Since I had kidney stones and spent a couple weeks in bed last summer I've pretty much quit playing the cello. And since I started playing tennis I've gone running less and less. Especially with the winter as I get so sick of the treadmill. With the birth of Hawthy I've especially gotten bad at these things and have really become very unhappy. Really having a pessimistic outlook.
This evening, instead of spending time with Hawthy, I got back from Cali, took a nap (couldn't sleep on the red eye) and went for a 50 minute run and then pulled out the cello.
I feel so much better. Though J guilts me. I have to get a couple runs in every week and keep playing the cello. On days I work I'm going to feel bad, not to mention J will continue to guilt me, but I HAVE to. Otherwise I just drive myself so far down.
I could say a lot of negative things about the cello. But it does something very positive for me that other music stuff doesn't. Do want to get a piano though, will have to see how that compares. Of course I have a bunch of synthesizers... lol. I never truly play them... Maybe should try to at least play some Muzio Clementi on them....
Read a couple Anne Bishop books. Daughter of the Blood and most of Heir to the Shadows. It's a dystopian world, which is good. Negatives include so little mention of normal people I wasn't entirely sure they even existed. Really counters the whole dystopian world thing. More like it's dystopian for a few people, no idea what it's actually like for the majority. And in some ways it's incredibly sappy. Very YA at the same time there's a lot of rape/sex. What especially hurts it is that I started instead reading The Necromancer's House by Christopher Buehlman which is written so much better.
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
How for me to be happy:
1. Be myopic-mostly keep a narrow focus, keep distracted by little things like playing the cello, a sport, reading a book.
2. Selective forgetting-wake each day and forget the repetitive nature of life and all the ugly things that have happened and are going to happen again and again.
3. Find a way to get outside, even in the dead of winter
4. Limit your time spent with people who:
A. can't be reasoned with
B. don't understand you
C. don't actually like you
5. Without breaking #4, spend a good deal of time worrying about the happiness of other people, even if 4 applies to them
6. Lots of fruit smoothies and broccoli
1. Be myopic-mostly keep a narrow focus, keep distracted by little things like playing the cello, a sport, reading a book.
2. Selective forgetting-wake each day and forget the repetitive nature of life and all the ugly things that have happened and are going to happen again and again.
3. Find a way to get outside, even in the dead of winter
4. Limit your time spent with people who:
A. can't be reasoned with
B. don't understand you
C. don't actually like you
5. Without breaking #4, spend a good deal of time worrying about the happiness of other people, even if 4 applies to them
6. Lots of fruit smoothies and broccoli
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
A key to happiness for me is a feeling of security (as opposed to hope) is that I'm motivated by positive reinforcement, not negative. In a capitalist society the negative usually wins out for me. The possibility of ending up homeless is of more interest to keep on the edge of my consciousness then whatever positive capitalism offers. So then something that works at least for me is thinking that if I won the lottery I'd want to keep my current job.... Maybe not something to look at too closely. (Because maybe I could find some better way to improve this world than in my current job...) But as a nurse I certainly can do more than most. So, I like to think as if I've won the lottery and yet, by choice, off to work I still go. This pretty effectively negates most negative reinforcement. Gets rid of the stressful nature that perhaps plagues me more than usual. Of course few people can say in any sense though that they'd continue their job even if they won the lottery/got many millions somehow, so this is of little use to most, except that they may want to try to find a job for which it is true of.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Hope ~ 1/Security
The amount of hope we have for the future is generally inversely proportional to the amount of security we have as we age. Hopefully at least, as we age, we gain security to make up for the loss of hope.
Compassion ~ 1/Proximity
The further away someone is, the more we seem to give a damm about them. In other words, compassion is inversely proportional to proximity. And the distance can be both physical and in terms of time. So we can be fascinated to learn all about some ancestor we not only can't ever meet, but can't ever even actually speak to. Meanwhile we as often as not have virtually nothing to do with our living relatives. Or at least really wish we had nothing to do with them.
Intelligence ~ 1/Happiness
Happiness is generally about finding ways to delude yourself. Happiness is about myopia. Focusing on small inconsequential transient phenomena from one moment to the next, for, your entire lifetime. DO NOT see the big picture. Manage somehow to hold on to religion/mysticism. Find this world to a relatively wonderful place. Etcetera.
This new show about people finding out about their ancestors sickens me. My family doesn't even speak to any our of relatives. Not our great aunt. Not my mom's sister's family. No one at all of my biological father's family or him. If someone offered to tell me all about my ancestors, I'd say I really don't care at all to hear about them. Because you know, let's KEEP IT CONSISTENT.
I've felt more secure lately. And it did make up for the lack of hope. Last week or so, security feelings are somehow receding. Why, I don't really know. Just too much negative stuff at work lately. And it is generally all about work.
Life, that is. Like it, or not.
The amount of hope we have for the future is generally inversely proportional to the amount of security we have as we age. Hopefully at least, as we age, we gain security to make up for the loss of hope.
Compassion ~ 1/Proximity
The further away someone is, the more we seem to give a damm about them. In other words, compassion is inversely proportional to proximity. And the distance can be both physical and in terms of time. So we can be fascinated to learn all about some ancestor we not only can't ever meet, but can't ever even actually speak to. Meanwhile we as often as not have virtually nothing to do with our living relatives. Or at least really wish we had nothing to do with them.
Intelligence ~ 1/Happiness
Happiness is generally about finding ways to delude yourself. Happiness is about myopia. Focusing on small inconsequential transient phenomena from one moment to the next, for, your entire lifetime. DO NOT see the big picture. Manage somehow to hold on to religion/mysticism. Find this world to a relatively wonderful place. Etcetera.
This new show about people finding out about their ancestors sickens me. My family doesn't even speak to any our of relatives. Not our great aunt. Not my mom's sister's family. No one at all of my biological father's family or him. If someone offered to tell me all about my ancestors, I'd say I really don't care at all to hear about them. Because you know, let's KEEP IT CONSISTENT.
I've felt more secure lately. And it did make up for the lack of hope. Last week or so, security feelings are somehow receding. Why, I don't really know. Just too much negative stuff at work lately. And it is generally all about work.
Life, that is. Like it, or not.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
My I'm in such a good mood today.
Best not to think. I might ruin it.
...(sigh) Now it occurs to me I missed a training class that was right after the 8 hour training class I had. This gives me anxiety about the possibility that some punishment awaits me. Some rightwing force stuff to keep us workers on the straight and narrow. Now I lay here with a tinge of anxiety that ruins the happiness I was feeling.
So then:
When fearful, when anxious, find someone else to be concerned about. Someone else to worry about instead of yourself. Someone else to focus your concern upon other than yourself. That's what I was doing previously today. How unfortunate to be pulled down into selfish concerns.
I suppose that's an original thought. That a society based on negative reinforcement stops people from being empathetic, compassionate and pulls them down into being selfish, simply for self preservation.
But instead must redirect.
And when thinking negatively of someone, of their unethical actions, redirect to the social norms of this society. It's the system, not the people.
Redirect.
...what works even better in this case is to pretend I hadn't remembered about the class I missed. Or forget that I remembered.
Best not to think. I might ruin it.
...(sigh) Now it occurs to me I missed a training class that was right after the 8 hour training class I had. This gives me anxiety about the possibility that some punishment awaits me. Some rightwing force stuff to keep us workers on the straight and narrow. Now I lay here with a tinge of anxiety that ruins the happiness I was feeling.
So then:
When fearful, when anxious, find someone else to be concerned about. Someone else to worry about instead of yourself. Someone else to focus your concern upon other than yourself. That's what I was doing previously today. How unfortunate to be pulled down into selfish concerns.
I suppose that's an original thought. That a society based on negative reinforcement stops people from being empathetic, compassionate and pulls them down into being selfish, simply for self preservation.
But instead must redirect.
And when thinking negatively of someone, of their unethical actions, redirect to the social norms of this society. It's the system, not the people.
Redirect.
...what works even better in this case is to pretend I hadn't remembered about the class I missed. Or forget that I remembered.
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