To those of us born 1946-1960

No matter what our kids and the new generation think about us,

 WE ARE AWESOME !!!

OUR Lives are LIVING PROOF !!!

To Those of   Us  Born

1946 - 1960 :

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE

'40s, '50s, '60s !!

 

First, we survived being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drank
While they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then, after that trauma, we were

 

Put to sleep on our tummies
In baby cribs covered
With bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets,

And, when we rode our bikes,
We had baseball caps,
Not helmets, or no caps at all on our heads.

As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.

Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

 

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

 

We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter, and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And we weren't overweight.

WHY?

 Because we were always outside playing...that's why!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day.
--And, we were OKAY.

We would spend hours building
Our go-carts out of scraps
And then ride them down the hill,

Only to find out we forgot the brakes.. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem..

We did not have Play Stations, Nintendos and X-boxes. There were

• No video games, no 150 channels on cable,
• No video movies or DVDs,
• No surround-sound or CDs,
• No cell phones,
• No personal computers,
• No Internet and no chat rooms.

WE HAD FRIENDS

And we went outside and found  them!

 

We fell out of trees, got cut,
Broke bones and teeth,
And there were no lawsuits
From those accidents.

 

 We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping-pong paddles, or just a bare hand, and no one would call child services to report abuse.

We ate worms, and mud pies
Made from dirt, and
The worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and
although we were told it would happen- we did not put out very many eyes.

 

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Team Sports had tryouts
And not everyone made the team.

Those who didn't had to learn
To deal with disappointment.

Imagine that!!

 

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

Our generations has produced some of the best   risk-takers, Problem solvers, and inventors ever.

The past 50 to years have seen an explosion of innovation and new ideas..We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.  if YOU are one of those born

  

Between 1946-1960, CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives  for our own good.

While you are at it, forward it to your kids, so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it ?

more right and left brain ideas

The terms "left brain" and "right brain" refer to the left and right hemispheres of your brain. They each tend to process things differently, as explained in the following two paragraphs. However, the following are generalizations. They hold true for over 90% of right-handed people, and only 70% of left-handed people. In the cases where they aren't true, the division of labor and processing styles is usually still there, but reversed, with the right side handling the things that most people's left side handles, and vice-versa.

The left brain processes thing more sequentially and systematically than the right. It is more rational, or at least more logical, analytical and objective. It tends to look at the parts more than the whole. Finally, it was learned early on in studies of the hemisphere that the left side handles speech for most of us.

The right brain is the "artists" brain. It handles thing in more random and subjective manor. It is generally responsible for "hunches" and other intuitive processes. It looks more at wholes, and is best at pattern-recognition, making it the "map reading" part of the brain.

How distinct are the two halves of your brain? Consider the amazing experiments involving people who have had the corpus callosum cut. This surgery is performed on epileptics to reduce the incidence of seizures. It isolates most of the right hemisphere from the left hemisphere.

In a typical experiment, a divider lets a subject see two objects - say, a cup with the right eye and a lemon with the left. Asked what they see, they'll say "a cup," because their left brain process both language and information from the right eye. When asked to write down what they see, however, using their left hand, they'll write "a lemon," because both their left hand and eye are controlled by the right side of the brain.

The two hemispheres normally work more closely together. These split-brain experiments show how distinct the two sides really are, though. Many people think that there is some benefit to getting the two sides working better together, as they each have their strengths. Some claim that meditation accomplishes this, and there is some evidence at least for the balancing of electrical activity between the two sides during a meditative state. Alternately, you could develop whichever hemisphere seems weakest in you.

Left Brain Right Brain Dominance

You will usually favor one style or another of thinking, and this may be an indication of the dominance of either your right brain or left brain. It seems likely, for example, that the choice between joining the debating team or the art class in school would have something to do with which side is dominant. You may have noticed that left-handed people, who presumably have a more developed right hemisphere, are more often artists.

What if your left brain is dominant, and you want to work on developing your right brain? You could try singing, a right-side activity. By the way, those who stutter often don't stutter singing, because singing is handled differently than regular speech (right brain versus left brain). Writing or, even better, reciting free-form poetry and studying maps may help as well. These are not proven to be beneficial to "right brain development" by scientific studies yet, but there is no danger in experimenting in these areas.

To stimulate and strengthen the thinking processes of your "left brain," talk about things as logically as you can. Picking apart an argument or something you read, and analyzing it can exercise this part of the brain too. Again, there is little hard evidence as to the effects of these specific exercises, but talking or working on your analytical skills are safe things to do, so experiment freely. Writing this article is almost certainly a left brain activity, by the way.

To be more "whole brained" in your approach to things, work on your weakest areas, using some of the tips above. Try to also bring both sides into whatever you do. Metaphors, for example, are a right-hemisphere process, but can be used in logical (left-hemisphere) debate. Your artistic work could include more analysis. Can these practices really help balance your thinking? Time and more research will let us know, but it seems likely, and it seems equally unlikely that more fully using your right brain and left brain will hurt you.

A Story About Love, Wealth and Success

A woman living in downtown Ontario, Canada came out of her house and saw 3 old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard.

She did not recognize them.

She said "I don't think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat."

"Is the man of the house home?" they asked.

"No", she replied. "He's out."

"Then we cannot come in", they replied.

In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened.

"Go tell them I am home and invite them in!"

The woman went out and invited the men in.

"We do not go into a house together," they replied.

"Why is that?" she asked.

One of the old men explained: "His name is Wealth," he said pointing to one of his friends, and said pointing to another one, "He is Success, and I am Love."

Then he added, "Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home."

The woman went in and told her husband what was said.

Her husband was overjoyed. "How nice!!" he said. "Since that's the case, let's invite Wealth. Let him come and fill our home with wealth!"

His wife disagreed. "My dear, why don't we invite Success?"

Their daughter was listening from the other corner of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion: "Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!"

"Let us heed our daughter's advice," said the husband to his wife.

"Go out and invite Love to be our guest."

The woman went out and asked the 3 old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest."

Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other 2 also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, why are you coming in?"

The old men replied together: "If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would've stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever he goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!"

Don't forget to smile

I like to think that I have learned a lot of things from living my life. It seems my years have been filled with a whole lot of good things with a few really hard things in between. I have had the privilege of knowing a lot of really great people and I've enjoyed countless memories with each of them. I have been happily married for quite a few years and I've been blessed with two wonderful children. I feel pretty good today, but not every day seems to go this well. Some days life is hard, the people I love the most are annoying, and it is on those days that I remember the advice that my mother often gave me growing up. When I was having a bad day she would say, "Don't forget to smile. Nothing is as bad as it seems.'


I've found that piece of advice helpful on countless occasions as I've grown. The older I've gotten the more I've learned to face every day in life with a smile. Good days and bad days alike I try to face knowing that for the most part, life tends to work itself out and return to normal after a little while.

Think about your life. Do you have reason to smile today? Can you find positive things to focus on regardless of the hard things that might be happening? I hope so. I truly hope that you are able to learn that whatever happens in life, living with a smile is a great thing.

Grief and loss

Have you ever lost someone close to you to death? We go through a grief process that was best described by Elizabeth Kublar-Ross in On Death and Dying. In it she talks about the five stages that people go through---denial and isolation; anger; bargaining; depression and finally acceptance. The dying, as well as those who love them, go through these stages although rarely at the same time and these stages are not predictable.

You may think you are in the anger phase, then jump to depression and then, back to denial again. There is no rhyme or reason---only what feels right for each individual at the time. No one can predict how long a phase will last. If you are grieving and some well-meaning person suggests that you shouldn’t be feeling what you are feeling, kindly thank them for their concern but know that you are exactly where you need to be.

However, with grief, sometimes you will become aware of something not feeling right. You may think, “I should be over this by now” or “I don’t like feeling this way.” When you, yourself, recognize that it is time to move beyond where you are at, then trust that feeling as well.

I’d like to talk about grief from a Choice Theory perspective. I need to start with the Choice Theory expression that all behavior is purposeful since grief is really just a behavior in choice theory terms. Choice theory tells us that everything we do at any point in time is our best attempt to get something we want---some picture we have in our Quality World that will meet one or more of our needs in some way. Grief is no exception.

Once you understand that all behavior is purposeful and that grief is a person’s best attempt to get something they want, then it becomes easier to know what to do about it. What could we possibly be trying to get by grieving? Most people would say that there isn’t a choice. When someone we love dies, we have to grieve. I say it is natural that we will miss the person’s presence in our life but it isn’t inevitable that we have to grieve, not in the way most people think of grieving.

The first thing I believe that we are trying to get with our grief is the person who died. When we grieve, it is our best attempt to keep that person alive, at least in our perceived world. We know they no longer exist in the physical world as we know it. However, if we continue to think about them, pine for them, grieve their presence, then it keeps the thought of that person active in our perception and it feels better to us than the total void or absence of the other person.

Another possible advantage of grief is that it shows others just how much we cared for and loved the person who died. I’m not suggesting that people are being manipulative in their grief. What I am saying is that there is a side benefit to grief in that it shows others how much we cared. It also says, “See what a good ___________ I was.” Fill in the blank with husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, mother, father, sister, brother, etc.

Grief is also instrumental in getting us the support we need from others during our time of bereavement. People do things for us that we would normally be expected to do ourselves. Again, please don’t think that I am suggesting that a grieving person wakes up and “decides” to grieve so someone will stop by the house with a meal. None of this is conscious but I’m merely pointing out the potential advantages of grief.

Once we become totally conscious and aware of what our grief does and doesn’t do for us, then comes the hard part. We need to make some decisions about how we want to live.

There are always at least three options in every situation and they can be framed up in terms of---leave it, change it or accept it. With death, you may wonder how someone is going to “leave it.” Well, some possible ways would be major denial of the loss, suicide, drugs and/or alcohol abuse, or sinking deep into mental illness, among others.

When we get caught up in changing things, we may continue in our grief as our best attempt to get the person back. That might look like constant trips to the cemetery, frequent conversations with the deceased, refusing to believe he or she is truly gone, constantly talking about the one who’s gone. There are many things we can do to attempt to change the reality of the loss.

If and when we come to accept it, we can experience some measure of peace and rejoin the living. A healthy step in this process is finding a way to somehow maintain that person’s presence in our lives. Now, this is a very individual thing and you must be very careful not to judge the choices of the bereaved.

Most people saw Meet the Parents. In it, Robert DiNero’s character kept the ashes of his mother in an urn on his mantle. Many people do this with the cremated remains of their loved ones. Others place some ashes in a necklace and wear it around their neck. Some will set up scholarship or memorials.

There are all kinds of creative ways to maintain the person’s presence. There is no wrong way. Whatever brings comfort to the bereaved should be supported by those around them. Remember that just because a person is choosing something that may be distasteful or wrong to you, doesn’t make it wrong for that person.

When acceptance occurs, then the grieving person can begin to reassimilate back into their life and the lives of those around them but it won’t happen overnight. We need patience and loving understanding for those coming back from grief.

Another possible choice is the person who doesn’t appear to grieve at all. There may be many explanations for this behavior. The person may be very private and won’t do his or her grieving where others can see. Another possibility is that the person is trying to be strong for everyone else. 

If you are grieving, or you are involved in the life of someone who is grieving, please don’t judge yourself or them. Understand that all behavior is purposeful and the person is getting something out of what they are doing. When they become conscious that there is a choice, then they can make a conscious decision about which of the three choices they want to make. Once they know the direction they want to go in, they have to flesh out the details of their plan.

Change your thinking Change your life

The following is a quote from Frank Palmer, DDB Canada
When you change your thinking, you change your beliefs
When you change you beliefs, you change your expectations
When you change your expectations you change your attitude
When you change your attitude you change your behaviour
When you change your behaviour, you change your performance
When you change your performance, you change your life.

Your attitude is the only difference between success and failure

On the face of it the above makes some sense, as it puts responsibility for success or failure on the individual. Unfortunately life is not that simple. Success is not only a matter of attitude, it is a combination of luck, circumstance and influence. So even with the right attitude success may be elusive. What is not elusive is your personal understanding of success or failure. If you have believe in yourself and are committed to the positives in life, then you will define success and failure in your own terms.

I agree with Palmer, start by changing your thinking; do you have the perspective of life as the glass is half full or do you have the perspective of life as the glass is half empty? Once you change your thinking then you start to change your beliefs, but the beliefs we have of the world, have been successful for us to this point in our lives for most of us. I think as we struggle to change our beliefs we should set aside expectations. If we expect something and it happens or it doesn't happen we feel happy or sad (depending on what we want to happen) because of that external happening. If we have no expectations then we can focus on ourselves, what we need and the hard work of changing what we believe about the world. Once we change our beliefs then we can start to change our attitudes toward the world. However, changing attitudes does not automatically mean we will change our behaviours. Many of our behaviours are habits learned over many years and we those of  you who have tried to kick a bad habit know how hard it is to change your habits, the same energy has to be applied to changing behaviours.