Don’t try to understand it; just go with the flow…

November 10, 2013

“Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.”  (Robert Heinlein)

The idea behind today’s saying is similar in concept to the title of the popular book Men are from Mars and Women from Venus. The underlying truth is a difference so profound in how men and women view the world and the things that are happening around them that it cannot be understood by either party. Many men never relax and get used to it, so they go through life being continually astounded and confused by the actions and reactions of women. Women, on the other hand, seem to be able to at least accept the idea that their mates live in a completely different world and they try to show sympathy or empathy for the actions and reactions of these befuddled beings.

Perhaps the tendency of men to try to make logical sense of things is at the root of the differences. Embracing logic as the basis for life’s decisions and actions is very restrictive and confining in terms of creativity and even emotions. Men’s tendency to think about things too much and too logically can also lead to hesitancy, which kills the spontaneity that so many women exhibit. I won’t pretend to be able to discuss what drives the actions of women. Some say intuition more than anything else, which tends to reinforce the notion of women living through a “feel” for the situation, rather than the pure logic of it all.

So, I think it best to take the advice that Robert Heinlein gave and just get used to it; rather than trying to figure it out. Men might actually have more fun in life if they just go along with the women in their lives who are doing as they please.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Face into the storms in your life…

November 4, 2013

“Facing it, always facing it…that’s the way to get through.  Face it!”  (Joseph Conrad) – from the Jack’s Winning Words blog.

From what Jack went on to write, seamen know that once you are in a storm, you get through it by facing into it, not turning away or trying to run away from it. Life is like that, too. We don’t go looking for storms in life, but occasionally we all get caught up in them. Perhaps it’s a disagreement with a loved one or friend. Perhaps it has to do with dealing with a bad situation at work. Maybe it’s realizing too late that what you mistook for love for someone else in your youth turned out to be just lust and lifes stormsnow that the ardor has cooled there is little substance to your relationship left. These types of things are the “storms” in our lives and we must do as the seaman would and face into them, not try to run away.

Many people are what is labeled as non-confrontational; they just hate confronting anyone about things. That’s OK and actually not as bad as being the overbearing opposite – a bully. However non-confrontational you are, there is still the need to face the issues that are affecting your life. Acquiescing to situations that are wrong or make you feel uncomfortable, just to get along, is a sure prescription for misery. Facing those problems is not being confrontational, it’s just being practical.

One benefit of just facing the storms in your life is that it gets over with quicker that way. The more you try to run or hide from life’s storms the longer they linger and sometimes the stronger they grow. Face it, get through it and get on with life. No matter what the short term hardship or pain, you’ll be surprised how good it feels when you come out on the other side. You probably will also realize how many of the bad things that you feared might happen were really all in your imagination. Humans have an amazing ability to imagine scenarios and consequences that seldom come true.

Another thing that you can do to help you get through life’s storms is to face them with a smile. man relaxingNothing is as disarming to those who would spread hate or trouble into your life than to have their efforts be met with a smile. At first they’ll be annoyed that they can’t drag you down to their level; but, then, they’ll begin to wonder what you are smiling about and how you can smile in the face of whatever negative energy they are trying to spread. Eventually, they’ll go away, seeking someone else to infect with their problem or they may ask you how you can appear to be so happy in the face of the storm that they are trying to conjure up. You may end up making a new friend out of that conversation.

Now, I certainly don’t recommend that you become a storm chaser. Avoiding storms altogether is something that everyone should try to do, if you have enough warming about them; however, when you find yourself swept up in a storm, heed the advice of the seaman and face it. Here’s hoping that you have a sunny day with no storms on your horizon.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Finish the day and be done with it…

October 31, 2013

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I saw that saying by Emerson on the wall of someone’s cubical recently and it struck a chord with me. While it would be a mistake not to learn from yesterday’s blunders and absurdities; it would be a bigger mistake to waste one’s time dwelling on the past, rather than moving on in life with a fresh and positive outlook. So much of the pressure and worry and fear that we experience in life is self-inflicted, conjured up in our imaginations and not really based upon facts or what is really happening around us. Much of that negative energy comes facing new dayfrom dwelling on the past.

So let us resolve to start each day at peace with ourselves and those around us; carrying no baggage from yesterday; but, rather, focused upon the wonder and hope that each new day brings. Start out happy. Start out positive. Start out open and friendly to new ideas and new people in your life. With a start like that, you’ll go far. And when you finish today, be done with it and look forward to another fresh start tomorrow.

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Posted by Norm Werner

What counts for you?

October 29, 2013

 “Not everything that can be counted, counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”  (Albert Einstein) – from the Jack’s Winning Words blog.

Einstein was a very smart man in more ways than many associate with his name. Today’s saying attributed to him is from the metaphysical side of Einstein and not the scientific world that we normally associate with him.

Certainly things like compassion and empathy, thoughtfulness and thoroughness, integrity and professionalism are all things that count in business and in life that can’t really be counted. If you have those things, people will say that they can count on you.

What traits do you value in others that maybe can’t be counted, but which count to you in your relationships with them? How many of those things do you count in your own life? What other things count to you? Do people who know you or do business with you know that they can count on you? That’s what counts!

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Posted by Norm Werner

Make a Difference…LIKE someone in person

October 25, 2013

From the Jack’s Winning Words blog comes this post –  “The happiest people are those who help others.”  (Scott Pelley)  The 4th Saturday in October is Make a Difference Day, a day for doing things to improve the world around you.  Here are some things that people have done…go to a park and pick up trash…rake the leaves in your neighbor’s yard…volunteer to work in a soup kitchen, or go to a thrift store and offer to sort clothes.  Making a difference can make you happy!    😉  Jack

helping old ladyIt’s great to have a day set aside to celebrate the acts that people do to make a difference in the lives of others; but I think it would be more impactful if people would just resolve to make a difference every day. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to go do something physical for someone else, like raking their leaves or working in a soup kitchen every day; however, it does mean approaching each day and each person with the attitude that you can make their day better somehow. Sometimes that might just be holding a door open for someone or just wishing them a great day. Just the fact that you acknowledge them in some positive way can make people feel better.

The good news is that helping others or making others feel good about themselves also makes you feel good about yourself. Happiness is very contagious. You can’t help but be happy when you make someone else happy. Try it. If you make someone else smile or laugh or just be happy, you’ll find yourself smiling and feehelping handling good, too. The easiest way to do that is to reach out to others. No one is gong to come up to you and ask you to open a door for them or to thanks them or to say something nice to them. You have to make that effort; but, once you do, you are sure to be rewarded with some of that contagious happiness.

As a society we have become fairly insular, perhaps because of our focus upon technologies that tend to isolate us from real contact with people and make everything a screen-based experience. It’s hard to notice the people around you who might benefit from an act of kindness if you are absorbed by the latest Tweet or Facebook post. I sometimes think that helping othersthe people posting requests that you” Like” them on Facebook are really crying out for help. Somehow getting a Like on Facebook is not as rewarding as getting a soft “Thank you” in person from someone that I just helped or acknowledged.

So, put away the smartphone for a while and see the world around you. There are people out there that you can actually LIKE in person. Maybe you can even help them with something. They’ll feel good about that and so will you.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Have no regrets…

October 20, 2013

“Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.” (Victoria Holt)

Regret is one of those human nature things that are hard for many to let go of, just like self-doubt. Some may mask the term in other words, like “Monday morning quarterbacking”; however, that Monday morning look back only has positive value if it is used as a way to glean experience and not as an opportunity to wallow in regret.

Although the quotes of athletes is often derided as being full of cliques; there is much truth in many of those cliques about looking ahead and not back or putting things behind them. Professional athletes know that they cannot dwell in regret over every loss. They try to learn from those setbacks. They spend time in the film rooms reviewing a blown play or a missed opportunity to see what they can learn from them.

women looking at direction signLife is full points in time where decisions were made that might have been made differently. Some of those times turned out OK and we seldom think back on what might have been, had we taken the other choice that was in front of us at the time.  But, sometimes things didn’t turn out as we had planned or thought that they would and we tend to look back and see (or find) those decision points where we might have done it differently, especially if we knew the potential outcome. Well, we weren’t prescient and things turned out the way they did. Let it go. Move on. If you must replay the film in your mind, at least treat it as a learning opportunity and not an opportunity to beat yourself up.

In the Frank Sinatra song My Way, about aging he has a line – “Regrets, I’ve had a few; but then again, too few to MrHappymention.” The song goes on to extoll the virtue of moving on and doing things in life your own way. At the end of the day, the main regret you will have if you let things get you down and you spend time in self-abusing remorse, is that you’ve wasted another day. Life’s too short to throw days away.

So, rather than spend time regretting things; let’s all think about the words of another song, this one by Bobby McFarland – “Don’t worry, be happy.”

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Posted by Norm Werner

Supporting Team Huron Valley – Special Needs Event

October 12, 2013

October is Special Needs Awareness Month and there is a local event coming that will help families with special needs members understand what programs might be available and what protections under the law they should be aware of.

The Family Aging & Law Center is hosting a special event at Baker’s of Milford on October 20th from 2 until 4 PM. This educational event will focus upon the laws as they pertain to those with special needs. If you are a caregiver for a special needs person, you already have your hands full and not knowing the rights and programs that might be available under the law just doesn’t make sense.

Local attorney Nicole Wipp of the Family & Aging Law Center will conduct a workshop – “Planning for the special needs of your family: Designing a legal strategy for a lifetime of protection, guidance and love.” – about  the various laws and programs that might be able to help provide needed services or support.  Click here to view the event poster.

All proceeds and donations from this event will be given to support the Team Huron Valley drive to send its Special Olympics team tot eh Special Olympics National Athletic tournament in New Jersey next June. The local team needs to collect $6,500 in order to be able to go and participate in this event, a first for the local team.

In addition to Nicole Wipp, there will be venders and government agency representatives with displays at the event who can answer your questions about various programs and services that are available to caregivers of special needs children. If you are a vender or government agency that wishes to participate, click here for the form to sign up for the event.

So plan on attending this event to learn more about caring for special needs family members  and to support a great cause – sending Team Huron Valley to the Special Olympics Nationals in New Jersey. For more on Team Huron Valley, visit their web site or visit their Facebook page.

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Posted by Norm Werner

How do you look at things?

October 11, 2013

“Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.”  (Wayne Dyer)-  from my daily read at the Jack’s Winning Words blog.

What an easy saying to do a blog post about.  Taking a positive attitude about how you look at things will make things look positive. I suppose the opposite is true, too; which is why pessimists see so much to be unhappy about in life. This is the classic cup half-full or half-empty conundrum.

If one doesn’t look at a challenging situation and see negatives and problems; but, rather opportunities and solutions; then things don’t look so bad. I guess that also applies to looking at people. If one looks for faults or ugliness, you will probably find things that will drive you away. If you look beyond a few faults and find the good and beautiful that is somewhere within everyone, you may just find a friend.

looking afraidSo, how do you look at things when you start each day? Does the day look long, dreary and unappealing to you as you start out or does it appear to hold opportunities to meet fascinating people and achieve great success? The fact that you woke up with another opportunity to live a day, should serve as a positive start to the day, if you think about it. Days are like blank slates and what ends up written on that slate at the end of the day is up to you.

If you should encounter someone who is angry or maybe down, you can look at that happy to be aliveencounter as something to be avoided or as an opportunity to help. There is something behind the anger or depression that you are seeing and sometimes what the person is really trying to do is to find someone else to share that something with, so that they can start on the road to healing. You can be their emotional first-responder, a human aspirin (as the lady on the HAP commercial on TV says), so to speak. You may be amazed how much better that other person will feel (and look to you) after spending a few moments talking with them. You’ll also be amazed how much better you may feel for having taken the time to help.

So try to change the way you see things – see opportunities rather than roadblocks, see the beauty in people rather than just the faces that they initially present, see the wonder of the world around you and not the day-to-day ugliness; and, by doing so, you will change the things that you see.

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Posted by Norm Werner

If they remember you…

October 10, 2013

“People who are never completely unforgotten never completely die.”  (Ashleigh Brilliant)

I like this saying that I read on the Jack’s Winning Words blog that I get daily because it is true for me. Jack, being a retired pastor of course had some thoughts along the lines of immortality through belief. I certainly agree with those thoughts, but I had some of my on reflections of a more worldly nature.

My parents have been “gone” for a long time now, but they “live on” in my memories just as vividly as if I saw them just yesterday, so they are not forgotten and they have yet to completely die. My son and daughter also have a few fleeting memories of them as grandparents; so they may live through their lifetimes too. After that, I’m not sure; they did not live long enough to ever be seen and remembered by their great-grandchildren.

I have memories of my grandparents, so they’re still alive; but, I never knew my great grandparents, and so they are, at best, written entries on the family tree; and, perhaps, an image on a faded of photo or two. They have probably died. I suspect that there are few, if any, members of some other branch of the family tree who still have direct memories of them.

I suppose this begs the issue of those people from the past that are kept “alive” because they have been recognized  or memorialized in some fashion; usually in pictures and with trophies or plaques or other commemorative items. That is why getting into various Sports or other Halls of Fame is so important. One “lives” forever in those sanctuaries. Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb and Sandy Kofax and others in Cooperstown at the Baseball Hall of Fame “live” today because they are remembered; they are not completely forgotten.  Of course there are those who “live on” in infamy – Hitler, Stalin, Genghis Khan and others. In this modern era, we have movies and TV images that bring back to life many of those who are long gone. If you are still in reruns; you are never dead.

I have often seen people sitting or standing out at cemeteries, visiting and sometimes even talking with loved ones that have passed away. They are not forgotten. They are not dead for those visitors; and somehow there is peace to be found in talking with them as if they were still here and can hear what they are saying.

But, enough of the macabre; the real point that I started out to expound upon is that you really do “live on” in the minds of those around you that you touch; and as long as that is true, you have not “died.”  General Douglas Macarthur expressed this well in his famous quote, “old soldiers never die; they just fade away.” They fade away in the memories of people. For most these days, Macarthur himself has faded away.

Hopefully you will live for a long time in the fond memories of the lives of those whom you touched in positive ways while you were here. For me that’s both a hope and a goal. Old grandpas never die either; they just fade away, too.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Make time to have fun in life…

October 8, 2013

From the daily blog Jack’s Winning Words comes this post – “When baseball’s no longer fun, it’s no longer a game.”  (Joe DiMaggio)  Joltin’ Joe was batting .350 and was a highly paid player when he retired, saying,” baseball is no longer fun.”  I suppose most of us would not classify our job as fun, or as a game, but I really did enjoy my work.  Maybe you can say the same about your occupation.  Have you heard the expression, “The game of life?”  What makes life fun for you?    😉  Jack  

pillow fightIf you can still do it, think back to your childhood, when life in general was still fun. Children view life as a daily fun adventure up until the time that adults start taking that fun away by putting life pressures on them – that generally starts sometime in grade school, I think. From then on we allow ourselves little snippets of fun from time to time – a hobby, a sport or a favorite pastime; but, in general life becomes something that we have to work at, both literally and figuratively. Jobs, family, obligations, responsibilities all demand time and attention, leaving little for just having fun. Some lose the fun in life altogether for a while.

As we get older there is a chance for some to recapture some of the fun of life. If one is not in a situation where day-to-day survival is still a struggle (which unfortunately is the case for far too many elderly people), then there is time to recapture some of the fun of life. Perhaps that is found in spending time with grandchildren or old person with childperhaps just having the time to get back to an old hobby or pastime. Some things are considered by observers as “being silly”; but for those oldsters who’ve managed to get back there, it’s just having fun in life again.

You don’t really have to wait until you’re old to recapture some of the fun in life, you just have to try. In our goal obsessed world, perhaps you need to set a goal for yourself to take the time every day or every week to just have some fun; to do something “silly”, or to just let go for a few minutes and relax. You’ll know when you’ve made it back to that fun spot in life when a little smile creeps across your face. Life’s too short not to have any fun living it.

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Posted by Norm Werner

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