Death of Seasons

Right or wrong people are far more interested in sadness than happiness. When asked about your weekend the "Fantastic!" answer ends the conversation. The "Horrible!" answer leads to "Why? What happened? Oh no!".

Being a 'helper' this is a behaviour I have observed in myself. Now that I am aware of this behaviour I am trying my best to change it. This is difficult because I really do what to 'help' a friend who had a horrible weekend. As we know life is not always fairy dust and glitter.

I am now also very aware of the opposite scenario. I don't want to "burden" others with my "horrible" weekends. Life is far too short to dwell on the sadness and bad times.

Ultimately its about finding a balance. I know, I know...not easy for an extreme personality like mine. This is my daily battle - which of late I am winning! Things are going well and I am still writing. There have been several bad things happen in my life and I am still positive and optimistic. 

I am doing my best to deal with my personal struggles without sitting and waiting for the 'other shoe to drop'. In fact I am looking forward to the next challenge. I am confident I will rise to the occasion and move through the next bout of struggles with grace and dignity.

"I watch the stars as they fall from the sky. I held a fallen star and it wept for me, dying." ~ AFI

Peace

The Conductor

"Break them down, shake their beliefs. I'll show them, show them a believer." ~ AFI"

As I sit here listening to the cardinals sing to each other while the sun is setting I wonder why I have such an instinctual desire to help others. I am curious to know how many animals are altruistic in nature.

There are times when I wish I didn't care. I know that caring is a good thing, yet for some reason lately it feels to me like a weakness.

As I ponder my "happy" times I notices that I am happiest when I am helping others. Improving, changing, inspiring, and showing the 'day to day' from a new perspective. The more of these types of things happening in my daily activities, the more excited I seem to be about life.

This really stinks because most people, myself included, don't like change. Knowing this I have focused my attention on changing and growing myself - something I have been writing about extensively over the last 5 years.

Thing is, I like to share. In my excitement I tend to forget that others are not as eager to improve themselves as I am. Some, as I have written previously, don't see why anyone would changed themselves unless they had confidence issues. I see it as quite the opposite; I am confident and comfortable in my current place and like to 'push' myself outside of that comfort zone.

Sure I sometimes push myself a little too hard. Nonetheless I always find my way back. I also know that I will never stop trying to help others. Perhaps I will learn to be a bit more "selective" on where I focus my energies...awwww who am I kidding, we all know that statement is highly unlikely!

Peace

"And if they didn't drain your life I'll become your conductor. Don't cut the connection." 

Castle of Glass

"Cause I'm only a crack in this castle of glass. Hardly anything there for you to see." ~ Linkin Park

It is said that it is the simple things in life that bring happiness. One of the simplest things that brings happiness to my life is being outside. I love nature, even if it is only in my own backyard.

Listening to the life around me - birds, bees, squirrels. Feeling the weather - sun, rain, wind, snow. Silently appreciating the miracle of it all makes me feel peaceful and happy. I don't need to be doing anything to enjoy. It can be as simple as sitting or walking. In fact I find if I am 'doing' I am often too occupied with the task at hand to enjoy the nature around me.

Having a love of the out doors, gardening has often been suggested to me as a past time. I have tried gardening on many occasions and failed miserably every time. When I purchased my home it had a small garden with hostas and rose bushes.

Not being a gardener I was concerned for the life expectancy of the rose bushes. My father assured me that roses could not be killed. I saw this as a challenge...Over the next 2 years I did everything I could to kill those roses, aside from digging them up. Every spring they grew back and late summer the red buds all opened.

Realizing these bushes were far hardier than I had suspected I decided to test the hardiness of the plant itself. I decided to plant more rose bushes - little tea roses from the grocery store. These too grew like weeds; however, they did not grow any buds and have not flowered.

Two years later, my grocery store tea roses have buds! Add to this there are 2 brand new bushes growing over in the rock garden - somewhere they have never been planted.

Perhaps this is why I love nature so much. It is a visual reminder that despite negativity, toxic environments and obstacles one can still find success or happiness. Sometimes you need to a change in order to find that happiness. The way I see it sometimes all it takes is a small change - behavioural, mannerisms, expectations, tone of voice - to make the world of difference. This is a small price to pay for peace and happiness.

Peace

Always Something There to Remind Me

"I was born to love and I will never be free you'll always be a part of me." ~ Naked Eyes

They say you can't change the past. It seems to me that it is also difficult to forget it. How do you get someone out of your head? Sure, it's easy to forget about someone you never have any contact with. How do you manage this with someone you see on a regular basis?

One of the down sides to having an optimistic outlook is that you almost always see the good in people. Seeing or "remembering" the good is not a good thing when you would rather have no emotional attachment to someone.

For me, one of the hardest things to do is to suppress 'emotional attachment' to people. I have a tendency to care far more than I should, in other words I readily attach to people. For the most part, this is acceptable because there is no risk to me of being hurt emotionally. Once in a while I become emotionally attached to those who will only bring me harm - from an emotional perspective.

Generally, I sense when there is potential for a bad emotional attachment - you know the deal - after interaction you feel exhausted and emotionally drained. When I encounter people that have this effect on me I try to avoid contact all together, or at least limit my contact. Unfortunately, in life there are times when you cannot complete remove the person that is causing the emotional grief.

This is the situation I am currently facing. I once had a positive emotional attachment to this person, which over time became negative. For me this is a very dangerous situation because I only see the 'positive' and forget the 'negative'. Knowing all of this information does not make it any easier for me to stop attaching emotionally.

Sometimes I just want to go with it, enjoy the positive interactions for what they are - moments in time. Other times I just throw up the walls of defense and distance myself by having minimal interaction. I am not sure which path is the correct one. Either choice leaves me emotionally drained which indicates to me that the entire interaction needs to stop...which at this time is not an option. So, I struggle to find the best way to cope.

Peace