Going through emails and found another timely one from dad. This was originally written February 28, 2008.
_______________________________
The lunch spot I went to was about 2 miles south of Rockport. You’re right, neat town. Mag, how much was the triatholon fees? I’ll pay them.
Maggie I think I understand what you meant about having the joy transition from a smile to a laugh to tears. I have done that many many times. It’s taken me a while to accept a few truths. Life is peculiar. It is what it is. The sunset doesn’t change if you’re 25 and in love, or if you’re 80 and dying of cancer. The sunset remains the same. It’s only the brain that resides inside the head of the human that either chooses to look at the sunset or keeps the windows covered. The trick is to accept the part of our life that is perhaps not what we would sign up for, but not that bad that it’s worth radical change to fix. ie, quitting jobs, divorcing, moving to someplace else, just for the sake of change. Here’s also something I’ve learned. BATTING AVERAGES. The whole concept of batting averages is that no one gets a hit every time they are confronted with the challenge. So somedays, I don’t choose to see the sunset, I’ll pull the shades down and choose to mope. That’s ok, to feel kinds slunky and sorry for your self, EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE. the challenge like a good hitter is to constantly improve the times you indeed choose to see the sunsets. Here’s a real world example. I’m sure you can remember a life’s event where you were really really mad. my best example is my spilling beer on our brand spanking new carpet in our old house on 89th st. Dang mag, the carpet wasn’t even 10 hours old, AND I had run out of real beer and theonly beer I had to toast the carpet was an old Guinness Stout that was like syrup down in the old refrigerator in the basement. When I spilled the beer, it left a huge orange permanent spot on the carpet. Boy was i pissed. OK, life’s lesson. Now I laugh wheh I tell the story, I find the humor in it. the trick is to realize you’re going to eventually come to your senses and see the stupid unimportance I had afixed to the event, to a point wher ei now even laugh at it, Well, why waste all that joy by feeling bad, when it happens. This is not to say you laugh at car wrecks or somebodies health problems, but trying to put importance on things that are indeed really important. I went to a touchie feelie two whole week conference when I was in Quality of Worklife stuff at AC. AThe entire point of the two weeks was accepting the fact, most of the stuff in life, we choose to feel adn believe. It’s not foisted on us. That’s pretty hard to accept. money problems, I didn’t make smart financial decisions, relationship problems, I didn’t pick the righ tperson to be friends with or I didnt’ choose to try and understnad them. Health is a great one, Oh, I’m big boned! yeah right, well put down the 4th cheeseburger and see how the big bones dry up. Choosing joy is the number one virtue a person can have, while living the world as it is. It takes work, but when I ‘m successful, (my batting average is currently 348) it feels great.
gotta run, I’m supposed to help hal with loading hay in 10 minutes and i”m typing to my beautiful daughter. Good choice, see how it works! dad
