suddenlysinglewomen

“If we threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.”

I’ve talked about this before, so I won’t cover it specifically again BUT I will take advantage of your attention to say that maybe we look at today’s lesson as a start of showing more empathy toward those with the problems we wouldn’t trade ours for?

Note I don’t say sympathy, because you can feel sorry for someone all day long and it does nothing to help alleviate the problems, or pain they’re going through.

I’m suggesting here that we all implore and show a little “empathy” to those people in our lives who are suffering.  Even, dare I say, that we start by showing more empathy toward total strangers?

Empathy is defined:

: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this

In other words, you don’t have to have gone through it, to understand it.  I’m the first to admit that there are times I seem to scoff at what other’s are whining about and wonder why on earth they can’t get through it and past it.  But till you’ve walked a mile in their shoes . . .

We seem to show less and less empathy these days as we bustle about in our busy lives.  One random act of kindness has been shown to multiply ten fold – and it doesn’t have to take a lot of time out of your busy day.

Open a door, offer a smile, carry a bag, say please and thank you, offer to run an errand, bake some cookies, give a listening ear, be kind with your words, give a hug, volunteer your time, be a point of light.

Be the best version of yourself – be AWESOME!!

“Growing old beats the alternative – dying young.”

You hear this a lot around birthdays.  When people bemoan turning a year older, someone always says “It beats the alternative” – the “dying young” part being implied.

I come from good hearty stock.  My paternal grandmother lived to 102, my Dad made it to 87 and my Mom just celebrated her 97th birthday on Christmas Eve.  My plan has always been to hit 100 – of course this sends shivers of dread down the backbones of my financial advisors!  They better be doing a really good job, right?

We’re all living longer, modern medicine and our health knowledge has made sure of this.  Yet I also believe  the emotional part of living has a huge impact on not only our longevity, but our desire to see it so.

I’m not a medical doctor, but I go out on a limb to say that I believe that happy people live longer.  And while there will always be things unforeseen that take lives too early, like car accidents, etc. – we are hanging around this planet longer than ever before.

I dreaded turning 30, enjoyed turning 40, loved turning 50 and hit the ground running when I turned 60 a couple of years back.  I’ve learned a lot and hope to keep that learning pattern going.

Hope you’ll join me along this wild ride and let’s make those financial advisors and our children worry about how long we’ll be around to keep them on their toes!