Some people believe we plan out our lives before we're born, perhaps in meticulous detail. Our souls agree to come to earth to live in exact times with particular people and to have certain experiences. Some say our souls sit around with other souls and plot out lives on earth together, giving each one many lessons in the fields they want to work on the most. You may believe this, or not.

Life can seem pretty random. Why was this person born here, in affluent circumstances, while this other person was born there, in poverty or even slavery? Why do some deal with addictions for most of their lives, while others seem to have the road to success paved in front of them? Why are some so talented while others have trouble with the most basic skills? Why are some lives so short and horrible, while others so long? If we are not selecting our own circumstances, is some other agency doing it to us? Or is it an absolutely random process when, where, and how we're born and how we live?

I have trouble with the idea that life is completely random. And it bothers me that someone else might be assigning us to lives of pain or pleasure, health or illness, encouragement or persecution, freedom or slavery – giving us no say in the matter. So the idea that I might have had at least some input in the process seems attractive to me, even logical, although I have no way to prove that it happened.

Still, even if we make some of the plans, I don't think our souls plot out every moment of our lives ahead of time. I could see my soul, perhaps with a couple other key souls, arranging to meet on earth in particular years and places. I could even see saying I'd like these talents and would like to do work on these issues during this lifetime. (Such issues could include dying young, living in a war-torn nation, having an abusive spouse, or being an alcoholic, if that was something I wanted to experience. I might not always pick “positive” things to work on.) But no matter what was selected in general, I don't think my soul would have planned for every moment of every day. (If nothing else, imagine how tedious it would be to make all those decisions ahead of time!)

I believe we have some free will. Our decisions matter. We may get to choose the time and location of our life, and even the major people we will share it with. Parents, siblings, spouse(s), children, good friends, worst enemies, etc. But I believe that we also get to choose how we respond to this situation once we arrive. Do we meet it with love and compassion? Or with hate and destruction? Our choice.

Topic For the Week: What are your beliefs on planning life before birth? What about free will?

What do you do to restore your vitality? Naturally we all eat and sleep, which are essential. But most of us also have other activities that help center ourselves and restore our energy. I think of these as ways we plug into the universe and “charge up” on its energy. It's not the same as just resting; it's drawing in energy from everything around us.

Some people charge up by being with other people. Some by doing a favorite hobby, like singing, painting, gardening, or building birdhouses. After an intense hobby afternoon or a big party, they're full of energy, ready to take on the world.

Not me. I like people and enjoy their company, but after being in a group for several hours, I'm drained. I also have a number of hobbies I really enjoy, but I'm tired after hours on them.

I need solitary time to recharge. I love to read, watch movies, stare out the window, work puzzles, and do similar things that allow my mind to go into neutral. I write in a journal. I sit with my cat. I go to the gym and pedal mindlessly for thirty or forty minutes. All of these things help my subconscious absorb, organize, and process my thoughts about what is happening in my life. I come away feeling energized. If I don't do any of them for more than a day or two, I get antsy and anxious. Probably crabby too, if you ask those close to me.

Sometimes I take a yoga class or do some yoga at home. I've done martial arts, too. While both are good for me physically, I find they require attention and focus. I like the way they keep my mind from its usual worries, but I don't come away with any “inner work” done. Once in a while I meditate. I should do it more, but somehow it's one of those things that seems difficult and usually gets pushed to the side. I find it very hard to empty my mind.

Topic For The Week: So what do you do to restore your inner self? How often? What works and what doesn't for you?

Crosby Stills Nash & Young

It is very hard to teach children well. It's easy to do it badly, though. Even the best-intentioned parents do that. Every day in every culture, children are yelled at, browbeaten, and sometimes abused. Their dreams are ridiculed, their passions tamped down, their goals surrounded by a tiny box of “reality”. They are taught that material possessions, good grades, high salaries, and popularity are highly important. They are taught to fit in and become like their parents.

And those are the normal ones, the lucky ones. Less fortunate children are raised by parents with addictions or mental health problems, full of rage and ready to take it out on anyone smaller or weaker than they are. These kids will be lucky to fit in at all, and woe for the special needs children who are different from the rest. Their lives can indeed be hell that slowly goes by.

And yet in their natural state, although young children can be loving and kind, they are are often demanding, selfish, and cruel. There is a need to socialize them into society. Ideally, adults should help children recognize their talents and provide training to further the use of those talents. Ideally, children should grow up feeling they are wanted and loved, and should be taught to treat others kindly.

But life is not ideal. Most adults I know feel they are spending much of their adulthood overcoming their childhood. Some acknowledge the hurtful things that were done to them and try to address these issues directly. Others deny their past and then act it out unconsciously with those around them, over and over. The universe is very patient. It will throw the same issue at you again and again, no matter where you go, hoping that at some point you'll deal with it.

Parenting is hard. It doesn't come with a manual. No two children are alike. Parents often do not have any idea how to deal with their children and don't have any source of real help. But surely we could do better than we do today.

Topic For The Week: How were you raised? How do you think that upbringing has affected the person you are today? Are there things you would have liked your parents to do differently? If you have children, have you made those changes, and if so, has it worked out well?

The Bible is full of angel stories, as are the sacred writings of most cultures. The Biblical God sends angels as messengers who bring tidings, advice, orders, and riddles. Angels often sing songs of praise. Sometimes they alter events for better or worse, depending on whose side the reader is on. Some brandish fiery swords and a few even sweep around killing multitudes. Biblical angels obey orders well and don't seem to think for themselves very much.

Angels also appear in fairy tales, fantasy, and magical writing. These angels have fewer restrictions on their actions than their sacred cousins. They often have their own objectives and make elaborate plans to obtain them. Many have super powers, although these might be limited in our world. Sometimes their powers seem bizarre to us, not even terribly useful here on earth. Presumably the powers are more attractive and functional in the angels' native realm. Sometimes these angels have a message for the humans they meet, but sometimes it is hard to tell why the angels in these stories are here at all.

Then there are normal individuals who claim to have met angels. There are hundreds of books and movies devoted to these stories. Interestingly, these everyday angel events are almost all beneficial. The human has a problem, perhaps a really big awful one – perhaps even imminent death – or is very depressed. An angel comes to help; problem solved, depression lifted, or life saved. I don't know of a single “real” story in which an angel swoops in with a fiery sword and kills someone. I also don't know of any where an angel swoops in and hovers, singing songs of praise. (Maybe there are some of these and I haven't read enough.)

All that being said, I've had no personal evidence of angels in my life. That's not to say that they don't exist. Maybe angels are here and I simply don't see them. On the other hand, maybe I'm less likely than others to attribute everyday events, even “miraculous” ones, to angels. I tend to think that the universe is so vast and complex that it can create virtually any situation, and so everything – or nothing, if you prefer – is a miracle. Angels simply aren't necessary.

It's not like I don't like angels. Angel stories are fun. And right now I'm wearing an angel pin, complete with a heart-shaped halo, four gold wings, and a long skirt so that the legs and feet don't show. (Our current angels tend to have no bodies below the waist, although older versions did.)

Topic For the Week: Have you had a personal angel experience? What was it like? And whether you've had such an experience or not, what are you beliefs about angels? Are they part of our lives, visible or not? Do they act on their own, or are they sent by God (or someone else) for a purpose? If you could request an interaction with a angel, would you?

I am among the world's most moderate manic-depressives. I have days when I'm a tiny bit UP and others when I'm just the slightest DOWN. It's sort of like the ways you can adjust your digital photos. There is the full vertical-to-horizontal shift – way up, way down, full M-D swings – and then there is the one-degree-at-a-time tweaking. Rock the picture a degree or two up today, then nudge it a degree or two down tomorrow. That's me.

I believe we create our own moods. We decide on our own emotions. If we want to change them, then they will change. If we're “enjoying” the one we're in, we'll stick with it. Most of us are not conscious of doing this, naturally. In fact, we generally try to hide this knowledge from ourselves. Knowing we're the creators of our own moods takes some of the fun out of our pity-parties and elated screaming.

We use our whole bodies to bring forth the desired emotions: our brains, our blood, our muscles, our stomachs, our skeletons. What we think, what we eat, whether we get any exercise, when and how we speak our inner thoughts or bottle them up, and a dozen other physical things help us produce the feelings we are after. Then we feel the emotions all over the body, and they seem so strong and in control we can't believe that we created them and are in charge. We “give in” to them, sit back, and enjoy the ride. Again and again.

I know all this. And I know that ultimately the goal is to become fully aware of how we create our emotions and to choose to step off the merry-go-round. Accept what is with equanimity. Go with the flow and thank the universe for whatever it provides today. This is the path to bliss.

But even knowing it, I have my miniature ups and downs. And I do it every day. I can't remember a day I was able to say in neutral, just accept what is. No, I continue to manufacture the emotion-du-jour: glee, glum, glad, grumble. Of course I do it for the same reason we all do it. I get a pay-off from the emotions that I'm not willing to give up. I like the tiny highs and lows. Somehow they make me feel more alive, special, entitled, victimized, and able to justify whatever behavior I want to exhibit.

Topic For The Week: Do you have strong emotions? Do you think you are in charge of them, or are they something that originates outside you – and in spite of you? Would you like to discard your emotions? Or does that sound like the worst idea you've heard in years?

Do you ever play the mental game of taking things to extremes? Take a trend and extend it out to a ridiculous conclusion, like a decade ago when cell phones were getting smaller and smaller and televisions getting bigger and bigger. You get a vision of the world as one continuous plasma screen, but nobody is watching because we're all scrabbling around on the floor trying to find our grain-of-sand-sized cell phones.

One version of the game is “What if everybody was just like me?” I take my own preferences and dislikes and extend them out to everyone.

For example, if people only spent money on stuff I spent money on, what businesses would expand and which would cease to exist? Well, people would spend far less on clothes, cars, and electronics, for sure. Folks would still be wearing outfits from twenty years ago and their computers would easily celebrate their fifth birthdays. Eight-year-old phones would be common. Nobody would have a personal SUV, although communities would have a truck or van available for hauling things occasionally. Small gas-efficient models would be popular, but the oil companies would still be in business, because people would commute farther than they should. To counteract this, we'd invest in alternative energy firms, recycle, and use rechargable batteries.

There would be big box stores: groceries, sundries, and drugs. And so there would be big businesses that supplied the stores. But virtually everything else would come from small establishments with terribly knowledgeable and caring sales staffs: clothing, shoes, many household products, a lot of food, books, artwork, computers, tools, appliances, etc. After all, since we wouldn't be buying any of it very often, we'd want good quality and features that met our needs. We'd be choosy and want top-notch products and sales people. There would also be community thrift stores and exchange spots.

Night life would be pretty dull. There might be a couple of bars and nightclubs left, but more out of nostalgia than current interest, (and they 'd probably be singing folk-songs anyway). There would be some wonderful ethnic restaurants, but virtually no chains where you get the chicken-breast-of-the-day-special or a burger. Fast food places would disappear except for a few that only sold sausage biscuits in the mornings.

People would tend to stay home, have dinner with family or friends, and read or watch movies in the evening. Good cooks would be esteemed, and they'd make primarily vegetarian meals – though not exclusively. Soft drink companies would declare bankruptcy.

On the other hand, crafts, arts, music groups, libraries, and live music would explode. Everybody would have at least one hobby that they spent hours on each week. Probably several hobbies. Small shops that catered to such hobbies would abound. Kids and adults alike would get a lot of exercise in gyms, parks, yards, pools and greenways. Frankly, nobody would have a weight problem, and most weight-related diseases would disappear.

Beaches would be the favorite vacation spots. Radios would be banned from all beaches, but beer would be allowed. There would be lending libraries and book sellers right on the boardwalks. Foreign travel would be popular and people would be delighted to learn about other lives, food, and customs. Foreign guests would be invited to our homes frequently.

Would I like a world populated only with people like me? I doubt it. I suspect life would get boring and that we indeed need variety as a life spice. But such a place would make more sense to me than much of the world does now.

Topic For the Week: What are some of the things that would expand (or disappear) if your version of life was dominant? Would you like a world like that?

We learn from the people around us. We don't always learn what they might hope we'd learn - even if they lecture us sternly – but by watching and listening. We learn good things, like how loving someone is when they bring us something nice to eat or tuck a blanket around our feet without being asked. We learn bad things, like how harsh a voice can sound yelling at a child for some fractured rule or how uncomfortable a person looks when they are lying.

We can learn things subconsciously, think they are simply the way of the world, and imitate them. That's how “family values” whether good or bad get handed down. Or we can learn from the consciously, think about them, and decide if they make sense for the life we prefer to lead.

We don't get to pick our relatives because we need to learn lessons beyond those our friends might provide. After all, we can leave a friend if we dislike what they do. Relatives tend to stick to us, almost no matter what.

Those of you who celebrated Thanksgiving this weekend may have had many moments you could learn from. As always, my relatives (and probably me, but it's so hard to watch yourself!) acted both well and badly. There was sweetness in people joking with each other, cooking together, playing with the cat, and simply relaxing after dinner. (Well, dinners really, since it went on for several days.) There were also unexplained moments of cruelty that may not have been intended, but hurt anyway. I am trying to sort them all into learning opportunities. I am giving thanks for the experience.

Topic For the Week: Did you have any interesting learning moments recently? Want to share them?

This is the week we are supposed to give thanks. (At least Americans are; for the rest of you I suppose it's optional.) I'm guessing that there will be hundreds (thousands?) of people on LJ making lists of the things they feel grateful for: home, family, friends, pets, food, health, money, nature, God, freedom, sunsets, and the like. And let me say right now that I too am grateful for these things.

But what I want to discuss today is a different sort of gratitude. Grudging gratitude, you might call it.

I was talking with a friend recently, who rather nonchalantly said something about “All those things you wished for and didn't get, but got something far more wonderful instead.” She said is as if it was a fact of life, a birthright, a law of nature. Like all you needed to do was make daily a “To Wish” list instead of a “To Do” list, and then sit back and wait for the spectacular results.

Trying to uphold my end of the conversation (I do better listening than speaking, but I've learned that I can't remain silent too long), I racked my brain for an example of such an event from my life. Just one. But I couldn't come up with a single instance.

Take gifts. For birthdays and holidays, I've wished for wonderful things. Elaborate, expensive, blow-your-socks-off things. Never got them. Oh, I've received very nice gifts over the years, and I truly thank the friends and family who gave them. But nothing even close to my imagination.

Career. Like most people, I wished to do something great, something memorable (or at least interesting), something to help the world. I ended up with a job that paid the bills and even a little extra in a field that nobody ever heard of. The moment I explained it, people yawned. Not that I'm not grateful, mind you. But reality turned out to be orders of magnitude below my wishes.

Family? Parents, siblings, and orbital relatives were all okay, but nobody did anything extraordinary. Nobody dispensed the wisdom of the ages (and nobody was an ax murderer either). Each had their own truly annoying qualities that I mostly learned to put up with. Husband and children? I've been blessed with both and am eternally grateful. But truth to tell, we're just part of that vast silent majority.

Family gatherings? Travel? School reunions? Exhibitions of my talents in various ways? We all know these can be far less enjoyable than what we wish for. Sometimes they are downright painful.

Like I said, I could not come up with a single part of my life in which reality came anywhere close to my imagination, let alone exceeded it. I always wished for the stars, and I always got mundane, practical, commonplace results. And as I've aged, I've begun to realize that this was the wisdom of the universe. That in my everyday work, family, and pursuits, I was given the gift of grappling with life.

I've grudgingly started to give thanks for this type of life. It's real, it's gritty, and it's what we're here to learn and experience. The gift is what we make of it, not what is handed to us. I understand. Still, just once, I think it would be nice for the universe to surprise me. Don't give me gaily wrapped but practical socks and underwear, don't even match the wish I have in mind. Rather, blow out all the stops and overwhelm me with something so extraordinary, I could say to my friend, “Yes, there was this time I wished for _____, but wow, what I got instead was _____!” And we'd shake our heads in wonder.

Topic For the Week: Do you have an instance where you really wished for something, didn't get it, but got something way better instead? If so, will you tell us about it?

“Tired of Feeling Unappreciated? Now You Have a Choice!”

This was the headline for an ad in the newspaper. “Wow,” thought I, “what a great service! A way to purchase appreciation, and even have a choice in how it is packaged!”

Who doesn't feel unappreciated? Who truly feels like they have enough love, affection, appreciation, and support in their life? Nobody I know. Certainly not me. Most of us are constantly needy, never fulfilled. We might even get a few moments of nirvana, where everything is complete, satisfying, and lovely. But they don't last. Within days – or even moments – we are back to our eternal need for more.

Of course, we know the answer. We can never find enough external love, appreciation, and support. It has to come from within. The Bible is wrong: It's not enough to love another as you love yourself. Most of us love ourselves so poorly we would be ashamed to give only that paltry emotion to others. The key is to love yourself the way you would like to love others. You can only give what you already have inside you, whether you're giving to yourself or your fellow man.

Nevertheless, I scrutinized the ad, ready to grab the phone. Even though the Beatles told us you can't buy love, I was ready to try. And here's the rest of the wording:

“Towing Done Right! Here When You Need Us! 24/7.”

Topic For The Week: Are you one of those rare people who generate love from within, rather than seeking it externally? Or are you among the needy masses, always seeking but never getting? What if we could buy love and appreciation? What kind of world would that be?

Being flexible makes life easier, right? Physically it makes you more agile. Mentally it makes you smarter. Socially it helps you to get along with people. Emotionally, being flexible helps you deal with more situations. And in contrast, being fixed, rigid, and inflexible tends to make life more difficult.

Overall, I think I'd give myself a 5 out of 10 in flexibility. I don't throw myself into new things constantly, but I'm open to trying them from time to time. I like to meet new people (not whole bunches at once, just one or two). I try to listen to what others are saying to understand their viewpoint. Mentally I'm rather agile: I suspect my brain is my most flexible organ. So a 5 is good enough, I suppose.

Except for physically where, at best, I'm a 2. I've never been flexible. Not as a child: other kids could flop around and get their legs into positions that looked contorted and painful to me. And not as an adult, despite being involved in sports, exercising, and stretching my whole life. I'm in good physical shape, just not flexible.

I believe there is a connection between our physical selves and our mental and spiritual selves. That being inflexible in one suggests a similar inflexibility in the others. And conversely, simply trying to become more flexible in one area will spill over into the other areas automatically.

So over the years, I've dabbled at yoga, hoping to increase flexibility. Most of the classes I've tried have been too hard for me. In a “good” class (for me), the teacher shows several ways to do each pose, including one easy enough that I can attempt it. Most teachers don't even come close. They just do their impossible poses and say, well, simply do your best. As if. After a recent class with yet another new teacher, I was joking with the only person who was worse than me (an ancient heavyset lady who looked like she hadn't moved out of her chair in years). We agreed that the only thing we were likely to get better at was “pretending to do yoga”.

Topic For The Week: Do you think our various flexibilities go hand-in-hand? If you increase or decrease any type of flexibility, will the others tend to follow suit? Or can you be rigid in one are and loose in another without any problems? In what ways are are you flexible? As you've aged, have you become more flexible or less?

“What do you need to say that you haven't said?”

This question is from an article by Bernie Siegel. Most of the article was just a rehash of the old idea that we co-create our lives. If we do so from a loving point of view, we create a better life than if we come from hate. Yes, but that's hardly original. Siegel admits this, saying “My writing and today's books have nothing new to say. We may have new stories but they are only repeating ancient wisdom.”

But the article provided some questions to provoke thought and enlightenment, one of which I've quoted above. This question got me thinking.

Most of the time, we feel compelled to say the same old things we've been saying all along: favorite complaints, wishes, stock emotions, or whatever. (When we've known someone a long time, we can often anticipate their next statement, and, to be honest, they can probably guess ours too.) But we still feel the need to say these things. They make us comfortable. They sound right to us. Perhaps we think if we say them long enough, the world will change. That's not likely, of course, because all we're doing is reinforcing our existing beliefs and thereby reinforcing the world we've already created.

But what about things that we need to say but haven't said? The hidden things. The things that are too emotional, too scary, too shameful, too “out there,” too unspeakable to admit to others – or even to ourselves. We've never said them. Why not?

Some thoughts may be new, but I think a lot will be extensions to the same old stories we've been telling. They are “alternative endings” – something that might force us to take a new look at our core beliefs – the ultimate in scary.

Just one personal example. I frequently think to myself: “I must do something significant with my life. A mundane life is a wasted life. I must work harder to become significant.” But the alternative ending that I never say is: “Probably I will never do anything significant. I haven't yet and the years are marching on. Unless something changes, I am and will be a complete failure.”

Well, there it is. “Unless something changes.” I've been trying my whole life to do significant things, but haven't achieved any. Simply trying harder is not a change. The change, if I care to make it, needs to be in my core beliefs: “A mundane life is not a failure. There are other ways to define success in life than being notable for some achievement. Think about that.”

Now, I haven't actually changed my beliefs at this point. Not only do I still see myself as a failure, but I see most other people as one too. But making myself come face to face with this belief at least makes me begin to question it. And maybe change it. And if I do so, perhaps co-create a different life.

Topic For The Week: What do you need to say that you haven't said?
Ponder this for a while. What do you avoid telling yourself? What might happen if you spoke it aloud?

Our big brains are two-to-three times the size (weight) of our nearest cousins, the apes. Four times the size of chimps' brains, and don't even try to compare cats and dogs to us. Clearly we've spent the last several million years growing our brains and then finding new uses for those extra brain cells.

There are lots of theories about why and how our brains grow. I love reading that sort of thing and want to share of it with you. Ready? (One theory is that we breed for bigger brains partly because we are excited by new information and want more places to store it. So maybe you're expanding your brain just by reading this.)

Two physical facts come into play. First, gram for gram, brains require way more energy than any other part of the body, even the biggest muscles. Second, to walk upright with complete balance and have full use of the back and arms for carrying stuff, you need a relatively narrow pelvis. And that means that there is a limit to a baby's head size at birth, so that a narrow-pelvis woman can it, and also that the human gut must be smaller than other comparable animals (apes) so that it will fit in the pelvis.

So, assuming our ancient ancestors with the biggest brains were the smartest and therefore the most likely to survive and pass on their genes, and that they had a big incentive to walk upright and use their hands and arms all the time, you had to solve two problems. One, how to deliver babies with small heads, but let them grow up to have big brains. Two, how to ingest enough calories to feed the big brain every day with only a small gut to digest whatever you swallow.

Current research suggests that both problems had the same solution: process and cook your food. Raw food, whether meat, vegetables, or fruits, requires a lot of chewing and a lot of digesting. Both of these slow down the process, take a lot of gut space to occur, and burn up calories. (They also require heads with huge mouths and big strong teeth, which is the opposite of what you want if you use a language that involves sounds more intricate than grunts and squeals.) But if you process your food (chop it up, remove the tough parts, etc) and cook it (which in effect does some of the digestion for you), you can extract far more calories much more quickly, even with a small gut and tiny teeth.

Thus, advances in food preparation (think fire and flint knives at first) let adult humans feed their big brains and, perhaps even more importantly genetically, have babies with small heads and then bombard them with the calories they will need to grow their brains to adult size. In addition, prepared food allowed humans to have mouths, tongues, and throats that are only minimally effective for food ingestation (we are the only animal that routinely chokes while trying to eat and drink) but maximally effective for speaking.

It's likely that certain of our small-brained ancestors who happened to be smarter than average figured out ways to cook food, which then provided the calories for their entire tribe to feed their brains and breed more, rather than the other way around. Probably you don't develop big brains and then use them to solve your problems. No, you try to solve problems and that helps you develop your brain further.

One thing I find interesting in all this is that it was probably the women who figured all this out. Cooking, food preparation and storage, and having and feeding babies is almost always women's work. Presumably the men were out hunting, and if you were smarter, you might be a better hunter. But just hunting more wouldn't allow your tribe to grow bigger brains. The extra meat might help your tribe live longer, but it was what the women did with the meat (and the vegetables and grains) that made the real difference. We see the same thing today. Societies that hold their women back, through laws, lack of education, bad medical care, etc, stunt the society's growth in every way. But societies that encourage women to use their brains to the utmost tend to flourish economically and environmentally, and often in peace.

Topic for the Week: Thoughts? Comments?
 

Those Were the Days
Mary Hopkins – 1968

Those were the days, my friend.
We thought they'd never end.
We'd sing and dance forever and a day.
We'd live the life we choose,
We'd fight and never lose,
For we were young and sure to have our way.

Anyone alive in the 60's remembers Mary Hopkins' plaintive ode to the past. With its haunting melody and easy-to-sing lyrics, it sounded like an oldie the instant it came out, and immediately became the number one drinking song around the world. I heard it the other day and can't get it out of my head. (Forgive me if I've now done the same to you.)

I took the song at face value in 1968: we'd all grow old and have to look back to past pleasures because we'd have none in our dottery present. And since I was then “young and sure to have my way,” it didn't bother me much.

Today I hear the words and wonder why we can't “sing and dance forever and a day”? What's stopping us? Do we believe we aren't allowed to? (Not manly, not seemly, not adult?) According to whom? Feel we have to do it perfectly or not at all? Hog wash. Can't move without a walker or even get out of the chair? Singing and dancing happen primarily in our minds anyway. Don't even like singing and dancing? Then why not do whatever it is you do like?

Most of us have to earn a living, do housework and other chores, and attend to spouses, children or pets. But why should this matter? First, we can sing and dance while doing most of that. In fact, we probably should. Second, even if singing and dancing are firmly forbidden in our workplaces and homes (because we live on Planet Dreary), those activities needn't take up our whole day. If we are truly willing to do them, there is time to do the things we love.

Topic for the Week: Do you sing and dance and do other things you love routinely in your day? If so, how does it make you feel?

If not, do you feel limited as to where and when you can do them? Why is that? Do you feel you must obey some outside rules or authority? Feel you'd fight and always lose? Or do you have a self-sensor you can't bypass? Maybe you have to have an appreciative audience to “perform for”? Is it just easier to put on the TV and watch someone else do it? Too much effort to sing and dance yourself these days?