Skip to main content

(Ten) Random Thoughts

1. Sometimes our past decisions influence our present more than our present decisions, but that does not mean we cannot change our present situation by the decisions we make today. In that sense, anyone who says you can't change the past is wrong. Your past does not have to keep you prisoner.

2. If food tastes better when you are happy (and I believe that it does), and if you are happier when you are social (which I believe you are), does this mean that food tastes better when you are being social?

3. I have heard, more than once, that you can find out about a person by looking at his or her bank statement, that what a person spends money on shows what he or she loves most; but what if the only items listed are necessities? A lack of purchases might mean that the man is just cheap. :-)

4. Reading fiction is supposed to encourage in the reader an empathy for other people. Like anything else, what seems to promote health actually promotes its opposite: read too much fiction, and it seems you can become self-centered and socially unaware.

5. People have suggested that the United States should take pennies out of circulation. If I were a nickel, I would fear that I was next.

6. Heroes remind us that we are meant for greatness.

7. "Foibles" is a funny word.

8. I once cried because I played so horribly in front of complete strangers in a city basketball league, and I was once placed in a math class intended for kids who did not understand math. Later, I looked for opportunities to play basketball with strangers, and earned A's and B's in math classes. The difference, in both cases, was the encouragement of the people around me and my own commitment to the belief that I was not hopeless.

9. Skydiving feels like you are looking out the window of a plane, only there is no window and you look like a hamster with food in its cheeks while you are falling. I guess this means that skydiving is nothing like looking out the window of a plane.

10. I read recently that memories ("images" was the word the author used) are like puppets because we can control how they appear in our minds. This must be why nostalgia is so powerful. We select the good memories and forget the bad. It may be that what we think of as hard times now will become endearing memories later. Maybe, then, we should practice "present nostalgia:" while not ignoring the bad in our circumstances, we can look for the good. That will be more realistic than nostalgic thinking, though maybe not as comforting.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Heroes

Although we have several examples of heroes in our day, one of the best known is of a woman named Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu (“Gonja Bojaju”), who devoted her life to sustaining the “poor, sick, orphaned, and dying.” Her venue was Calcutta, India, where she served as a teacher until she began to take notice of the poverty there. Seeking to do something about it, she began an organization that consisted of just thirteen members at its inception. Called the “Missionaries of Charity,” the organization would eventually burgeon into well over 5,000 members worldwide, running approximately 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries; and caring for the orphaned, blind, aged, disabled, and poor. As her personal work expanded, she traveled to countries like Lebanon, where she rescued 37 children from a hospital by pressing for peace between Israel and Palestine; to Ethiopia, where she traveled to help the hungry; to Chernobyl, Russia, to assist victims of the nuclear meltdown there; and to

Comparative Medical Care

One thing I'd like to understand is why there is such a difference between medical costs here and those in Haiti. At the time the book Mountains Beyond Mountains was written, in 2003, it often cost $15,000 to $20,000 annually to treat a patient with tuberculosis, while it cost one one-hundredth of that-- $150 to $200-- to treat a patient for the disease in Haiti. Even if the figures aren't completely accurate, the sheer difference would still be there. Indeed, the United States pays more per capita for medical care than any other country on Earth. My first guess for why the disparity exists is that there is a market willing and able to pay more for medical treatment, so suppliers see the demand and respond with higher prices. According to at least one doctor (go to http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2009/05/what_is_the_cause_of_excess_co.php), part of the reason is administrative prices here. People here have a higher standard of living, and so the cost of care is shifted to

Movie Night

We did it again. My leadership class and I put together another event. We invited the school to watch Dispicable Me . The movie was a hit, so much so that one little girl got up to dance with the main character at the end of the movie. It was a wholesome family night, and on a Monday no less! There were very few issues. It was just a relaxing evening. We're going to use the proceeds to pay for our leadership conference in late March and early April. It should make for a meanigful experience. Signing off...