Hi Demi
I wouldn’t worry about unloading on me. It’s good to vent and I don’t mind at all. I’m sorry I don’t remember the name of the book with the life hacks. You think I would remember since it was so transformative, but I read a lot so titles and authors all get blended together. It actually could have been a video. I used to watch a lot of YouTube videos. It could have been an audiobook. Until recently, I only listened to nonfiction audiobooks. Funny how things change over time. That’s one reason I like diary writing. It helps me remember who I was 5 years ago.
I got a message from my friend Brian this morning. He cancelled his trip to Taiwan. He said it was because of the rainy weather but I think it was because he is an aspiring Youtuber and sadly his Youtube videos have not done very well. Truth is, he’s a boring guy and his videos are not interesting. We’ve been friends online for a couple of years and I met him for the first time last winter. I liked him, of course, and I tried to help him over the past couple of years realize that becoming a YouTuber is an impossible dream, but he wouldn’t listen. Now he is sad because reality smacked him in the face. Reality has a way of smacking us in the face from time to time.
And I talk to people here on Slowly and on Prose Box (my diary writing site) about all things — problems, aspirations. One guy I know was visiting his son in Oregon. He was there to scatter his dead wife’s ashes. On the day he arrived, his dog got loose and bit somebody. Now, the dog will likely get put down. One of my penpal’s son has a drug problem. Another couple of penpals have ailing mothers. One recently got divorced and another is struggling with early retirement. Reality is really about struggle and change. Everything is always in motion which means sideways, up, down, forwards and backwards. We can plan the small things but the big things come out of left field when we aren’t looking.
Don’t worry. Be happy. These things are all part of life. That’s what I want to say. Instead, I remind myself and those who will listen that we are all going through things. Life has its ups and downs. Most of what I learned about human psychology I learned through sales training. Not the Tom Hopkins stuff - would Monday at 10 or Tuesday at 3 work better for you? But the transactional analysis stuff - the parent, the adult and the child mental states that we live in. I paid $7000 for that sales training, but it paid for itself many times over.
So. I’m calm. I’m at peace. I am not impacted by those things that I cannot control. I avoid trouble. I haven’t got an ego to feed. I don’t have to be right about things. I don’t have to react. I can just float along.
Many years ago when I was teaching english to young adults one of the questions I would as is “if you could be any animal, which animal would you be. A surprising number of students over the years said that they would like to be ‘a little bird.” When I asked the follow up question, ‘why?’ They would say that if they were a little bird they could do whatever they wanted and no one would bother them. Ever since then I’ve been a little bird. Tweet tweet.
Bob
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