I know I’m not the only one who sometimes imagines how I would respond if I could have a “do over”. I stew about past mistakes and think about what it would be like to have a fresh start. It can be draining.
Sometimes we whine about fairly inconsequential things. For example (and I may or may not have said any of these things, okay?):
“If I had it to do over again, I think I’d have … Continue reading How would you finish this sentence?
I spent what seemed like a year sharing a ride to the office with a very extroverted coworker awhile back.
Understand, even after several cups of coffee, I’m still not – shall we say – “bubbly” first thing in the morning.
As soon as I got in the car with him, he was “on”. Hoping he would take a hint, I remember saying, “Gee, Larry*, you’re kind of a morning person, aren’t you?” His response: Continue reading On a scale of “1 to Larry”
A week or so ago, I ambled through a lovely antique store in SW Florida. Everything was organized and displayed with genuine care, not at all jumbled and random as many such places can be. It felt like the shop owner had bestowed a kind of gentle honor on all these vestiges of other people’s lives.
I was drawn to a basket of old pictures and postcards. It was enchanting . . . but a little sad. These precious (at one time) family mementos were now items of little value beyond curiosity and a bit of speculation.
Postcards from the early 1900s conveyed greetings from far flung destinations like New York City, Sweden, and Holland (not the one in Michigan) to loved ones back home in small towns . . . news of stagecoaches, difficult people, and homesickness all written in careful script.
One dear lady worried in her postcard about three one dollar bills she had misplaced before she left and gave instructions for what to do with the money if it was found. Continue reading This is not a picture of my sister and me
I chose to be part of the OneWord365 movement this year – the idea being that instead of making New Year’s resolutions, you prayerfully select a single word and focus on it for a full year, noting how it influences your life each day. I chose “harmony” as my word for 2013. This is my update on how it’s going.
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Did you ever buy a new car and suddenly it seems every third car you see on the road is the same make and model as the one you just bought? (Excuse me, when did the whole world decide to buy a Toyota Prius??)
That’s how it is for me with HARMONY.
Everywhere I turn, I’m noticing this word. I see it referenced in the Bible, I come across articles that address it. Even in conversation, harmony comes up regularly.
That tells me this is definitely a concept I need to focus on.
One of the best discussions out there about harmony is Continue reading Finding Beauty in Tension
It’s Saturday, so here are some thoughts for our single friends. A version of this post first appeared in July 2012 on SingleMatters.
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A friend of mine years ago used to call me regularly late at night and unload her problems on me. I was an exhausted single mom with a thousand things to do after my little one went down for the night and this was just what I didn’t need.
This friend would drone on and on about everything wrong in her life. She would cry and complain and question the goodness of God. Then, after 30-45 minutes of this she would say, “Well, I have to go, but quickly – how are you?”
My response was always, “Quickly? I’m fine.” Whether I was or not. And then we would hang up.
You know what? She was a load. Continue reading “Quickly, How Are You?”
Yesterday on Twitter someone quoted David Augsburger and it was so arresting I had to read it twice. It was only 17 words but I went to sleep last night thinking about what a profound truth it revealed.
Here’s the quote: Continue reading A Quote That Stopped Me in My Tracks
Last week I revealed that I was joining the OneWord365 “resolution revolution”. Instead of making New Year’s resolutions (something I don’t do anyway), I said I was going to choose one word that represents a trait I’d like to nurture in my life in 2013.
The word I chose is HARMONY.
The idea is to focus on the idea of harmony every day throughout the year and in the process, possibly change the sound track of my life. For me, relational chaos is exhausting and unhealthy; I recognize this. (It probably is for you too.) But encouraging harmony just might add years to my life (or, as it’s been said, life to my years).
And since I committed to updating my progress on the 15th of each month, here’s the first status report.
When I drove out that morning, I was going on vacation to visit a friend in Texas. I was in my mid-twenties and had just extricated myself from a painfully unhappy relationship. I wanted to get far away to recalibrate and regain my perspective. Out of state: perfect.
By the time I got back from my road trip a couple of weeks later, something foundational had shifted in my heart and I had embraced the idea that happiness lay elsewhere. Continue reading I Never Meant to Leave Florida
Here’s a concept simple enough I think I might just be able to pull it off.
Have you heard of the One Word 365 “resolution revolution”? Instead of making a list of New Year’s resolutions that you won’t remember by this time next month and surely won’t have kept by this time next year, growing numbers of people are choosing to focus on just one word for the entire year.
The idea, from the One Word website, is that you choose:
“One word that sums up who you want to be or how you want to live. One word that you can focus on every day, all year long.”
And here’s what could happen: Continue reading How I think “one word” could improve the soundtrack of my year
What do I mean by a mood sponge? I doubt you’ll find the term in any psychology textbook per se, though you may recognize it for reasons of your own. It’s a description I base on personal observations and life experience.
Mood sponges are people who tend to take their emotional cues from others, whether as a defensive tactic or a learned behavior. They measure their responses and reactions by those around them and sadly, absorb way more than their share of the negative.
I think there are reasons someone becomes a mood sponge and it’s not because they are lazy or uninspired. Maybe they’re trying to keep the peace. Or protect themselves. Or just make their lives work.
Here are some examples (names changed): Continue reading Because the Holidays Are Risky for a “Mood Sponge”
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