Showing posts with label Life's Lessons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life's Lessons. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Misunderstood Motives
Someone posted a picture on social media today:
"WARNING: NOVELIST AT WORK. BYSTANDERS MAY BE WRITTEN INTO THE STORY."
A common problem with writers is that everyone around them sees themselves in the writing. It's hard when the most important people in your life misunderstand your motives. I'm not a smart person, but there are lessons that I've learned through hard knocks. The lesson I'm learning on any given day is rumbling around in my head in a jumble of words. I'm a writer, and words are important to writers. Though I spent many years in another career, writing has always been who I am. The lesson of the day doesn't completely formulate until it is on paper (or virtual paper).
Writers write what they know about, what is important to them, what is on their mind, and what is close to their hearts. Yes, I am a writer. That describes me perfectly. I don't write to hurt anyone, to be vindictive, to criticize, or to judge. I try very hard to be objective in my writing, but since I do write from my heart, I do express opinions.
My hope is that those who stop to read what I write will benefit from it. If not, it would be a waste of their time. All of us go through different challenges in our lives, but we all have one thing in common: Life is tough. We all have problems and lessons to learn. As I learn life's lessons and write them down, hopefully, it will help someone else who is working through a similar problem. If people see themselves in my words, I don't think that's a bad thing. We need to open our hearts to each other and learn from one another. I've learned many things from reading what others have written.
I've written things (and made them public) that I don't want people to know about me -- especially those closest to me. There was one blog post in particular that the instant I hit "publish," I thought I was going to throw up. I published it anyway. I did so because I knew that I could not possibly be the only person who felt the way I was feeling, and that maybe others might quickly learn from my post what had taken me years of beating my head against a wall to learn for myself. Isn't that what life is all about? Helping each other along the way? I've also had a couple of articles published that made me extremely vulnerable, and sadly my words have already been twisted and used to hurt me.
In my writing, I try to look outside my own little problems and my own little world at who else may benefit from what's kicking around in my head. To my readers I would say that if you see yourself in something I write, please don't take it personally. Please understand that what you see that describes you and your situation or life circumstance, may also describe many other people and their situations and life circumstances -- including me. Please look outside of your own little world at who may benefit from reading my thoughts. If my writing upsets you, simply don't read it.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Things I Learned from My Mother
Think outside the box. I learned this from Mom. She never told me that, but I watched her do it. When she discovered that my brother was so social that he couldn't stand to be alone, she used it to her advantage. The worst punishment she could administer was the silent treatment. He would clean his room, mop the kitchen floor, or anything else to get back in her good graces.
My personality is the opposite of my brother's, and I tend to be an introvert. I don't need much conversation, and can spend hours alone as long as there is music or noise around me. The older I get, the less noise I need. Mom worried for a long time, I think, that I would end up in some log cabin in the back woods by myself or something. Mom was very modest -- okay, she was a prude. She would blush at the mention of the word belly button. Thinking outside the box, however, she bought me a halter top in about 1972. Apparently, she thought I needed to spice up my life a little and have people notice me. It worked.
Sometimes go with the fad and it will go away. The summer before I went into Junior High School Mom knew that the kids in Junior High wore makeup. She didn't like makeup at that age, but was wise enough not to force rebellion. So she went with it. She bought me makeup. She showed me how to use it. I played with that makeup all summer. By the time school started in the fall, I was over and done with it. Problem solved. (I used this on my own kids, too, and it worked like a charm.)
Don't be a wuss. Mom never backed down to anyone if she thought she was right. Considering this woman lived between 1921 and 1991, that's pretty impressive. She went toe to toe and eye to eye with the best of them, including Joe Conforte's body guard who wasn't going to let her park in her regular parking place at my Dad's office. She won that argument, by the way.
Know when to speak up and when to wait. Mom and Dad always told us that if a teacher said white is black, white is black. They would stand by our teachers even if they were wrong, until the last day of the school year. Mom waited patiently all year, and then she would write a note to the teacher explaining any injustice that we had suffered during the school year.
Major injustices, however, were dealt with swiftly. My fifth grade teacher should have been teaching in a prison. To say she was strict would be the understatement of the century. If she caught a child yawning in her classroom, the whole class stayed after school 45 minutes. Mom tolerated this for several months without a word. Then one spring day there was a radio announcement to pick up your children from school instead of letting them walk home. Wind was upwards of 90 miles per hour, and there were downed power lines all over town. I was supposed to walk home, but Mom came to pick me up. She waited the full 45 minutes after school was out. When I reached the car, she said, "Wait here." She got out of the car and marched to the office. Suddenly, 30 other parents fell in line behind her. I don't know what she said, but the teacher was fired at the end of the year, and word on the street was that Mom did it.
Take your time, make small stitches, and make the back look as good as the front. She taught me this when I learned to do embroidery work, as well as when I learned to hem dresses and pants. I was doing some embroidery work today, and I'm happy to say that I kept checking the back to make sure it was neat. This applies to all aspects of life. Nobody ever looks at the back of an embroidered dish towel to see what it looks like -- except the person who did the work. I'm not going to lift the hem of my friend's pants to see if it is neat. It's a matter of pride in workmanship. When I became a legal secretary, back in the days of the typewriter, I took great pride in the caption page of all my documents. It took time to do this:
John Doe, ) Case No.: 12345
Plaintiff, )
vs. ) Motion for Summary Judgment
Mary Smith, )
Defendant. )
__________________)
)
Mary Smith, )
Cross-Plaintiff, )
vs. )
John Doe, )
Cross-Defendant. )
__________________)
(By the way, it took time in this format!) I took pride in that caption and having every ) in the right place and all the spacing perfect. The judge isn't going to care if there is one extra space before an ), but I cared. I'm sad that technology has changed that whole process because we lost so much of our sense of ownership in the work product. Mom taught me work ethic and pride in the final product.
Be a strong and loyal wife. Mom never said a bad thing about my Dad, even when he was wrong. She was loyal to him forever. This is not to say that they didn't have arguments, because they did, but they were a team. Whatever they decided at the end of that argument was law, even if she lost the argument. She would stand behind the decision. She was strong in other ways. Dad was a salesman, a World War II and Korean War veteran, and prone to occasional depression. She took whatever measures necessary to get him out of the doldrums, even if it meant dragging him up in the mountains for several weeks of camping and R&R. The last few years before Dad passed away, he was quite ill. Mom had not worked for many years, but she worked as his secretary to keep an eye on him so if he fell ill, she was at his side. When he could no longer work, she found a job -- which isn't easy to do when you haven't worked in 20 some odd years.
Don't be afraid to learn. When Mom went back to work, the computer was just becoming an office staple. She learned computer programs before I did, and convinced her boss to send her to Texas for a week of computer classes. Mom was learning new things until the day she died.
Mom taught me many more things. I've written more about Dad in my blog than I have about Mom because Dad was such an eccentric guy that there always seems to be a story to tell. Mom's lessons have not escaped me, though, and I want my posterity to know about this great woman and her great pioneer spirit.
My personality is the opposite of my brother's, and I tend to be an introvert. I don't need much conversation, and can spend hours alone as long as there is music or noise around me. The older I get, the less noise I need. Mom worried for a long time, I think, that I would end up in some log cabin in the back woods by myself or something. Mom was very modest -- okay, she was a prude. She would blush at the mention of the word belly button. Thinking outside the box, however, she bought me a halter top in about 1972. Apparently, she thought I needed to spice up my life a little and have people notice me. It worked.
Sometimes go with the fad and it will go away. The summer before I went into Junior High School Mom knew that the kids in Junior High wore makeup. She didn't like makeup at that age, but was wise enough not to force rebellion. So she went with it. She bought me makeup. She showed me how to use it. I played with that makeup all summer. By the time school started in the fall, I was over and done with it. Problem solved. (I used this on my own kids, too, and it worked like a charm.)
Don't be a wuss. Mom never backed down to anyone if she thought she was right. Considering this woman lived between 1921 and 1991, that's pretty impressive. She went toe to toe and eye to eye with the best of them, including Joe Conforte's body guard who wasn't going to let her park in her regular parking place at my Dad's office. She won that argument, by the way.
Know when to speak up and when to wait. Mom and Dad always told us that if a teacher said white is black, white is black. They would stand by our teachers even if they were wrong, until the last day of the school year. Mom waited patiently all year, and then she would write a note to the teacher explaining any injustice that we had suffered during the school year.
Major injustices, however, were dealt with swiftly. My fifth grade teacher should have been teaching in a prison. To say she was strict would be the understatement of the century. If she caught a child yawning in her classroom, the whole class stayed after school 45 minutes. Mom tolerated this for several months without a word. Then one spring day there was a radio announcement to pick up your children from school instead of letting them walk home. Wind was upwards of 90 miles per hour, and there were downed power lines all over town. I was supposed to walk home, but Mom came to pick me up. She waited the full 45 minutes after school was out. When I reached the car, she said, "Wait here." She got out of the car and marched to the office. Suddenly, 30 other parents fell in line behind her. I don't know what she said, but the teacher was fired at the end of the year, and word on the street was that Mom did it.
Take your time, make small stitches, and make the back look as good as the front. She taught me this when I learned to do embroidery work, as well as when I learned to hem dresses and pants. I was doing some embroidery work today, and I'm happy to say that I kept checking the back to make sure it was neat. This applies to all aspects of life. Nobody ever looks at the back of an embroidered dish towel to see what it looks like -- except the person who did the work. I'm not going to lift the hem of my friend's pants to see if it is neat. It's a matter of pride in workmanship. When I became a legal secretary, back in the days of the typewriter, I took great pride in the caption page of all my documents. It took time to do this:
John Doe, ) Case No.: 12345
Plaintiff, )
vs. ) Motion for Summary Judgment
Mary Smith, )
Defendant. )
__________________)
)
Mary Smith, )
Cross-Plaintiff, )
vs. )
John Doe, )
Cross-Defendant. )
__________________)
(By the way, it took time in this format!) I took pride in that caption and having every ) in the right place and all the spacing perfect. The judge isn't going to care if there is one extra space before an ), but I cared. I'm sad that technology has changed that whole process because we lost so much of our sense of ownership in the work product. Mom taught me work ethic and pride in the final product.
Be a strong and loyal wife. Mom never said a bad thing about my Dad, even when he was wrong. She was loyal to him forever. This is not to say that they didn't have arguments, because they did, but they were a team. Whatever they decided at the end of that argument was law, even if she lost the argument. She would stand behind the decision. She was strong in other ways. Dad was a salesman, a World War II and Korean War veteran, and prone to occasional depression. She took whatever measures necessary to get him out of the doldrums, even if it meant dragging him up in the mountains for several weeks of camping and R&R. The last few years before Dad passed away, he was quite ill. Mom had not worked for many years, but she worked as his secretary to keep an eye on him so if he fell ill, she was at his side. When he could no longer work, she found a job -- which isn't easy to do when you haven't worked in 20 some odd years.
Don't be afraid to learn. When Mom went back to work, the computer was just becoming an office staple. She learned computer programs before I did, and convinced her boss to send her to Texas for a week of computer classes. Mom was learning new things until the day she died.
Mom taught me many more things. I've written more about Dad in my blog than I have about Mom because Dad was such an eccentric guy that there always seems to be a story to tell. Mom's lessons have not escaped me, though, and I want my posterity to know about this great woman and her great pioneer spirit.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Tear Down That Wall
Someone on social media asked people to share the most important or valuable lesson they have learned in their lifetime. This was my answer:
Children came along, and many more bricks were dropped. I loved those babies. As they got older, they had needs. They needed a Camp Fire leader. They needed someone on the candy committee and other committees. They needed an area candy chair. This was way out of my comfort zone, but I dropped more bricks in order to meet their needs. As bricks fell and broke, I found love and friendship with people I dealt with in Camp Fire.
Lovely little children grew into teenagers who seemed to instinctively know where all the old wounds were. Bricks began to build again. One at a time they went up. This time the wall was higher and fortified. Guards were placed at all gateways. No one was ever going to hurt me again -- or so I thought.
A difficult "calling" came in church. The Bishop called me to be Relief Society President (head of the women's organization) for the congregation. I was stunned. I spent the first year trying to do the job with the wall still in place. It didn't work. The next 2 1/2 years, the wall began to come down again, one little brick at a time. I learned to love the sisters I served -- something I never thought would happen because I've always worked much better with men than with women.
I was released from that calling a little more than a year ago. I removed myself from everyone I had been dealing with and buried my head in the sand. The wall was mostly down, and I felt vulnerable. If I hid myself away, maybe I wouldn't get hurt. Hurt comes from lots of sources. It came.
This time I discovered something. Hurt is a part of life. It's unavoidable. I finally understand that love sometimes hurts. I'm trying to keep the wall down. It's not easy. When the pain comes, I want to go right back out there and build those bricks. Then I remember those little moments of love when the wall fell.
So I'm trying. Be patient with me. Be kind. I'm not the tough guy everyone thinks I am. On the contrary, I break easily. This was not an easy blog post to write. I'm vulnerable. The wall is down.
"I've learned many valuable lessons, but the one that hits me right now is that building brick walls around myself doesn't protect me; it makes me lonely. Every brick I tear down lets love trickle inside my circle. If I tear down enough bricks, the dam breaks and I'm swallowed in love."My whole life I've been told how "tough" I am and that I am "rough around the edges." Those who really know me understand the fallacy in those statements. I'm not tough at all; just scared. Fear has always permeated my existence. Fear of acceptance, mostly. I was not accepted by my peers as a child, and I was a "square" as a teenager. So I built a wall. I built a wall so thick, tall, and strong that seemingly nothing could penetrate it. Then my husband came along. Danny is nothing if not persistent. After he proposed to me, I gave him the ring back three times. Try as I might, I couldn't shake him. He was like a pit bull after the kill -- except he had a gentle heart. By the time we were married, I'd dropped a few bricks.
Children came along, and many more bricks were dropped. I loved those babies. As they got older, they had needs. They needed a Camp Fire leader. They needed someone on the candy committee and other committees. They needed an area candy chair. This was way out of my comfort zone, but I dropped more bricks in order to meet their needs. As bricks fell and broke, I found love and friendship with people I dealt with in Camp Fire.
Lovely little children grew into teenagers who seemed to instinctively know where all the old wounds were. Bricks began to build again. One at a time they went up. This time the wall was higher and fortified. Guards were placed at all gateways. No one was ever going to hurt me again -- or so I thought.
A difficult "calling" came in church. The Bishop called me to be Relief Society President (head of the women's organization) for the congregation. I was stunned. I spent the first year trying to do the job with the wall still in place. It didn't work. The next 2 1/2 years, the wall began to come down again, one little brick at a time. I learned to love the sisters I served -- something I never thought would happen because I've always worked much better with men than with women.
I was released from that calling a little more than a year ago. I removed myself from everyone I had been dealing with and buried my head in the sand. The wall was mostly down, and I felt vulnerable. If I hid myself away, maybe I wouldn't get hurt. Hurt comes from lots of sources. It came.
This time I discovered something. Hurt is a part of life. It's unavoidable. I finally understand that love sometimes hurts. I'm trying to keep the wall down. It's not easy. When the pain comes, I want to go right back out there and build those bricks. Then I remember those little moments of love when the wall fell.
So I'm trying. Be patient with me. Be kind. I'm not the tough guy everyone thinks I am. On the contrary, I break easily. This was not an easy blog post to write. I'm vulnerable. The wall is down.
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