Setting my daily routine

For some people having given a daily routine gives them some sense of being able to keep things under control. It also gives them an idea of how to plan and manage their time. They are better able to keep up good habits if they have some sort of routine.

For others, a routine feels confining and boring. They like to live spontaneously. They don't like to plan every aspect of their lives.

Which type of person are you? Which type of person am I? I asked myself those questions. I used to have a routine set up and I thought that I was stuck in a rut. So now I have little routine in my life and I feel like I am not getting anything done.

I find that making good habits and breaking bad habits is harder without being set into a routine. It is easier to live with a set up schedule for doing things. It makes accomplishing tasks easier. It makes planning my time easier.

And yet I find myself hating to be stuck in a routine schedule every day or every week.

I have to figure out a way to get my mind around the good reasons to have a plan and execute that plan everyday. I have to figure out a way to get back into the habit of doing things at certain times whether I want to or not.

For far too long, I have let my emotions and feelings dictate what I have done. It only set me into a path of depression that wasn't healthy for me. Because if I didn't feel like doing anything then I simply wouldn't do it. Until it got to the point where there was no other option but to do it. And I felt like if I didn't do it then things would simply get out of hand and then I would work myself into a bad feeling about ever doing anything at all.

Somewhere along the way I lost sight of why I did the things that I did. I lost the reason to get things done like I want to. I want to be the type of person who enjoys cleaning. I want to be the type of person who likes to get her house in order. I don't want to be the kind of person who comes across as lazy or unacceptable or unsuccessful.

And so I set about in my life to try to create new daily routines. I try to do some things at the same time every day to give myself a sense of getting things done. I have tried to make lists of things that I need to do. I have decided to take on the notion of getting things done that take under five minutes to do. That clears me up for other more important things.

I have set myself on a schedule to read at the same time every day, to check my email at the same time daily, to write at the same times, to get on social media at the same time everyday.

It has not been easy for me to stick to these routines because sometimes they become difficult for me. I have tried and I have not succeeded but I try again the next day. I don't give up. I know that eventually I will get to exactly where I want to be.

Work In Progress

WORK IN PROGRESS

I am working on becoming a more positive person so that I can have a positive attitude and a positive impact on other people. I have, of late, become a negative Nelly. It is something that happens to me every year around the holidays and the New Year. 

I know that I am not the negative person that I have become lately. I know that I am not going to get there overnight. I know that I did not become negative overnight so it's not going to be am overnight story for me to get back to the positive side of life. I know that it will take time and effort to get to where I want to be.

Lately I have been feeling like the few pounds that I have gained is the worst thing in the world. I have not been able to get into the clothes that I have, and last year, I gave away alot of my fat clothes. I had lost alot of weight and I thought that maybe I would keep it off. Unfortunately, as soon as I got a boyfriend who loved to eat as much as I do, or probably more than I do, the weight slipped back on me.

And with the weight going up, the self esteem went down. Not only that but my boyfriend is not exactly a compliment machine. I am not complaining about him as I know there are other good qualities that he has. I just know that some of my self esteem in my life has come from the compliments of others.

Because I am aware that it is taking validation from others to get my self esteem up, I am trying to change that as well. I should know that I do not need validation from anyone else out there. I know that I am a smart woman. I know that I am a kind person. I know that I am an understanding person. I don't know why my self esteem comes from how other people see me. That makes no sense whatsoever.

It is called self esteem. That means it must come from within my heart and my own brain. I know that I must get things back to the way they used to be. I was well liked by everyone and I actually enjoyed being around other people. Nowadays there are days when I don't want to leave my house. There are days when I don't want to be around anyone except my dogs. And there are days when I don't want to stay in my house at all.

I have thought about the reasons why my moods fluctuate and I have found that sometimes it is all about what is going on inside my head. It is the thoughts that I have. It is the procrastination of it all. I want my house to be a certain way and to be clean but I don't get up and actually do any of those things. I just think about how I want to get them done.

Procrastination and laziness have become part of who I am the older I have gotten. I think part of it is because of an accident I had years ago. Before that car accident, ten years ago this April, I was always on the go. I was always doing something, cleaning something, cooking something, or studying something. I was also extremely stressed out and high strung. I was not really happy either. And yet here I am now, completely the opposite, and I am not happy here either. That tells me that I am out of balance somewhere.

After my accident and the injuries I sustained, I wasn't able to physically do the things that I had been doing. I had to get used to needing help to walk, put clothes on, bathe, etc. I had a very difficult time with all of those things but chronic pain tends to let you know when you can or cannot do something. I was so young when the accident happened, and for someone in her middle 20s it was hard to no longer be able to do just basic tasks, much less things that I wanted to do like go walking or shopping or cleaning or going to visit people.

In time I was able to get back to where I could do basic tasks but the pain from sitting or standing too long still bothers me. Ten years later and I am still unable to do many things that I could do years ago, but now I have learned my physical limitations. I know that I am not able to sit or stand for long periods. I know that I must exercise regularly to keep my back healthier. I know that I cannot gain a tremendous amount of weight because it is harder on my back than on someone with a healthy back.

Because it took time for me to get to this point then I know that it will take time for me to get back to a more normal life. But how do I even go about doing that? When nothing but negative thoughts plague my mind these days how exactly do I get back to a positive frame of mind?

I have read and written articles about the power of positive thinking but I still find myself plagued with negative thoughts and therefore negative attitudes towards things in my life.

I am tired of being this way and yet I have not found the perfect solution for my issues. I am still working on it. And that's why I consider myself to be a work in progress and not a finished masterpiece. But I am still working on it and that's what really matters.

Genuine happiness comes from within

Genuine Happiness Comes from Within

Life is not perfect for anyone. It is not always sunshine and flowers. It is not always rainbows and roses. Many people think that happiness will come with the next car, house, job, or other material possession.  But that is not true. 

True happiness comes from within.  It is a state of mind that you find when you become grateful about what you already have in your life.  There are always positive things that you can see in any situation. 

We often look at others and we think they have the most perfect lives.  We compare our own lives to theirs and find that our own fall short.  Comparing yourself to someone else is never going to bring you happiness.

If you want to find true happiness,  then you need to start by looking at yourself.  Why are you not happy with your life?  What would it take to make you happy?  Do you have good relationships with other people?  What is holding you back from being happy?

Most likely what is holding you back is your own mind.  If you can get over yourself and your own thoughts and negativity then you are on your way to starting to become a happier person. 

How do we become happier?  One of the first things that you have to do is -  Love Yourself.  Accept yourself.  Sure you are probably not perfect,  but who is?  Even thought you are not perfect,  you have to accept the fact that you're not. We are all imperfect.  And that is okay. 

Despite not being perfect, we must accept our imperfections.  If there is something about yourself that is bothering you,  then you need to figure out what it is and take measures to improve yourself. 

Despite realizing that you have things about yourself that need improvement, you also must be able to be content with what you do have in your life.  Are you content with the job that you have,  the way you look, with your relationships, with your home, with your car, and other things that you now have? You must appreciate what you have now in order to feel better about your life.

You have to decide that you are a happy person in order to be a happy person.  Today is a good day to have a good day,  is it not?  Why wait until something else happens or changes in your life before you decide that you want to be happy? Nobody is constantly happy without making a conscious decision to feel happy. 

Every time you exert the effort to improve your life and yourself then you are coming closer and closer to genuine happiness.  You have to constantly try to improve your quality of life -  clean your room,  take care of your sick pets,  make an effort to do something nice for someone else, lose weight, learn something, etc.  You should always be in a state of constant improvement -  because we never really "get"  to where we want to be.  We should always strive,  every single day,  to be better than we were yesterday. 

That's all that we can really do -  is try to be better than we were yesterday. 

As long as you can do that then you learn to become a happier person. 

The Power of a Positive Attitude

The Power of a Positive Attitude

Listen to your thoughts. What comes across your mind? Would you describe your thoughts as mostly positive or negative?

If you meet someone on the street, with those thoughts in your head, do you think that people could tell what you were thinking? Most people could not yell you exactly what you were thinking but they could probably get a good reading of how you were feeling based on these thoughts in your head.

If you walk into a party, do people fall silent or do they look as if they are happy to see you?

Whatever thoughts are in your head are going to follow you around like a cloud or fog over your head. If you are thinking negative thoughts especially about yourself other people are going to be able to pick up on those negative energy vibes coming from you.

Thoughts are powerful. They can completely control your attitude and the vibes that you radiate. Your energy is often the result of your thoughts. If they are negative then you will have a negative attitude. If they are positive then you will have a more positive attitude.

Your thoughts affect your attitude, and your attitude reflects your general appearance to others most of the time. The exception would be if you are a really good actor. Some people are good at hiding things but for the most part we come across as a product of our thoughts.

The attitude you carry is completely dependent upon you and the thoughts that you have.

Your thoughts and attitude affect the people around you as well. Your attitude can be positive or negative. Positive thoughts can be exciting. They can invigorate you. Negative thoughts can bring your energy down. They sap happiness from your life. They can make you gloomy and sad. Negative thoughts have the power to make even a party seem like a funeral in your mind.

People around a negative person are often sapped of their energy. They feed off of the negative attitude of the person around them. Misery loves company and negativity is contagious.

Just as positivity can be contagious. People around positive people are often energized by those people. They can feed off of the positive energy that comes from the positive person.

People tend to stay away from those who are negative and they want to be around positive people. One of the best feelings is when someone you love tells you that they love being around you because being around you makes them feel good, feel positive, feel uplifted.

There are many advantages to being positive. How do you view the world? Do you focus on the negatives in the world or do you focus on the bright side? When a problem occurs, how to you react to it? Do you only see more problems and negative effects of the problem? Or do you look for a solution and see what it is that you can learn and change from this problem happening?

People with a positive attitude tend to have more friends than those with negative attitudes.  People with positive attitudes tend to have better health than those with a negative attitude. People with positive attitudes tend to be better at dealing with stress and problems.

A positive attitude starts with a healthy self image. A positive self image means that you love yourself. It means that you are satisfied and confident with the way that you are. If you feel self assured and confident then you will make others around you feel the same way. A negative attitude will, obviously, have the opposite effect.

Carrying a negative attitude has more than one drawback. You feel badly about yourself and then you make others feel the same way. If you want to have a positive attitude, you have to have healthy, happy, positive thoughts.

It is hard to have happy thoughts all of the time, especially with the negative effects of television and bad news that's on TV these days. The truth is that most news is negative because that I what people watch. People are drawn to negative stories and negative news more than they are positive stories.

A recent study shows that out of every 14 things a parent says to a child, only one is positive. If you are not given positive reinforcement, then it is going to be more difficult for you to be a positive person and have a healthy self image.

In order to have a positive attitude and happier thoughts then you must hear positive things as well. What can you do to think happier thoughts? Well try to do something that is fun or that gives you positive stimuli such as playing with your children, watching a funny movie, being around your pets, or doing something that you truly enjoy. They say laughter is the best medicine, and when you are feeling down, watching something or doing something that is amusing to you can help reduce the amount of negative thoughts that you have.

You can carry a positive attitude by focusing on the good things in your life. There is no situation that is so bad that there cannot be at least one positive thing about it, even if that thing is that you are still alive. If you are still alive then there is still hope.

Dwelling on the negative thoughts or events in your life will only make those negative things feel bigger and more cumbersome than they actually are. It keeps them in your mind longer and makes you feel sad or hopeless.

You have nothing to lose by trying to be a more positive person. It helps your health, reduces aging, helps you be happier, helps you deal better with stress, and determines how others act around you.

Adopt a positive attitude today and see how quickly your life changes.

What makes your soul happy?

In the past six months, I have been on a true spiritual journey where I have been  trying to find myself - what I am and who I want to be. I have been trying to find what it is that I want to do with my life.

Sometimes I do not feel like I have grown at all until I spend time with people who say they see such a tremendous change in me, in my attitude, in my outlook, in my positive mindset. People who don't spend alot of time with me on a daily basis are probably more likely to see the changes in me than those I am around everyday.

I have become more confident, happier and healthier. People want to know what changed me, as if it is a pill that they can take and be changed overnight and it is not.

It has taken me a lot of time and effort and work to make the changes in my life that others see. But perhaps I can give others an inspiration or an insight into how they can go on their own journey and find more about themselves.

So perhaps that is where my passion lies. Perhaps helping other people is my calling. I have an affinity for working with people, for making conversation with perfect strangers, for making others feel at ease and comfortable.

Maybe in discussing my own journey and what I have experienced will help others to have some experiences of their own.

So that's where I shall begin. I have been a writer since I could first pick up a pen. I know that I can find a way to discuss my own life in an entertaining and rewarding way. I am sure that I will be able to make a difference, perhaps using only the power of my words. That would make my soul happy.

Negativity is contagious

Somehow I have found that people seem to enjoy my company. They find me positive and uplifting. My aunt recently told me that she loves being around me and that when I leave her she still feels good and motivated. 

In our family, we have alot of Negative Nellys. The people who complain about everything and who make you feel worse when they're gone. They sit around telling you what you need to be doing and what you're not doing that's good enough. They complain about everything in their life and everything in your life too.

Judgmental and hypocritical, it can be difficult to stay positive when surrounded by the negativity. The reason being that negativity is contagious. We are programmed to think negatively anyway. 

The best way that I found to decrease the negative thoughts in my mind has been through meditation and hypnosis recordings. I know that it sounds silly but when I had nothing else, I turned to God and to self help books.

Learning to be mindful right now and enjoy your life right now at this moment in time is very important to live a balanced life. No matter what is going on in your life right now, there is something that you can be grateful for. There is something that you can be glad of. And if there is nothing else then you can be glad that you woke up.

Life is what we make it. It is not a guarantee that you will be successful at every thing that you try to do. But it is a guarantee that you will not be if you don't even try.

I hope I find her, because I'm tired of searching

I was watching a movie about Nora Ephram earlier and I knew the name but I couldn't place her. Only during the movie did I realize that her voice has been a large part of my reading material and movies I watched growing up.

It is funny how someone can touch you in a way that they will never know, even after their death at times. This lady was an incredible writer. She is the writer that I would like to be. And she did exactly what I have thought, and exactly what I had always been told about the best writing, which is that you should write what you know.

I have always done my best writing when I was writing about something that I know. If it is about my life then I can write about it forever it seems. I can find words for weeks.

She also seemed to be the kind of person that others went to for certain advice and who would be very certain in her opinions. She seemed to come across as a very interesting person. She seems to be an understanding and observant. She seems very honest and she seems very generous which does have a way of drawing people in.

Did I become who I am in part because of anything that I may have read, or a movie that I may have seen, the she wrote? How much OD that influenced who I am and how I see the world?

Did the opinions of strong women from the 70s, 80s, and 90s shape me into the stronger woman that I am?

I watched a documentary on Gloria Steinham not long ago and she made the comment that they didn't want the women who came after them to be grateful for the rights they now have. They wanted them to feel like there was more to be done. They didn't want them to accept a little bit because then they'd accept the way that things would end up going backwards.

And they were exactly right.

Feminism took good hold with people in my generation but the two generations after me have not gotten the message. They had an anti-feminist movement on Twitter where young girls would say things that were so anti women, that it is going to set us back. It will set all women back.

I heard that the boys of today are actually the group that is least likely to want to work for a woman or be comfortable with a woman in a position of power. I didn't quite understand why that would be.

Are the boys today upset that their mothers aren't home from work with them everyday? Are they suffering from the women's movement? Or are they somehow threatened by women becoming their equals in every sense of the word? Or are they having a problem with women because of their deadbeat dad's? Or are they having a problem with women because of their fathers negative views on women? Do their fathers have those negative views on women because of the women in their lives having been influenced by the women's movement of the 70s?

If any of that, or all of it, is true does that mean that the women's movement was a bad thing? Absolutely not.

I remember my mom's mother, my granny, always telling me that I did not need to depend on a man. That I did not need to become dependant on a man. She said to me that if I was waiting for a man to open a door for me, I'd be waiting forever. She said if I wanted a door open, I would have to open it myself.

For a long time, I sort of felt that in a strong way to the point where it was odd to me if a guy insisted upon opening my doors for me. I was more of the type who if I was walking up to a restaurant and I reached the door first, I'd open it and hold it for you. If you got there first, then you could hold it for me.

But I never have been one who cared much about wanting to be the first one who opened the door. Probably because I like to look around when I walk in and I like to more or less have someone else to hide behind.

I know the reasons for that go deep into my psyche. It comes from growing up in a house full of anger. For whatever reason, my childhood years weren't the happiest of my life because my mom spent so many years miserable.

Somehow I saw that I could not, would not, live in misery. I could not be the cause of why anyone was miserable. And for a long time in my life I thought that my being born was the reason she had made decisions that ended up in her being miserable. So there was a lot of guilt there too.

Yet somehow through my grandmother's words I felt like I had something to prove. I needed to be ambitious and I needed to be great. As a small child I wanted to be a teacher. As an older child, I wanted to be a judge.

When did all of that change? When did I decide that I was supposed to be somehow in politics or law? When I visited Washington DC after the 6th grade, I remember having the best time. I saw the things I had only read about. I saw the places of history.

I saw the Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Capitol, the Library of Congress, and the Mall. It was astounding.

I guess I fell in love with Washington DC and I knew I wanted to go to college at Georgetown. I wanted to accomplish all of these things, and of course, I have not done those things. As you probably well know, life happens while we are making other plans.

At some point, life changed my ambitious nature went more of into a practicality. I went into Business Management, because my aunt had majored in that and I knew if she could do it then I could do it too. It wouldn't be that bad. My choices at that time were limited, or so I thought. In actuality my choices were so vast at that time, but they were unknown to me in a way that only hindsight can show you once that time in your life has passed.

A friend of mine used to tell me that I had the world by the tail. I didn't know what that meant until I no longer had the world by the tail.

Yet through it all, I had an idea of finding an idealized type of love and marriage that I don't think that anyone could ever measure up to that. I wanted to have children and be a mother, but the best mother... With the house everyone wanted to hang out in and that had fresh baked cookies everyday. But did I want to be a housewife with kids because my mom couldn't be? Did I want a mom who was there for me because she wasn't because she was working? I don't know that.

Because I have gone back and forth over wanting to do something important in my life and with helping people and becoming one who makes history and in being the best mother one could be, I have not accomplished either of those things.

At 36, I have no children, no marriage and also no divorce, a college education, but no real career or sense of self. I wonder if I am actually living the life that I want to live but at least I am not making someone else miserable along the way?

An uncle of mine told me not too long ago that I was waiting for the perfect man and that man was not coming. Maybe I am.

But I don't think so. I am waiting on the perfect one for me before I could make a commitment of marriage. I didn't want to end up divorced and in the middle of my life (hopefully the early middle), I have not been divorced. So I can say that I have succeeded at that.

I have had alot of love, more than my fair share of lovers, and many, many bed partners. But I have had no children and I still live on the same property that I grew up living on.

And I have no idea what I am doing with my life. Yet somehow I feel like maybe I am finding myself in all of this mess.

At least I hope I find myself. Because I am pretty damn tired of looking for her.

What If...

Something to think about....
What if Earth's population was shrunk into a village of just 100 people?  With all the human ratios existing in the world still remaining – what would this tiny, diverse village look like? That's exactly what Phillip M. Harter, a medical doctor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, attempted to figure out. This is what he found:

57 would be Asian
21 would be European
14 would be from the Western Hemisphere
8 would be African
52 would be female
48 would be male
70 would be nonwhite
30 would be white
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual
6 people would possess 59 percent of the entire world's wealth – all 6 would be from the United States.
80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death
1 would be pregnant
1 would have a college education
1 would own a computer

The following is an anonymous interpretation: Think of it this way…

If you live in a good home, have plenty to eat and can read, you are a member of a very select group.
And if you have a good house, food, can read and have a computer, you are among the very elite.

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness... you are more fortunate than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation...you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are fortunate, more than three billion people in the world can't.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace...you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If your parents are still alive and still married... you are very rare, even in the United States.

If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful ... you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not.

If you can hold someone's hand, hug them or even touch them on shoulder ... you are blessed because you can offer healing touch.

If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you, and furthermore, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.