Friday, March 22, 2019

Following the Cow Path

The Path of Least Resistance

I’m sure you know why roads are as windy as they are. Back in the beginning when the world was younger, people walked or rode an animal. They took the path of least resistance. Hence the winding road across the landscape. Houses grew up along those path and communities and farms grew but the path remained the same. Streets and back roads followed in that same manner making the villages and countryside that grew around them look like jigsaw puzzles.

Times have changed but in a way that is the how we all live...taking tha path of least resistance. Humans have not changed it seems.

My husband and I are not alike in anyway. We have moved out lives around each other and live a twisted and windy life.

I had never really seen that in us until just recently. We bought a townhouse last year and built a new life here in a townhouse development in Tucson. The floor plan is different, our small backyard is not the same as anything we have ever had. And the list goes on.

My husband has always been very ergonomically correct. He never pushed his golf cart one step further than he had to. He figured out the direct route right away. I always admired his way of doing things in that regard.

I am all about the esthetics. I never have considered whether a piece of furniture was in the way if it looked good in place. If we had to walk around the end of the couch to get to the back door, I thought that was okay. You can see how my ergonomically correct husband might be put out with that way of doing things.

Once I hooked into what was going on, I realized that I just needed to put the furniture in the room and see where it ended up. If the chair kept moving across the room that is where it needed to be. Our deck now has the two chairs close to a fire pit table and not in the corner with flowers around it. I thought it looked beautiful when in actuality it did not function like it should.  It is just fine. In fact, it is better, more ergonomic and we both like it.

Lessons learned:
  • Remember, if you are going to share a space whether it be at an office or at home, compromise is the key to a happy life.
  • Happy wife, happy life is not necessarily the best way.
  • If you think a dog would be better, I am so sorry. Get a dog and see what I mean.
I know that there more lessons in life here. What do you think they are.

Have a wonderful day.

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Friday, March 1, 2019

How Old Would You Be If...


...you. did not know how old you are? Good question don’t you think. In my age group the conversation often turns to aging, old age or an "organ recital" (you know, a conversation about how your bodily parts are working).

Is that normal? Do we often talk about some malady because that issue is one expected of a person in our age group? Do 30 year old people do the same thing about tiny wrinkles around the eyes or the loss of athletic power? I suppose so.

As a result, I often wonder how we arrive at the determination for how old we should be. Do we derive that image in our minds because of where we are raised or who we associate with? I wonder.

In at article written for the New York Times back in 2012 called "The Island Where People Forgot to Die" the author, Dan Buettner, talks about a Greek Island where men live to an astonishingly old age ( 90, 100, and older). He relates a story about how something on that island and in other places around the world happens to humans and they simply "forget to die". Buettner was writing for National Geographic at that time. The team he was working with had discovered the phenomenon of "The Blue Zone".  I was amazed by the whole story. Note: In San Diego, California Seventh Day Adventist women have a very long life span. That area is another Blue Zone studied by National Geographic.

It seems that the life style and food is entirely doable. They get up when they want, take a nap if they feel like it, work, play, drink wine (even with breakfast) and most importantly visit with neighbor in the evening almost everyday. Is that the secret? No one knows. But the truth is they are very happy content people for the most part.

I think it could be that they live so long because they forget about age. I think that the lesson here is that it really doesn’t matter how old we are or how long we live. If we are miserable and unhappy we might not live as long but it will seem that like forever. If we are happy, we might live forever but it will pass in a flash. We may simply forget to die because we have things to do.

So when I read the story about that island called Ikaria, Greece situated on the Aegean Sea my measuring stick changed. What if I do live to be 95 or 102. The island could be calling not only me name but yours too.

When I read that article, I realized how much of our life we waste waiting. Thought crossed my mind that, if I lived to be 100 for example, I had a lot of time left to do things. I actually could do some of those things that I have dreamed of or I could create new dreams and do those. I felt, well, younger somehow. The perspective was different.

So, how old would you be if you did not know how old you were? Interesting huh!


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