Month February 2019

To Agree or Not To Agree: What’s Your Position?

Elle Reverie Leave a comment

Quick! Everyone pick a side.

What?

Isn’t this how the world works now?

If you’re tired of being attacked for having an opposing view from family, friends, co-workers or random strangers online raise your hand. If you’ve unfriended, blocked or reported someone in any of the categories above, raise your hand again.

This reactionary, isolationist, gather-the-troops ideology seems to have increased over the past few years and while there may be MANY blame points people can point to for causation I’d like to focus on the initial “relationship” if I may.

Who are these people/groups that have fallen out of favor with you and why? If it’s merely an online group or someone you befriended via social media without the benefit of meeting face to face lower your hand. You have the right to disengage from virtual contacts anytime you like and for no expressed reason. Cool? Good.

Now, let’s talk about the people you have axed, banned, banished or otherwise forbidden to speak to you, either in real-time or virtually. Did you like them at one time in your life? Do you have a DNA or emotional connection to them? Did they make you laugh once? Did you talk about things you have in common and express joy over having them in your life? If the answer is YES…walk back 2 steps and ask yourself what is different now.

Did they not vote for your candidate? Did they express views that personally hurt your heart? Did they post sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic memes, articles or personal opinions online or espouse these sentiments verbally to you? If so, on the last sentiment, did you voice your thoughts on this either online or in person? How did that work out?

I know in my own case it “worked” out to where I no longer speak to my brothers, sister, nieces, nephews, parents and a few former high school friends. Some, because of rigid views posted online and a sadistic need to try to argue every point with me and others because of personal pain long ignored. Do I regret how things imploded? Yes. Could I have avoided all of it? Probably not because I have no control over the actions, ill-advised or not, of others.

Deleted phone numbers, returned mail, rejected friend requests, reported posts and profiles are all part of how we, as a society, relate to one another now. Tweet it, post it, meme it up every time someone insults, disagrees with or ignores us. YOU WILL HEAR MY POINT OF VIEW!!! I WILL ASSERT MY DOMINANCE BY PISSING ALL OVER YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA BECAUSE I AM RIGHT!!!

Nah, you’re just coming off as kinda nuts…

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/24/unfriend-unfollow-political-views-digital-dilemmas

Of course, these same people would never say the same things they post online to your face and most likely you also would not confront them in person but, fuming about it for days, weeks, months and years is somehow acceptable. Amazing huh?

Why is this a thing now? Why?

I recall a time when I liked people I met just because they took the time to talk to me. I liked them because they laughed at some of the same things I did, liked some of the same movies, books, food and we didn’t have time to compare politics, religion or socio-economic status. The only labels that mattered were FRIEND and FAMILY. I didn’t spend time worrying about those different from me because they were off living their own lives, laughing with their own friends and family like me and it was…OKAY!

Yes, I get that not everyone, different from me, had it all good at any particular point in history and I am not trying to be nostalgically “privileged.” I’m talking more generally here about what I knew because I cannot speak for anyone else. Spouting opinions just to create outrage was not something I considered nor something I actively sought to engage in.

Oh, how times have changed!

YOU are wrong! How could you believe that way? Why are you so ignorant, deluded, naive or any other assumption used to express displeasure with the knowledge that not everyone believes EXACTLY the way you do? Sounds ridiculous written out, doesn’t it?

It IS ridiculous. No one person is just like another person and to demand such is the grand height of arrogance. Get off your high horse, the poor thing needs a break! I don’t know how to fix this horrendous tear in the social fabric but I will try to change how I react to things I see posted online that I consider to be stupid, shortsighted, uneducated and reactionary. I will pause before I hit HIDE, BLOCK, REPORT.

This doesn’t mean that I’m suddenly going to be cool with racists, sexists, abusers, homophobes, xenophobes or other deliberate dividers. Odds are I will still boot you motherfuckers but as for everyone else? I will focus on the things I like/liked about you and will refuse to engage in purposeful fuckery designed to break my composer.

That’s a promise. Cross my heart. Please consider doing the same because the world needs a reset.

© 2019 L.A. Askew

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to “In the Land of Reverie” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Surviving in the land of learned helplessness

Elle Reverie Leave a comment

Have you have ever heard someone incredulously wonder, out loud or under their breath, “how have you survived on your own as long as you have?” Be honest. You have either thought it, said it or possibly had someone utter words similar about you even.

It’s easy to believe that this is a generational thing, only the young these days are helpless but, I have run into just as many individuals my age or older that can’t chew gum and walk at the same time.

Oh, they try to say their lack of progress in life is the fault of this person or that circumstance but I know it’s really because they like the attention they get, good or bad and/or they just don’t want to try harder. Some blame their parents, their boss, their teachers but once you hit a certain age that blame turns stale when nothing has been done to change the equation.

Why try when enablers abound and “help” can be extracted from even the most unwilling helpers simply because it’s easier to just fix other people’s screw-ups than to teach them how to be more detail oriented and self-sufficient. Even the best teachers can’t reach the willful woe-is-me crowd.

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-learned-helplessness-2795326

We live in times where adult children still live at home with their parents (nothing wrong with this IF they help out and pay rent). Or, they live on their own but still can’t function in the adult world without constant supervision and intervention. How has this happened? Is it because we want to just give up and blame depression, anxiety, lack of opportunity or personal resources?

The world is just against me!

No, it isn’t. It is YOU working against yourself, not the world. Also, please! You aren’t THAT special!

https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/learned-helplessness-seligman-theory-depression-cure/

Life is frustrating for sure. I experienced the disappointment, embarrassment, and fear when I was younger and literally didn’t have a pot to piss in. Hear this…you aren’ t the only one that has had this happen to them. You aren’t the first nor the last and in each case, the sun still set and came up again the next day.

Reset. Restart. Resolve to do better than you did the day before because if what you have been doing thus far isn’t helping do something different.

http://www.oprah.com/spirit/how-to-overcome-your-feelings-of-hopelessness/all

You are not a robot. You are not programmed to only function a certain way. And, no one can do this for you. Enablers aren’t helpers, they are hurting and expecting people to clean up all of your messes is inconsiderate, lazy and self-limiting.

So, here’s the point: Choosing to be helpless when you are fully capable of doing all the same things every other responsible, overworked, stressed, depressed, anxious person in the world has completed for eons is on you. Own it and choose to do better.

The world owes you nothing but dammit, YOU owe yourself the opportunity to see how good it feels to be reliant on no one but yourself for success and happiness.

Go get yours!

© 2019 L.A. Askew

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to “In the Land of Reverie” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Say hello to a new day!

Elle Reverie Leave a comment

Let’s forgo the “new year, new me” bullshit shall we? Granted, it IS a new year but odds are the same old you is dragging ass into 2019 just like in 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and so on. How about we acknowledge that people don’t change overnight, it takes hard work and with each new day the potential to screw up yet again exists.

Work on avoiding screw-ups on a day to day basis.

Dear Diary,

Today, I didn’t fuck anything up. I got up, I smiled at myself in the mirror, I attended to my responsibilities and even had time left over for fun! It was a good day. Here’s to hoping tomorrow is even better. But, if it isn’t and it’s only the same…that’s still a win. I’m alive.

Being grateful to continue breathing air and being allowed to walk amongst all the other world’s inhabitants is so simple, yet many overlook this as they plod about doing the things they think are important. Are those things truly important or are they just busy work done with the express purpose of distracting ourselves from what a life well lived is really all about?

How well do you live? Are you grateful for the supportive people around you? Do you tell them how much they mean to you and how much joy they create? Appreciation only pondered within the mind yet left unspoken is wasted energy and entirely unfair to the person that may need to hear those words.

WORDS…to think but not say…why even bother? To me, if energy is exerted in order to formulate thoughts that then flow into meaningful poetic emotion why, why, why let that creation park in your brain only? Take it for a ride. Drive those words to the intended recipient’s house, pull up in grand style and honk that horn of exaltation and admiration because it might be so vitally needed! You have no way of knowing otherwise so why chance it?

Life is a matter of choices. Some good, some bad and some left to rot in the closet never to be attempted, for fear of being what? Embarrassed? Rejected? WHAT? And, does it really matter if you are embarrassed or rejected? Next! Last I checked no one has ever died of embarrassment but they have died of neglect, depression spurred suicide and even a broken heart.

Yes, you can die of a broken heart! Look it up. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-08/heartbreak-syndrome-and-takotsubo-are-real-for-heart-disease/9523662

And so, here we are, a different year has begun and an opportunity to decide if we want to continue dragging around all the same baggage from previous years. The burden is getting heavy, isn’t it? Can you at least ask yourself if letting go of maybe a quarter of that might feel good? How about half now? Work your way up.

We have time…as long as you acknowledge each new day is an opportunity to change and actually take some small steps. Baby steps count too. You didn’t get in the dark well of despair you are currently in overnight so don’t worry about sprinting out of the blocks each new day.

Now wave at the sky, say hello to the sun, say thank you to the moon even, anything that remotely sounds like gratitude will help the cause. YOU are the cause. Get it? Charity starts at home. Be kind to yourself.

Peace, love, and understanding,

Reverie