I would like to begin by thanking you all for the very warm welcome back. You caught me a bit off guard; I had been so focused on what I had to do that failed to consider external reactions along the way.
I’d also like to thank you for your impressions, ideas, needs and hopes. In one way or another I will attempt to give each person who commented some form of answer in the blogs in whatever form they ultimately take. What I really appreciated was that you all described your perspectives quite well and your requests were very interesting.
Are you curious as to what people lined up on?
I was floating the idea of the assignments because those had been extremely popular in the past, but I was also aware of one thing: the world has changed a huge amount in a short period of time. Everyone today feels overloaded.
Work is filled with constant upgrade courses, getting customer service on anything takes forever, everyone’s stressed polarized and more inclined to be rude, and the gig economy has people working all hours for too little insecure income, and life in general is seen as simply far too busy.
Phones are now largely seen as quite unpleasant things by anyone with a serious and responsible full time job. It’s more like a leash, or a cattle prod. Or a procrastination drug. So who wants some assignments on top of all of that? A few people, but most would like something more open. And more positive.
Negativity and argument were big themes. People are exhausted through simple exposure to such rampant negativity. The reading of the blog itself can act as relief to a small degree, but people were looking for non-assignment-based ideas about how they can practically impact their lives to generate a more positive –and dare I say– fun environment. I can relate to that desire, so that definitely helps the writing.
So it appears that rather than a plotted plan like an assignment structure, we will end up with something more free-flowing and open to evolution, but it’s thrust will be positivity and practicality. That works perfectly, because this is not only my blog, it’s also me working out parts of an upcoming book and those are the themes. The reason we likely lined up on what we feel pulled toward is that many of us are all experiencing the same sensations.
No matter what ‘sides’ they are on, people are tired of watching society render itself into individual pieces. Rather than just wallowing in negativity most of us want something more active and positive to rally ourselves and others around. We all want direction on how to make an effective, long term positive difference in our lives lives and the lives around us. That’s it in a nutshell.
So now that we know what it’s about, I want to discuss its frequency. I really have no idea how easy it could ultimately be on each weekday as before, but even under current conditions that might be doable if the pieces are a bit shorter. It depends on a lot of unrelated things. At the same time, I may find I only have time for one piece a week on a general theme and one on caregiving and what can be learned about ourselves from that. Even non-caregivers can learn about life from the latter.
We’ll have to wait and see what we end up with, but I enjoy bringing value to your lives so I’ll do the best I can.
Finally, if you’re a man reading this, I think it’s worthwhile noting that a very large percentage of the communication I had on the issue of how to focus the blog, surrounded the problem of very negative husbands who made home-life a constant angry discourse on what is wrong with the world.
We all feel that way sometimes so I’m sure the spouses can relate. But when almost every woman writes with the same issue, regardless of what part of the world they live in, then we as guys simply have to accept that it’s possible that the ways our brains are naturally wired is not leading us to meet today’s world in a healthy manner and we need to get conscious and change course or we’ll start having more concrete reasons to feel like things are going wrong.
This applies to virtually any of us who’ve been overly negative –which is likely all of us. I know I’ve had my own little flurries on days where I’ve had to figure out the sort of stuff no one wants to ever have to figure out, especially for people you love. So the world also needs tolerance for when people are in pain and lash out, but at the same time we all want 2019 to be a more positive year.
How about we end this blog with a simple reminder that by watching for positive things we tend to find them, and that if we truly love the people we’re around, we shouldn’t be trying to get what we want, we should be trying to build a positive environment for ourselves and others. Because it feels really good to make a difference.
Thanks again everyone. It feels good to be back.
peace. s
A serious childhood brain injury lead Scott to spend his entire life meditating on the concepts of thought, consciousness, reality and identity. It made others as strange to him as he was to them. When he realized people were confused by their own over-thinking, Scott began teaching others to understand reality. He is currently CBC Radio Active’s Wellness Columnist, as well as a writer, speaker and mindfulness instructor based in Edmonton, AB where he still finds it strange to write about himself in the third person.