Tag: jfk

Wednesday’s Whimsies

+ The picture above is not a great picture because I’m not a great photographer. But you get the gist. That’s our neighbors’ Christmas tree. (That’s a really big truck below it, to give you perspective of its magnanimous size) That’s our neighbors’ mini Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. It’s really beautiful and they always manage to get it all decorated right before Thanksgiving. All of the rest of the decorations on our street have really just become accents to it. I mean should the rest of us even bother now??? Seriously though, the neighborhood’s “absolute opposite of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree” is huge and beautiful, and I love it. And yes I’m jealous, but the tree is fabulous and I love it.

+ Siri’s nice now!! For those of you who use iPhones, and if you did the latest update, you’ll notice that Siri now says, “You’re welcome!” in her best Chick-Fil-A employee voice when you thank her for the information that she gave to you. (Yes, I have always thanked Siri. Manners, babe.) She also doesn’t seem quite as bothered and smirky when you ask her for information. AI is evolving and in a good way, this go around, in my opinion.

+ Today is the 60th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. Over a decade ago, I took all four of our children on a road trip through several states and even more cities (yes, it was crazy – one child was still in diapers, but that is what you do when you are young, energetic and idealistic. Also, there was no GPS at the time. My kids always laugh about my books of Mapquest printed sheets, which I used back then, to get us all around). We stopped at Dealey Plaza, where Kennedy was shot, and we were approached by a “tour guide” who turned out to be a homeless man with a lot of conspiracy theories. He was a colorful character who started all of his sentences with a dramatic, thickly Southern accented “Looky here! Looky here!” When I think back to that trip, I don’t remember a lot of it, but I do remember “Looky here!” In fact it has become part of our family’s vernacular. We gave the “tour guide” a handsome tip and I’m grateful for that because he gave us a memory which has lasted nearly two decades and still brings a smile to my face.

+ Before the holidays are upon us, remember that you are making memories, and these memories can be happy, funny, silly, “Looky here!” memories or they can become horrible, searing, imprinted memories that everyone tries to forget, but can’t. The holidays tend to bring out the best and the worst in all of us. If you are seeing someone who doesn’t visit often, but is coming to be with you now this Thanksgiving, relish that fact. Don’t use that time to make them feel guilty for not visiting more. Do you think that guilty feelings will make them want to come back for more helpings of ghastly guilt, down the line? Loving, enjoyable, easygoing energy is much more likely to pull them back for a few more visits, because everyone likes to feel good and loved and appreciated for what they do, and accepted for who they really are, in this world. Looky here, steer the conversations towards beautiful decorations everyone has seen, and funny “piles of Mapquest pages” stories that everyone can laugh about, and happily reminisce with each other. Stuff the turkey. Don’t stuff your opinions about volatile topics down everyone’s throats. There is a time and a place for those conversations, and a happy holiday gathering isn’t that time nor that place. If there was ever a time to concentrate on my blog’s tagline, it is during a holiday celebration. Print it out and put in your pocket. Imprint it on your mind. You won’t regret it. A surefire way to have a wonderful holiday season is to focus on all of the good. Be the star on your family’s celebrations this season. And by being the star, I don’t mean constantly stealing the spotlight for laughs and attention on you. When I say “Be the Star”, I mean be that beacon of light and love and kindness that puts the spotlight on others’ acts of love and light and kindness. Be that star which guides everyone towards hope and love and light. Here is my tagline:

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

Whaddaya think?

“Thinking is difficult. That’s why most people judge.” – Carl Jung

At dinner last night, we got to talking about whether or not certain ideas/theories should be taught in schools, as part of the curriculum. I have not done enough research to make an informed opinion on these different subjects. However, what I do know, is that I believe what absolutely should be included in every school’s curriculum (especially in these days of information overload, and extreme bias and slants on every subject in the world. What/who doesn’t have a bias these days? “Just the facts, ma’am” is an humorous, rare antiquity in today’s world.) is Critical Thinking. In our lives, we tend to accept a belief about something, and then, that’s it. Once our beliefs are formed, we rarely reconsider them again. We never question our beliefs or consider that there may be other ways of looking at things, or we may have our own irrational prejudices clouding our vision. Its often easier to stay firm in our convictions, even when all of the evidence starts to point in a different direction.

“We rarely find what we do not seek.” – Words of Worth

Why do we stay so firm in our stances? Is it stubbornness? Is it laziness? Critical thinking is hard work and we humans are creatures of habit. Is it embarrassment of the idea of possibly having made a mistake or been erroneous – i.e. “the need to save face”? Is it the fear of being ostracized or letting others down? Is it the need to feel “right” and thus, “superior”? In today’s world, someone admitting that they were wrong or mistaken about something, is such a rare phenomenon that it’s unbelievably heroic. It is my belief that these people who can admit the errors of their ways, are the most interesting, strong, integrity filled (and utterly scarce) people out of all of us.

I am almost 52 years old, and I am amazed at how every single year of my life, a new cloud that was blocking my view, dissipates with each time that I am willing to reconsider what I think, and how I feel about things. Sometimes, my moments of reconsideration, help to further cement my views, but either way, I always feel like a better, more informed, more self-aware person, than when I was just blindly going through the motions of unexplored labels I put on myself (or others placed on me), sometimes from childhood on.

I think if I were to teach Critical Thinking, I would work first on helping to create students so confident, and so sure of themselves and their abilities to consider all facets of a problem or situation, that admitting that they could be wrong about their assumptions would be peanuts. Making mistakes and having erroneous ideas would be just another part of getting to the true heart of a dilemma – nothing personal, just part of the process of chipping away to the truth. Maybe that’s why we have a hard time questioning and critically thinking about our own beliefs and ideologies. We personalize and identify with our “labels” too much. And by doing that, we often limit who we are at the very heart and core of our most creative minds. Labels limit us. When you strip away all of the labels, philosophies and dogmas, we are truly unfathomably limitless. Maybe if enough of us keep focusing on a continuous, unending course of Critical Thinking throughout our lifetimes, we will start to see what this “limitless” version of humanity could look like. My belief (yet I am willing to be challenged on this) is that if this happened, our world would be more awestriking, and at ease, than the likes we have ever seen or yet imagined.

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