Hi everyone;
I am finally back. Today I was looking at the improvements I need to make in my own life and how they compare to that of my clients. The changes I need to make may not be so severe but they may end in just as much impact. Yousee, when we look at addiction, we look at stereotypical addiction: drugs, sex, ETOH, and gambling. The are he main things that we look at. However, when we separate addictions in to physical/pychological addictions and process dependencies I think that over the years no matter who you are you can think of more specific addictions ie eatting, tv, internet and so on.
I think that is is important to look at addiction in terms of varying level of problem rather than specifically looking at physical dependency. If we are addicted to food, we have likely conciously or unconciously decided that food is a good way to cope with stress, however, we are only feeding te problem and making it bigger. Let's face it, eatting a big mac is not going to get your job back, if anything it will make it more difficult to keep your job or even have the motivation to work. The big mac does not feed motivation it feeds comfort. If we only feed our comfort and never learn to accept discomfort we never really get very far. Look at these things in your own life.
Think about this:
1. How well do you accept discomfort?
2. Do you need to be in control, and why is that answer so important?
3. What do you count on when times get tough?
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Holiday time Holiday time!
As you can guess my blog today is about me preparing to have a holiday. I have not had a full weekend off since just before December. Except for the odd weekend that I or someone in my family was sick or there was some mild catastrophe. I am so excited that I will be going away to Kincardine for the first time in over one year. YAY!
So Vacation, yes it is a pleasureful event for the most part. However, we have all heard those vacation nightmares but somehow even just the stories that result from them, often give the betrayed holidayer some pleasure when telling of their experiences. Yes we humans are amazing at finding pleasure in almost anything. With a holiday you can only plan so much. You cannot count on the weather, the environment or other people but you can set out to have an adventure that will be positive no matter what happens. I think that key is to get excited like children do and move on from the negative = pain quickly. Many of us have learned "not to act like children" Funny, I really do not understand it. For many of us our childhood is a time of freedom from worries. As a child you tend to have lack of fear when it comes to giving all of your excitement and interest to an event or situation. This is what we should be doing all the time not just once in awhile or after a few drinks. We need to be all in. Its our life. Its exciting and if you want something, you need to live like you already have it.
I have decided on this trip of mine I will actually get all out of it that i would life too, because I am going to be excited about every part of it. So hear are my goals and lets see what I can meet and what will happen if I don't. So I will share the plan and we will assess it later.
1. I will show my true feelings and true excitement with people. I will not try to be calm and cool
2. I will have a ball of fun with my little guy
3. I will visit with Julie, My sister, Sally, and Ruth just to name a few
4. I will go to my parents grave
5. I will take Aiden to the beach
6. |I will go for a walk everyday
7. We will attend the pipeband
8. We will attend the street festival
9. We will get some good nights sleeps
10. I will get up in the morning shower and be ready for the day as soon as I get up.
11. Trails
12. Walk the track
So lets see what happens when you live as if you already have passion.
So Vacation, yes it is a pleasureful event for the most part. However, we have all heard those vacation nightmares but somehow even just the stories that result from them, often give the betrayed holidayer some pleasure when telling of their experiences. Yes we humans are amazing at finding pleasure in almost anything. With a holiday you can only plan so much. You cannot count on the weather, the environment or other people but you can set out to have an adventure that will be positive no matter what happens. I think that key is to get excited like children do and move on from the negative = pain quickly. Many of us have learned "not to act like children" Funny, I really do not understand it. For many of us our childhood is a time of freedom from worries. As a child you tend to have lack of fear when it comes to giving all of your excitement and interest to an event or situation. This is what we should be doing all the time not just once in awhile or after a few drinks. We need to be all in. Its our life. Its exciting and if you want something, you need to live like you already have it.
I have decided on this trip of mine I will actually get all out of it that i would life too, because I am going to be excited about every part of it. So hear are my goals and lets see what I can meet and what will happen if I don't. So I will share the plan and we will assess it later.
1. I will show my true feelings and true excitement with people. I will not try to be calm and cool
2. I will have a ball of fun with my little guy
3. I will visit with Julie, My sister, Sally, and Ruth just to name a few
4. I will go to my parents grave
5. I will take Aiden to the beach
6. |I will go for a walk everyday
7. We will attend the pipeband
8. We will attend the street festival
9. We will get some good nights sleeps
10. I will get up in the morning shower and be ready for the day as soon as I get up.
11. Trails
12. Walk the track
So lets see what happens when you live as if you already have passion.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
I am back....
Hi everyone,
I appreciate that more of you have joined and more are attempting to join. Again, this is a little project that I have going and I hope that everyone will participate in my efforts. We can talk about anything! We really can so let me know if there is anything that you want to talk about.
I thought that it seems like a good time to discuss the idea of choices in our daily lives. We are bombarded with constant choices in our daily lives. Some of them seem to be easy and others are more difficult. The choices that seem easy are more dicotomous. By this, I mean there is a right and wrong choice, there are only two choices, or there are very few factors involved in making the decision. Other decisions, are filled with more factors to consider, more uncertainty and more potention problems. The decisions difficult because of course we want to make the right decision, but sometimes there is no right decision, since we do not have crytal balls. So how can we effectively make these decisions:
1. First determine the necessity of making the decision in the first place....What is the goal to making this decision; will it accomplish anything
2. what are the possible choices
3. of the possible choices make a list for each choice. What pleasures will this decision bring you and what are the possible/probable pains that it will create.
4. While looking at the list of pains, determine if these are pains that can be minimized or coped with.
5. While looking at the list of pleasure, determine if the pleasures are helpful, healthy and directly related to your goal from step one.
After doing this your decision should become much more clear and less stressful. Make your choice and live it. Meaning go with it; let it be guided by your goal and ultimately your passion. Self doubt and negativity have no place in the process. Make the choice and live it as if it was definately the correct one... this does not mean it will be the right one. It just means you are taking a chance on yourself and giving yourself and opportunity to learn and grow. There is always room to change course when necessary.
I appreciate that more of you have joined and more are attempting to join. Again, this is a little project that I have going and I hope that everyone will participate in my efforts. We can talk about anything! We really can so let me know if there is anything that you want to talk about.
I thought that it seems like a good time to discuss the idea of choices in our daily lives. We are bombarded with constant choices in our daily lives. Some of them seem to be easy and others are more difficult. The choices that seem easy are more dicotomous. By this, I mean there is a right and wrong choice, there are only two choices, or there are very few factors involved in making the decision. Other decisions, are filled with more factors to consider, more uncertainty and more potention problems. The decisions difficult because of course we want to make the right decision, but sometimes there is no right decision, since we do not have crytal balls. So how can we effectively make these decisions:
1. First determine the necessity of making the decision in the first place....What is the goal to making this decision; will it accomplish anything
2. what are the possible choices
3. of the possible choices make a list for each choice. What pleasures will this decision bring you and what are the possible/probable pains that it will create.
4. While looking at the list of pains, determine if these are pains that can be minimized or coped with.
5. While looking at the list of pleasure, determine if the pleasures are helpful, healthy and directly related to your goal from step one.
After doing this your decision should become much more clear and less stressful. Make your choice and live it. Meaning go with it; let it be guided by your goal and ultimately your passion. Self doubt and negativity have no place in the process. Make the choice and live it as if it was definately the correct one... this does not mean it will be the right one. It just means you are taking a chance on yourself and giving yourself and opportunity to learn and grow. There is always room to change course when necessary.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
The road to the perfect outcome filled with stress...
Todays Blog just came to me after a conversation with a friend. He was saying that he and his wife were stressed out with their children. He said that they put 100 percent of their time after work into their children. As well, he said that they had made a decision to have children and even if it was hard they had made the decision to continue to give the children 100 percent.
I found it so interesting, since if you knew these people you would know that they are both extremely health concious, type A individuals. Because of this they are two people who stood strong on every idealistic idea of parenting. I have always understood and respected their sheer determination. However, I guess over the years I have learned who I am... and that is just not me... I am not a planner, I am a fly by the seat of my pants kind of person. I guess for me, the planning is more painful than the activity itself. I live my life in a kind of experiential way...whatever I feel like or we as a family feel like at the time. My free time is very open to change and open to the changing moods and energy that we have at any given moment. Even a grocery list or a meal plan is a difficult plan to muster... because I might plan it but I might just not feel like it at the time. Because of this, I have often been left feeling very inadequate as a person, when I compare myself to these friends.
After our conversation last night, I left it not feeling so bad. I mean here are two people, who I feel are the model of the "perfect parents," and here they are stressing themselves out trying to be better than perfect. It is somewhat amusing to me but at the same time causes me pain, thinking about how they stress themselves everyday, trying to be healthy, trying to give 100 percent. It must be hard to be someone, who is always on top of everything but now is realizing that even with all that organizing, planning, healthy lifestyle.... life just does not accomadate the best laid plans. For me, this feels a little hopeless; I mean I always thought if I could get it together and plan, be healthy and organize, things would be just great. I now wonder whether not striving for the extreme pleasure and accepting that this is me, this is our family and this is how we operate has made life more pleasureful not in an extreme sense but in a good enough sort of way. in fact it's I mean we are who we are. Can we change yes.... if who and what we are is painful we can but it's not just in the changing that we can experience pleasure, sometimes it is in the acceptance of who and what we are that reduces the pain enough to experience the pleasure that has always been there.
Now, I am not saying we shouldn't dream big, or work hard, or have strong principles but I am saying that as a world and community of people we need to get real. We need to accept moderation in our lives. I think dreaming big and having goals is one thing, but I think that striving for the ultimate perfection in every aspect of what we do, does not guarentee our greatness or happiness, in fact in some cases it may set us up for losing sight of happiness in the moment. We might be spending time going through the motions of life and missing out on the beautiful weeping willow in the park or the proud look on our child's faces when they realize they can do something on their own, or even that great snuggle after a difficult moment or two with our children.
For me, this brings me to thinking about moderation in life. Not just in how we eat or drink but in life. Having moderation in our lives allows us to avoid some pain. It allows us to stop stressing about the little things in life and really look at what matters. It allows us to do some things that are not perfect by social standard, or the beliefs and morals of others. We can allow ourselves to enjoy not being perfect at every moment knowing that we are able to move away from the activity without leaving much of an impact in our lives. In this way we are not expecting ourselves to be perfect all the time and there is no need to fogive ourselves for the Big Mac we ate at lunch or doing nothing when there was lots to do.
When I was a teenager, I brought home a friend, who had been kicked out of his parents home. Of course the story to my parents was that he lost his key and could not get in his parents home till they got back... (Yeah.... really believable) Anyways, he was arrested while living at our home. When he returned he and I worried how my parents would deal with this, and how it would affect how they felt about him. My mother was more concerned with how he processed the ordeal. My parents told me... "move on, he'll deal with it and he'll learn from it, nobody is hurt, nobody is dead, everybody is fine... so it can't be all that bad" I was shocked, I mean, they did not hold that against him. They were comfortable with it all and if they weren't they certainly we not going to let that worry him. My point being that growing up was all about comfort and yes working hard but what I learned was this:
1. Sometimes it's good to be a little bad.
2. It's good to be different (as long as you don't go out without your makeup)
3. As long as everyone is alive at the end of a bad decision it was a learning experience
4. People are who they are and they do what they do.... and that is all there is to it.
5. As long as the family is the safe place for the child to land at the end of the day... your parenting is good
6. As long as your children are loved and they have no doubt about it... that is what makes great kids, not what parenting book you read...
7. As long as you are building great memories to laugh about later, it will all be worth it.
“Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.”
Joseph Hall
“Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles, and kindnesses, and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort”
Humphrey Davy quotes (English chemist 1778-1829)
I found it so interesting, since if you knew these people you would know that they are both extremely health concious, type A individuals. Because of this they are two people who stood strong on every idealistic idea of parenting. I have always understood and respected their sheer determination. However, I guess over the years I have learned who I am... and that is just not me... I am not a planner, I am a fly by the seat of my pants kind of person. I guess for me, the planning is more painful than the activity itself. I live my life in a kind of experiential way...whatever I feel like or we as a family feel like at the time. My free time is very open to change and open to the changing moods and energy that we have at any given moment. Even a grocery list or a meal plan is a difficult plan to muster... because I might plan it but I might just not feel like it at the time. Because of this, I have often been left feeling very inadequate as a person, when I compare myself to these friends.
After our conversation last night, I left it not feeling so bad. I mean here are two people, who I feel are the model of the "perfect parents," and here they are stressing themselves out trying to be better than perfect. It is somewhat amusing to me but at the same time causes me pain, thinking about how they stress themselves everyday, trying to be healthy, trying to give 100 percent. It must be hard to be someone, who is always on top of everything but now is realizing that even with all that organizing, planning, healthy lifestyle.... life just does not accomadate the best laid plans. For me, this feels a little hopeless; I mean I always thought if I could get it together and plan, be healthy and organize, things would be just great. I now wonder whether not striving for the extreme pleasure and accepting that this is me, this is our family and this is how we operate has made life more pleasureful not in an extreme sense but in a good enough sort of way. in fact it's I mean we are who we are. Can we change yes.... if who and what we are is painful we can but it's not just in the changing that we can experience pleasure, sometimes it is in the acceptance of who and what we are that reduces the pain enough to experience the pleasure that has always been there.
Now, I am not saying we shouldn't dream big, or work hard, or have strong principles but I am saying that as a world and community of people we need to get real. We need to accept moderation in our lives. I think dreaming big and having goals is one thing, but I think that striving for the ultimate perfection in every aspect of what we do, does not guarentee our greatness or happiness, in fact in some cases it may set us up for losing sight of happiness in the moment. We might be spending time going through the motions of life and missing out on the beautiful weeping willow in the park or the proud look on our child's faces when they realize they can do something on their own, or even that great snuggle after a difficult moment or two with our children.
For me, this brings me to thinking about moderation in life. Not just in how we eat or drink but in life. Having moderation in our lives allows us to avoid some pain. It allows us to stop stressing about the little things in life and really look at what matters. It allows us to do some things that are not perfect by social standard, or the beliefs and morals of others. We can allow ourselves to enjoy not being perfect at every moment knowing that we are able to move away from the activity without leaving much of an impact in our lives. In this way we are not expecting ourselves to be perfect all the time and there is no need to fogive ourselves for the Big Mac we ate at lunch or doing nothing when there was lots to do.
When I was a teenager, I brought home a friend, who had been kicked out of his parents home. Of course the story to my parents was that he lost his key and could not get in his parents home till they got back... (Yeah.... really believable) Anyways, he was arrested while living at our home. When he returned he and I worried how my parents would deal with this, and how it would affect how they felt about him. My mother was more concerned with how he processed the ordeal. My parents told me... "move on, he'll deal with it and he'll learn from it, nobody is hurt, nobody is dead, everybody is fine... so it can't be all that bad" I was shocked, I mean, they did not hold that against him. They were comfortable with it all and if they weren't they certainly we not going to let that worry him. My point being that growing up was all about comfort and yes working hard but what I learned was this:
1. Sometimes it's good to be a little bad.
2. It's good to be different (as long as you don't go out without your makeup)
3. As long as everyone is alive at the end of a bad decision it was a learning experience
4. People are who they are and they do what they do.... and that is all there is to it.
5. As long as the family is the safe place for the child to land at the end of the day... your parenting is good
6. As long as your children are loved and they have no doubt about it... that is what makes great kids, not what parenting book you read...
7. As long as you are building great memories to laugh about later, it will all be worth it.
“Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.”
Joseph Hall
“Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles, and kindnesses, and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort”
Humphrey Davy quotes (English chemist 1778-1829)
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Another book to enlighten you along your path...
I just thought of this now. I had to share it with you all. If you have not read it you should. I loved it. AMAZING BOOK...
ALSO, in my last blog I also advertised severalbooks that your should add to your book shopping list.
In addition, to make your blogging more pleasurable if you click play on the Amazon Mp3 you will get to hear ongoing song clips.
ALSO, in my last blog I also advertised severalbooks that your should add to your book shopping list.
In addition, to make your blogging more pleasurable if you click play on the Amazon Mp3 you will get to hear ongoing song clips.
Pleasure and Pain Through history
Pleasure and pain have long been a topic of discussion between people all over the world. Although, some of you may have thought that Hedonism was just a sexy resort, the reality is you have been thinking about this your whole life and maybe just not connected it to this particular school of thought.
“The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you.”
Anthony Robbins
Addiction has very clear and literal definition, but at we all know in our day to day life we are really not all that literal. We use this term to descripe more that just alcohol and drug related addiction. Addiction has grown to include things such as gambling, sex, internet, video games, eatting disorders, chocolate, and many many more. In fact often, people will seem addicted to their own disfunction or drama. For example, some people who have Bipolar disorder will very much enjoy the state of being manic. Yes they will chase that high the way a person who loves cocaine chases the fix. Then, there are people who just can't get enough drama. Their house could be falling down around them but they cannot help but find themselves in other peoples dramas or their own. They find roles for themselves within the drama and they need their fix for the day. You know who you are, you love a good peice of gossip.... of course you can keep the secret for about a 1/2 minute but it just kills you to not share it, you are also the helper, the one that people run to and lets face it, it does feel good to be the person in the know. My point, is that in todays society anything can be an addiction. For less clinical purposes one could say that an addiction is somthing that gives one a charge and they will continue to seek this at the expence of other areas of their lives. They are willing to endure the pain as the pleasure they derive from these activities outweighs the pain. However, you can also look at people who have the "addictions" and find that most of them have a very short pleasure menu
ie
Before the addiction
-Movies-Out with friends-vacations-bowling-golf-reading-swimming-exercise and so one and so on
People begin with very large menus generally for pleasureful activities. These become the way they cope with pain. However, over time the menu can shorten because the activities on the menu have become to difficult to use... for example the movies may be too expensive. The shorter the list becomes the more dependant a person becomes on one easy to do pleasureful activity. There you have it, how addiction begins in the Hedonic Model. If one is lucky they find something that is less unhealthy and costly but lets face it... if we only have one coping skill it just will not work effectively for everything.
"Secrecy, once accepted, becomes an addiction. "
Edward Teller
Passion. We hear this word so much. What does it really mean to us in our lives? I think that just as the word can have positive and negative associations so to can we develop healthy and unhealthy passions. As well, in todays society where everyone is in search of the perfect way to live, the perfect opinion of life, it is easy to fall prey to a passion that leads us to addictive behaviour. However, it is important to love with a passion, believe with a passion, play and work with passion. For if we are not passionate we will have such difficulties getting through our lives. We all seek passion and drive. This is a fast paced world and we are all running to get someplace quickly. We as a society place too much passion on roles and less passion for the day we have at hand. This will be part of my project, to look at ways of doing everything with a passion for the moment. I hope that this is something that we can all discuss further.
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." ~Attributed to Howard Thurman
“The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you.”
Anthony Robbins
Addiction has very clear and literal definition, but at we all know in our day to day life we are really not all that literal. We use this term to descripe more that just alcohol and drug related addiction. Addiction has grown to include things such as gambling, sex, internet, video games, eatting disorders, chocolate, and many many more. In fact often, people will seem addicted to their own disfunction or drama. For example, some people who have Bipolar disorder will very much enjoy the state of being manic. Yes they will chase that high the way a person who loves cocaine chases the fix. Then, there are people who just can't get enough drama. Their house could be falling down around them but they cannot help but find themselves in other peoples dramas or their own. They find roles for themselves within the drama and they need their fix for the day. You know who you are, you love a good peice of gossip.... of course you can keep the secret for about a 1/2 minute but it just kills you to not share it, you are also the helper, the one that people run to and lets face it, it does feel good to be the person in the know. My point, is that in todays society anything can be an addiction. For less clinical purposes one could say that an addiction is somthing that gives one a charge and they will continue to seek this at the expence of other areas of their lives. They are willing to endure the pain as the pleasure they derive from these activities outweighs the pain. However, you can also look at people who have the "addictions" and find that most of them have a very short pleasure menu
ie
Before the addiction
-Movies-Out with friends-vacations-bowling-golf-reading-swimming-exercise and so one and so on
People begin with very large menus generally for pleasureful activities. These become the way they cope with pain. However, over time the menu can shorten because the activities on the menu have become to difficult to use... for example the movies may be too expensive. The shorter the list becomes the more dependant a person becomes on one easy to do pleasureful activity. There you have it, how addiction begins in the Hedonic Model. If one is lucky they find something that is less unhealthy and costly but lets face it... if we only have one coping skill it just will not work effectively for everything.
"Secrecy, once accepted, becomes an addiction. "
Edward Teller
Passion. We hear this word so much. What does it really mean to us in our lives? I think that just as the word can have positive and negative associations so to can we develop healthy and unhealthy passions. As well, in todays society where everyone is in search of the perfect way to live, the perfect opinion of life, it is easy to fall prey to a passion that leads us to addictive behaviour. However, it is important to love with a passion, believe with a passion, play and work with passion. For if we are not passionate we will have such difficulties getting through our lives. We all seek passion and drive. This is a fast paced world and we are all running to get someplace quickly. We as a society place too much passion on roles and less passion for the day we have at hand. This will be part of my project, to look at ways of doing everything with a passion for the moment. I hope that this is something that we can all discuss further.
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." ~Attributed to Howard Thurman
Day two.... Please Begin with the first post
Hi everyone;
I would like to welcome Jenn and Jodi to the blog and hope that we can convince more people to join in soon. Please make sure that you hit follow to the right hand side of the page. There are many blogs that you can follow through this program and I welcome you to explore them. As well, please take note of the Famous People board to the side of the page as well.
I have to tell you I had a very cruel start to the day... It sucked completely. However, I got through it... got to work and spent the day doing what I love. Advocating and giving people unconditional positive regard gives me pleasure and it is my passion. You see I give a lot of myself to my job everyday... but I also get a lot out of it as well. Of course there have been times I would say OMG I can't stand this... but there are far more times I say I can't get enough of it. I will tell you that I am also one of those people who seem to thrive on a fast pace, working with people who are difficult. It is a puzzle to me... to find out how they tick. What it would take for them to be respectful and nice. For some it's a little direction and for others it's a lot of boundaries. However, far more successful for me has been unconditional positive regard. People respond to this... No come on... Those of you who know me, will know that I am no Saint, and I am not that perfect but I really do like to find something in each person I meet. Something that tells me that no matter how they behave that there is a soul inside of that shell. Those of you who know me will also be aware of my strong committment and passion for the work that I do and the people for whom I work as well as my coworkers. I guess you could say that I am more fortunate in many ways than I actually realize... I have a family, work that I love, excellent coworkers and an amazing population of intellegent, sometimes eccentric people to direct my efforts. I have so many pleasures in my life, and my life is so full of passion (not that kind****head out of the gutter) However, it has not always been this way. My life has been a whirlwind of bad, sad and nasty situations. More Than one person can handle... There I times I really did not think that I could make it through... but I did, partially because of my upbringing, partially just because I am stubborn, partially because I have great friends and partially because I have so much passion in my life. Although, for me the road of my life has been infested with big, large, gapping pot holes I have made it though... Many times I really just felt like I was walking through my life in the dark, just searching for the light switch but through all that practice I have excellent night vision. Why continue, there were times that I would have paid anything for an out... but I didn't why.... hmmm I think that it was because the memories of the past, my family, my friends and my work have been my drive to move forward. These thing provide me so much pleasure that I just could never give up.
It is human nature to want to feel pleasure and to avoid pain...Sometimes people spend a life time avoiding pain. Is this a good thing? What are they really avoiding? How do they know what pleasure is if they never feel pain? Do we need both pleasure and pain in our lives and are both good for us?
Let's discuss:
Your views on pleasure and pain
Benefits of avoiding pain
Negatives of too much pleasure... is there such a thing...
I would like to welcome Jenn and Jodi to the blog and hope that we can convince more people to join in soon. Please make sure that you hit follow to the right hand side of the page. There are many blogs that you can follow through this program and I welcome you to explore them. As well, please take note of the Famous People board to the side of the page as well.
I have to tell you I had a very cruel start to the day... It sucked completely. However, I got through it... got to work and spent the day doing what I love. Advocating and giving people unconditional positive regard gives me pleasure and it is my passion. You see I give a lot of myself to my job everyday... but I also get a lot out of it as well. Of course there have been times I would say OMG I can't stand this... but there are far more times I say I can't get enough of it. I will tell you that I am also one of those people who seem to thrive on a fast pace, working with people who are difficult. It is a puzzle to me... to find out how they tick. What it would take for them to be respectful and nice. For some it's a little direction and for others it's a lot of boundaries. However, far more successful for me has been unconditional positive regard. People respond to this... No come on... Those of you who know me, will know that I am no Saint, and I am not that perfect but I really do like to find something in each person I meet. Something that tells me that no matter how they behave that there is a soul inside of that shell. Those of you who know me will also be aware of my strong committment and passion for the work that I do and the people for whom I work as well as my coworkers. I guess you could say that I am more fortunate in many ways than I actually realize... I have a family, work that I love, excellent coworkers and an amazing population of intellegent, sometimes eccentric people to direct my efforts. I have so many pleasures in my life, and my life is so full of passion (not that kind****head out of the gutter) However, it has not always been this way. My life has been a whirlwind of bad, sad and nasty situations. More Than one person can handle... There I times I really did not think that I could make it through... but I did, partially because of my upbringing, partially just because I am stubborn, partially because I have great friends and partially because I have so much passion in my life. Although, for me the road of my life has been infested with big, large, gapping pot holes I have made it though... Many times I really just felt like I was walking through my life in the dark, just searching for the light switch but through all that practice I have excellent night vision. Why continue, there were times that I would have paid anything for an out... but I didn't why.... hmmm I think that it was because the memories of the past, my family, my friends and my work have been my drive to move forward. These thing provide me so much pleasure that I just could never give up.
It is human nature to want to feel pleasure and to avoid pain...Sometimes people spend a life time avoiding pain. Is this a good thing? What are they really avoiding? How do they know what pleasure is if they never feel pain? Do we need both pleasure and pain in our lives and are both good for us?
Let's discuss:
Your views on pleasure and pain
Benefits of avoiding pain
Negatives of too much pleasure... is there such a thing...
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