Tame the Brain

Listen to the marketers and they tell is things are not so good, and they are going to get worse.

#Seth Godin (blogger) wrote: “Turn back the clock just 60 years. If you lived in 1957, how would your life compare to the one you live right now? Well, you have access to lifesaving medicines, often in pill form. You can choose from an infinite amount of entertainment, you can connect with humans all over the Earth, for free, at the click of a button. You have access to the sum total of human knowledge. You have control over your reproductive cycle. You can eat sushi (you've even heard of sushi). You can express yourself in a thousand ways that were forbidden then...

That's in one lifetime.

Strange isn’t it, with all the access to goodness we have now, we focus is on our belly buttons.

You know what I mean, worrying about the next stock crash, the next mortgage crash, worrying that we’re not happy, worrying that some crazy kid will shoot up a school.

If we think back 60 years the worse things did kids did in school was chew gum or smoke behind the bleachers. Well, pregnant senior girls attended my graduation—but they graduated.

As the daughter of a sixteen-year-old mother, I’m not condemning anyone, bless my mother’s heart, she had me.  The pill would have eliminated me. I‘m grateful to be born. Not only that but she was a good mother—got married, divorced, remarried, wanted babies, didn’t have them for 21 years.  See, I had to come into the world when she was sixteen.

If you’re frustrated with what you hear now, don’t listen.

I am a believer that what we focus on brings more of what we are focused on.

It’s a weird Quantum Physics thing.

You’ve noticed that on crappy days more crap comes your way?

On the flip side, you are bopping along, feeling good, and good appears to drop from the ethers.

Some say that positive thinking doesn’t work, but it feels a heck of a lot better than the alternative.

It’s not easy to “Accent the positive and ignore the negative, as we are evolutionarily programmed to look for danger.

Being on the alert worked in the past when stepping outside the cave was risky—risky in the cave too if we stumbled into the hovel of a bear.

Bears inside, Saber-toothed tigers outside, and animals that would carry off your toddler if it ventured out into the night.

No wonder we got hot-wired for worry.

Ever notice how if you are basking in the beauty of a peaceful hillside, the grasses are lush, little yellow flowers dot the hillside, and something moves…

Your eyes dart to the moving object. Maybe it’s as small as a mouse rustling the grasses.

But we see it.

Clearly, that is a protective mechanism.

Notice though, that we don’t live in a cave, and there are no Saber-toothed tigers.

We have other things to worry about, true, death, taxes, finances, our health, our education, a successful endeavor. I admit it’s not simple. But we can begin by deciding for ourselves and not let the fear proclaiming voices of the world decide for us.

They know that fear gets attention.

Tame the brain!

You own that beautiful object, your brain, it doesn’t own you.

I thank God I don’t have to peel potatoes three times a day.

And I can order out for Pizza.

Obi Likes It

A friend started a course for a job selling a Remedial Reading program. Well, she liked reading, and she wanted to help children read, so she signed up, only to find herself so bogged down with the training program that she told them to take their job and, well, she’s a nice person, so she probably said, “No, thank you.”

If they released my friend to her own devices, she probably would have sold reading courses, the company would have benefitted, she would have made extra money, and the children would be good readers.

Do I listen to a different drummer?

Once I volunteered at Terry Cole Whittaker's Church in San Diego California. I was on a hotline. They pointed me to the phone and said, “Go for it.” I didn’t’ know what I was doing, but took the calls, gave advice when I could, the callers and I had a great time. The staff told me I had done a good job, and that was it.

I felt I had to call upon my inner resources, and they answered my call.

Today I hear that old How-to books are dying on the vine. The reason is, they are still addressing the corporate rule on how to fit in. As did the Remedial Reading Company.

Are you living life on your own terms?

We hear a lot about that these days.

Thus is born the entrepreneurial spirit.

I do wonder about marketing and selling. And how we must to “talked into” things that aren’t fun, like Life Insurance that won’t keep us alive, and Health Insurance that won’t keep us healthy. Things we “need,” and are mandatory like car insurance. We hate to spend the money on things that don’t show and aren’t fun. And so enters the salesperson, talking us into buying from them instead of a competitor.

And since the company requires that they sell on commission they must hustle. That gives them a less than stellar reputation and us a bad taste in our mouth.

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I’m not a salesperson, but don’t tell that to a Publishing House. They would then drop me like the proverbial hot potato.

 I am, however, wondering what to do next with my book, Song of Africa.

 It should be good to make people want to read it.

People should know about it.

They must like reading.

They must like what I am offering.

They must find value, learn something, have fun, or be entertained.

Both cats love my manuscript. One day one cat is sleeping on my printed out version. The next day the other cat is.

See, it has good cat vibes.