Post by judyb on Jan 4, 2005 12:28:57 GMT -5
Subject:
The Mood Boat...
Date:
1999/03/19
The Mood Boat...
Two of the most valuable assets that a person can have is
health; both physical and mental health.
What good is the fat bank account, the house on the hill, the mate of our
dreams, the fancy car without these? No. These things just aren't
important--they are just the parsley on the side of the plate, not the rack of
lamb. Without one's health, physical and/or emotional, life is not much fun.
I remember Thoreau's "I'd rather have a pumpkin all to my self, than a
crowded velvet cushion..." (my apologies if that's a bit off.) But you get the
idea. Another of Thoreau's that's posted on my back door (which everyone
uses anyway), is "It's amazing how many great men and women a small house
can hold."
Wealth isn't it. Things aren't it. It's taking care of one's own skin. It's people
and our interactions with them. It's doing the right thing.
What is really fascinating is both of these are available (barring genetic
problems) to just about everyone. What's the cost of the ticket to this deal?
The answer in one word is change. That's it. No further reading is necessary.
Take the physical side. We're at the doctor's and telling him, we feel
lousy--we're short of breath. We have a nagging cough. We can't run the
4-minute mile. Our blood pressure is borderline. We feel run down. Our
doctor hates to ask us that inevitable question--but he knows he must. "Do
you smoke?"And he thinking to himself, wondering how many times has he sat
across from one more patient that has come to him "to fix" their problems,
with some pill, some diet, some magic--when all the time the "magic" resides
within themselves. Change--to quit shooting one's self in the foot, or the
lungs, or the heart--to just quit the #$%^ smoking--but the doctor doesn't
say what he's thinking. Instead asking in his calm, professional voice one
more time.
"Have you thought about quitting?"
"Well, doctor, I got a lot of stress, a lot of pressure" in my job...."
"What sort of work do you do?"
"I'm President of the United States. I got China banging on one door and
Kenneth Starr at the other. If it isn't one thing, it's another."
(Next patient)
"Have you thought about quitting?"
"Well, doctor, I got a lot of stress, a lot of pressure" in my job...."
"What sort of work do you do?"
"I'm a waitress.--the customers want everything yesterday, and the cook
thinks tomorrow will be fine. And the owner thinks I can live on the tips alone.
If it's not one thing, it's another."
Both patients go into the doctor's imaginary "detach with love" file--otherwise
he'll burn-out. Oh, he'll still keep them as
patients, but he just can't keep pulling rabbits out of a hat for these
people. And he can't help those who won't help themselves........
The mental institutions are loaded with the refugees, who when 15-35 years
old, who buckled under during those years of great stress. It's the time we
decide what to do with our lives, grow a career, pick our mates, have
children, take on the responsibilities of adulthood. The refugees flounder,
overwhelmed under the load of adulthood, and
want/need to be taken care of by their parents/parent substitutes.
In the search for mental health we may seek counsel. If the sessions go well,
but there's no change outside therapy, or the
reverse--there's contention during the sessions--especially over the need for
the patient to change, or the diagnosis--these are warning signals that we
need to look at, for the therapist certainly will, whether or not further sessions
will be of any good.
So once again the same lesson is learned, after identification of the problem,
it's
up to us to change. Not talk about change. But actually change. Do
something,
even if it's wrong.
After all, it benefits US the most. We have the most to gain, and nothing to
lose. As it is with changing and quitting smoking, so it is with changing our
mental outlook. We win any way it's looked at.
Imagine for a moment, on a list presented to us by our mate of things to do
today, the list would read something like this: "pick up at the cleaners, pay
elect. bill, make me happy, buy dog food." And just suppose the instruction
to "make me happy" was on your list from your mate every day. And on days
she/he wasn't happy, you were charged with
dereliction of duty.
The weight would get very heavy, and it wouldn't be long before you'd be
resentful, and he/she would be complaining.
Yet, time after time, people place the responsibility for their own happiness in
some else's hands. It's not a good way to live, for others
will never live up to our expectations and needs nor be able to fill our needs
as well as we can. And they wait and they wait and get older and older as
they wait for their happiness to come and be
delivered to them.
Here's the clue: It's called:
"Rowing one's own mood boat." You not only have to scrape the barnacles
and peeling paint off your boat, you have paint it and make shine.
And then you get to use the pretty thing, saying,
"See here? This is *my* boat--my pretty boat--that epoxy paint cost my $25
a quart, and took a lot of work, but look at it, and I did it all by myself, and,
you know, I enjoy it all the more because of that."
Scraping paint,
Roadkill
