Who Cares - What Matters
Ahhhhhhhh the wonder of WONDERING. . .
Now that you have been thoroughly
WONDER BOMBED
just what are you
W O N D E R I N G
Pssssssssssssssssssssst:
How about some
EXTRA CREDIT
for WONDERING
ABOUT
H A P P I N E S S
Ahhhhhhhhhh. . .JUST A MOMENT. . .
THE WONDER OF WONDER
I have blogged this video at least a couple of times before and I love how it pops up for me willy-nilly out of nowhere to remind me about SILENCE. When Paul Simon wrote this in 1965 it was a song that had a different but very much the same meaning as it does now YES, some nearly 60 years later: NOBODY LISTENS and even fewer actually HEAR which THEN and NOW make for an ANGRY SILENCE
ANGRY SILENCE
Have you heard
what I didn’t say
It’s a silence
that uses no words
needs no catch phrases
or lengthy paragraphs
and often gets misunderstood as
Angry Silence
Harsh as it seems
it delivers a soft message
with a strong meaning
of not to be well known
but to be worth knowing
always not in a way
to be served
but to serve
without angrily being denied
Wordlessly
Guilty I have piles and piles of books that I have not read even even at the moment that I’m ordering other ones that will make a part of yet other piles.
I lie to myself and say oh I’ll get to that or wow this really looks good and I’ll read it immediately and of course it ends up in another pile. Sometimes the nearer the pile the closer I will get to reading it but this past week, my friend Beth told me that I needed to take this book out of a pile and put it on top of the next one to read and I’m glad she did. . .
Rarely do, I read the authors note before I write in a story or a book but this time I did and once again, I’m really glad that I did, because on the second page was an excerpt from the Hippocratic oath.
One of the reasons why I like, holding a physical book in my hand is because I can dog ear all the pages; I can write in the margins, I can underline, and I can write what I want to write at that time when I read a passage. . .
This excerpt from the Hippocratic oath literally has grabbed me around the throat where I can’t get past too many other pages before I come back to that and oh yes, it is dog eared and oh yes, it has been underlined and exaggerated on the side because even though I’m not a physician, I like to think that I’m a caregiver who tries to offer some kind of comfort to every person that I meet whether I know them or not; whether they are in hospice or in a hospital setting or not. This passage, kind of brings mirror to face and lets me see, allows me to understand and removes some protective buffers I insulate myself with so that I can fully, unabashedly experience my WHY. . .it has nothing to do with a vocation or a paycheck so much as a lifestyle.
H E R E
As a mere human just BEING
sit with this again
and this time don’t let it wash over you
so much as
SINK
throughly
INTO YOUR
Y O U E S T
OF YOU
Seriously. . .
t a k e
J U S T
A
M O M E N T. . .
or at least
Pssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
That was 9 years ago; it’s even shorter now
So I’m going to switch things up. On my Wednesday Blog, I usually do an educational piece that usually reads anywhere from 3 to 8 minutes
and given the information ahead
THAT’S
WAY
TOO
L o N g
so beginning with this blog post
on Wednesday’s I’ll be doing a quick
(less than 2 minutes)
video that’ll take you,
(you’ve got it)
JUST
A
MOMENT
If you wouldn’t mind,
I’d like your feedback or your feelings on this
new format
but only if it’s
JUST A MOMENT
otherwise my attention span of a gnat
might not be around to
get the message
Just sayin’
Are you a LIGHT
that are a part of many Candles. . . ?
ARE YOU A LIGHT THAT IS A PART OF MANY CANDLES
may not be the right question. . .
DO
YOU
WANT
TO
BE
Pssssssssssssssst:
JOIN ME
There’s songs to be sung
Candles to be lit
Lights
to
be
shared. . .
 |
[UNTITLED] Yasuhara Teishitsu Translated from the Japanese by R. H Blyth Ice and water, Their difference resolved, Are friends again. (My thanks to Yasuhara Teishitsu and the translator.
Unfortunately I can't remember the source of the poem.)
In Northeast Ohio we can often have four seasons in one day
and worse, we can experience all four seasons inside us, too. . .
It's up to each of us to bring Sun Shine to each day
. . .but will we. . . ?
Now that would be a great (never-ending Season)
WINTERINGS
We need no crumpled calendar pages to announce the comings and goings of the Seasons No synchronized Apps through an un-weathered Cloud to Announce our Events Our seemingly important moments or lacksadaisical 'To-Do's' No. . .it all settles down wobblingly to our eventual Winterings with one guaranteed Promise: 'There is no Winter that's never not been Obliterated by the Spring' . . .Especially when it feels like our Final One
Mark Twain
once said,
“The two most important days in your life are
THE DAY YOU ARE BORN
a n d
THE DAY YOU FIND OUT WHY”
We celebrate a person’s Birthday
Not because of the Day that they were born
But because of what they have born
Because of what they have given Birth in us. . .
I’ve celebrated well over 38
of my wife,
Erin’s Birthday’s
with her
And not one of them
has ever been without the over apparent
R E C O G N I T I O N
that I,
that many
are far more better
no so much
because she’s been Born
but because of what she has BIRTHED
in us. . .
Erin
creates
CARING CATALYSTS
in everyone she meets
or those who come across
her paths
which means that the best
Birthday Gift of all
Is what you cause to be born in others. . .
Your are the next Rung
on all of our Ladder’s
that take us Higher
. . .Always Higher
There’s no Candle on a Cake
that could ever illuminate more
and it’s
u n e x t i n g u i s h a b l e
Some actually powerfully prove
their Flicker
never compares to the
F L A M E
they ignite
and spread to others
. . .talk about a
fortunate inextinguishable inferno. . .
All ground is fertile
and she proved it
by taking what had no life
L I V E
She makes my soul her soil
when she rakes deeply
and prunes, sharply
The ache is more of a yearning
Ahhhhhhhh
than a moaning Owwwwwwl
She makes things grow
out of nothingness
an Everythingness
hardly without notice
but never unnotable
BIRTHDAYS
MARK YEARS;
M O M E N T S
make
L I F E T I M E S
and I just can’t stop smiling
for all of the things
SHE MAKES GROW
in everyone she knows
and meets
HERE’S A BILLION REASONS
I HAVE MORE HOPE
ON THIS MONDAY MORNING BLOG POST. . .
Watch this. It is beautiful. This is THE moment when students of Albert Einstein College of Medicine got to know that they no longer have to pay any fees. Ruth Gottesman, a former professor at the college announced that she is donating USD 1 billion to the school. The college followed up and made themselves tution free rather than shoring up its reserves. With no student debt overhang, many students will now be able to pursue medicine as a public service.
Now here’s the thing, I may not have $1 billion to donate but I have a billion other ways which I can contribute to make the world a better place and make lives around me easier. As a Caring Catalyst, so do you. Let’s do what we can to make this more than just a nice Monday morning blog post in a billion other different ways!
Residing in the City of Souls
walking the streets
hanging the moon
on bare branches
aching for bloomings
that will bring
Awe to Ahhh
without a shine
Glowing a Way
But being ever present
to banish the shadows
of Aloneness
Moon Hangers
We Are
if we are
ARE YOU. . . ?
Are you Sensitive?
On that imaginary scale of 1 to 10 where would you rate yourself, 1–not so sensitive or 10, extremely Sensitive or just somewhere in the middle. . . ?
W A I T. . .
W H A T. . .
IS BEING SENSITIVE GOOD OR BAD. . .
Getty Image
When was the last time you bragged about being sensitive?
Most likely, the answer is never. There are plenty of traits we take pride in but being “sensitive” is usually perceived as a weakness. It’s used to mean you’re fragile, thin-skinned, or just overreacting. Men are told that they shouldn’t be sensitive at all, whereas women are told not to be “so” sensitive—an infuriating set of words that ought to be retired.
Either way, the message sensitive people get isn’t to celebrate who they are. It’s that they should “overcome” their sensitivity and “toughen up.” Putting aside that this approach doesn’t work, it’s wrongheaded. Sensitivity is largely genetic, and not something you can turn off. It is a trait linked to giftedness and something we ought to embrace. In fact, according to three decades of research, it’s not only a healthy trait, it also serves as a a powerful asset.
As a personality trait, being sensitive means you take in more information from your environment, and you do more with it. Sensitive people are wired at a brain level to process information more deeply than others do. That includes sensory input (like noticing the texture of a fabric), emotional input (reading social cues), and ideas (spending a longer time thinking things through and making more connections between concepts).
If you’re sensitive, this deep processing changes the way you see the world. You probably notice what others miss, think, and feel deeply, and have a vivid inner life. You probably also get overstimulated in situations that don’t bother anyone else. If so, you’re not alone. Roughly 30% of all people, regardless of gender, score high for sensitivity. These individuals, sometimes called highly sensitive people (HSPs), are wired to go deep. And that depth comes with gifts.
The most well-known and celebrated sensitive gift is creativity. It’s perhaps the one generalization that’s true: Sensitive people tend to be highly creative, and many—perhaps most—artists, musicians, and actors are themselves sensitive people.
But creativity doesn’t end with the arts. The same ability translates to innovation. Many of our greatest thinkers and scientists throughout history have been sensitive people, including Charles Darwin, who was not only creative but contemplative, humble, conscientious, and full of strong emotions — the model of a sensitive person. Sensitive people have this capacity for innovation because they tend to be deep thinkers who spend more time and energy turning problems over in their heads—and end up seeing more possibilities and solutions.
A second strength sensitive people have is their decision making ability. In studies involving both humans and monkeys, the subjects who are sensitive—based on having gene variants associated with sensitivity—tend to outperform others on a variety of cognitive tasks, particularly those that require noticing patterns and using them to predict outcomes and make smart decisions.
This decision-making ability may give sensitive people an evolutionary advantage. In a 2008 computer simulation of natural selection, creatures who spent more resources considering their options and comparing them to past results, as sensitive people do, came out ahead long-term compared to less-sensitive creatures. They amassed more resources over time and out-survived others. In the wilderness, that might mean tracking down game when everyone is hungry. In the boardroom, it means steering companies to the top of their industry.
But perhaps the greatest advantage of sensitive people is what we call the “Boost Effect.” The “Boost Effect” means that sensitive people get more of a boost from the same things that help anyone. For example, a 2022 study looked at hundreds of couples at risk of divorce. The couples had been given a relationship training to improve their marriages, and at a glance, it seemed to help: The couples who received it were more likely to stay together. But when researchers gave the subjects personality tests, they found that it was the sensitive people who were most likely to use the training to save their marriages. Not only that, the couples where at least one person was sensitive reported an improvement in relationship quality overall—they became happier with each other. Other couples got no such benefit.
The Boost Effect isn’t limited to relationships. Over and over, researchers find that sensitive people are supercharged by any form of training or support. If you’re a sensitive person, you can activate this ability by curating a supportive environment around yourself—such as a group of supportive friends—and by seeking out resources such as mentoring, training, therapy, or coaching.
Sensitive people do pay a price for these gifts, however, by becoming overstimulated. Overstimulation is what happens when there is simply too much information for the brain to keep going deep. It feels like brain fog, fatigue, anxiety, and a sense of overwhelm; it happens in situations that are too loud, too chaotic, or too emotionally intense. (A rushed day at work and a conflict with a partner are both common triggers.) This is the only time when sensitive people really might seem less “tough” than others, but sensitive people can learn to largely prevent it—particularly by building time into each day to simply let the mind process and “catch up.” For sensitive people, even sensitive extroverts, a little bit of quiet alone time goes a very long way.
If any of this sounds like you, you might be more sensitive than you realize. If so, you have probably felt the pressure to hide it. But that’s a trap. You cannot make yourself less sensitive than you are and trying to do so only cuts you off from your gifts.
Instead, the single most important step you can take for yourself is what society has told you not to do your whole life: Stop hiding from your sensitivity. Embrace it, and show it to the world.
SO. . .
Let’s Rinse and REPEAT:
ARE YOU. . . ?
Are you Sensitive?
On that imaginary scale of 1 to 10 where would you rate yourself, 1–not so sensitive or 10, extremely Sensitive or just somewhere in the middle. . . ?
W A I T. . .
W H A T. . .
IS BEING SENSITIVE GOOD OR BAD. . . ?
Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
H I D I N G
is no longer an alternative or shame
for being Sensitive
EMBRACE YOUR SUPER POWER
and EveryOne Else
will benefit
(you too)
