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Is the thought a statement of life or what!? I mean I don't know what gets me out of bed in the morning. And you?
Yeah, yeah funny guy. The alarm clock gets me out of bed. Breakfast. The need to pee. The mortgage. The job. Got to go. Got to do. Got to. Where's the joy in that?
Who here wakes up with anything approaching a zest for the day you've been given? Who, here, have I disturbed - just a teeny bit - by posting this?
Who's in bed with me on this?
When is the last time you ran down the stairs and out the door, gladly skipping breakfast, to meet your buddies to play? Saturday? For golf? Why do you and I accept, then, that Monday - Friday "as different"? What's with that?
I want that back. I miss it. I wasn't even paying attention to the fact that it is soooooo missing. Can I get it back? "How?", I ask myself.
You?
Coffee anyone?
I can whine and cry about many things in life, how long it is taking me to learn web design, and many other things. That takes too much energy, and there are days that I dont have much to spare, so I enjoy life, and I love life, and I am thankful for all that comes my way, even the bad things that might come along. See its in those struggles that we learn how to live life, and how to be thankful for the good days. Just remember that the winds help to make the Strong Oak so strong, without those winds coming past the oak on occasion, it would not be so strong.
Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.
- Helen Keller
We should all keep our faces towards the sunshine, and if we can't, make the shadow our friend. Life is good and life is grand. ;)
Now, I'll take that cup of coffee any time you are ready ;)
Asking 'Why did you get of bed this morning" is the same as asking the classic "Why did you climb Mt Everest". This, of course, gained the even more classic retort: "Because it was there!"
How you approach the almost pre-programmed daily assault on Mt Everest is another matter..:-)
Bring on that coffee (actually, could I have some Earl Grey instead?)
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
The moral:
It doesn't matter if you are a lion or a gazelle. When the sun comes up, you better be running.
Stand by for a, "what things were like back in the old days", rant :)
When I started working as an apprentice in a shipyard back in '64 conditions were terrible. For example people don't believe me when I tell them that we were allocated 7 sheets of (crispy) toilet paper when we went to the loo! I progressed(?) from there into a job in a tannery where the smell of decomposing skins would make me retch every morning when I entered the place. I then worked in the UK MOD for a few years before finishing in manufacturing as an automation engineer ina comnpany that was making an obviously dying product. For the last three or four years of doing this I would go into work in the morning to a job I hated with lay offs being announced every month or two.
Eventually I managed to secure a small severance package. Not nearly enough to retire on but sufficient to allow me to leave and become self-employed. Four years later I am still doing it - only better. And I get better every day. At my age, and when I listen to my contemporaries who are still in employment this is more than enough to get me out of bed in the morning. In fact I now get up earlier than I did when I was working :)
"Waste not life, in the grave we'll be sleeping enough".
That being said....I can kind of relate to what webwork is saying. When we are young we mentally live in the future..as we age we start thinking of the past..Hopefully we can learn to savor the now like 4css seems to do.
What I am trying to say makes sense in my head but it is hard to put in words. :)
Anyway, sounds like you are having a bit of awakening.
Make mine a cup of Kenya AA...
All good reasons to never get married, never buy a house, never have children, never take out a loan, never acquire credit cards. Some people might call you lazy but there's a difference between not having to work and being employed but never being busy. Some people may say you're selfish, but since when did living your life in a meaningful way become selfish?
Having kids is nice, but it's not the point of living. Living is the point of living (sounds obvious, doesn't it?). Owning a home is nice but it's not the point of living, and frequently it's the home and anything else we own (including the Jaguar and the trophy girlfriend) that owns you, not the other way around.
Society and culture conspire to throw these "rites of passages" upon us without explaining the soul suffocating aspects of it. Even love can suffocate and repress you.
It's easier being a child (under certain conditions, that is). But if you maintain your childlike freedom be prepared to be called irresponsible, aimless, and an underachiever.
It's not socially acceptable to work part time and live in a low rent situation, to spend more time on walks than work, to habitually wake up in the morning not knowing the name of the stranger sleeping beside you... We're expected, by family and friends, to achieve and acquire things. People look down on you if you choose not to.
Do we have the right to walk away at any time, responsibilities be damned?
martinibuster.
Having 5 wonderful children has been the highlight of my life, my reason for being. I now have a married daughter, hope soon for grandchildren, when they are situated that is. The only thing is, that I put my whole being into them, My career was raising my children, and now, mom is off to find new things to please me when I wake up in the morning. And though I have always enjoyed what I wrote above (held back as not to bore all to tears ;) ), as well as lots more, my children have taught me things that I would never have learned had I not had them. They are good children as well, I have been really blessed with them.
So, stay eternally young, about 29, and enjoy all that is around you, there is much to see and enjoy when you wake up. This morning as I sat on my steps with my coffee, I got to enjoy a serenade of crickets. they sounded really cool! See, little things in life. ;)
Do we have the right to walk away at any time, responsibilities be damned?
Nope. The reason we get up in the morning is so that there will be a today. The reason you have kids is so that there will be a tommorrow. The reason you stop waking up with someone different next to you is so that there will be someone with you tomorrow. The reason you buy a home is so that there will be somewhere for you to live tommorow.
Society and culture do not conspire to thrust these upon us, nature does. Society and culture only conspire to b@stardize what those things should be.
Nature on the other hand is what makes these nessesary. It's fine to say all of that when you are young and able but nature creeps in, she makes us weaker with every passing year. Where once we could be strong and free, we become weak and dependant, whether or not we marry, procreate or acquire comforts. Like the ant and the grasshopper, if we plan ahead, we live full and plentiful lives. If we always live for the moment, we die cold and alone.
There is a time to be a child and a child you should be then, but nature will make that child grow up, even if the child clings to what made him a child.
If we always live for the moment, we die cold and alone.
You can live for each other and the future, and boom, one of us ruins that lifetime of planing. Alcoholic husband goes back to the bottle after being off for a long time. THEN On our 24th wedding anniversary, he decides to look up singles online (and at singles clubs, so there is no intention of stopping the booze, Like I can't smell it when he hides it outside at night after work?pppppphhhhhttt to him say I!).
So even *with* someone by your side, you can be cold and alone.
Know what though? I'm still young and more then able ;)
There is a time to be a child and a child you should be then, but nature will make that child grow up, even if the child clings to what made him a child.
And laughter, don't forget that life should have plenty of laughter within it.
one of us ruins that lifetime of planing
I think you already mentioned 5 reasons (who are making even more reasons) why you won't end up cold and alone. :) It's not about the planning, it's about the insurance policies.
I believe seventy to ninety percent of the people don't know what they're getting into when they have kids. For a great many people having kids, it's an accident, i.e. it's an unplanned event.
Same goes for marriage. People get married for wrong reasons all the time. Some women are doing it for security and a home, while some women are blatantly doing it to have kids. Many men do it for equally unreasonable reasons that I don't want to bore you mentioning. I did it badly when I was young and learned a lesson. Second time I was more careful and I'm very happy. Some people do it well when they're young, but that's the exception, the happy accident, not the rule.
Having a child is no guarantee that you will not die alone, as is getting married. Owning a home so you have somewhere to live when you get old doesn't guarantee that you will lose that home and end up homeless anyway.
Having kids is no picinic and is fraught with many pressures. It's a disservice to people considering having kids to tell them it's one big bed of roses. They'll be disappointed just as millions of parents are disappointed. It's not uncommon to see a new child stress a relationship to the breaking point.
I've lived long enough to have observed it many times over happening to friends and coworkers. For many it becomes unpleasant to come home to a house full of kids and a frazzled wife who won't give you sex anymore because you've grown fat and you're both too tired anyway. One of you starts an affair... happens all the time because people get married too soon and walk into childbirth without knowing the problems that will bring. It's no cake walk and we do a disservice to anyone considering having kids by hiding the negative aspects of child rearing.
It's more important to stop relying on outside factors like wealth, esteem of society, the acquisition of things, and start exploring what makes YOU happy. To find what the thing is that makes you jump out of bed.
I find that most people who are unhappy with where they are in life would be so no matter where they were. Married or unmarried, child or no, job or unemployed. These things are what they blame their unhappiness on. It has nothing to do with it other than how they respond to it.
Marriage is hard. Being single is hard. Kids are hard. Being childless is hard. Life is hard no matter what choices you make. You can't tell people to just do what makes themselves happy because a) most people haven't the faintest idea of what would make them happy, b) 8 out of 10 times what you think will make you happy will only make 1 or more other people unhappy and c) happiness is a state of mind, not an action. When you try to tell people that they just need to decide what makes them happy, then you set them up to be unhappy.
What would make me happy is if my partner was an eternally sexy and beautiful creature
What would make me happy is if my child was perfect
What would make me happy is if someone gave me a million dollars
All the things you mention come out of the fact that for the past few decades we have told people that they should be happy all the time. Ain't gonna happen. Doesn't exist. Only said by people selling something. And now more people are unhappy than ever because we send them chasing after things that just don't exist.
What we should be telling people is to find happiness in what they have. To decide to be happy.
You decide to be happy, you don't do things to be happy. I find the doing comes after the deciding.
and no, I am not advocating that people stay in crumby situations but we really have to stop selling the dream that if you don't have a perfect life you aren't happy
What we should be telling people is to find happiness in what they have. To decide to be happy.
Bingo.
I have raised my 5 children with this teaching, also reminding them that they need to find happiness with in themselves as *nothing* in the outside world that they obtain is going to keep them happy, no matter what. True happiness comes from within, IMO, if you aren't happy with yourself, who you are etc.. you will never ever find happiness anywhere else. I have taught my boys that even if they have the most beautufil girl in the world on their arms, if she doesn't have compassion, caring, and a personality, they aren't going to be happy. And if all my boys find a girl like #2 sons girlfriend, I shall die a very happy mommie.
Martinibuster, I hope I wasn't infering that you were knocking having children, I apologize if that was how I came across as that was not my intention. I just wanted to state how I felt in regards to my wonderful children, who really are and always will be my life.
Hannamyluv:
Its not about the insurance policies, lol. THey really don't amount to too much here! I have just become a stronger person through the years, and won't let him bring me down like he did the last time he drank. I'll study web design until I learn it so good that I can support myself and the two younger ones still at home needing their mom.
You are right about marriage and the work of raising children. Its not always esay. However, the good times, for me at least, out weigh those complicated bad times. And what we go through with this is what we reveal to others when they start out. Sleepless nights, illnesses, hospital care for injuries, worries, constant worries. And maybe we did marry for the wrong reasons, but you figure we made it 24 years, we would make it another 24? It takes work to get this far, but if both aren't willing to do the job, then I think that is where the failure comes in.
Well I have a pile of css books to read, have a great day.
Webwork, just keep looking around you. There is so much to see in life that makes it worth waking up in the morning. Life is a gift, and if we have made it this far, we are doing better then those who have not made it this far. If that makes any sense? And you care about people and how the world goes, and making it a better world, so keep waking up, be that great lawyer that you are, and that special person that you are. Try not to analize things as much as you do. ;) Sometimes, I think you think too much in areas that drive you to question things too much, if that is possible to do. ;)
decide to be happy
I do agree however that happiness is a state of mind. But sometimes I think martinibuster is right though in that many people try and bring you down if you don't conform to societys norms, e.g. you can't possibly be happy if you don't have financial security, a women can't possibly be happy if she doesn't want children etc. etc.
For me, getting out of bed is a difficult thing. Not because I think I will not enjoy the day to come, but I usually because I've enjoyed the previuos day too much :)
That could very easily be solved, Move to a nudist colony ;)
(besides, they say that no one looks at you at the nudist colonies, lol ;) )
With my body? I think not
Have you ever seen actual nudists?!
Actually, no I have not, Have you? (curiousity here now, lol)
Have you?
I rather walked into that one didn't I?
Yes, I have seen them in pictures and on television.
Not wishing to offend anyone but they're often not the most slender or beautiful people. Not that it matters of course!
