I admit it is ironic, since I do not have a real job, that I am talking about being a success, although I have had real jobs in the past. There is a tongue in cheek book called Seventy-Seven Practices of Unsuccessful People, in mockery of the book about seven practices of successful people.
Successful or not, I do know a few basic things, which are rather general in nature, so hopefully I will not seem too overconfident in presenting them. Still, I have made two albums, music albums, written a full novel, a novella and have had a few successes in the past, so I am not a total burnout deadbeat, lol.
First of all, did you know that sugar actually helps your concentration? Even diabetics need some sugar. My mother is very anti-sugar, and I realize that sugar can be gotten from carbohydrates, etc., but there is nothing like a really sugary coffee. When I was pregnant, I was given a glucose tolerance test, and I never felt better in my life.
I suppose this is why women with PMS syndrome crave sugar, even though it is not the best thing for it. I suppose eating sensibly and enough calories is important.
Well, as for will power, what I really mean is the ability to discipline oneself, not necessarily the kind that can keep you on your diet, get you off drinking or drugs or cigarettes. What I mean is, if you are working on a project, it can be difficult to stay focused.
One good thing to do is to keep your office area very neat and clear and well organized. When you make a list, for instance, and one thing is to write thank you notes, if you do not already have the notes, that should proceed the writing of notes on the list.
Recently I did a series of chakra meditation videos for my Youtube channel. I did not want to quit for more than a day or two, before getting through all seven chakras. My reasoning was that I needed to keep up the momentum of my project. I realize I am not the first at all, to do this particular project, but I did not know that until mine were published.
The last thing I want to cover or touch on, is burnout. Burnout in all areas is a problem. We get shopping burnout, decision burnout, caregiving burnout, etc.. When we have shopping decision burnout, that is when we are bombarded with ads, and often make the wrong decision of buying beyond our means or choosing the wrong thing. I guess this is where taking a break can be helpful, although not always possible. I think the sugar can help, but it can become another addiction along with everything else. The best thing is just to take some time for rest and relaxation.
So, that is about all I have to say on the subject of will power. I hate to talk about organization with the way my house looked in my most recent Facebook picture. I need to find someone to take some outdoor pictures with. It is not easy to keep a small house neat all the time, especially when you live with other family members like I do. Still, when it comes to filing paid bills, mail, etc., that is a good way to keep the paper clutter down. I realize many people are doing everything online these days, but I am just not one of those people. It is a little frustrating when you are very neat and organized as you have to be when visually impaired, and others will not keep their areas organized and neat as well due to busy schedules. This is where I have to try not to be a control freak.
I hope you join my blog. This was the third blog I created, and it does not have any followers yet. I guess 'The New Humanity' is the most popular, then 'Sage Words,' and now there is this one. Thanks for reading as always.
The definition of disingenuous is not genuine, insincere, dishonest as to what one says and does, not really meaning what one says in regards to others and how one really feels. This is in my own words, rather than Webster's.
One of my pet peeves is when people are disingenuous. An example would be someone saying, "call me any time day or night," and then you go through the worst time of your life, call them once, and they never even bother to call you back, even when you sent them an email to tell them in a nice way they did not call you back.
If you call someone and they never return your call, calling again is like stalking unless they are a business or doctor's office, and your life depends on it. In that case, by all means, call away.
The important thing to know is that it does not matter. People who are disingenuous have no business in your life. In fact the sooner you know this, the better, because the sooner they will be out of your life. Life is too short to waste time on people who are selfish, self-centered and self-serving. We all have spent time (some more than others), dealing with mean people, and have lived to regret it. As soon as you realize that someone is insincere in the least, it is time to walk away and forget about it. That person is not a friend in any way, shape or form.
I have friends that I have had for many years, some of whom, I have had quarrels with, drunken misspoken words, yelling matches, and more, but we are still close, close friends, because the relationship is not disingenuous, fake and bullshit.
Another thing is if someone does not respect your religious or political beliefs unless you share theirs, that is another reason to clean house of them. Love and respect go hand in hand, and one cannot be sustained without the other, like oxygen and carbon dioxide or hydrogen and oxygen, day and night, flowers and earth, moon and stars, and many more analogies and metaphors.
So, if someone or something hurts your feelings, ignore him or her. If something or someone on Facebook is hurtful or makes you feel less than, like your friend has ten-million 'likes' on their picture, and you have ten, then just don't look at them anymore. Take them off your news feed or block them if you want. People take Facebook way too seriously anyway, which leads me to the next thing I want to cover.
Relationships formed on Facebook are usually very superficial, so even if you are somewhat isolated like me, do not take much credence in any of that. Be careful who you give your phone number to, and especially be careful about your address.
Basically, anything that makes you sad or mad, can just be ignored, and you will be just fine. That is how I deal with things. It is like switching channels on the television with the remote control. Do not stay anywhere that makes you feel bad in any way whatsoever.
I am trying to be more mindful about my eating habits, chewing more slowly, being more selective, and taking more time preparing food.
Like colors, music and everything else, I think the body has a way of telling you what you need to be healthy. The key is paying attention. I suppose this is true about everything.
I like kefir better than yogurt, because it is 99% lactose free, and is loaded with healthy probiotics. It is cheaper than probiotics, but more expensive than yogurt, and better for the lactose intolerant.
I also like antioxidant full fruit juices like pomegranate and blueberry juice. Smoothies make you feel so great. They can be incredibly refreshing. I stayed with a lady in Charleston, who made lots of smoothies. I felt like I was at a health spa, not to mention she had a pool. This was a couple of summers ago, but if you have a blender, there are so many smoothies you can make, chocolate and coffee, green vegetables, blue green algae. Whatever you want, and they are colorful too, with no additives.
A friend gave me a gigantic papaya, which is good for the stomach and digestion. I hate the look of the seeds though, so I get rid of those immediately. I suppose they look like caviar, but not in a good way. Just a little humor.
Alfalfa sprouts are always a favorite for me, although I could not live on them. I like them with cheese, tomato and avocado on a sandwich.
I will be drinking lots of kefir and smoothies this summer, with the occasional ice coffee. Coffee does have antioxidants like chocolate, so it is not all bad. It stimulates the lungs as well, and is good for asthma.
I think the body has a way of telling you what is good for you, but sometimes a kinesiologist can help figure out what you need, if it is covered by your insurance. I am a realist.
I am a strong believer in omega fatty acids, calcium, magnesium and zinc and for those with retinitis pigmentosa, vitamin A palmitate, no vitamin E, and no MSG. Otherwise, if you do not suffer from RP like me and many of my new support group friends, vitamin E is probably good for you. You can still put it on your skin either way. I know it helps the skin to heal. I am also an avid believer in B-complex. Folic acid, pantothenic acid, niacin and other B vitamins are necessary for hair growth, skin, nervous system, and stress. Pregnant women are much in need of these, especially the folic acid, which can be obtained in orange juice.
Cooking is easier in summer, because you can eat more raw food, and cook less soups, but there are really good cold soups too.
Protein is something vegetarians and meat eaters do not always agree on. I think protein is good for keeping good muscle tone. You know how if you lose too much weight, you lose muscle mass, so if you want to build up, and are into working out, protein can be obtained from meat, fish, poultry, legumes, tofu, dairy if it sits okay with you, and soy, which is what tofu is from.
Mostly, it is good to eat mindfully. I prefer free range eggs and chicken. I am gluten and dairy free mostly, but I do eat some rye bread, and I have a little bit of half & half in my coffee, as well as occasional cheese and yogurt. I prefer soy milk.
I think whatever you feel good eating is what is good for you, but you really need five servings of fruits and vegetables per day.
A while back, I wrote a blog called, 'Haunted.' It was about my procrastination in cleaning out my closet, because of all the memories and pictures, etc., but finally I did, and now I wonder why it took me ten years to finally do this. So many things have happened to me. There were the recovery from hard times period, the wild partying period, the boyfriends period, the sobriety period, the commission for the blind period, the engagement period, the shopping period, the severe poverty period, but all in all, it has been a little bleak, not to mention Alan getting sick and dying so suddenly. Oh, and getting David through high school, and then there is Ted.
So, now things have really slowed down. Lately, I feel like something about me screams loser, but this may just be my imagination. I might only be mildly talented, not sure.
As I went through papers and things, throwing away most of it, because I could barely read it, I began wondering when I am going to have to hire someone to help with paper work. I am not quite there yet. Speaking of RP, a woman in my support group had both her kids diagnosed the same day like mine. I cried tears of sorrow for her, which is weird because I got jealous of a guy on Christmas Eve, because he said, "thank God," his kids didn't have it. I had to go back and apologize for saying it was not fair to thank God, because it made it sound like those not as fortunate are not blessed. I mean, no one made me, I wanted to apologize, because I realized how messed up I acted about it. Jealousy truly is evil sometimes, even though it is normal. It is good to be happy for others.
So, back to going through stuff, there was my love letter box. Some of my ex-boyfriends' letters were incredibly long. I had to throw some of them away, but there were some sweet words too. One went, "Dear Leslie,
I am staying with a woman, but you don't have to be
jealous, because she weighs about..."
One letter from me, a typed email, went like this sort of:
"Dear ___"
I really think you should reconsider the way you are acting
towards___..., he has been very generous, etc... I am not sure
how I stand on things right now..."
Letter back goes, "So is this before or after you___???, etc..."
So, finally the task is complete. I am awake way too early today, due to an errand that was pressing on my mind until it was done. I cannot think straight until afternoon. It is sort of like a permanent hangover, only minus the drinking. 'Wake up, self... Darn you...'
Hope this blog is not too flippant, but I am never going to fit in with the world anyway, so I need to stop worrying about it. People never forgive you for things, even things that happened twenty years ago, that did not even concern them. They put you in a little box, but it is not our business what others think. No need to rent space, and all that good stuff.
If you subscribe to Kripalu Magazine like I do, you can check out the yoga clothing, although I cannot read the print. I still like looking at the pictures. They do have magazines on talking books, but I never ordered any from the state library, because I cannot imagine reading an entire magazine, back to back, every article. Men sometimes say they only get Playboy for the articles, but the only men who are being truthful, are blind men. Seriously.
Anyhoo, when it comes to yoga clothing, I think if you teach yoga, I can see spending money on really great yoga clothes, such as Beyond Yoga and PrAna, but if you are just taking a class or doing it at home, I think yoga pants and tops from Walmart or Target are good enough.
The summer before last, I went to Charleston with a girlfriend, to visit one of my friends from the school for the blind, and we stayed with a lady who is a doctor. I never get up early, but I agreed to get up early to go to yoga with her. She had beautiful yoga pants, which she said she bought online for about sixty dollars. I coveted them. They were the kind with slits in the back, and really quick drying, wicking material, easy care, pretty, etc..
I ended up finding a pair of teal green ones for a little over thirty online, from Beyond Yoga. They were the only slightly expensive yoga pants I have bought. Now I am longing for a pair of straight ones in orange, but I am being good and patient. It has been a year and a half, but I suppose that since I am not going to classes right now, and did not get my teaching certification, I can just do yoga in anything that stretches. I even do yoga in my jeans sometimes, the ones with stretch in them, but I prefer to wear yoga pants.
I think just regular tanks and teas, both long and short sleeved are good enough. I do not find shelf bras comfortable. For men who might be reading this, that is a built in bra, which many yoga shirts have. I have two like that, both from J.C. Penney's, one purple and one gray and pink, with matching pants.
I like the kind of yoga pants that fold over at the waste, and I kind of prefer the shorter ones, because I am 5'3", so I have actually had to hem yoga pants. I can sew with an eyeless needle, stuck in a cork, a trick I learned in Columbia, at the commission.
Speaking of Columbia, I took a wonderful ashtanga yoga class there, advanced, at City Yoga in the university area. It was an intense time, and I ended up crying during shavasana every time, which is actually a good thing, a release of all that is no longer serving one, or what Eckhart Tolle calls our 'pain body.'
The instructor had gorgeous yoga attire, the best I had ever seen. They also sold yoga clothes, which I looked at longingly, while waiting for my ride. They had royal blue, cotton pants and absolutely gorgeous tops.
About five years ago, I went up to Calabash, North Carolina, to a consignment shop, where we found a gray and red yoga outfit, that one of my girlfriends got me as a birthday present. We were celebrating my birthday. That was a really cute one, too, and not too expensive, being at a consignment store, another option for finding great yoga clothes. I do not suggest Goodwill for yoga clothes. I haven't seen any good ones, and I prefer not to have someone else's energy on my yoga clothes. They tend to be more personal, since you sweat on them, etc..
Well, that is enough about yoga clothes for today, I suppose. Next time, perhaps, I could discuss yoga mats, blocks, bolsters, Mexican blankets, straps and other props, not to mention yoga carrying bags that you sling over your shoulder.
Eckhart Tolle says that when we do not like someone, it is our ego struggling for survival. Of course, that is what the ego does. We take others' inventory. We may be right, and yet, only the ego is what is threatened.
Still, I see a lot around me that makes no sense. I see people clamoring for spiritual success and prestige in the eyes of their peers in their insular community. I see so much of this in the Meher Baba world. It is strange. They line up to embrace someone, just because they met Meher Baba, but not the people who met Meher Baba, the ones who they approve of. I see so much unpalatable behavior around the Meher Center, that I find it utterly shocking and disappointing. I wonder how they can be this stupid, this insane, this ridiculous.
I realize that my ego is judging all of this, but I know deep down that this is all sick. It is all so strange to me. I see the egos of others, so desperate to defend their important stature, perceived by self or others. I see them play into the game. I observe, and it sickens me, literally.
I see the hypocrisy, the lack of morals and ethics, the lack of compassion or insight. There is no one in that entire community that I could reach out to, that would understand anything I am saying, because they are so caught in the 'bull shit.'
Again, I know this is ego, which makes me perceive this way, and yet it is so dark and false, that it saddens me. I wish one person could see the insanity. It would give me some hope about it, some ease to the horror of it, but I see people who are supposedly intelligent, playing into these silly things, these games.
I realize there is nothing I can do about it, and I have to just let go of it, and just walk away from it. I need to let go. I have no power, and I do feel a sense of separation, but in a good way. There are so many agendas going on, that it baffles me, and not one bit of it is honest or sincere. If it is, it is very naïve.
When Margie entered the bar in her low cut red dress on Christmas Eve, the men smirked. They knew her. Laughter even erupted a bit as she walked gracefully across the room, her wild red brown hair framing her heart shaped face, eyes done up.
"Who wants to buy her a drink this time?," Benny cried out, and everyone laughed loudly, raising their glasses.
She sat down on a bar stool next to Johnny. He looked over at her. He was the nice one, of them all.
"Hey Johnny," she gushed.
Johnny hugged her around her shoulders. He had tied on a few already. He had been sitting at the bar since 1:00 that afternoon, drinking gin and tonics. It was six o'clock now.
"What are you drinking, Margie? Merlot, as usual," he asked her.
She nodded as he lit her cigarette.
She blew out the smoke into the misty blue air. "Yeah, that'd be great."
Rudy came over. He was a regular, an Italian guy, who did construction for a living. He had liked Margie in a romantic way when she first started coming, but when he saw how pathetic she was, he just began to pity her somehow. Everyone did, and yet some would say she was a person who just used everybody to buy her a drink, to flatter her, whatever it was she needed at the time.
"Hey, Margie, why aren't you home with your kids?," he asked. She had two teenagers.
"They're probably partying right now as we speak." She took another drag on her smoke. Truthfully, although that was usually the case, tonight she had promised to watch It's a Wonderful Life, their usual Christmas tradition, but somehow drinking had become her way of life, and the bar had become her haven, rather than home. She did not know why. She just felt alone sometimes with no man in her life, when the kids were partying with their friends, and she was by herself.
She had had men in her life, but they were always abusive in one way or the other. They either hit her, stole money from her, had a drug problem, or cheated on her. One was just completely berating and psychologically abusive. She was tired of it all. It seemed like this bar, The Oasis, was her only refuge these days. She did love her kids, and she would die for them. At forty-four she still wanted something. She just did not know what it was.
"You should go home, Margie," the very sober Rudy muttered.
"Oh, go sit down," Jamie, the bartender, told him. He did not want Rudy and Johnny getting into it, which they did from time to time. Rudy had a way of trying to tell everyone what to do, and how to live their life. Jamie knew that although Rudy could handle his liquor, never even got drunk, he could be a handful.
He did, and Margie continued to talk and laugh with Johnny.
People did not know what to make of Margie. She lived in her hometown, but the people who knew her longest even, did not know what to make of her. Some pitied her. Some loathed her. Some loved her out of some sort of noble idealism, but no one truly knew her or even took the time to.
To some she was a gypsy, even though she had lived in the same place longer than anyone else. To some she was a witch or a sorceress, a wiccan with her Stevie Nicks style clothing. To some she was a new age hippie free spirit, who had no rules in life, and therefore she threatened society, their view of it. The truth was she did have rules, she just did not play by their rules. That was the distinction they did not understand. She was a good person in many ways, but she was constantly judged as not a good person by her community, because few would take the time to really know her, as though she were beneath them all somehow.
She was not attracted to Johnny, but he was a friend, or a least she thought so. She was joking about going to a strip bar with him. She really had no intention, but she joked about it, and he did too. Where else could they go when the bar closed? She certainly was not going to go home with him or vice versa. She just did not see him that way. She truthfully, never really picked men up, anyway. He would have to be a serious boyfriend to even come to her home, and meet her kids, except that one cute young guy she met at her friend's party. She literally had walked into her house that night, holding his hand, saying to her teenage son, "this is my boyfriend, Brendon," like they were in a committed relationship already. It was really quite comical. Still, even then, she had gotten her wits about her and sent him on his way. Not to mention, she was a bit messed up and paranoid that night. That was not like her at all.
The bar closed. "Look, I'm going home to my kids," she slurred. Johnny lit her cigarette. They stood outside the bar.
"Oh, come on Margie. It'll be fun."
"No," she said, and stomped out her cigarette with her high heel boot. "Here's my cab. Merry Christmas, Johnny."
"Merry Christmas," he drawled as he watched her close the door and ride away in the passenger seat of her cab.
When she walked in her front door, the kids were still up watching television. "Hey, let's have some coco and watch It's a Wonderful Life," she said, throwing down her red woolen wrap.
Relieved to be home, safe and sound, she threw down her purse and kicked off her boots, while the kids got out the movie.
"I'm glad you didn't forget, Mom," Daniel, her younger son said. She smiled at him, still a bit tipsy, but glad she made the right choice. She put the water on to boil in the kettle. The Christmas tree lights sparkled, and everything was alright in the world for now, she thought. It was alright for now, and now was all there was.
The End
Author's note: I originally had a tragic ending, where she decides to drive drunk with Johnny in the car. She had decided to go home, but he came and got in the car anyway. I guess each moment is a chance to do the right thing. I guess I rewrote my own story in a way, but gave it another chance for her to do the right thing, but of course I have many times done the right thing. I have been watching lots of dark films with strange endings that make you wonder. I just did not want to depress everyone on Christmas. I did not want to depress my readers. Life can be hard enough for many of us. I hope you liked my story anyway, even if it was a bit unusual.
