PROXIMITY

Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious. ~Bill Meyer

The past two days have been weird pictures....so maybe the third time is a charm.  I promise that there is a point to all of this.  Don't you ever feel like you are just way too close to something to make out what you're seeing? 
Would you tell your boss they aren't qualified for their job?
Would you say to someone in front of you in a line, "Hurry the Hell up"?
Would you tell a co-worker that a shirt makes them look fat?
No...probably not.  We don't know these people well enough to assume we can take these liberties with them.
So why in the world do we talk to our family and friends this way?
I've said this before and now I'm saying it again: there is a fine line between an opinion and an insult.
I mean, by all accounts we should be able to be completely honest with people we love.  But being close to someone doesn't give us the right to be mean.  If you don't think verbal abuse is real, Google it.
But what really happens that makes us talk this way to people?
We have the urge to make ourselves feel bigger/smarter/cooler or empowered over the person we are speaking to.  Maybe we feel out of control with our own life, so by speaking this way to someone we share a close proximity with, we make ourselves feel better?
Maybe we are jealous of something they have or are doing.
Maybe we think we have some "right" to judge them, based on experiences in our own lives that give us a different angle on things.
Who knows, really, but I see this all the time.
I was at McDonald's not to long ago, and I watched a woman with two sons that I would guess were ages six and eight.
The younger boy was not succeeding at waiting very patiently, and the mother kept reminding him, "We have to wait our turn, be polite."
They ate their food and played for a little while.  And then it was time to go. 
The mother called for them and the older one came and put his shoes on. 
The younger boy lingered a bit more, and the mother became visibly irritated.
Within seconds, despite the fact that she was standing two feet from her child, she screamed, "HURRY UP NOW, WE DON'T HAVE ALL DAY TO WAIT AROUND FOR YOUR DAWDLING."
How ironic!  This woman could have learned a thing or two from this boy about patience and politeness.
I know what it's like to have to prompt your child again and again and again to do something.
But when you're talking to someone you love, who also happens to be standing right next to you, it might be more effective to speak with a little love and kindness. 
I mean, it's just my opinion but I'd be a lot more excited to leave with her if I didn't feel like she was going to scream at me all day.
We get so very close to people in our lives that it's hard to see exactly what we do to them.  Don't take anybody for granted.  Tomorrow is not promised to anyone.
If you feel like you may be suffering from "proximity confusion" in regards to the way you treat your family and friends, then it's time.

Get some perspective.



BENEATH

Success:

To laugh often and much,

to win the respect of intelligent people

and the affection of children,

to earn the appreciation of honest critics

and endure the betrayal of false friends,

to appreciate beauty,

to find the best in others,

to leave the world a bit better,

whether by a healthy child,

a garden patch,

or a redeemed social condition;

to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.

This is to have succeeded! ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Once again, I do not expect anyone to know what they are looking at here.  If it helps at all, we are looking up at something.  You could say we are "beneath" it.

It seems to me that there is a "socially acceptable norm" when it comes to the proper order of the events one partakes in throughout life, and what deems a person "successful" and it goes roughly like this:

• Attend school and graduate without getting arrested or pregnant, preferably with high grades.
• Attend college and graduate without getting arrested or pregnant, preferably with high grades.
• Find a job requiring the degree you now have that is full time and gives benefits, unless you are in Michigan and then you just take any job you find.
• Work way to hard for way too long, and realize you don't know everything.
• Find a person to partner with whom is deemed acceptable by your family and friends and who also does not pick their nose or leave the toilet seat up or have unusual hair in weird places.
• Marry said person in a ceremony approved of and paid for by both parties' parents.
• Buy a home you can('t) afford.
• Feed the dog, mow the lawn, do the dishes.
• Have a baby and learn that your life is now happening according to a schedule acceptable to this child, but loving every minute of it.
• Raise your child(ren) to do all of these exact same things.

There is not a damn thing wrong at all with following this order of events. 
But not everyone does, and it does not make the people who do any better than those who don't.
My life has gone much the same way.  I don't have a degree, but I do have more credits than some people who do.  You see, I started college thinking I wanted to do a certain thing for the rest of my life, and quickly learned through a series of events called "life" (death of my Grandmother and a close friend, dating my future husband, and moving out of my parents' house, to name a few) that I was headed in a great direction, but not the right direction for me.  And that whole job thing?  Well, I had a great paying full time job with benefits at a great company.  And I walked away because the most important job in my life became raising my children.  I work part time and that works for me.
I still would like to finish my degree, and it is just a little out of reach for me right now, but that doesn't mean that I'm beneath those that are there.
Eventually I'd love to go back to work full time, and I can't reach that yet either, but people who do work full time are no better than me.
And I look at my husband, who has never attended college, yet makes more money than many people who have degrees.  He just simply doesn't know what he'd want to study, and since we don't have a plethora of extra time and money, he isn't going right now.  He still provides for his family, and I appreciate him for it.  But the most important thing he gives us is love.
Some people have said we aren't as "successful" as we should be.  They say we struggle more than we would if we were finished with college before we had kids and maybe on certain days that's true.  But I've never met anyone who doesn't have bad times once in a while, whether or not the have a degree, whether or not they have a great job, whether or not they have children, and despite the order they do it all in.
Success is measured in many different ways.  But weighing our own personal success against those of others doesn't make us beneath them, at least not in my book.  And if they disagree, I've only got one thing to say:

Get some perspective.

ANGLE

When nobody around you seems to measure up, it's time to check your yardstick. ~Bill Lemley

I don't expect you to know what this is.  I probably wouldn't.  But that's kind of my point today.  We don't always see exactly what someone else is looking at, because we all see things from a different angle. 
I could probably leave that and it would be sufficient to sum up how I feel about the word angle. 
But that's just simply stating the obvious, isn't it?
It sure is easy to say how ugly/stupid/pointless something is when you're looking down on it.
What a shitty angle to have!
If you go through life looking down on everything, always judging what you don't see based on what you think you "know", of course you are only going to see what you are looking for: something you can tear down.
I prefer to seek out the good, and if something bad happens to get in the way, then I change my angle until it is good again.  Maybe that makes me naive or overly cheery and optimistic, but in my opinion that sure does beat cynicism and negativity.
I don't need to look down on someone to make myself feel tall.
(I am only 5'2", but I can climb.  That's why God gave me arms, legs, and ladders.)
Even my two year old can cast a pretty big shadow when he is looking at the sun.
If all you see in life is everything bad about everyone, then you probably need a protractor because you need a new angle.

Get some perspective.