WHEN THINGS STOP WORKING

There are various categories of things that 'work' for us in our life.  Mechanical, electrical, technical, utilitarian articles are all supposed to work.  We rely on them.  When they stop working we can only grumble if we can't get them replaced immediately.  In today's world, an exact replacement is rarely possible.  Companies change the model every three minutes.  You will see this if you ever try to get an exact replacement of a printer.  Likely, if it is five years or older, as my HP Laser Jet 1250 purchased in 2005, it is no longer mentioned on the usual list for drivers. In March I was told a fix would be available in May.  Not being able to be without a printer I, of course, had to buy another.  I have yet to try to get the 'fix' for my 1250 which has a perfectly good toner cartridge, cost $140 or so and is nearly new.  I believe when that marketing ploy was invented, it was known as planned obsolescence....and probably still is.

When you have to replace a car, stove, or many other appliances, be prepared to give up some features you liked and get some new ones you may and some you  may not like.  Having to start from scratch finding new service people is equally frustrating; changing doctors, dentists, plumbers, electricians, etc should go very high on the priority scale of stressors.  They have a way of changing professions, moving away, retiring, or even dying!  Replacement parts don't come from a warehouse that can cheerfully say, "Oh, we no longer stock those parts."  Of course they don't.  When parts change  every fifteen minutes they couldn't make a warehouse big enough to fit them all.

However, worst of all is when personal coping skills no longer work.  People who smoke to calm themselves, alcoholics who drank to numb themselves or manics who drank to slow their brains down, people who use denial but things eventually can no longer be denied or put off, those lying awake when sleep used to be best calmer, all these can fail.  Those who use drugs to tune out, miss opportunities for resolving rather than ignoring problems. 

It is not difficult to realize that having to give up alcohol, drugs, exercising, lose a beloved pet, or any of the things that kept stress level low, necessarily have their stress level rise (not a healthy thing) until a new coping mechanism can be found and put into place.  In the event of a death of a beloved, divorce or other breakup, it is not as simple as purchasing a replacement.  For alcoholics it often means changing total lifestyle and friends.

For someone who lived on the endorphin kicks from jogging or stress exercise, who suffers a physical restraint to continuing, it is not easy to find a replacement that is not addictive.

People do not seem to understand that replacements can be on a physical or psychological level.  When some casually say, "Get a life" or "Get on with your life"they  are oblivious to the uselessness of their advice.  Prescribing a result rather than a means to reach it is the only thing that can be helpful but most people don't think that way. If a friend describes a relationship dilemma, the frequent reply giving is "dump him/her', "get a divorce", "move away" or similar advice,  impossible to achieve.a desired result.

Does it mean we should never listen to advice.  Not really.  It means we should be our own advocates and feel gifted if we have the mental capacity and inquiring minds to do so.  Too many peolple are ill-equipped to take care of themselves and cope with the strain of today's life.  When things stop working they go into 'stun' mode.  People have asked me what they should do and , most of the time, I know they will not follow my advice.  If they were capable of my reasoning, they would probably have thought of the cure themselves.  Actually, as a therpist for years, I refrain from giving advice and solutions that I might have made.  The friends  who ask get tired of my making them talk through their problems to reach their own solutions.when what they want is a 'quick fix' that they can then say they didn't follow because they'd decided it just wouldn't work for them.

Life survival is not contained in one do-it-yourself ' book.  Coping skills are developed through experience ,  often painful ones.  When they work more often than fail, we have reached a comfortable place in '  I don't pray; I just wait, watch parameters, and make moves when I find them.

LIVING WITH HAPPINESS; GRIEVING WITH SADNESS part 1

All humans go through life with two universal fears.  The first is that they will be unloved, thus abandoned and alone; the second that they will be unlovable.  How these fears manifest and responses to those fears are two of the major determinants of happiness for a person.  Those who value human life as only a biological principle believe  that only a beating heart is necessary for happiness, which gives one the opportunity to grow up as an emotionally healthy human being.  The stress induced by being unloved or perceiving that one is unlovable accounts for physical and mental illnesses for those who are vulnerable genetically or biologically.

This site describes cortisol,  'the stress hormone'.  One can suffer by having too much of it for too long..  Unfortunately, too much of that which is written tells us the ills and evils we may suffer but it does not tell us what, as humans, we need to do to avoid them nor how Nature may have placed us in a place (with people and chance) which disallows our avoidance of pain.

Unwanted children, born to poverty, stand a greater chance of never having a stress-free life than children surrounded by love and an opportunity to develop the human skills of making meaningful relationships, winning personalities, adequate coping skills, and all the attributes of intelligence, education, and other opportunities for a successful life in our society.

Is there, therefore, any reason that we are unable to see the cruelty that our present attitudes of forcing women, who are impregnated accidentally or by rape, to bear that fetus to a totally unpredictable and less than optimal existence?  The sadness in not for the parent alone but for the unwanted child who lives without love, with no foundation for self-confidence or fortune to be taught the skills to lead a normal , happy life with ability to make healthy, loving relationships.  

The above is a rewritten and modified  Part 1 of a series.  Part 2 will follow soon.....