

Life
Enjoy Your Day, Slow Things Down
The rate of the passage of time is largely based on your perception
Happy Independence Day! On this day, as with all days, the purveyors of news and information, as well as of spin and propaganda, and outright distortions of reality, would prefer to have you ingest their ‘products’ 24/7/365. Fortunately, you have options.
Most of what you experience each day, in terms of the passage of time, is based on your perception. As such, you can ‘slow down’ time if you choose. How? Whenever you feel you’re racing the clock or trying to tackle too much at once, try this exercise:
Close your eyes for a minute and imagine a pleasant scene. You might be surrounded by trees or with a loved one. It could be something from childhood. Let the emotions of that place and time predominate. Get into it! Give yourself more than a New York minute for the visualization to take hold.
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Then, open your eyes and return to what you’re doing. Your task now is never quite so bad and whatever pace you were working at is never quite so feverish.
More Reflection
Imagine you’re flying on an airplane. You have a window seat, and it’s a clear day. As you gaze down to the ground below, what do you see? Life passing by. Cars the size of ants. Miniature baseball diamonds. Rivers the size of streams.
There is something about being at great heights that enables you to reflect on your life. The same thing can occur place from the top of a mountain or skyscraper.
As often as possible when things seem to be racing by too fast, get to higher ground for a clear perspective. If you’re among the lucky, perhaps you regularly allocate time for reflection or meditation. If you don’t, no matter.
Change Your Medium
I have long used water to reduce stress. For eleven years, I lived in a high rise condominium in Falls Church, Virginia, complete with its own 25 meter pool. No matter how hard I worked during the day, even if I did a 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. stint, at 6:05 p.m. I was in the pool.
After 30 minutes of laps, I had swum out many of the stresses and strains of the day. So, find the swimming pool nearest you!
Rely On The Animal Kingdom
If you have a dog or cat and do not consider it a drain on your time, here’s a little something about Rover or Mittens that you might not have known. In recent years, as reported by U.S. News & World Report, scientists have found proof for what was only once suspected: that contact with animals has specific and measurable effects on both your body and mind.
The mere presence of animals can increase a sick person’s chances of survival, and has been shown to lower heart rate, calm disturbed children and induce non-communicative people to initiate conversation!
The exact mechanisms that animals exert to affect your health and well-being are still largely mysterious. Scientists suspect that animal companionship is beneficial because, unlike human interaction, it is uncomplicated. Animals are nonjudgmental, accepting and attentive; they don’t talk back, criticize, or give orders. Animals have a unique capacity to draw people out.
Even if you only have goldfish, simply staring at them in their silent world might help deaden your traveling pace.
But Wait, there’s More
Want other ways to make it all “slow down”? After the workday, listen to relaxing music with headphones, and close your eyes. A half hour of your favorite music with no disturbances (and your eyes closed) can seem almost endless. When you re-emerge, the rest of the day takes on a different tenor.
Another effective method for catching up with today is periodically deleting three items from your “to do list” without doing them at all. Before you shriek, consider that much of what makes your list is arbitrary. Often, eliminating three items won’t impact your career or life, except for freeing up a little time for yourself in the present.
Ideas for Catching up with Today
1. Constantly read your list of priorities and goals.
2. Challenge and defeat your own ritual behavior.
3. Consider the outcome of not handling something.
4. Convincingly, but politely, say no.
5. Call rather than visit.
6. Clean off your desk of everything but the task at hand.
7. Clear your files of everything that can be recycled.
8. Cancel something that you had already scheduled.
9. Covet what you already have.
10. Choose to get a good night’s sleep every night.
Ideas for Catching up with this Week
1. Telecommute at least once a week.
2. Consume vital information, not what you think you must know.
3. One day each week, don’t read anything.
4. Get dressed each morning without a radio or TV on.
5. Weekly, do something fun on the way home from work.
6. Select news shows that astutely cover issues.
7. Wed out extra paper entering your “personal kingdom.”
8. Begin thinking about your next vacation.
9. Make a lunch date with a friend, not a co-worker or client.
10. Pause for ten separate minutes throughout each day.
Allow yourself to take breaks. When you consider the ways you add unnecessary pressures to your day, you begin to see many ways to catch up with today, or at least with this week.
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Family
Student Drinking and Drug Abuse on Campus is Over the Top
What kind of society, de facto, condones such reckless behavior?
The senseless loss of five university students in a house fire has stung my community. These were top students, accomplished individuals, and potential leaders.
Someone has got to ask the tough questions right now, while the pain of their loss is intense. In what kind of society do presumably the best and brightest engage in highly questionable activities? An all-night party? Started at what hour? Preceded by what? To end when?
How much alcohol flows? How many drugs are dispensed? Obtained from and by whom? Ingested by whom? How many cigarettes are lit? How many butts wantonly burn down to nothing? What else is lit and smoked?
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Foolish Behavior Condoned
The largest and toughest question of all behind these is what kind of society, de facto, condones such foolish and, in too many tragic instances, reckless behavior? Drunk students falling out of windows to their death, engaged in chugging contests until they vomit, on weeknights no less, walking the campus in a state of high lethargy? Being rushed to emergency wards?
Sure, install the proper sprinkler and alarm systems, but acknowledge the ruthless reality that confronts us. Colleges today are the stomping grounds for legions of students who drink and take drugs with abandon. They sit like zombies in morning classes if they can make it out of bed at all. Professors pretend that it is not happening. University administrators accept such behavior as ‘part of the times.’
Such phenomena are more wide sweeping than anyone cares to admit. They are testament to the abandonment of standards, the ‘everything is allowed’ overly permissive culture in which no student is safe.
Break the Silence
If the students who died were among the finest people that communities engender, what does their loss portend for others? And when will responsible adults break the silence about the utter absurdity with which too many students live their lives?
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Thanksgiving: that joyous time of the year when families get together, have a wonderful dinner, catch up on what everyone other is doing, give thanks for all that they have, and perhaps watch some football.
Up for the Challenge?
This Thanksgiving might prove to be a challenge for many people. For one, the cost of the turkey, the bird traditionally served, in some locals cost between 50% to 80% more than last year, and turkey was already expensive.
Among your relatives a few might be vegans or vegetarians. If you have a vegan enforcer in the family, this person will rail on and on against eating meat, and about how turkeys have lives just like we do.
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One of your vegan or vegetarian relatives might offer a discourse on how cranberries should be harvested a different way, the dangers of turkey stuffing, and the problem with vegetables that you might be serving, the risk of having too many starches – potatoes or rice – and the evils of wine, beer, and other alcoholic drinks.
Topics Worth Avoiding
The politics to consider abound. Since roughly half of the country votes Democrat and half votes Republican, the odds are overwhelming that you’re going to have somebody with opposing politics at the table. During Trump’s years as president, many families had to navigate around the topic of the presidency, prevailing policies. and so on.
Today, while there’s no question that Joe Biden is completely inane as leader, the same delicate navigation needs to occur. As miraculous as this might seem, some on the left actually approve of what Biden has been doing. Note: don’t be concerned about the Bidens going hungry. With all those under-the-table payment from Ukraine and China, they can EASILY afford a huge, expensive turkey with all of the trimmings.
If you can avoid discussing the eight million invaders illegally crossing our borders, rampant inflation, the U.S. Afghanistan withdrawal, the crisis in Israel and potential for World War III, drag time story hour for children, transgenderism, the bogus lawsuits against Donald Trump, the unending crimes of Hunter Biden, the payola to Joe Biden, FBI corruption, the historic unpopularity and ineptness of Kamala Harris, and about 30 or so other topics, your dinner should go smoothly. Enjoy!
A huge current wrinkle on the political scene is that recent surveys reveal at least one-quarter of Democrats actually approve of Hamas, atrocities and all, and side with Palestine on all issues large and small. They believe that Israel is an apartheid state and that Jews are today’s Nazis. Apparently they’ve never visited Israel and have no Jewish friends.
Depending on how many Democrats attend your Thanksgiving gathering, if it’s four or more, mathematically speaking you have a decent chance that one is a pro-Hamas Democrat. Wooo… Now, you really have to stay clear of current issues or your dinner table might be as inflamed verbally as the Middle East is with armaments.
Insufferable Stuffing
After everyone is stuffed with turkey, vegeburgers, or whatever the people who like rabbit food eat, you might sit in the den and turn on a football game. Quickly, you’ll have a stark reminder of how far political correctness has infected society.
If the Washington Commanders are playing, it’s hard to forget that they used to be called the Washington Redskins until the wokesters among us demanded that the name must be changed. Not so ironically, 90% of native Americans actually want the name Washington Redskins reinstalled, and currently are petitioning for it.
In baseball, the Cleveland Indians “had” to be renamed to the Cleveland Guardians. Potentially, there’s no end of this malarkey. Should the Minnesota Vikings change their name? After all, people from Scandinavia might object to the term “Vikings.” While we’re at it, consider college basketball. The Wake Forest University Demon Deacons are due for a name change, if you’re on the Left. So, too, the Duke University Blue Devils, the Arizona University Aztecs, and on and on.
Landmines to Side Step
With all these potential land mines to side step, and all the ways that otherwise pleasant conversations on a pleasant day could occur, you have to be on guard.
Nevertheless, I wish you and yours a happy Thanksgiving. May you survive the day, fully intact, and ready to have a decent Black Friday.
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