Feelings

Mood lifts with a sunny day. Drops on a gloomy, cloudy day. Sometimes the mood pops upward with a beautiful snowfall but drops with a driving rain lasting most of the day.

Our outlook on life swings positively on good news and down with bad news. A well organized schedule keeps us moving with purpose while a chaotic timeline unmanaged dampens our spirits.

Feelings run the gamut from joy to horror, anticipation to dread. Happy and sad, weepy and giggling. So many feelings. Love and hate. Sweetness and light. The ups and downs and many in betweens. And changeable, too! Often quite quickly.

Being busy makes me happy. Becoming overwhelmed frustrates and angers me. Far from happy, getting reorganized saves the day and I’m happy again. But that’s all within me.

Maya Angelou said this once:

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Maybe that’s why a good novel, or a concert, play or movie is remembered for a long time. You felt something. You internalized it and you are made different by the experience. Hopefully you will remember the artists involved as well.

Maya Angelou has it right, I think. Often people don’t remember what was said; they paraphrase it freely and often get it wrong when they wish to make a point somehow associated with what you or someone else said about a particular topic. Also, how things happened or what someone did to make something happen is often forgotten. But feelings from those moments are remembered. Perhaps not always associated correctly, but remembered.

Close relationships – at  home, in the family or at work – are most associated with feelings. The thrill of accomplishment at work (or school for that matter!), but especially in relationships feelings are at full force. The hope for love is powerful. Loving is most powerful, frightening, too! Elation at good news and special events and recognition is rare but remembered long into the future.

Relationships are the learning laboratories of life. Your life. Mine, too. Very personal. Very private. Guarded yet celebrated in special ways. Held on to. Treasured. Used to build new and more good feelings by doing whatever it takes to earn the feelings.

Quite often those feelings are tangent to our intent. We do something and are unaware of the results in the lives of others. How then do we become truly purposeful? Certainly not because of the reward from others. No, you would die a very lonely person if you sought the reward and altered your involvements accordingly.

The good must come unintentionally. It is the action that is intended. For some broader purpose, yet other rewards do come eventually from such efforts. It is just that the reward is not the purpose of the action.

Feelings help us understand the inner self as well. If I do something that makes me feel good, then it teaches me about myself. Most of these activities are directed at improving life or life experiences for others. Communications, writing, blogging, supporting a local newspaper, or charity, projects at our church, being involved with the arts, cultural events, education and people with addictions. All of these things are worthwhile for others, but also for me. Just the activity of doing such things. I learn something about myself by getting outside of me.

Along the way I meet others worth knowing. Many others.

Here’s a quote from the internet worth sharing:

“If you find someone who makes you smile, who checks up on you often to see if you’re okay, who watches out for you and wants the very best for you, don’t let them go. Keep them close and don’t take them for granted. People like them are hard to find.” ~Anonymous

How true that is. But they are there ready to be your acquaintance and friend. Maybe even the love of your life and family member. 

And just think of the family members we already have but know too little of. Especially true for our in-laws and extended family members. My son and daughter both married into large families. I barely know them but intend to. It takes time and an investment of effort. But oh so worth it. Retirement is a good time to make this investment, I think!

Sharing life in good times and bad makes for more memories and opportunities to make feelings. May yours be fruitful and dear to you. I’m still working at it in my life!

Labor on!

June 11, 2014