We All Are Going To Hell

Hell, Norway

“The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.”~ Dante Alighieri

I caught the tail end of an amusing conversation this morning.

The topic was strangely named places across the world. Most noted was the question of how many places are named “Hell” in the entire world?

Well, let’s see.

http://www.geonames.org/ 

So then by going to this website and searching the term “hell” you will find all kinds of answers.

I will give you one another example. There is a place in Peru called Infierno which is “Hell” in Spanish.

Looks like Hell is freezing over, in Norway.

Then you have the following places:

Hell, Norway. Hell, Switzerland. Hell, California. Hell, Michigan.

Crap, I’d believe it about a few of them. And I remember many years ago that Michigan INTENTIONALLY named their city “Hell” because during the winter they wanted to have other places that were COLDER than they were to be able to say that they were “Colder then Hell!” which is just the perfect reason to name your city that. Oh well.

But then we continue:

There is Hell, Grand Cayman. In the Cayman Islands.

Of course you can always go to Hell’s Creek in Montana.

Or you could possibly go straight to Hell’s Gates.

Hell’s Gates is located in Australia and is also a named island in Antarctica.

Hell Gate in Florida, Georgia, and in the Bahamas.

Hell is every where in the world!!

Hell’s Gate (note the difference in spelling) is in Montserrat.

Or try living in a Hell Hole:

Hell Hole is in Utah, Tennessee, and Louisiana.

Hell Lake is in Canada. I imagine you can catch some seriously evil fish or marine life. I’m just speculating though.

And if none of that interests you then you can walk away from it all by crossing Hell Bridge in Ireland.

And I suppose all this talk about Hell is getting some people hot under the collar.

I understand. But it is actually very fascinating indeed that in different parts of the world certain words and terms mean different things.

Some of the non-English speaking countries probably had no idea what they were doing when they named these places Hell. Although what Michigan did was stupid. Shame on them. I have relatives that live in Michigan!!!! 

I am not a fan of it all, personally. I think that I will take my chances in …. in Fucking, Austria.

 

Find Your Heaven

“Ah, to think how thin the veil that lies Between the pain of hell and Paradise.”~George William Russel

Too many times we find ourselves sinking through the quicksand of our own negativity in our personal lives. Too many things that we feel have “gone wrong” always keeping us from rising from the ashes and prevents us from exploring all of the things that we find wholesome, pleasant, and enjoyable.

Our human nature is fixed on thriving on the worst things in life. And we find ourselves in an seemingly impossible state to ever be happy again. We tend to allow our brains to thrive on what is keeping us unhappy.

We all have our own things in life where our situation calls for us to believe that “we are in hell.” Yes, we have the bad with the good. But if you ask the average person to name off twenty things that they are unhappy about, they will find themselves snowballing beyond that twenty item list and have the desire to keep going before you have to literally stop them from continuing on.

But if you ask the same person to name only ten things that they are happy about, chances are that they are going to have more trouble trying to fill the list to make all ten items. They might be able to do it, but it will take them longer.

Whether it be work, or our home situation, or even at play- we all have those things that we involve ourselves with and deep down we just cannot stand it because it gives us so much grief and unknown pain to the outside world. We grumble and complain about having to do things that we do not want to do. After all, it’s hell: remember??

I believe that our mental health actually is dependent on both the good and the bad. It’s called “balance”. But because we are all different and we all believe different things, it can be tricky to decipher what is heaven and what is hell. In this case, mental balance is relative to what we assert ourselves to believe.

But whatever those things are, our mental health cannot attain much good if we constantly think negatively. We will never find our heaven because we are setting up residence and forwarding our mail in hell. And we are considering a new coat of paint within the walls of our trapped mind.

So what if we pause for just one moment and find something that actually pleases us? A thought, an experience, an activity. What about those things that we totally surround ourselves in joy? Nothing can be lost if you just stop and think about these things for a single moment. And not allow the cognitive distortions to creep over us and try to convince us that even though these things make us happy, that we’ll never attain it. Which is an unfounded theory and just “stinking thinking”.

We’re going to have our hell. But it doesn’t mean we have to swim in it day & night. We can also have our own piece of heaven too!! If we just calm down, breathe, and pause. Focus on the POSITIVE things that keep us encouraged and motivated to be better people.

Needless to say that how we live inside our heads, also effects how we interact with other people. And they will notice whether or not you are in your heaven or drowning in your hell.

Stop drowning. Don’t even swim. Get out of the deep end and towel off. Then go find your ideal of what your GOOD mental health can actually be and take a break for as long as you can! Refresh your batteries while you are at it too… its free of charge!

The Boiling Point

“Enough is enough! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!”~ Samuel L. Jackson as “Nevelle” in ‘Snakes On A Plane’ [2006]

Yeah buddy! That’s about right. Although I’m not currently dealing with a problem of infestation of snakes or any other poisonous animals. But the sentiment has been all the same the entire weekend from start to finish.

Ever since I was a teenage I would say whenever things would get out of hand, “All I need now is someone to fire a damned bazooka through the window and my day will be complete.”

This past weekend, I was actively looking for a bazooka so I could fire it myself!!

There was a ton of things on my plate that were just suddenly dumped on me. Things that were mainly out of my control. I was lost in a whirlwind of absolute frustration, anger, and pain. Without any chance of guard or rescue to come to my aid.

The summer heat. The fact that I thought my computer was dying. The long, drawn out days and days of trying to put travel arrangements together that was not seeming to work out in anybody’s favor. And the fact that those whom I would run for shelter were not around. All factors made for a piss poor time. All in all, things were really not all that bad, and I do think and believe that the heat was only making things worse.

There were many more factors, but I will refrain from listing everything. And honestly, it was too much! I had reached that boiling point because I never really had that much control over what was going on the entire weekend. It just left me with such negative emotions. And I knew that I could not necessarily show myself towards other friends & colleagues because I knew that my poor attitude would come through and quite frightfully, spill into them and cause them to be dragged down with me.

I needed a life raft, not an anchor.

But it really taught me something about myself when the smoke cleared. Much of the frustration was vanquished when the heat subsided, travel plans were made better to be set in stone, and I was able to talk with those whom I put my trust in.

I think that there has to come a point for me in life, where I need to better recognize the signs that things just aren’t going to be peaches & cream. And I also need to find a better way to deal with it all, before it becomes overwhelming. If I would be able to do this then I will not have to worry so much about having a repeated performance like this past weekend.

I literally thought that I was in hell. And that there was to be no letting up, no salvation. I had no other choice but to let things go and hope and pray that maybe there would be a light at the end of the tunnel. It was my only hope for me, to keep me from going postal and ending up on your local news and Internet about all the evil that I had done because I gave in to the pressure.

All weekend long, I knew that everything that was going on was too much on my plate. I kept looking for the proverbial family dog to slip under the table so I could secretly brush away some of it to the dog so it wouldn’t be so much for me to handle. But there was no dog to be found.

How does one deal with overwhelming stress and frustration? How do you deal with it?? What do you find helpful in times like these???