minimize the not so nice. I find ways to allow others their faults and let them have a “pass” when they’re not filling my expectations. I’m easy, pretty unflappable. The world will keep turning if I am not in control. Let it be. Irritation pushed me down a short slide into the maws of unhappiness. It erected a barrier between me and my serenity.

I can’t allow anything to exist between me and serenity. If I do, I get detoured from my daily connection with the One, the Source of All Good. I can put that snake down by refusing to succumb to its venom. All joy beckons me because I recognize the illness causing my discomfort: a false sense of reality. I’m not so important that my will matters above all. Does it really matter whether they sit here or there? Charlie Brown had it right: What difference does it make?

Next time the evil inclination bites me, I’ll know what to do: I’ll drive slower, let the guests choose their own seats, slice the dessert as each wants, and wear my hair as I please.