Tag: inspiration

You, When You’re 90

I’m writing in the middle of the day which I rarely do. Typically I choose to write, right after my first cup of coffee. I like to do what I like to do best, first thing. Still, I just had to come right away to my Thought Museum a.k.a. Adulting – Second Half, in order to add a link to the best article which I have read in a long, long time. I’ll put the link at the end of this blog post. This article reminded me a little bit of an experience that I had last week, on a four hour plane ride. When I was on the airplane, I sat next to a lovely, elegant, regal woman who turned out be in her late seventies, although you would never have guessed that she was even close to that age. This lady first caught my attention when she and her husband (who so clearly adored her) arrived at my row. Since we were sitting in a roomier exit row, I lazily tried to just swing my legs to the side so that they could get through, and she looked at me and she said, “Aren’t you going to get up?”

Now how this woman said this to me was not said in a bitchy nor angry nor indignant tone at all. It was more a calm, assured statement of her own self-worth and dignity. I felt embarrassed and also impressed at the same time. (This situation put me in mind of a marketing professor whom I had as an instructor in college, who also happened to be one of the first black women to graduate with an MBA from Harvard University. She would peer out over us sloppy, hungover students in out stained sweatshirts with disgust, and then the professor would proclaim that she refused to lecture slouches, so we were to sit up straight and attentive in our chairs before she would begin.) Of course, I got up. The woman was right. Thankfully, my row partner held no ill-will towards me and we soon got into a long conversation. Interestingly, this woman had lived a fascinating life, with homes on both coasts. She showed me pictures of her two children (her son happened to be a basketball coach at a major university) and her two grandchildren whom she adored. This woman talked about her long career in hospital administration and how her friends from work still flew out to visit her, and to enjoy some hijinks at her west coast home in Las Vegas. She repeated many times that all of her many friends tended to be a good deal younger than her, as the younger ones were the only ones who could match her energy. The woman bragged about having eight Christmas trees which she happily decorated every single year. But then, my fascinating travel companion’s face turned dark and ashen, as she turned the conversation to her current crisis. It turns out, this energy-filled dynamo of a woman was terrified to die. Coming from a large family, three of her siblings had recently died in rapid succession (one died in a terrible traffic accident), and it filled her with panic and dread. She told me that she loved living so much, that she couldn’t bear the thought of death. This was starting to cause problems, as she couldn’t sleep for fear of dying in her sleep. She stayed upright on her couch every night versus lying on her bed. She even started attending therapy because she (and her loved ones) realized that she was falling into a pit of anxiety, stress and depression, all for the fear of death. I tried to just listen with empathy but also I assured her that I had probably never met such an alive person in my entire life, and with all of that energy and vitality, I believed that she still had a long life yet to come. I gently reminded her that we were all going to die, but she was one of the smart ones who really put her “all” into living, so perhaps when her time came to pass, she wouldn’t feel many regrets. The lady seemed to consider these thoughts and then we moved on, to looking at pictures of her many casino payouts. She claimed to be a particularly lucky gambler.

This was the long way around to the part where I share the link to the inspiring article I mentioned, by Karen Salmansohn, in which the 65-year-old author has a coffee meeting with her 90-year-old self. (One quote from the article that I wrote in my inspirational notebook: “Inspiration is what you call anger after you’ve made it socially acceptable.”) You can read the article here (even if you don’t choose to read it, the premise of having a conversation with your elderly self is certainly worth some time and consideration, don’t you think?):

https://notsalmon.substack.com/p/my-90-year-old-self-stopped-by-with?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Navigation Tools

This was a big weekend for the world. Disclaimer: I will never turn this into a political blog. If anything, I want this space to be a break from all things turbulent and divisive out in the big, bad world. That being said, just a couple of months in, this year is already proving to be a year full of provocations. In the end, all provocations tend to stoke two big, big fires, sometimes at the same time. These fires are Love and Fear.

I read a really good reminder over the weekend. It said: “Let your emotions inform you, not control you.” When you say, “I am angry”, that is not correct. You are the person feeling the emotion of anger. You are feeling anger. What is that anger telling you? What is that anger informing you of? What direction do you want your anger to take you in? Do not give Anger the reigns. Anger is just a feeling. Do not let Anger or Fear or even positive emotions like Joy and Elation take the lead or stoke them to the point of being overwhelmed or overtaken by them. Use your emotions as informants. Use your emotions as navigation tools. Invite your emotions to the table, along with reason, and reliable factual information and the ability to explore other perspectives. And most importantly, give this meeting of all of your emotions, your reason, the facts, and respected viewpoints, the gift of time in order to process any situation. In short, play the long game.

Last week, I had a conversation with my daughter about something that she was upset about and like so many mothers, I became as upset as she had been, because as mothers, we don’t like to see our babies upset. We tend to swallow up their emotions into the storm of our own emotions and then Heaven help anyone who is in the vicinity of Hurricane Mama Bear. But the truth is, my daughter had already stewed on the situation for a few days, and her emotions were already dissipating. Reason and Perspective had made inroads into the conversation. She was already at Step 5, when she introduced me to her upset. I, just learning about her situation, was immediately blown in the storm of Step 1, where emotion is so turbulent and so overwhelming, that you tend to forget that you aren’t actually the storm, you are just feeling the effects of the storm. Today, after a few days of exploring what my feelings were trying to tell me, I am also at a final stage of processing the situation. I am feeling calm. (Notice that I didn’t write “I am calm.” Calm is a feeling, not an identity.) I understand the nuances and the complexity of the situation. The initial “sting” has worn off and I see a path forward for my daughter and for myself, that includes adjusted expectations, grace, a focus on the long game, and a reminder of the importance of healthy boundaries and direct communication.

“You can’t control the waves, but you can learn to surf.” – Unknown

“When awareness is brought to an emotion, power is brought to your life.” – Tara Meyer Robson

“Don’t make permanent decisions off of temporary emotions.” – Unknown

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Wednesday’s Whimsies

+ ” . . . . . . I wish we could hit the brakes, but we live in a brakeless era.” – Paul Ford on the AI revolution

I remember years ago there was a movie where Adam Sandler had a remote control that he could press “fast forward” on the parts of his life which were difficult and challenging. It seemed like a great premise/invention, but the whole point of the movie was about just how much poignancy you would miss in your life, if you just tried to fast forward through it all. The point of the movie was to remind us that all parts of life are to be experienced and savored, even the hard parts. Now considering this opposite side of the coin, I see Paul Ford’s point of wishing we could press “STOP” or at least “PAUSE” in what feels like a constant, frenetic jangle of nerves and rapid advancements in these modern times. But we don’t have magical remote controls to control the times of our lives. We don’t have mystical magical wands to control the forces outside of us. We only have Presence. I read a poem the other day by Kevin Anderson that starts with the line, “I choose to live life heavily meditated.” I think that’s a great choice. We’ve all already pressed the Start/Play button on the days which we were born. We don’t have any other buttons to press, so now we must just experience and engage with what we started and hopefully in such a way that if we did actually have RECORD/REWIND buttons, we would be proud of the person we see doing and trying their best, even in the hard times that they wish they could have just fast-forward through, and even in the fleeting times when they were just begging for a pause.

+ “Collecting gathers. Curating edits.” – Jillian Bremer

I’ve always loved collecting. This is evident by the various piles of my favorite things, all around my home (particularly shoes). It strikes me though, that I have reached a stage in my life where curating has never felt more necessary, cleansing and freeing. When we are younger, we are like busy, twitchy little squirrels, running around, gathering, gathering, gathering, frantically trying to gather more and more and more. Sometimes we are so busy gathering that, much like squirrels, we forget what and where and how much that we already have amassed. Then, what sometimes feels like a sudden dawning, we reach this middle age and beyond stage of life, and we take a look at our “stockpiles” – not just of our things and belongings, but our stockpiles and collections of experiences and relationships and knowledge and wisdom and job titles and achievements and obligations and beliefs, etc., and we realize that we don’t need to keep gathering so much. What would be more beneficial for us, is to start whittling down a lot of our piles and our collections, to what is actually personally meaningful and lasting and worthwhile of our space (including our mindspace).

” ‘Finding yourself’ is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you”. ” – Emily McDowell

At our ages, we have already gathered quite a bit of our story, and we will undoubtedly collect more stories along the way (our closing chapters are hopefully long yet to be written), but we are also at the major editing stage of life. We are curating our vast collections down to what we really need to sustain ourselves and to fully appreciate those aspects of life that make it so individually satisfying to our truest, core selves. When we curate, we stop overwhelm. When we curate, we learn what we truly appreciate. When we curate, we understand what deeply moves us the most. When we curate, we excavate down to the core of who we really are “before the world got its hands on us.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Bygone Talents

“A talent grows by being used, and withers if it is not used.” – May Sarton

We had an interesting Family Facetime call with our four adult children yesterday. I was reminded of my latest addition to my inspirational journals (see above) when my eldest son asked my daughter when she thought she was at the height of her tennis game. Without a beat, she answered that it was her junior and senior years of high school, because she averaged playing tennis four hours a day during that time period.

Our middle son is the one of us seemingly most interested in artificial intelligence and so he shared a really sobering article with us, written by a man named Matt Shumer, who is in the AI field of business:

https://shumer.dev/something-big-is-happening

I highly recommend reading this article. I didn’t read it until this morning and it really got my wheels turning (and admittedly, my stomach churning). Yes, it’s another article telling us that our vocations are all going to be replaced by AI, much sooner than we think. The article makes logical sense. It also brought me around to this whole idea of “talent” again.

What if our natural talents are what AI is best at? What if AI makes our natural talents look like child’s play? What if what we are talented at isn’t really where our hearts lie? That seems to be one of life’s cruelties sometimes. People who would die to play the guitar masterfully, can’t seem to keep their chords straight and those who play by ear, would rather be basketball stars. And do we sometimes look at our own talents too broadly? For example is my daughter’s real talent playing tennis or is it her hand/eye coordination and natural athletic ability? Does she just apply her talent to what she likes to do? Do we think we are not talented because we have considered the idea of “talent” too broadly? Isn’t there talent in being particularly dogged or having a sharp eye for detail or listening to understand? Our talents are actually the nuances that people notice about us. Our talents are the traits of ours that stand out as different and appreciable and notable, no matter how subtle these differences may be.

I’ll be pondering a lot about “talent” this next week. The dictionary says that “talent” is our natural aptitude or skills. But we don’t always find ourselves interested in our own aptitudes and skills, do we? And are our talents more specific than we realize and thus can be applicable to a lot more actions than we realize? For instance, a lot of these Olympian figure skaters that we have been watching recently, could obviously choose to be fine dancers or gymnasts instead. The figure skaters have chosen to apply their natural abilities to a singular focus of ice skating.

It seems to me, that at the dawn of this AI revolution, we must be adaptable and curious, as the author emphatically states in his article, but we also must be curious about our own selves and our own talents, besides what AI is capable of doing. We must be curious about how we can adapt ourselves and our talents to this new era of working right along with machines. We must ask ourselves which of our talents are worth honing and putting the time in, for our own sense of purpose and meaning and satisfaction. We mustn’t fear AI. It’s too late for that – the wheels are already turning quickly. (as Byron Katie says, “When you argue with reality, you lose, but only 100 percent of the time.”) Perhaps the strongest among us, will hone in on and sharpen our most human qualities, traits, talents and also our flaws. These things might become the most quaint, beautiful, treasured, appreciable, distinguishable lost relics of a time period which we all might have already walked out of, with the door behind us closing more quickly than we ever expected.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Wednesday’s Whimsies

+ I just read an article about the average hourly rates for babysitters in each of the states. The range is roughly $20-$25 an hour for just one child. The rates go up with each additional child. I never wanted to be “that guy” talking about how cheap things were in “my day”, but here I go anyway: When I was a babysitter I got $2-3 an hour and the families I babysat for usually had at least three kids plus another family’s kid(s) staying over . I also had other chores tacked on to my babysitting responsibilities such as polishing silver (true story), and I survived almost having a heart attack one night, when one of the family’s elderly dogs started wheezing heavily, in an ominous way, in the other room, and I was sure that I was about to be the latest storyline for When a Stranger Calls horror films. Wah. Wah.

+ Yesterday I read an article that several studies have shown a remarkable correlation of reduction in your chance of developing dementia if you regularly play “brain speed” games. The articles mentioned a game called “Double Decision” by a company called BrainHQ that is supposed to be the best “brain speed” game out there. The game is harder than it looks. (you can try a free version online) The only thing that I did do extremely fast yesterday, was whip out my credit card to pay for a yearly subscription to BrainHQ. And now I have added yet another activity in my ever-expanding list of chores in my morning routine. I’ve noticed lately that my “morning routine” is quickly dribbling into my afternoons.

+ Here is a latest list of quotes/ideas I have jotted in one of my inspirational journals. I only add credits when I know who wrote them, so I apologize for the lack of credits for some of the quotes:

“Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” – Lauren Smallcomb

“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.” – Alan Watts

“There’s more to life than more.” – from Superbowl commercial

“Action absorbs anxiety.”

“Sometimes deciding who you are is deciding who you will never be again.”

“The God of the mountains is the God of the valley.” (prayers for Nancy Guthrie and family)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Alignment

Recently I put the final period on a decision, that if I am honest with myself, I started making a long time ago. And it was an incredibly difficult, painful decision for me to make. It hurt me. It hurt others. But it was the right decision for me to make for myself, and in a way, I’m grateful that my hand was forced. I kept trying to buy time, in hopes that I would see things in a different way, but my “inner self knowing”, stayed steady. It could not be swayed. And I am sad, but I am not sad with regret. I’m just sad with the understanding that nothing is black and white, there is good and bad in everything, and a lot of things in life don’t come with the perfect tied bow of “happy conclusion.” I’m sad for the happy parts that I will truly miss, and I am grateful for the lovely memories that I will always keep with me. So many times in life we want to do what is “right”, but as we get older we realize that “right” is often a muddy picture, and often what is right for one person, is not right for another, and we have to come to acceptance of this fact. And getting ourselves to this acceptance is the hardest part. But with this acceptance, we finally give ourselves respect and complete permission to do what is right for ourselves. And we give others respect and complete permission to do the same. And having this full acceptance will always be closer to peace, than trying to contort your own square peg self into round holes, or else trying to force others to do the same type of thing, solely for your own comfort.

“Living in alignment” seems to be a common phrase thrown around these days, but what does it really mean? When I asked AI this question this morning, this was the summary:

“Living in alignment means consciously ensuring your daily actions, thoughts, and decisions consistently reflect your core values, passions, and authentic self. It is the practice of living truthfully rather than for external validation, fostering a sense of inner harmony, purpose, and flow, rather than just striving for success. 

Key Aspects of Living in Alignment:

  • Congruence: Your outer life—actions and relationships—mirrors your inner world, beliefs, and values.
  • Authenticity: Making choices that feel true to your soul, even if they are unpopular.
  • Values-Driven: Prioritizing what truly matters, such as health, joy, or purpose, over societal expectations.
  • Emotional Resonance: A feeling of lightness and ease, which often contrasts with the exhaustion of trying to be someone else. “

In researching living an aligned life, I came across an excellent blog post written by Dr. Shea, a chiropractor in San Diego. In his article, he outlines five principles of living an aligned life. I’ll put a link to the article below (it’s a good read), but he writes that the essential five principles of living an aligned life are this: 1.) Know yourself. 2.) Take full responsibility for everything in your life. 3.) Maintain a long-term focus. 4.) Listen to your body and act upon what it is telling you. 5.) Prioritize self-care.

The second principle is sometimes a hard pill for us to swallow. It’s hard to take responsibility, especially when you’ve been victimized. This is how Dr. Shea puts it this way, and I couldn’t explain it better than he does:

“The good things include actually taking time to celebrate your wins when things go well.   The bad things mean owning up when things don’t go according to plan.  And the ugly things- these are the things we don’t talk about, the things that were done to us, or the things that we only share with a few close individuals.  These are the things that we really have to take full responsibility for because until we do, these things rule our lives.  To take control back from these people or events, taking full responsibility for them is essential.   Even if you have had terrible things happen to you in your life, you are the only person who has control of how you think about it and what you will do about it.  Without this first step, the concept of finding balance will never stick.  Taking responsibility, despite the initial physical and emotional pain, is the only way to take control.”

It’s not lost on me that unless our spine is in alignment, we can’t reach our highest physical potential. When we are off balance, we can’t walk the paths of our individual lives with a steady gait. Living in alignment is not an easy task in this fast paced, “always vying for our attention in every which direction” kind of a world. However, the moments when we truly feel that our outside lives are most aligned and reflective of our inner selves, these are our most peaceful, resonant, honest, authentic, ripe, accepting, connected to something higher, purposeful moments which we can ever hope to experience.

Here is the link to Dr. Shea’s full article on living in alignment: https://alignedlifewellness.com/how-to-live-an-aligned-life/

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Thoughts for Thursday

+ Before I finally get to this blank page where I can get to my writing, I get slogged with advertisements for gimmicks to turn my “visitors” into regulars and customers. You, my dear ones, are not visitors. You are not customers. You are my treasured readers and friends, free to come and go as often as you please. You are my treasured witnesses to my thoughts, my emotions and my experiences and I am so utterly grateful for you. You mean more to me than you know. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

+ From today’s reading of an article about Arthur Brooks, a famous and prolific researcher, these are the five pillars for a happy life: 1) Maintain your physical and mental health. Make them a priority. 2) Maintain healthy personal and intimate relationships. (there is not a specific number of relationships you need to have – I have always told my kids that when it comes to relationships, four quarters is better than 100 pennies. Just make sure that you have some level of connection in your life to people with whom you share mutual values and affection) 3) See and notice the beauty in art and in nature every single day of your life. 4) Maintain a reasonable standard of living and do some sort of work which brings you a sense of satisfaction and purpose. 5) Have a spiritual, religious or philosophical outlook which fosters resilience. In other words, believing in something bigger than yourself promotes hope and optimism, and both of these virtues have been proven to be excellent elixirs for your overall health and well-being.

+ I bought a cheapie knock-off of the Oura health ring for myself last month. (My husband calls it the “Poora”) This purchase is incredibly surprising to everyone who knows me. I would never, ever, ever (ever) be confused for a techie nor a gym rat. I have never owned an Apple watch. I frequently lose my cell phone. (We keep a landline primarily so I can call my cell phone to find it), and I tend to wear much blingier, gaudy jewelry than the Poora. Also, when it comes to my health, I can easily veer into the mindset of “what I don’t know can’t hurt me.” So surprising to everyone, and particularly most surprising to me, is that I LOVE my Poora health ring. I am particularly excited about checking my sleep score every morning, which typically looms around 90-100 unless my husband is having a restless night and then I scold him mercilessly. I don’t know if the health statistics that I am getting from my ring’s app are accurate or not (particularly since my ring is a Poora and not an actual Oura), but I don’t really care because so far the stats look good and I am a huge believer in the placebo effect. The placebo effect has always proven to be the best panacea for all that ails me.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

And More for Today

This is my second blog post of today. I’m feeling inspired. I’m giving myself permission to write because writing is one of my most favorite activities in this world. A thought came to me that I immediately wrote on my calendar (as I often do throughout the day, as thoughts of what to write about come to me). It was this thought:

“I can’t love you the way that you want me to love you, but I do love you in my own way.”

Is this statement the truth at the center of so many conflicts and hurts? Is this statement what is needed for true forgiveness of all others, and for one’s self? Sometimes we get so caught up in the ways that we want to be loved, that we forget that in the center of any relationship there is love, quietly and steadfastly beating its heart below all of the noise.

I have felt guilt throughout my life for not wanting to be what others want me to be. Sometimes I have conformed to be what others want me to be, only to later seethe in resentment. Guilt is not love. Resentment is not love.

I have felt frustrated and sad and angry when certain people of certain named roles in my life have not conformed into “being” the love which I expected from those roles. Love does not require others to conform into what I want them to be. Love doesn’t have requirements. Love is. Therefore I believe that forgiveness is coming to this statement:

“You can’t love me in the way that I want you to love me, but I know that you do love me in your own way.”

Now this is not to say that forgiveness means staying in relationships that are disappointing or harmful to you. This is not to say that boundaries should be dissolved nor does it say that you don’t need to work on nurturing and healing your healthy relationships with communication and earnest effort. It’s just taking the idea of “Forgiveness is an acceptance of what is” to a new level. It’s acknowledging an underlying love below all of the layers of damage, and pain, and frustrations, and wanting, and resentments, and sadness and failed expectations. It’s a reminder and a reassurance that at the base of all things in life, there is love. Love is always there. It’s just not a love narrowly defined by you nor by me.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Tuesday’s Tidbits

+ Today I scanned an opinion piece from the New York Times. I was intrigued because the title was “The Message from Texas Voters: We’re Neighbors, Not Enemies.” The meat of the piece did not interest me, as much as the title. It struck me as a description of the exhaustion I am sensing in the world at this moment. We are tired. We’re tired of running on anger. Of course, anger itself is not bad. Too many of us try to squelch our anger, and we only hurt ourselves when doing it. Anger turned inward can quickly turn into depression. However, anger is best used as that fiery starter spark, to get us going towards a change of direction in our personal lives, and also in the world, as a whole. That said, you can’t run a marathon on anger. Fire burns itself out. Anger takes too much energy to sustain itself for the long haul. Anger is the wake-up call to an injustice, or an unfairness in our lives. Anger is the passionate attention grabber which points us in a new direction, but then we need to shift out of our anger, to the determined stead of a calm, peaceful, faithful, directed vitality, heading ourselves into a better direction of our choosing.

+ Asian cultures give money in red envelopes for special occasions, to their families and friends. The red color signifies happiness, prosperity, and luck and also is used to ward off evil spirits. Every lunar year (2026 is the year of the horse), Chase Bank produces red envelopes, free for their customers to use. I picked mine up yesterday. (see below). I imagine other banks do the same. I hope that it is not cultural appropriation that I have adopted this tradition when I give money to the people I care about. I do it with reverence and excitement and my people seem to feel a little extra giddy when the red envelopes appear. (although they probably like the green inside, even better)

+ “Love is not born of thought. Therefore love has its own intelligence.” – Krishnamurti

You don’t think love. You feel love. You are love. Your thinker is just your brain, the computer of your body. Your organs are the doers of your body. Your essence, your noticer, your presence, your consciousness, your intuition, your spirit, the traveler inside of your body and experience – this is love. This is you. Love is you. You are love. And at their deepest cores, so is everyone else.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Aging

“At this age, I understand something I couldn’t have known earlier: aging is not about decline, it’s about distillation. You lose what doesn’t matter. You keep what does. The noise fades. The truth gets louder. What remains is clarity, gratitude, and a deeper relationship with yourself.

I no longer rush past moments, thinking there will always be more later. I know now that this is later. This is the season to savor—long walks, deep conversations, laughter that comes easily, stillness that feels like wisdom instead of emptiness.

Seventy-two has taught me that the real gift of time is perspective. You stop measuring life by what’s next and start measuring it by what’s meaningful. You ask better questions. You listen more carefully. You love with less fear and more presence.” – Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey turned 72 years old on January 29th. What she wrote about her birthday is quoted above. It was too profound to not include in this thought museum which I call Adulting – Second Half.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.