Scattered Forces

Times variously challenge each of us throughout life. No schedule. They just happen. Some times are happy, others sad, yet others complicated and life-changing.

Finding love is a happy time; death of a loved one, whether family or friend, is a sad time. Career changes offer times of excitement and complexity that challenge us to the core. But this is a good challenge that stretches ability and life view.

Health issues challenge throughout life. They usually are neither good nor bad, just there to be lived with, learned about, and acclimated to. The nature of the challenge is usually an upset to our focus, a detour from routine. This may be from pain or medications, or new routines to follow which accommodate the medical condition.

Most of these health adjustments are temporary throughout life: a new regime of meds, an exercise program to control weight or muscle tone, or skeleton alignment, a diet to avoid foods now unfriendly to our body, or a diet to include nutritious elements we should have been consuming for years! When a healthy equilibrium is attained, we move on to other life challenges.

Some health adjustments may be of uncertain length. They carry additional challenges of spirit and sense of future.

Rocky found this on the Internet today and shared it with me.

            “My to-do list for today:

                        -Count my blessings

                        -Practice kindness

                        -Let go of what I can’t control

                        -Listen to my heart

                        -Be productive yet calm

                        -Just breathe”

                                                ~Anonymous

What a find! It addresses exactly where I’m at this very moment.

I have many blessings to count. I am actually very happy. I have purpose in my life, and people to share that with.

I am a kind person who gets bummed out when unkindness is visible around me, or, God forbid, I catch myself being unkind!

There is much in life I cannot control, and that has always rankled me. As I age I learn how to let these frustrations go. Not perfectly, but better anyway! This includes changing health challenges, don’t you know?

Listen to my heart. I think this is what retirement may be all about. I have the time to ponder these things now where before I did not. Before the rush of life diverted attention to these special matters. Now I see them much more clearly. Caring becomes much more central in life. That may explain why grandparents do what they do! Think about it! Or church members reach out and care for shut ins or the down and out.

Be productive and calm. The first part I don’t have a problem with; but the other part, yikes! Calm is hard. Sometimes it is impossible until I have moved through the other steps of the ‘to-do list’. A purpose driven life helps with the productive part, but calm comes from deep inside ~ an ability to let go and refocus.

Deep breaths restore balance. Oxygen alone does that. But more deep breathing provides calm and space to consider what’s next on the to-do list. It relaxes the brain so it has a chance to function logically.

Today’s blog is late. I didn’t write it ahead of time and newspaper articles had priority. Pain and medications slow the process of writing coherently. So you will understand, won’t you? First things first, then the other things. And so it is.

Thanks, Rocky. Your words of wisdom gave me pause and strength today.

Now on to the to-do list!

October 9, 2012