It makes sense if you see someone coming toward you looking like an impending thunderstorm that you should avoid them if you possibly can, Do you want to get wet especially when they don’t make umbrellas to protect you from this type of storm. Sometimes all you can do is to not agitate them and try to get away as soon as possible.
For example,I had a woman who was checking me out in Wally World and I had many items and I needed a little help; I knew that she didn’t like this and that the skies were getting darker and darker. I also needed someone to help me take my groceries out to the car, but I also knew that I probably shouldn’t ask her right at that time so I didn’t and as I pushed my cart away from the checkout station, I spotted a more likely associate further away from where I had checked out and asked her to help me.
Another problem is letting someone’s facial expression upset you or influence the way you feel. At a play or in a meeting, do you let the way someone looks at the play or in the meeting cause you to change your mind about the play or about what is going on in the meeting? Do you let somebody else’s assessment change how you think about something? Do you get less enjoyment out of the play or do you feel that the meeting is promoting better ideas than you thought it was doing. Are you independent or do you feel less sure of yourself when it comes to the judgment of what is going on around you? Do you unconsciously tune in to what is going on around you and lose your self-confidence about what you are thinking or feeling?
If you can not change a person’s assumptions with facts, then why argue with them. I someone thinks you are a “hypochondriac” and a “surgery addict”, what can you show them from your actual medical history that will change their mind? Nothing. What hurts too is that they also think “hypochondriacs” and “surgery addicts” are bad people.
Assumptions are just that assumptions and they can be extremely harmful if they are erroneous and associated with bad qualities in other people. “Oh, that’s just a woman for you” or “Oh, that’s just a man for you.” Doing this allows people to make quick judgments of other people without wasting time getting more information.
A debate is an academic activity where each side takes turns arguing one side of an argument. This can lead to a reasoned analysis of a situation both for and against. Lawyers often do this for a living depending whether they are working for the defense or the prosecution in a criminal trial.
More to come as I think this over. Most recent contribution from a friend. “Many people think that their opinions are facts!” This is why arguments and discussions can be so hard. Also, people often form “tribes” and identify with them like “Trump Supporters” and are threatened when a belief contrary to their tribe’s beliefs is presented to them by someone. They become anxious and even angry. Do you see why people often don’t talk about sports, politics and religion at the table?
Children are like African violets. (A type of small very ticklish house plant which housewives of my mother’s generation raised.) They are very sensitive in terms of their response to the environment in which they are planted. Children were known to die in orphanages when they were physically taken care of but not emotionally taken care of. Yet some people give more attention to the African violets in their life than to their children.
As each African violet is individual in its needs for light and air and moisture so is each child individual in his or her needs for attention, love, and support. When this is neglected, the plant or child withers and dies inside if not outside like the plant. The payoff of proper care can be great in either case.
Perhaps one can afford to lose many African violets in this process but not even one child. Children can be resilient but still, can be greatly damaged and become of little use to themselves and furthermore to the society that child dwells in.
Moisture, light, and soil and the addition of fertiliser is needed for a violet to grow; but what is needed for a child to grow in the right direction? Love, support, attention, and unconditional love appear to be necessary for this to happen.
Caregivers can not neglect one child while caring for another, This has been shown to happen when a child has a seriously ill sibling. This child needs attention and care too especially if this child gets neglected while the ill child gets urgently needed care.
The sibling does not need to be seriously physically ill to take attention and care away from another sibling. Some children are more attractive to one or both of the parents than other children. How important is it for a parent to have an athlete or gymnast or beauty queen or a scholar over a wallflower, a geek, or any child who is not particularly gifted or attractive
Worse yet are parents who really shouldn’t have any children (P.S. I am not opting for abortion, but I am a champion of adoption in these cases). Sadly what welfare does sometimes does not necessarily encourage parents to be actively involved in bringing children up right.
Wealth is not necessarily the main factor in bringing children up right. The things that are needed to do this often can’t be bought. They often cost more time than money. First is unconditional love which occurs when a person often gives another person love no matter what he or she does or says.
Children need support, not just physical support, but emotional support. A child can do well at something, but this accomplishment might be ignored and/ or at least not supported emotionally by the family or guardian. The child can say to themselves, “Oh, what’s the use?” if the effort that he or she puts into something is unnoticed and they receive little or no help with it on top of that!
Prize winning entries at the county fair can go unnoticed and wining or losing a coveted position on a team or in a play can also be ignored. “You did what?, when said, demonstrates that at least part of a child’s life has gone unnoticed. Worse yet, a child can be hurt or sick and this goes unnoticed until the child is in serious jeopardy.
Psychological needs that go unmet can cause great harm to some children. Children that survive such circumstances can be very resilient but those who don’t are a drain on society and can be lost. Too often the people who make these decisions are incompetent as well. The judge in my family says that custody decisions in his court are given to the least competent to decide.
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Every time I think that the Little PEOPLE are getting ahead, I realise they aren’t. I was very happy with the recent election because I felt that the new administration was supporting the middle class that was no longer the middle class under the current, soon past administration.
What I have recently realised is that I have joined the lower class (once working class or even middle class in many situations). We are squeaking by on social security and disability payments (which have been borrowed from to pay other government expenses) and have to seek help like free food from The Master’s Hand locally. Also in this area, if you have farm income (that counts against you as it is considered income before farming expenses are taken out) in terms of getting any extra government help.
Most of us would contribute something to the economy if there was a way we could. Most of us would like to have a voice in the new administration. For example, most of Illinois voted for the new administration except for the heavily populated urban areas. But where is our voice? No one campaigned in our areas and we feel that no one has listened to our concerns. What do you think? Are there other areas of our country in the same shape?
Also who is the voice of the forgotten little people? On the network that supported the election of the new administration, we are not represented. They are again relying on experts who have no real life experience or it is so far in the remote past that they don’t remember it or so far removed from it, it doesn’t matter anymore.
Also, there is pressure on these experts, especially women, to conform to certain standards not representative of the men and/or do not reflect what ordinary people look like. It is nice for some of us to remain “young” and look youthful but is not the way most people look and it is easier to see the standards for men are less stringent than for women.
For example, most woman experts on this network look like they are ready to go to a cocktail party instead of a business occasion. Yes, the men are nicely and appropriately dressed but they don’t have to struggle as much as women do to appear appropriately presentable, youthful and beautiful.
When are the Little PEOPLE going to be represented? The overall wearing, wearing second-hand clothing, or in “high style” Wal-Mart, but often foreign made, clothing? We have a lot to say and we don’t have a lot we can do about our situations but suffer. Welfare often misses us and as our social security or retirement checks do not raise, but inflation and the cost of living does and as things cost more and more, we have to get by on less and less with little or no representation in or help from society or the government!
The Little PEOPLE do have something to say! We have learned something through experience. We do have “philosophical” discussions. We can see things others more fortunate and potentially more powerful don’t.
Certainly how Little PEOPLE experience life has something to say about the type of life we are promoting for all! Often as people do better and better economically, they tend to put people down who haven’t and consider their opinions useless and their motivations feckless! Also other people who have done well often think the same way and might make fun of those who don’t. How many Little People do you see in certain churches or certain social groups like the Elks? Nuff said.
Thought for the day: We all have power, but people, who like to use “force” to get us to do what they want us to do, don’t want us to believe it. How many people are enslaved by the thought that they are powerless to do anything about their situation?
Women are especially used this way. Sexually trafficking is an example of this. Another example is domestic violence. The forced dependence of a woman (especially if she has dependent children) on a man leads to feelings of powerlessness.
Another thing that results in feelings of powerlessness is isolation and control of communication. If a woman does not know anything else, who can she get to help her and who can she interact with that will tell her that there is something else out there.
We do not have to believe what we are told but when we are dependent on others to meet our needs and to tell us how the world operates, we often wind up not being able to think for ourselves. If we are isolated this way and are told what to believe, we think that change is impossible and if not impossible, foolhardy.
If we have a person in our life that seems to be powerful (but is actually using force to get their way), it might make sense to emulate this person and become like him or her especially if we don’t know something different. How limited can our lives become if we do this?
Dr, David Hawkins who was referenced to by Dr. Wayne Dyer (who has been featured in many presentations on PBS) makes clear the difference between the use of power versus force in his book, Power Versus Force.
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