Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday, if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.
The rules that I’ve made for myself for “One-Liner Wednesday” are as follows:
Miss Lou over at Miss Lou Acquiring Lore has done me the great honour of taking up the gauntlet in the “Just Jot It” series I began back in January, with Just Jot It July.
So this is me, just jotting about her month-long event for anyone who wishes to take part.
I think it’s pretty well known here on WordPress by anyone who has been around for at least one summer (like me) that July and August are the slowest months hereabouts. Posts drop off because of holidays, people go on hiatus… hiatuses… hiati… Heck they sometimes even to to Haiti! …where was I… Oh yes! Vacations! They also mean that there aren’t as many people read our posts, so our view counts tend to go down.
For these reasons, it’s great to have prompts to keep us going. And that’s what Just Jot It July is all about.
So go and check it out, jot down your own post, and join in the jotting fun!
As I waited in the Emergency Room with my elderly mother today, I listened to two strangers discussing the horrors of what they had heard routinely goes on in ERs across the country. And horrors they were.
One spoke of elderly patients dying in chairs and on gurneys whilst being ignored by overworked staff members; the other gave an account of a friend of a friend whose nine year old daughter died after not being properly treated. As the story went, two doctors of opposing opinions argued over the proper care of the child. One believed the girl had pneumonia and wanted her on antibiotics but the other decided it was a mere cold. The latter of the two was also on the latter of two shifts and won out. The nine year old lasted two days before flesh-eating disease got her. The parents are still waiting for the lawsuit to be tied up a year later.
In all of these cases, the tragedy which resulted might have been avoided with the presence of a competent patient advocate. After a cursory search in my own area of the world, which is Ontario, Canada, I discovered that finding an outside advocate isn’t easy. (I did only a quick search because had I been looking for an advocate in the case of an emergency, it’s logical that that’s all I’d have time for.) I found that it’s possible to get one to accompany a patient to appointments, etc., but the advocate must be interviewed in advance and paid for – highly inadequate in the case of having to go to the hospital in an emergency, and inaccessible for someone with no money. In any case, most of us rely on family and friends to advocate for us, as was the case with the little girl.
I have no way of knowing what the parents’ knowledge of medicine was, nor what their levels of intelligence are, but I do know, as a parent, that most mothers know what their children are like when they’re healthy and how they act when they’re sick. Was the mother in tune with her daughter but unable to express her concerns to the doctor? Did the doctor simply choose not to listen? Again, I don’t know. What I do know is that it’s important for us to have at least a little understanding of what our loved ones are facing before we take the trip to the hospital in the first place. If that means going on the internet to search for the symptoms, so be it. At least we’ll know what questions to ask when faced with a busy doctor, and what to insist on as far as tests go.
I can’t help but think that these horrific events could have been prevented with the right amount of basic knowledge, advocacy, and attention to detail.
It’s scary to think that doctors don’t know what they’re doing. It’s frightening to know that our hospitals lack the funds to provide quality of care. But what is just as alarming is the fact that there’s no one to stick up for us, the patients, when we can’t or won’t stick up for ourselves.
On Traces Of The Soul, Oliana wrote: This week the topic will be about negativity and how you react to pessimism. Perhaps you are thinking how you recently managed to get away from the throngs of a negative person in your life, i.e. relationship, friendship, family, work…OR, how you succeeded in turning your own self-destructive side…that inner critic to someone more positive and accepting.
Write a poem, story (real or fiction) about this topic…negative thinking and how it can impact on your life.
The prompt got me thinking about negative people and how I grew up, and most importantly what I’ve learned in the intervening years. First, a little background:
I was a quiet child with no siblings and few friends. My world consisted of my parents and the couple that were their best friends. When I wasn’t quiet – when I got into trouble – my parents spanked me. It was the ‘thing to do’ back then. When I yelled, they yelled back. The point was, they always reacted. Unless I was being good. Then they left me alone.
Fast forward to when I had children of my own. I believed in my parent’s method of raising a child, though not with the hitting part. I admit, I had my moments, but most of the time I refrained from smacking if not from the yelling. There was plenty of yelling – I, like my parents, reacted in kind to my children’s tantrums.
Then, about three years ago I learned something that would change not only my life, but those of my children and the people around me: Applied Behavioural Analysis, or ABA. ABA is widely used to help with negative behaviours in Autistic individuals. But it didn’t take me long to figure out that it can be applied to anyone – even myself.
One of the most important lessons I learned was that everything we do and say when communicating for attention can be considered a ‘behaviour.’ For instance, we smile and say hello to a stranger which is a positive behaviour. The attention we receive back is our reward – it is a reward because we elicited our behaviour for the purpose of getting attention. In the case of my children, I found that when I rewarded their good behaviour with attention and ignored the bad, they quickly came to the realization that if they wanted my attention (or for me to react to them in any way at all) they had to be calm. Yelling and screaming to get a reaction out of me became a thing of the past – and it changed my reaction also. No longer was I screaming at them, because they began to come to me with a reasonable tone of voice in the first place.
As I said, this doesn’t only apply to childish behaviour (though many adults display it on a regular basis). Take internet trolls for instance. They display negative behaviour for what? A reward. Their reward is whatever attention we give them. The whiners of the world? I’ll try once to put a positive light on a comment such as, ‘when will this rain end?’ by saying something like, ‘the grass needs it.’ But when they keep on complaining, I change the subject to something more positive, or walk away. Many of us do this without really thinking about it. But it’s different when you’re talking to someone in a casual setting rather than someone you’re with day in and day out. Politeness goes by the wayside after a while, and you either react to it or give in to it and become, basically, the same negative person you’re with.
I’ve always been a ‘cup half full’ sort of person. There have been times in my life when I’ve lost sight of that, I’ll admit. But learning not to react at all to unnecessary negative behaviour (which is not to say that I don’t empathize with people who are genuinely struggling) has made me a more patient, calm and positive person.
Be patient. Good things come to those who wait. ~ Fortune cookie.
Really? How long do I have to wait?
I wonder about this saying. Is it really enough to wait for something good to happen? Surely something good will happen eventually.
I have to disagree. If I want something good to happen I need to take action to make sure it happens. If I want to finish my novel, it’s not enough just to wait. If I want a job one day, I’m not going to sit around and wait for one to drop into my lap. So where does this fortune cookie get off telling me to wait?
I suppose there are some things we simply have to wait for, however. Love, for instance. It seems the more I’ve looked for it in my life, the more elusive it is. Giving up looking for it, in my experience, has been the only way it’s found me.
Give it up, get it all. Have you heard that one? Maybe I made it up, because I can’t seem to find it anywhere on Google. It makes a lot of sense to me though. When I give up striving for one thing, other things present themselves as opportunities to get what I wanted in the first place. Tunnel vision doesn’t do anyone any good.
I still doubt patience has anything to do with it. Thoughts? Have you ever given up on something and then got it anyway?
At the ripe old age of 50, I’m seriously considering starting a career. At the moment I have no income whatsoever, apart from the $15 I bring in every week (I know, put your jaw back in place) from my paper route. The government supports my kids because of their disabilities and we all live off that. If I’m ever unable to physically care for them anymore, or if they by some miracle are able to look after themselves, I’ll have nothing. Even now, I’m living beyond my means.
So I’ve been looking into University level courses to get an Editing Certificate. I’ve enjoyed the proofreading/beta reading I’ve done so far, and it’s something I could do from home, on a freelance basis. There are no Universities in the area that offer the course, however, so I’d have to do it online. Even if there was a course available close by, I’d have a hard time getting there with the limited time I have free due to looking after the kids. Add to that the fact that I can’t always be reliable given a certain day and time, and the concept of going to University is pretty much a flushable one.
Originally I was looking into the idea of taking a copy editing course, or even some more creative writing courses. I recognize though that it’s not recommended that one does one’s own final edit. And so no matter how good I am at writing, or how much I think my writing is perfect, I know it won’t be. If, on the other hand, I learn to edit other people’s work and get some money coming in from that, I’ll be able to afford to pay an editor to edit mine. It’s kind of like the old adage, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for one night, but teach a man to fish and he’ll eat his entire life” … except this fisherwoman will still be asking other people to fish for her. And THEN, maybe I’ll be able to do something about the little red line that goes under “fisherwoman” but not “fisherman.” First the Certificate, next, the world! Or at least the world of spell check.
Anyway, that’s what’s been going through my little brain of late. I’ve always wanted to go to University. About time I did, if I’m going to. Never too late to start, right? I don’t want to be sitting around in two years thinking to myself, “If only I’d started two years ago, I’d be finished now,” after all.
Is there anything you’ve wanted to start and thought it was too late? Has this made you want to get off your butt and do it?
My best friend John was talking to me today about a man he works with named Mike. Last night Mike didn’t show up for work; apparently he just found out he has cancer.
Mike is 32 years old, just got married, his wife just had a baby and they just bought a house. The cancer spread from his testicles and is now in his stomach. Nine weeks of chemo await him.
Yesterday, I took a picture of a tree.
I feel lucky to have what I believe is a bunch of open-minded people following my blog. So I ask you, please try to see the connection.
In life, there is so much beauty. While I’m sure Mike is worried as hell for himself and his new family, and it might be impossible at the moment for him to see what he has gained in light of what he has potentially lost, this is what I would advise him, if I knew him: focus on the beauty in every single day.
It’s so much easier for we who are not suffering to see the positive in things. The very last thing I mean to do is be glib. But each and every one of us is dying. Every thing that lives, will die. This is what connects us.
Please, send some positive thoughts out for Mike, and for all who suffer. And don’t forget to look for beauty, everywhere you go.
Diversity is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Well, not always.
If you’re at all sociable: whether you go out of the house, or stay in and spend your days on the internet, you’re bound to meet someone who gets on your nerves. I remember when my ex and I started dating. Everything was flowers and wine and laughter… and then I found out he was a morning person. I, on the other hand, am not one for more than a grunt if you’re lucky before my first coffee, so the singing coming from the direction of the shower was enough to set my teeth on edge.
While that wasn’t actually painful, I do now at times feel physical discomfort when I come across someone whose nature is completely different to mine. Take, for instance, people who live in a constant state of drama. I have enough real life problems to even consider worrying about who has pissed off whom and how they’re going to badmouth them until everyone else hates them. And it happens everywhere! Social media, high schools, offices and even old-age homes.
What I don’t understand is, why do people do this to themselves? Why can’t people just live and let live? So what if so-and-so is pissing you off? Ignore them. Don’t let them pull you into their world of misery. I certainly didn’t let my ex get the best of me with his early morning glee, and since he was still serenading the shower head when we broke up, I sure didn’t do anything to stifle him. Then again, maybe by that time he was doing it just to get on my nerves.
I know I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again: life is too short. I think if we can all accept that not everyone is the same as us, that we all have our quirks, our opinions, and our preferences in life, we could all be so much happier.
Stop trying to change people. Embrace their differences. Just not necessarily in the shower.
You know that feeling you get when you’re reading a book that’s so good–you’re enjoying the world and love the characters so much–that you don’t want it to end? You approach the last few chapters and you’re divided – do you hurry up and read it because it’s so exciting? Or do you savour it slowly like a fine glass of Chardonnay? It’s a dilemma I think we all deal with at least once or, if we’re lucky, many times.
I’m currently reading a book like that. The book is catskinner’s book by Misha Burnett. If you’re not already following his blog and/or haven’t started reading his novels, you should. You can find them here: http://www.amazon.com/Misha-Burnett/e/B008MQ8W4K I’ll be writing a review as soon as I’m finished.
But this is only half the reason for this post.
When I finished writing my novel, The Great Dagmaru, I was miserable. Like that feeling when I’ve finished reading a novel I enjoyed, times ten. It was like my children had left home and didn’t need me anymore. I walked around with a dark cloud over my head for a week. It was so dark, in fact, I think I heard thunder. I wonder if this is part of the reason it’s taking me so long to edit it… I don’t want it to end.
So in my own insane way of undertaking more than I can really handle, I’m seriously entertaining the notion of beginning the sequel. I was going to write one anyway; I wasn’t going to start it until NaNoWriMo in November. In some convoluted way, maybe adding more to my workload will increase my productivity.
I need a way to get past this psychological block, however I do it.
Do you have a book you never wanted to put down? Recommend it in the comments. And don’t forget to check out Misha’s blog and his novels!
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