The above is from my favorite Twitter feed, Think Smarter. I live in Florida. We get a lot of visitors from other states, and even other countries, particularly at this time of year. People who are retired, or people who are on fun, relaxing vacations, are definitely operating at a much different speed and mindset, than the rest of us full-time, every day Floridians. I guess that it all comes down to thoughtfulness and awareness that none of us are the Center of the Universe and thus, please act kindly and accordingly. At the same time, we full-time Floridians truly appreciate, and we are entirely grateful for the tax revenues that our Snowbirds and our Sight-Seers bring to us, and for that, we add a few seconds of patience and restraint, in the grocery stores, before we start sighing loudly, glaring sharply, and then go stark raving mad, ramming shopping carts into fully stocked shelves of juice and wine. Consider yourself warned.
On the subject of warnings, I allowed myself to get caught up in the COVID-19 frenzy last night and actually contemplated spending $689 for a couple of surgical masks. (but then my husband reminded me that we have some kind of protective painters’ masks in a dusty container in our garage, probably from 1999, and our fishing gaiters actually look way cooler and more fashionable than surgical masks, so I put my credit card away) Still, even though I don’t ever get the flu shot, and I spend a sizable amount of money on immune system related supplements every month, and I mostly stay at home by myself every day, by last night, I was scoping out crematoriums, as I had myself convinced that I had the symptoms of COVID-19, and I was hopelessly doomed to a breathless death. In all seriousness, I do hope that all of this panic and alarm calms itself down, and that we can find a quick and reasonable way to contain the virus, heal the sick, and soothe all of our collective fears.
Along those lines of thought, I read something recently that stated that the emotions that we feel when we are excited and the emotions that we feel when we are fearful, are remarkably the same. Perhaps when we feel ourselves getting out of control, feeling darkening fear, we should shut off our computers, shut off our phones, and our TVS, wash our hands (for 20 seconds – sing “Happy Birthday” twice – quietly, and to yourself, if you have a lousy singing voice), and instead think about something that we are excited about. Notice that the feelings of fear and excitement are remarkably identical. To stay on the positive side of the identical feelings, stick with the positive thoughts of elation and happy anticipation, knowing that COVID-19 will soon become ho-hum news of the past, and it will be readily replaced with something else horrible in the news, which we can terrorize ourselves about.
Happy Friday Eve, friends and readers!!!
Fortune for the day – “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” – Aristotle