Have you taken on the burden of caring for a loved one? SHAME! Being a loving human being, generous with compassion and care, offering time and patience, is not an unpleasant experience. And indeed, the caregiving individual in a caring situation often benefits as much as the cared for person. I can’t say it better than we did in yesterday’s Uplift post, Unburden yourself. Check it out.
Category House and Home
One from Column A and/or
Did you ever pick your one from Column A and after you chose those two from Column B you wondered if the choice from Column A was the right one? Of course you did. Who hasn’t picked some selection, made some choice, committed to some decision, and then wondered if that was the right one to go for?
(For the younger crowd, Chinese restaurants once were noted for menu choices made from two columns, the first typically the proteins and the second were the sides. Do they still do that anywhere? They don’t here. More often than not, complete meals are presented, or aka carte choices can be picked from the entire menu.)
For me, messing up a menu selection would have significant impact, so strong is my love of food. Of course, I have made more significant yet errant choices throughout my life. I once turned down a promotion because I was concerned that I was being chosen over others who had significantly more time in their positions. After reflection, I realized that yes, they had more time, but I was vastly better at doing the actual work. As you would suspect, it was impossible to un-say no.
Just yesterday I was busy assembling the agenda for an upcoming meeting. Throughout the morning, I was interrupted by calls and messages and made little progress. I finally said to myself, “Self,” I said, “there’s nothing that important that comes through your phone any more. Ignore the darn thing and wrap this up so you can get back to your book and enjoy the afternoon.” So I put the darned thing on silent, finished the agenda, then got back to my book. It after lunch (naturally) before I checked to see if I might have missed anything. Of course I had. Unfortunately, one of them was indeed pretty important and I spent the afternoon trying to connect again without any luck.
Choices made because of rigid or poor thinking, each affecting my life rather significantly. We don’t have to do that. We can be creative in our thoughts and in our choices. I could have told my boss that I was honored to have been her choice, accepted the opportunity that frankly I had wanted and would have been good at rather than “magnanimously” stepping aside to make way for seniority. Or I could have configured the phone in myriad other ways than simply ignoring it, allowing important calls through while filtering the unwanted to a holding area.
Yesterday’s Uplift post, Certainty Unsure, looked at that very topic, how we can be certain we are unsure of what we’re doing. Or perhaps how we can be unsure of what we are certain of doing. The bottom line is that we don’t have to be certain. We aren’t restricted to a single path through life. We can choose our own way and it will be okay. I missed out on one opportunity, but I had many others come through. And I might have missed a phone call but like (all our) mother(s) told us, if it was importantly, they’d call again. Be certain to decide to pop over to the ROAMcare site and check it out.
Humble is as humble does
It has been said that you can tell the measure of people by how they treat someone who can’t do anything for them. Perhaps by doing something as simple as pausing, paying attention, or making eye contact, or as life changing as being there for someone who just lost a loved one, is acclimating is new city, or by stepping up to volunteer after a natural (or manmade) disaster we can increase our measure.
Too often we either ignore those around us or if we do offer help or comfort, we expect praises of gratitude and a lifetime of holding someone in our debt for having done them a “good deed.”
There was a time I was probably one of the bigger violators of what is really just another way of loving our neighbors as we do ourselves. In some weird twist of expectations, I felt I was entitled to others loving me as much as I loved myself. I had become a big fish in a decidedly little pond, and it was easy to assume everyone knew me and knew I controlled what went on in my world.
Then I moved into a big pond and fish my size were decidedly quite numerous and on the little side. My only entitlement was if I did a good job this week, I could be allowed to come back and work next week. There was no longer the staff willing to do whatever I wanted but was now a team that needed to be convinced that I was capable of being a part of the solution.
It was then I learned to appreciate those working with me, others as smart and as experienced as I was but with slightly different backgrounds to pull from. I learned we pull harder when we pull together and soon was helping even in projects I was not directly responsible for but knew I or my team would be able to contribute.
I became a part of the community and was accepted as “one of them,” ultimately becoming “one of us.”
Pope Leo recently said, “May no one think they have all the answers. May each person openly share what they have.” We have wonderful gift at our disposal. Humility. For that is genuinely what being humble means. We can hurry along our way, ignore those around us, and when we do reach out it is to see what we can pull back. Or we can slow down, ignite those around us, and bring enthusiasm and joy to others without the expectation of recognition or recompense.
This week’s Uplift recounts the story of a most famous individual and perhaps his most humbling experience and how we can all learn that it is not the best known who brings the most to others, it is the one who contributes enthusiasm and joy. Check out The Humble Moviegoer at our ROAMcare website.
Tales from the heart
I have a confession to make. The last few weeks I’ve taken advantage of a random quote by fifth century Pope, St. Celestine I. Celestin founded the Vatican diplomatic corps. Imagine, 2,000 years ago the world already needed diplomats for countries to speak kindly to each other. Probably because like today, it was difficult to understand what was going on when everyone was shouting, so they needed experts at listening and whispering.
I’ve contrasted those Monday posts with Thursday’s Good News of the Week feature. Proof that even as the world’s former greatest civilized country crumbles in despotism, they are pockets, very large pockets of good in the rest of the world. They’ve been fun looking up and selecting 5 or 6 examples of, if not happy news, at least news that doesn’t want to make you throw up every time tangerine face pops up from his recharging pad and says something more stupid than you thought it could get.
The truth is, they are both easy subjects to pull together 500 words that don’t sound like 500 words of gibberish, aka what a text based social media post passes for nowadays. There were easy and I needed easy.
I am wrapping up a significant creative project that I’ll be announcing sometime in September and a lot of my creative fuel has been spent on that. At the same time, I’ve been involved with a series of speech contests again, this time as organizer and chair rather than contestant. Contestant by far is the easier gig.
With all that going on, I’d typically still be able to think up a few original thoughts to share with you but for the fact that I have all that going on while I’m running at about 60% capacity. Earlier this year, I noticed my walks were getting more difficult. To make a long story short (too late), after ruling out joint, muscle, strength and stamina, and respiratory concerns, the last organ to be looked at was heart.
As a lifelong member of the “I have a heart murmur club” I knew I had a valve that was not like the others. I also knew they can stay a nuisance for a lifetime or shift into problem gear over a very short time. Mine decided to shift. In the process of checking that out, they also uncovered a slightly uncooperative heart artery.
As this post is being published, I will be prepped for a cardiac catheterization, angioplasty, and deeper look at the mitral valve. Supposedly this will all take just a few hours, and I’ll be home to peruse today’s Reader sometime this afternoon.
I’ve taken Celestine’s quote, “We are deservedly to blame if we encourage error by silence,” to heart (no pun intended) and do not want to be also responsible for misunderstanding encouraged by silence. I hope by next week I can be more myself on Monday posts. I think I’d like to continue taking the easy way out on Thursday though and stick with Good News Thursday releases. There’s always room for good news, even if they do their damnedest to suppress it in Washington, DC.
Faithfully yours
Even though I’m still reeling from some of the most dictatorial events of all time that have happened and are happening in this country this week, I still have faith that I can find good news to celebrate. (And yes they are dictatorial. Find a German who was around in 1932 and ask if there is any difference between then there and here now.) (Anyway…)
What good went on this week?
The Wellbeing Research Centre releases its annual report on countries’ relative happiness. They polled 100,000 people from 147 countries on their perceived quality of life. This year’s report found Finland taking the top spot (for the eighth successive year), with Denmark, Iceland and Sweden, and The Netherlands rounding out the top five. Surprises included Costa Rica (sixth) and Mexico (tenth), both in the top ten for the first time. Other countries making it into the top ten are Norway, Luxemburg, and Israel. The good ole USA comes in at 24th. (In ‘Freedom” the U.S. comes in at #115. That puts us behind some democratic stalwarts like Mongolia (113), Venezuela (103), and Russia (102).)
From just as recently as 2021, statues in London honoring men have outpaced those honoring women. Since then, more statues honoring women have been unveiled than in the entire second half of the 20th century. These included war heroes, pop culture icons, medical pioneers, and even royalty (Queen Elizabeth II, England’s longest reigning monarch, received her first statue in 2023.) Why should we care about what happens in London. Because women do things. So do all kinds of humas who are not white and/or orange males. Besides, they scored higher than us on the happiness scale so they must know something.
In April, the Salt Spring Island (B.C.) office of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) received the request from an out-of-town family to check on their elderly father who they’d not heard from. Officer Cst. Lloyd found the senior who appeared to have been living in unhealthy conditions, reluctant to engage, and adamant that he did not need help. The officer stayed with him for over an hour and developed a rapport with the older gentleman. In time, he agreed to be transported to the hospital to be checked. Last month, the man showed up at the RCMP Salt Spring Island office to share the news that he had unknowingly been bleeding internally for some time and, according to doctors, would have succumbed in the next 24 hours had it not been for the intervention of Officer Lloyd. No word if Officer Lloyd was fully masked and decked out in battle gear. I kind of think not. Canada also ranked ahead of us (way ahead of us) on the happiness scale.
Descendants of the Maya in Belize (aka indigenous people) are reviving an old game (even older than the NFL – oh my!). Pok-ta-pok, today the national sport of Belize, is billed as the world’s oldest team ballgame. It’s more curious news than good news but I wanted to bring it up because even though Belize came in one space behind the U.S. on the happiness scale, they ranked #1 in freedom. See what happens when you are nice to your indigenous neighbors.
I have faith you enjoyed this roundup of good news. Hmm. Did I use ‘faith’ properly, or could another word been better. Check out what we wrote about faith in An Article of Faith, this week’s Uplift post at ROAMcare.
Oh, if you’re interested, here’s is a link to the World Happiness Report dashboard compiled by the Gallup organization from this year’s wellbeing report.
Choose your case scenarios
With all that’s wrong in the world, it’s easy to want to consider the worst-case scenario. When was the last time you considered the best-case scenario? I realize I spend a lot of digital energy bringing up some pretty bad things that are happening. Given the chuckle crew based in Washington DC, it’s just too easy not to find laughingly stupid, or stupidly laughing examples of criminal behavior, let alone their usual level of just dumb crap. Given all of that, good things still do happen.
Among all the wars, conflicts, skirmishes, and scuffles going on, Cambodia and Thailand signed an immediate and unconditional ceasefire on July 28th following military activity along a disputed border. Yay, peace without insisting someone say “thank you” first.
Following months of reports regarding the unconscionable shifting of previously targeted humanitarian aid (aka money) to blood-sucking billionaires, word comes of a new medical school just opened that aims to train new doctors on preventative medicine funding by (be still, my heart) a billionaire! Walmart heiress Alice Walton put up the money for the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine. So she’s not modest about it. We’ll give her that. At least she’s spending her own money.
If other cash-rich American have an altruistic streak in them, there is a opportunity in Vermont. Realizing how spotty cell phone service is in his area, Vermonter Patrick Schlott bought an old pay phone and installed it outside a local general store using a device that doe some magic and changes an internet connection to an (old-fashion) analog telephone line. He then removed the coin-operation mechanism and free phone service was available where previously no cell phone service existed. 370 calls were made from the phone in June, many of them students who needed a pickup from a parent. Schlott would like to expand the project if he can figure out financing. Billionaires of America, here’s your chance to prove you’re human too.
While we are discouraging alternate energy sources, nay, actually encouraging energy dependance on dead dinosaurs, for the first time ever, June saw solar energy become the largest source of electricity in the European Union, supplying a record 22 percent of power. At least 13 countries saw solar output hit a new monthly high in June, with solar amounting to more than 40 percent of the power generated in the Netherlands! Take that T. Rex!
While we find more ways to close parks and remove finding for environmental projects, for the first time in over a century, Parisians and tourists will be able to take a dip in the Seine. The river is opening up as a summertime swim spot following a 1.4 billion euro ($1.5 billion) cleanup project.
So there are good things happening and positive influences around the world. Even in America (gasp!) What prompted my foray down the sunny side of the street? Life on the Sunny Side, this week’s Uplift post of course. We explored how by saying, thinking, and doing positive words, thoughts, and actions, we can shift the focus to looking for those best-case scenarios. Give it a read. Please.
A flood of information
Quick, name a devastating flood that happened in the US recently. Did you say Texas? Did you know there have been seven fatal floods and flash flood in the US since the Guadalupe River valley was flooded on July 4. There were another three in the two weeks preceding the Fourth of July Texas floods.
Indeed, the Texas July 4 flood was the most devastating, but to those who lost loved ones in Maryland, West Virginia, or New Jersey, devastation is not a relative term. Why do we not think of these or those in. North Carolina, New York, or New Mexico.
I though about all these places because of local flooding that has been happening here in my neck of the woods over the past few weeks. We’re sort of used to them. We see flash flooding routinely, and though not as often, river flooding occurs regularly also. We haven’t had a deadly flood for a few years. Those in my neighboring states of West Virginia, New Jersey, New York, and Maryland can no longer say that.
I have my thoughts about the dearth of information surrounding these floods when there should have been a flood of information. Let’s stick with that. Considering these areas will not have emergency funds funneled to them by our benevolent leader, we bear the responsibility to care for our neighbors.
In yesterday’s Uplift we talked about what it means to be a neighbor, to share your humanity, to let your goodwill flow, it was British theologian Richard Whatley who spoke of neighborliness as “an ongoing flow of goodwill.” He identified five steps to being a good neighbor: be generous, be ethical, be fair and honest, be kind constantly, and be peaceful.
Is a neighbor just the guy next door? Your neighbor is your fellow man who deserves your neighborliness. How do we that? We have suggestions in Will you be my neighbor?
Make me happy
I think I might have figured out why that sad pack of humanity in Washington DC are all so unhappy all the time. They have no happy place. They have places where others can be miserable which allows them to be seem grander, and they think that makes them happy, but it doesn’t. They have places where they can openly insult, harass, and persecute others, and they can feel superior thinking that makes them happy, but it doesn’t. The have places where they are expected to lie, cheat, and steal resulting in the collection of more wealth than one person can spend thinking that makes them happy, but it doesn’t. No, none of that does. None of that makes for a happy place.
A happy place is that placed where you can smile and although others may not understand, you smile so big that they will smile along with you. There are three things necessary for something to make you happy. It has to be pleasing or contented. It has to be satisfying. You have to be confident that what is pleasing to you isn’t harming anyone else.
And if you want to move from happiness to ecstasy, encourage someone else to be happy. No, don’t just encourage them, help them to find their happy place and to be happy.
Last week in ROAMcare’s Flashback Friday post we discussed happy places. I’ve written something similar in days gone by. Regarding happy places, the things that stop you in your tracks and bring a smile to your face, that these are not the pillars of happiness, the really big life changing events that come to mind when you think life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness type happiness, but are the little things that are part of getting us from one hour to the next, the things that turn drudgery into something faintly tolerable. They are the things and places that barely register to the rest of the world yet bring you profound happiness.
There is a destination in Pittsburgh that personifies happiness. Called an artistic wonderland, Randyland, founding in 1995 by Randy Gilson and Mac McDermott, is a massive, unique outdoor art installation that captures the fun in everyday, reused, and upcycled material. It grew from Gilson’s pre-Randyland days when he engaged in “guerilla gardening,” turning vacant lots into explosions of color and life.
Randyland is a happy place, one of those unusual spots that, although not for everyone, is for everyone, and is where you can’t not find something to smile about and leave happier from. It is unabashedly one of those quirky places that nobody was ever going to say couldn’t be done. And it doesn’t hurt anybody.
Find your happy place. You can do it. And others around you will be happier for it too.
Happy Half Year!
Ahh July! One of the two months tossed in by the Caesars Julius and Augustus rendering the clues to the position in the calendar by their names of September through December moot.
The month that added pages to calendars and is the reason February holds the short end of the day stick started in the hubris of a petty little tyrant. (Warning, Donober may be just around the corner.)
Still there are some good things that came out of July. Not only does July contain within its weeks National Hot Dog Day (on the undoubtedly soon to be more available July 4) it is in its entirety National Watermelon Month and National Ice Cream Month, perhaps not at the same time. Fun fact(?) or perhaps Sad fact, the Fourth of July was not declared a federal holiday until 1938.
Not only was it in July (the one in 1687 specifically) that Isaac Newton published Principia, that contains within its pages his laws of gravity and motion, it was also in July (the one in 2001) that the wildly popular sit-com “The Office” premiered (the British production). And it was on July 13, 1923 that some future real estate tycoon erected the famous HOLLYWOODLAND letters in Griffith Park on Mount Lee above Beachwood Canyon that you might be more familiar with as the Hollywood sign after the last four letters were taken down in 1949.
For the fans of vaccines, and other reasonably intelligent people, it was in July that the rabies vaccine was first given to a patient. Microbiologist Louis Pasteur administered the vaccine to a nine-year-old boy bitten by a rabid dog on July 6, 1885.
For those who think weird like me, July is the first month of the second half of the year. In yesterday’s Uplift we suggested July is a good time to reaffirm your New Years Resolution. Ours is to find something everyday that makes you start the day smiling inside and work on that until the smile defines you. Read more about it at Half Year Resolutions. It’s good. Trust me.
Buddy can you spare a billion
One of the annoyances of being addicted to 70 and 80 year old movies (and older even), is having to translate certain period references to their twenty-first century equivalents, most notably (at least for this discussion), is money. As in, the value of money.
An obvious fact of money is that money of this year is almost always going to be worth less than money next year. (Eventually it will likely become worthless but that is a discussion for a different day.) The point being, when someone in a movie made in 1933 tosses down a dollar coin in payment for a meatloaf dinner, pie, and coffee – and gets change(!) you instinctively know money went a lot farther then. (Further?) (Whatever). Those aren’t so bothersome. But when someone says something like, “I want to put $1,000 down on Nag #1 to win in the third race,” I get to wondering, just how much is that guy gambling.
I did some research, and I found out that $1,000 American dollars in 1933, when adjusted for inflation is the rough equivalent of $24,000-$27,000 today (depending on whose rate of inflation you want to apply. So our erstwhile horse race lover is splurging with let’s say $25,000 on his horse race.
Some of the more criminal endeavors in the so called gilded age were really up there. A garden variety kidnapping when the perpetrators then demand “$50,000 or youse’ll never see da brat again,” are looking for a payout of $1.25 million of today’s dollar bills. (In December 2024 a cryptocurrency executive was kidnapped and returned after a ransom of $1 million was paid so maybe that’s not so far off.) (I wonder if those guys got money or crypto for their ransom???) (Anyway…)
In the 1930s, the richest man in the world was John D. Rockefeller. Topping out at about $1.4 billion 1934 dollars, making him worth $35 billion dollars today. Some would pooh pooh that trifling amount. Today’s richest of the rich are worth over $200 billion dollars, except they aren’t. A billionaire in the 1930s had a billion dollars in dollars. True, some of that might be in the value of their business (in Rockefeller’s case, Standard Oil), but their businesses were worth their values in real dollars. Today’s wealth is more a standard of leverage than liquidity. If John D. wanted to buy the New York Times for $20 million dollars, he would have gone to the bank, taken out $20 million dollars (or maybe he’d get it out of his change jar at home), and paid Adolf Ochs $20 million dollars. (He didn’t do that and probably missed out on a great deal because newspapers were a dime a dozen during the depression years.) Today if someone wanted to buy say Twitter, they’d be lots of stocks transferred and “financial considerations” made but nobody ends up with real folding money to put in their wallets.
The other thing about the difference between 90 years of inflation is that not only has inflation devalued the dollar. So called market adjustments must also be taking into consideration to really determine the purchasing power of a dollar is. Remember those $25,000 dollars oof today’s money that would buy you 1,000 of 1933 dollars. You need about 2&1/2 times that much to buy what $1,000 would buy in 1933. The actual spend equivalent of $1,000 1933 dollars in about $62,000 today.
Put another way, in 1933 the average income was $1,300 per year. The average house cost $5,700 or 4.4 times the annual average income. In 2024, the average U.S. income was $62,000, the average house cost $520,000 or 8.4 times the average annual income. We are actually making more money but getting less spending power. By inflation only, that average $1,300 dollars is about $32,000 today but the average income is almost twice that. By calculating for inflation alone, that $5,700 house should cost $140,000 today. The house price rose 3.4 times higher than the rate of inflation.
Remember those numbers when you read in this morning’s paper that your Senators approved the Big Bastardly Bill taking even more of your money away. I’m sorry, any billionaires reading please, please ignore that last statement. You’re going to get to keep 38% more than you did last year. Everybody else go out for dinner this year. After next year’s tax bill you probably can’t afford meatloaf, pie, and coffee all in one meal.
The Real Reality Show Blog 