PARANOID DEFENSES VERSUS NEGATIVITY

Recently an acquaintance said that a lesson learned many years ago was 'to protect yourself' by 'thinking paranoid'..  Knowing this person for a long time, we talked about paranoid defenses (an older psychoanalytic concept seldom heard today) as, indeed, being not unwise.  If you were mugged walking alone at night, you might find it hard to ever walk down that street again without being anxious and watching your back.. However, I believe anxiety is confused with defense.  When the stock market did a big drop, this person impulsively sold a major holding which has since showed evidence of being more valuable and secure.  This was pure anxiety, not paranoia, that forced that panic and sale.

Many people often mistake anxiety for clairvoyance, as from a dream; or thinking that the distress is an omen of some sort. That by today's understanding is unlikely more than wishful thinking.  Anxiety, which leads to impulsive decisions, does not make one's life run smoothly.  Worse yet is that a mistake once made should be forgotten, other than the lesson learned not to repeat it.  Unfortunately too many people ruminate over their mistake and can't move forward to try to compensate or make moves ahead instead of dwelling in the past.

Anxiety and panic produce cortisol in our system.  People with clinical depression usually have an overload of cortisol.  Researchers strongly belief too much cortisol over long periods of time contributes to earlier death.

Alcoholics do not own the Serenity Prayer.  Not worrying about things over which you have no control will raise your comfort level and lower your cortisol level.  Relax and live longer; unrelieved stress will only shorten your life.

WHAT PAPERLESS OFFICE REALLY MEANS

If anyone has ever had a computer crash and lost irreplaceable (at least without half a life time expenditure for recreating) date, pictures, etc, they will understand that there is no such thing as paperless for those of us at home or office.  Having had three sets of backups fail me on electronic media, I now resort to paper backups on most things ...especially online payments.  If the bank no longer sends your checks back, how will you know what you are paying, have paid, or doing?

This brings up that paperless means that the sender makes it paperless.  If you want a copy, you are free to print it out on your own paper and printing cost.  This saves money...to the company's profits and out of your pocket.  Additionally, like all collateral damage, the post office doesn't get their cut for a mailing, not that there are not a bunch of 'Willie Huttons of the Internet' polishing their teeth to get a bite of profit out of you for themselves.  Have you noticed that service charges, though there may be little or no cost to them, go up.  An EFT transfer of your money from one bank to another (just a few taps on a keyboard taking seconds) is in double digits and going up yearly though the action remains as simple.

Some companies are fairly reliable in their billing but there are others (like Verizon) who throw all kinds of little extras on your bill if you don't take precious time to go over each item of each bill  with a fine tooth comb.  This is why I have not gone completely paperless and allowed companies that get regular payments, (like utilities and credit cards), to just help themselves to my bank account 'to save me time and trouble'.  It takes me back to the childhood poem, ' "Come into my parlor," said the spider to the fly'.  .In this world of greed, hypocrisy in religion, corruption in politics, with all the deceit, violence and thievery that goes on...it is hard to trust anyone or anything any longer.  There is not a paranoid bone in my body but I was taught that paranoid defenses are only wise when one has learned the need to protection from experience.