Disasters Of Distraction

 

“Girls were always my biggest distraction in school.”~  Channing Tatum

 

Happy Friday, everybody! Or around here: “Coffee & Donuts Day”.

 

Each and every Friday morning, I am filled with curiosity to see just what kind of behavior will be exhibited by those wanting donuts. It always varies depending on who is there. But this morning was a bit different. But I figured that it would be particularly interesting considering how greedy these neighbors showed off during Food Pantry Day just a couple days ago.

 

The van in which contained those neighbors who went walking for excercise (as well as carried the donuts) broke down. It caused a great delay for a lot of people. But surprisingly enough, everyone was calm. Nobody was throwing a tantrum about the tardiness of the weekly donut distribution.

 

But coffee was readily available. To which I had consumed numerous cups. However, what goes in must come out. Particularly of the liquid variety.

 

“Holding it” was not an option.

 

I returned to evacuate my bladder in the privacy of my own home. I began to believe that as soon a I left the building, the donuts would arrive. And with the group of people who had been already waiting there, nobody could say for sure if there would be anything left.

 

But I did what I had to do and then went on my journey back to the community room to seek the answer to the burning question.

 

My home is at the top of a hill. To get to the community room, I must negotiate a slight turn in the middle of four sidewalks that cross one another and still manage the incline and watch my speed so I don’t run over anyone.

 

As I was beginning to build up speed, I was distracted by something out of the corner of my eye. A woman was walking on the property that I had never seen before. Wouldn’t you know it, I looked up and over the back of my shoulder as I had to maintain speed and get around that slight turn.

 

My distraction would get the best of me as I did not slow down enough to take the slight turn and stay on the sidewalk. Because I simply wasn’t paying any attention to where I was.

 

The woman that I had been staring at disappeared in a flash as I felt the wheelchair began to lean heavily to one side. I looked forward and I could feel myself going at an angle to my left.

 

I knew what was going to happen and there was not a lot that I could do. I tipped over and got dumped out of my wheelchair to the left side. My body tumbling like a circus performer before I stuck the landing on my butt in the grass. The wheelchair now empty…. simply tossed to the side.

 

I’m physically fine. I don’t even have any scrapes or cuts or anything. Nothing broken, nothing bruised. Well, maybe my own personal ego…. but only a little bit.

 

That’s what I get for not paying attention to what I was doing. Rather than doing something that I do dozens of times a day for the past several years, but instead I focused on something (or someone) else which caused the “crash and burn”.

 

When these kinds of things happen, I find myself to hit the dirt and the first thing that I always do is look around to see if anyone might have seen it. Nine times out of ten there isn’t anyone around. So the humiliation factor goes to nothing.

 

I lifted up my wheelchair and then climbed back into it. I soared down the rest of the hill and turned into the community room where there was only four donuts left. I was shocked that they were not all gone.

 

I had eaten my donut and came back home so I can get ready for the day. But still had to blog about it while it was still fresh in my mind. Someone is going to need a laugh today, and find this funny.

 

 

 

 

Thinkology

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” ~Albert Einstein

The brain is a very complex and intriguing thing. For the most part, we’d all have to agree that it still is one of the most misunderstood parts of the human body.

How humbling and fascinating the brain can be, when we realize just how much we use or don’t use it.

Medical science still has a very long way to go to actually grasp what all the brain can do. Although I think that it is pretty safe to say that we DO know tons more about now than we did say; one hundred years ago?

The subject that comes to mind here is the brain’s power and the usage of thinking. How long do we think? How do we think? Do we ever stop thinking?

From the research that I’ve read and collected, as far as the question of “Do we ever stop thinking?”, the answer is no. At least not while we are conscious. I’ve not yet fully grasped whether or not the brain ceases to think when a person is unconscious. But that is not the focus for this post.

So then, what are we to do when we believe that our minds are thinking TOO MUCH??

The perfect example would have been myself about twenty minutes before I began to write this. Thus the spur of the moment late night blog post.

In a span of sixty seconds or less, I literally was asking myself these questions:

• How hard is it supposed to rain tomorrow?
• Would it be okay to ask a neighbor to take me to the grocery store in rain come tomorrow?
• Will my friend call me at some point tomorrow?
• Do I have the right to ask for a definition every single time that I feel confused about what someone has said to me, in order to understand what they are meaning or feeling?
• Will I have time tomorrow to get some laundry done?
• How do I know when someone is being sincere if I cannot hear their words with their own voices?
• Is there a way that I can determine if someone is being sincere without inflection?
• Will it stop raining long enough tomorrow for me to actually do some laundry in the laundry room?
• Is someone thinking of me tonight?

Congitive Distortion rodeo, anyone?

I  just about had to say to myself outloud: STOP THINKING!!

So then, how do I do that? Because if I had continued to ponder these questions in my head then I probably would drive myself crazy. Mainly because I will not be able to get any answers for these questions UNTIL tomorrow!! And you know what they say, “tomorrow never comes”. But for sure the answers to these questions are not going to come until after a period of several hours of slumber.

There had to be a trick in order to stop myself from “stinkin’ thinkin’ “. That trick obviously had to be me saying “STOP THINKING!”. But only then, did I come up with the question: Does the brain ever stop thinking?

That question right there, caused enough distraction and re-focus to stop me from worrying and pondering about the previous set of questions that was going on in my head.

If we are worrying ourselves into an early grave because of questions we don’t have the answers for and drive faster towards that grave by dwelling on it, then we must find a way to shift the focus of our thinking. Since the brain never stops.

The best way to do that, is to some how or in some way distract ourselves from the original point of thinking, and concentrate on something ELSE.

If we are unable to do that, then I suspect that we’ll all be having appointments to talk to strangers while laying down flat on a red leather couch once or twice a week for the rest of our lives. Or if we know how to change our ways of thinking and just let it run free, then in time we could possibly expect to have our wardrobes cut down tremendously to where we are only wearing white jackets that zip and buckle in the back.

If you find yourself frustrated because you cannot stop thinking about something, look away at something else. Focus on that particular thing or object that your eyes just glanced at.

Another thing that you could do is to concentrate on a sound. Perhaps the soft sounds of your own breathing. Concentrate on maybe on a soft noise that is happening outside through a window or something going on in the other room. Concentrate heavily on that sound and go through everything in your head about what it is you hear. Begin to think about the different things that you are hearing.

Most of my own personal problems in thinking happen a lot at night. And I kind of believe that is a majority of my insomnia problems when they arise. If I can lay in bed and shift the focus on something else, then I shouldn’t have too much trouble with whatever it was that was causing the issue. But I am sure that for many, it’s easier said than done. It will take practice.

I know that I get totally frustrated when I am laying down and supposed to be sleeping and my mind will begin to think about certain blog topics that I feel that I would want to write about. The frustration comes in because I have to battle with myself about whether or not I really want to get up out of bed, turn on the lights, turn on my computer and then set everything up just to get that particular thing off my mind? I don’t a lot of the time because it will cut into the time that I could be sleeping. And so often times I will believe that I will save that for the following day. But a majority of the time after I have awoke, the desire to write about what I was stirring about in bed the night before is gone or I have completely forgot about exactly what it is that I wanted to write about in the first place!!

But this particular blog post caught me as I was getting ready for sleep tonight. So I thought that I would write about it now, rather than lay in bed thinking about writing it and then losing the desire to go ahead and try it in the morning. And I probably should go to bed now that I have written what I wanted, before my best friend reads this and gives me hell for being up so late.

So the key I think is distraction and the shift of focus whenever we begin to feel tense because of the fact that we feel that our brain just won’t stop thinking about certain things that drive us up the walls.

Training the mind to do that, will eventually release us from our temporary state of insanity.

 

Spam

As of lately I have been really pulling my hair out because of spamming comments. Just in the last month I have deleted more comments that have been sent into the queue than any other time.

Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. Clearly there are a lot of these comments that have had some kind of advertising along with them. And it’s getting tedious to deal with.

Right at a point where I could see through the site stats that more and more people were reading different and various posts on this blog, along came with it the spammers who just post their comments to indiscriminate blog posts. And to me, it wouldn’t make sense for their words to be placed where they were. Their words didn’t line up to the content that was available.

A few months ago, I was averaging about 15-20 per day. Now I think that the average has gone up to about 40-50 per day. I think that is really great. But is it all real?

Ugh…

I think that what is most disappointing as well as disturbing is the fact that some of these comments did actually fit. They were words of really high praise. Comments that were so positive and encouraging as well as rewarding- only to realize a few weeks later that they were spamming comments. Because later those same exact words would come in other comments. Same words, same user name, different blog post.

So honestly I have been very confused because some of these comments, I cannot tell whether they are or not genuine. I know that I am not the only one out there that deals with it. We ALL get spam e-mails.

It just takes the wind out of my sails that now I’ve realized it and probably allowed one comment too many and now its everywhere. And what makes it even worse is the fact that the lines are now blurred that I cannot distinguish from a random user who is honestly trying to leave a comment versus someone leaving spam comments.

As it stands, I have somewhere between 80-90 comments in total. Including my own replies to others. And yet it all makes me want to look back and try to figure out whether or not those comments which are still remaining are spam. Some are more obvious than others.

So it is completely annoying. Perhaps there is some kind of setting that I’ve missed to deal with this situation. Something that I am unaware. I’ll look into it.