What Are We Doing To Ourselves?

I’ve been working in the field of healthcare for over thirty years and it’s crazy how fear and insecurity have taken over our lives.

The stats show that the United States spend over nine BILLION dollars a year on stress management.  Think about it!  Are we really living in a time that is so much more difficult than the generations that came before us?  Generations that went through the World Wars, extreme poverty, racial intolerance and unfair sexual rights?

Are we facing more real life threatening situations or have we lost touch with reality and what’s really important?

It seems to me that life has gotten faster, media is more negative, technology demands immediacy and marketing has pushed the boundaries of common decency. What are we doing to ourselves?

Help yourself by getting in touch with your own clear vision of common sense.  See just how absurd and needlessly complex and stressful our everyday lives have become.

Over the last several years I’ve seen a movement towards “simplicity” and a desire to return to the way people lived fifty or sixty years ago.  Of course we can’t go back to those days before T.V. and email.  In truth our lives are so much better than our grandparents who had a much smaller world and limited possibilities.

But we can learn from that generation’s lifestyle and find a balance between yesterday’s peace and today’s stress.

Minding Our Own Business

After my husband died I found that there were people in my life that stepped back and watched me make some pretty foolish mistakes without letting me know the path I was on. And yet there were others that couldn’t mind their own business and were always being nosey and critical.

The years have passed and I survived, as we all do and I’m left wondering what was best for me those first couple of years as a widow?  For me – I think it was important to stretch and make mistakes without having the support of my husband.  I found it hard in my time of grief to suffer through someone’s nosey and critical opinion when they still had their husbands and  couldn’t relate to my grief. 

Now I try to watch what I say and stay neutral when I see others struggling to find their way. I have a hard enough time trying to run my own life without trying to run somebody else’s.  

Don’t be nosey.  Nosey people are critical people that want to know all the details, not so they can help but because they are looking for something that’s juicy to feed their judgmental nature.  If they talk about others when they are not around then you can bet that they will also talk about you.

If you know a nosey person who comes up to you and says, “Did you hear what I heard? or Did you hear what she is doing?” your best answer should be, “No, and I don’t want to hear or You know what? I just remembered that I have something important to do.”

Don’t sit there and be passive when a gossip wants to tell you something bad about another person.  If you can’t leave, be bold enough to change the subject.  A gossip or critic will poison your day, so if you have friends that are always negative and don’t mind their own business think about how much time you want to be spending with them.

On the other hand watch out that you don’t become that nosey gossip or critic.  You may not agree with everything and you may not understand what someone is doing, but don’t be a gossip or talk negatively about them.

I may not understand someone or agree with what they are doing and so I may choose not to associate with that person, but I also choose to not bad-mouth them – or at least I try 

Don't Procrastinate

You need to stop and think about the fact that your time is limited. Of course nothing brings this as close to us as the loss of our spouse but sometimes in our grief we forget about our own future.

If you live to be 80 years old, you will have lived 29,200 days. Think about this because if you are 40 right now you’ve already lived 14,600 days. How are you spending your day?

Each day is a gift of time that you will never see again. We are all guilty, to an extent of wasting time as though our time will never run out.

The best way to end procrastination is to add deadlines on all your goals. Define your purpose in life and you will find that each day will be more important to you.

By living your life with a healthy sense of urgency you will live up to your full potential. Do this and you will never want to procrastinate.

Tell People How You Feel

Sometimes our biggest regret at a funeral is that we didn’t fully communicate to our loved one just how much we loved them.

Other times we let conflicts with friends and family members remain unresolved.  This prevents us from forgiving, healing and moving forward with the people we care about.

If you have a conflict with a loved one who is still here, the simple act of telling them what you’re hoping to achieve in the relationship is half the battle.  Sometimes a conflict is just a misunderstanding that can be talked out.

Write down what the cost is to your peace of mind when you do not communicate how you feel.  Think about how your relationships would be affected if you told them how you feel.

Let people know how much they mean to you.   It’s quite normal to feel a little awkward about this exercise because we get used to hiding our emotions.  But don’t let another day go by without letting the people who mean the most to you know how you feel.