Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time I would walk into a business and they would greet me by name. If they didn’t know my name, they’d extend their hand in a handshake and tell me theirs. Then I’d tell them my name. They’d ask me . . . yes ME . . . what they could help me with.

No one wanted to know my account number. They didn’t ask my date of birth.

Most places now only know me by my account number  . The rest of them know me as my date of birth.

I might as well be a prisoner. Instead of prisoner number so and so, I am citizen (maybe, maybe not) number so and so.

People say change is good, but it isn’t.

They say you might not remember exacly what someone did, but you will remember how they made you feel.

 

Righteous Anger

People who are angry and should be angry, are often said to have “anger issues”. This is said by those who have no idea how much pain and hurt those people have tolerated. Feelings belong to the person who is experiencing them. Unless you’ve walked a mile in their moccasins, you are not allowed to decide how they should be feeling just because their feelings make you feel uncomfortable. Handle your own comfort level. Do whatever you need to to feel better, but don’t tell the person pounding the wall that s/he should not feel that angry or to “calm down”.

Manipulating My Emotions

I am seriously tired of the media trying to stir up my emotions about every little thing. To live in America today is to live in either constant fear, worry, anxiousness, concern, etc. for any and every little thing. The media reports on what shoes the President’s wife is wearing. They report on storms for days before their arrival and move the “cone of probability”, or whatever they call it, around so that every person n every possible affected state runs out and buys and drives up the prices of gas and food and becomes as agitated as they can be as they see bare shelves and continue to hear dire predictions.

I’ve had enough.

IF and that’s a big and unlikely IF, the media ever learns how to report the news again, I might give them another chance. In the meantime, I will remain blissfully ignorant of what the important news of the day is and how I should feel about it. If it’s not in my personal sphere, I don’t care. There! I figured out how to feel about it. I don’t care!

Tell Me How To Feel

I just read an article, and like so many others, it says “anyone should feel appalled at this” . . . well, they don’t all say ‘appalled’. Some say “shocked”, others say “grateful” . . . whatever the person writing the article feels is what anyone who reads it should feel.

I remember when students were taught to “think for themselves”. We didn’t always do it, but it was encouraged. Now whole populations are told how to feel about every single thing that they read or see or hear.

I resent this kind of propaganda. I often do have the same or similar feelings as the person suggests, but I prefer to form my own opinions and be the master of my own emotional state.

Lately when I read about how I should feel, I stop and think of why I might feel otherwise. it doesn’t mean that I do; it just acknowledges that we are all different and everyone has a right to their own feelings. Or they used to.

If It Feels Right . . .

If it feels right, it may be wrong. If you grew up around negative people who put you down and tried to make you mistrust your own judgement, and you find people like them and stay, you may be staying because it feels right . . . or feels “normal” to you.

Breaking free of self-doubt and sometimes self-loathing may be as hard as escaping from a spider web.

We don’t always see our lives for what they really are.

I don’t need to surround myself with “Yes” people – people who agree with everything I do or say, but I certainly don’t need to surround myself with people who criticize everything I do or who make fun of my ideas.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family (didn’t many of us?) and for a long time things “felt right” when I was in the same emotional situations I was familiar with.

I’ve had to distance myself from certain people. I’ve had to replace negative thoughts (whisper something positive in your head whenever you do something and hear in your mind those people who put you down make you feel like maybe you’re doing it wrong – whatever “it” may be) with positive thoughts.

I am capable. I am smart. I can do this.

Not “what do you think you’re doing?”, “Are you sure you can do that?”, or “You’re doing that wrong.” It’s funny now to think I ever listened to those who questioned my ambitions. But then, I didn’t always, did I?

I was the first person in my family to graduate from college.No one in my family attended my graduation. At the time that felt “normal”. Now I realize it was not.

That is the only example I’m giving right now of how a person can be lead to believe their “normal” is “normal” when it may not be.

I grew up in a small town where everyone thought everything was exactly the same everywhere. I began to see they were wrong when I went 23 miles away to college. My mother wanted me to live at home and commute. I wanted the college experience. I moved to a dorm, and I don’t regret it at all. I can’t imagine writing papers or going to meetings I needed to attend by being a commuter. I can’t imagine my mind expanding and learning so many new things by staying in the same small place.

There are other examples I could give, but I won’t right now. I’m writing a book about certain things I’ve lived through. Memoirs. I’m writing my memoirs. It’s helping me see even more how someone who has been trained to think certain behaviors are “normal” will put up with so many things they shouldn’t tolerate.

Just because it feels right doesn’t mean it is.

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