Monday Musings
Monday: Hello, Gorgeous! If every Monday looked like this dazzling day, I would anticipate it with vim and vigor. I hope your week is off to an equally optimistic, sunny start. Below you shall find my random thoughts accumulated over the past few days. If you’re looking for a common thread, there isn’t one really. Just a few things that I have encountered or that have occurred to me:
Don’t Take Anything Personally - I aspire toward this frame of mind more and more each day. It’ll take a while to get there, I’m sure—especially after 30 years of being heavily influenced by everyone else. I came across this quote last week, and it convinced me further of the freedom that will come with not taking anything personally:
This is from the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.
“Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one you live in. Taking things personally makes you easy prey for those predators who try to send you emotional poison. They can hook you easily with one little opinion, and feed you all their emotional garbage. When you take it personally, you eat it up, and now it becomes your garbage. But if you don’t take it personally, you are immune to their poison; you will not eat it. Immunity to emotional poison is the gift of this agreement.”
Letter Writing - President Obama is a man after my own heart. He reads ten letters each day from the American people, and—sometimes!—he responds. Check out the story here.
Social Media - I am endlessly interested in the way our emotions manifest themselves with regards to social media. Looks like I’m not the only one: The Washington Post featured an article last week called Google and Facebook raise new issues for therapists and their clients. Do they ever!
The Wizard of Oz - I am only now appreciating how profound this conversation actually is:
Glinda, the Good Witch of the North: You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.
Dorothy: I have?
The Scarecrow: Then why didn’t you tell her before?
Glinda, the Good Witch of the North: Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.
April 5th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Hello Samara! I’m glad to see you posting again. I’ve tried not to take anything personally my whole life, but I think I’ve screwed up subconsciously along the way. It’s something you have to work at.
I’m really surprised that people are bringing up that Obama reads and responds to 10 letters a day, because he’s been doing this all along. There were articles about it 10 months ago. It’s still something to applaud, but why write new articles about it?
April 6th, 2010 at 9:18 am
Hello Stephanie! It is strange that the article is coming out now when I, too, knew about it a while ago. (I probably mentioned it here). But if the WaPo finds Obama’s letter writing news worthy once a year, then I won’t take it personally
June 13th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
I remember you referencing an article a year ago talking about how this would be a dream job for you. Jennifer Cline’s story is so moving. I like her letter, because her feelings were authentic. As much as I empathize for her hardships she went through after losing her job and being diagnosed with cancer, I find her remarkable for her ability to remain optimistic in response to the President’s actions. The author of the article described her letter as “…more of a stream-of-consciousness journal entry than a formal note.” I think a letter like this sounds more authentic and personal – the kind of emotions a reader experiences while reading a hand-written letter. Listening to the news helps me stay abreast of the current affairs. Reading the other letters addressed to the President and his responses gave me a better insight on how people are affected as a result. I’m glad that the President takes his time to be in touch to address our overall concerns. Thank you for referencing this article.