I just finished Judge Judy's book Beauty Fades, Dumb is Forever. Good good read! Every pre-teen girl should read this book!! I don't agree with every thing but she does make a lot of sense. She also made me laugh out loud. My co-workers wanted me to share what I was enjoying so very much. One of the "nuggets" of wisdom, not humor, is If your relationship isn't working and you are considering a break-up, stay realistic about that too.
You have to say, "I'll be happier alone." Be sure that is what you are thinking, not "I'll be happier with someone else." If you're truly unhappy, you'd better hope you have the self-confidence and resources to go out on your own. You need a spirit of self-esteem. If your grievance is that your mate isn't as wonderful as another man might be, you're running on the same treadmill."
You will have to read the book yourself to find the humor!! My sense of humor is a little twisted so won't post what I find hilarious.....trust me, there is a lot of humor in this book!
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Death in Teheran (From Viktor Frankl 's book)
This is the last story from that book! I promise!
Death is Teheran
A rich and mighty Persian walked in his garden with a servant. The servant cried that he had just encountered Death, who had threatened him. He begged his master to give him his fastest horse so that he could make haste and flee to Teheran, which he could reach that same evening. The master consented and the servant galloped off on the horse. On returning to his house, the master himself met Death, and questioned him, "Why did you terrify and threaten my servant?" "I did not threaten him; I only showed surprise in still finding him here when I planned to meet him tonight in Teheran," said Death.
Think about this one!!!
Death is Teheran
A rich and mighty Persian walked in his garden with a servant. The servant cried that he had just encountered Death, who had threatened him. He begged his master to give him his fastest horse so that he could make haste and flee to Teheran, which he could reach that same evening. The master consented and the servant galloped off on the horse. On returning to his house, the master himself met Death, and questioned him, "Why did you terrify and threaten my servant?" "I did not threaten him; I only showed surprise in still finding him here when I planned to meet him tonight in Teheran," said Death.
Think about this one!!!
Finished the Viktor Frankel book!
I will not "read" the whole book onto my blog but it is such a great book! So I want to save some of the more meaningful (to me) statements.. We have a tendency to look into the past to help make the present bearable. in robbing the present of reality, it becomes easy to overlook opportunities to make something positive. It is a pecularity of man that he can only live looking to the future. This is his salvation in the most difficult moments, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task. ((Remember this author is a survivor of the concentration camps)).
He who has a "why" to live for can bear with almost any "how".
It doesn't really matter what we expect from life but rather what life expects from us.
What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you. Having been is also a kind of being, perhaps the surest kind.
There are two races of men, the race of the decent and the race of the indecent.
No one has the right to do wrong, even if wrong has been done to them.
Mental health is based on certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish (the gap between what one is and what one should become).
Boredom causes more problems to solve than distress!
The meaning of life...differs from man to man, from day to day, and from hour to hour. Everyone's task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it. Each person decides whether he should interpret his life task as being responsible to society or to his own conscience.
We can discover the meaning of life in 3 different ways (1) by creating work or doing a deed (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. The second way of finding meaning in life is by experiencing something-such as goodness, truth, beauty-by experiencing nature and culture or, last but not least, by experiencing another human being in his very uniqueness--by loving him. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.
(3) We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. It is man's main concern not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather see a meaning in his life.
Some of the people who nowadays call on a psychiatrist would have seen a pastor, priest or rabbi in former days.
"That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast."
After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.
Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.
As to the causation of the feeling of meaninglessness, one may say, that people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning. "Unemployment neurosis"..being jobless was equated with being useless, and being useless was equated with having a meaningless life. So people should fill their free time with some sort of unpaid but meaningful activity. The truth is that man does not live by welfare alone.
The perception of meaning more specifically boils down to becoming aware of what can be done about a given situation. If one cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still CHOOSE his ATTITUDE.
Society blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that an individual's value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of Hitler's program.
The book ends with the following paragraph:
You may be prone to blame me for invoking examples that are the exceptions to the rule. (Everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find). Saints or just decent people are in the minority. They will always remain a minority. And yet I see therein the very challenge o join the minority. For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.
So, let us be alert--alert in a twofold sense:
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.
He who has a "why" to live for can bear with almost any "how".
It doesn't really matter what we expect from life but rather what life expects from us.
What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you. Having been is also a kind of being, perhaps the surest kind.
There are two races of men, the race of the decent and the race of the indecent.
No one has the right to do wrong, even if wrong has been done to them.
Mental health is based on certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish (the gap between what one is and what one should become).
Boredom causes more problems to solve than distress!
The meaning of life...differs from man to man, from day to day, and from hour to hour. Everyone's task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it. Each person decides whether he should interpret his life task as being responsible to society or to his own conscience.
We can discover the meaning of life in 3 different ways (1) by creating work or doing a deed (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. The second way of finding meaning in life is by experiencing something-such as goodness, truth, beauty-by experiencing nature and culture or, last but not least, by experiencing another human being in his very uniqueness--by loving him. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.
(3) We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. It is man's main concern not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather see a meaning in his life.
Some of the people who nowadays call on a psychiatrist would have seen a pastor, priest or rabbi in former days.
"That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast."
After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.
Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.
As to the causation of the feeling of meaninglessness, one may say, that people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning. "Unemployment neurosis"..being jobless was equated with being useless, and being useless was equated with having a meaningless life. So people should fill their free time with some sort of unpaid but meaningful activity. The truth is that man does not live by welfare alone.
The perception of meaning more specifically boils down to becoming aware of what can be done about a given situation. If one cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still CHOOSE his ATTITUDE.
Society blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that an individual's value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of Hitler's program.
The book ends with the following paragraph:
You may be prone to blame me for invoking examples that are the exceptions to the rule. (Everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find). Saints or just decent people are in the minority. They will always remain a minority. And yet I see therein the very challenge o join the minority. For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.
So, let us be alert--alert in a twofold sense:
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
On vacation....
On vacation from work...(duh) and have read two books so far, yes today is only Tuesday but I count the weekend also.
The first book I read is by a favorite author David Baldacci and is called The Sixth Man. This book had some unexpected twists to it, guess that is why it is a mystery?!! It is a very good read.
The second book is by S.J. Watson Before I Go To Sleep. This a new author to me and wow! This was a very good read. It was very spooky and the ending left you wanting to know more. Enjoyed this very much and would highly recommend it.
I am still working on the Viktor Fankl book mentioned before...this is a good book but one that makes you think. And some times I want to read without having to "think and ponder!"
On to baking....(cleaning out closets will be tackled another day) this is MY vacation after all!
The first book I read is by a favorite author David Baldacci and is called The Sixth Man. This book had some unexpected twists to it, guess that is why it is a mystery?!! It is a very good read.
The second book is by S.J. Watson Before I Go To Sleep. This a new author to me and wow! This was a very good read. It was very spooky and the ending left you wanting to know more. Enjoyed this very much and would highly recommend it.
I am still working on the Viktor Fankl book mentioned before...this is a good book but one that makes you think. And some times I want to read without having to "think and ponder!"
On to baking....(cleaning out closets will be tackled another day) this is MY vacation after all!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
This book is a memoir, a self-help book and a psychology manual and has become a classic. This book tells
the chilling and inspirational story of eminent psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who was imprisoned at Auschwitz and other concentration camps for three years during World War II. Immersed in great suffering and loss, Frankl began to wonder why some of his fellow prisoners were able not only to survive the horrifying conditions, but to grow in the process. "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how". What alone remains is the last of human freedoms--the ability to choose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances.
"Don't aim at success-the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run-in the long run, I say!--success will follow you precisely because you have forgotten to think of it."
Viktor had an American visa and was ready to leave Austria. His old parents were overjoyed because they expected I would soon be allowed to leave. The question beset me: could I really afford to leave my parents alone to face their fate, to be sent, sooner or later to a concentration camp, or even to a so-called extermination camp? I pondered this problem and could not arrive at a solution; this was the type of dilemma that made one wish for "a hint from Heaven" as the phrase goes. It was then I noticed a piece of marble lying on a table at home. His father explained it was a part of the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. (the largest Viennese synagogue was burned down by the National Socialists). His father explained the letter engraved on the piece stood for one of the commandments. Which one? Honor thy father and mother was the reply. At that moment Viktor decided to stay with his parents and let his visa lapse.
WOW!
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms-to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him, mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.It is this spiritual freedom--which cannot be taken away--that makes life meaningful and purposeful. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete. The way in which a man accepts his fate and the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity, even under the most difficult of situations, to add a deeper meaning to his life.
What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected of us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life-daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk or meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks it constantly sets before each individual. These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment.
When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way he bears his burden.
Well, I need to quit tonight. As you can tell, this is a very intense book. I am just now reading about the issues they faced with their liberation.....more later...
the chilling and inspirational story of eminent psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who was imprisoned at Auschwitz and other concentration camps for three years during World War II. Immersed in great suffering and loss, Frankl began to wonder why some of his fellow prisoners were able not only to survive the horrifying conditions, but to grow in the process. "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how". What alone remains is the last of human freedoms--the ability to choose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances.
"Don't aim at success-the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run-in the long run, I say!--success will follow you precisely because you have forgotten to think of it."
Viktor had an American visa and was ready to leave Austria. His old parents were overjoyed because they expected I would soon be allowed to leave. The question beset me: could I really afford to leave my parents alone to face their fate, to be sent, sooner or later to a concentration camp, or even to a so-called extermination camp? I pondered this problem and could not arrive at a solution; this was the type of dilemma that made one wish for "a hint from Heaven" as the phrase goes. It was then I noticed a piece of marble lying on a table at home. His father explained it was a part of the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. (the largest Viennese synagogue was burned down by the National Socialists). His father explained the letter engraved on the piece stood for one of the commandments. Which one? Honor thy father and mother was the reply. At that moment Viktor decided to stay with his parents and let his visa lapse.
WOW!
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms-to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him, mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.It is this spiritual freedom--which cannot be taken away--that makes life meaningful and purposeful. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete. The way in which a man accepts his fate and the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity, even under the most difficult of situations, to add a deeper meaning to his life.
What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected of us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life-daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk or meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks it constantly sets before each individual. These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment.
When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way he bears his burden.
Well, I need to quit tonight. As you can tell, this is a very intense book. I am just now reading about the issues they faced with their liberation.....more later...
Interesting excerpt
I thought I would have lots to say about Cutting for Stone. I really enjoyed this book and I want to read his others also. I don't know WHY this particular story sticks with me, as I am so totally not a number person.
Shiva says his 2nd favorite number is 66 because if you take the numbers you can divide into sixty-six, including 66, and add them up, what you have is a square.What is your favorite number if 66 is your second favorite. He writes on the board 10, 213,223. Pray, tell us why would this number interest us? This number is the only number that describes itself when you read it. "one zero, two ones, three twos, and two threes!" It was the only bit of mathematics that stayed with me from that year.
Then there is this passage, sorry if this offends anyone, but I found it extremely funny. Marion is assisting his father Ghosh with a vasectomy. "Now, I tie off the cut ends with catgut. And then I tell the patient, 'No communication with wife allowed for the next ninety days'"
Ghosh turned to the patient and repeated the sentence. The patient nodded. "okay, you can communicate, say Good morning, darling and all that, but no sex for three months." The patient grinned. "okay, you can have sex, but you must wear a condom."
"I use interruptus," the patient said, speaking for the first time.
"You use what? Interruptus? Pull and pray? Good God, man! No wonder you have 5 kids! It's noble of you to try to get off the train at an earlier station, but it's unreliable. No sir. Interrupt the interrruptus, unless you want to reach your half dozen this year. You know what we call young men who use coitus interruptus?
The patient shook his head. "We call them Father! Daddy. Pater. Pappa. Pere. No sir, I have done the interrupting for you. Give me three months and you can tell your missus that she is not to worry because you will be shooting blanks, and there will be no more interruptions and you will be staying for dessert, coffee, and cigars."
Now for a more serious excerpt...Matron is talking with an American about funding their mission...God will judge us, Mr. Harris, by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace." I'll confess, Mr. Harris, that as I get older, my prayers aren't about forgiveness. My prayers are for money to do His work." "Do you know, dear man, that in my darkest moments, you have so often been the answer to my prayers?"
This next story is when Ghosh was in prison...and a fellow prisoner would tell the story of Abu Kassem. It was a tale well known to children all over Africa: Abu Kassem, a miserly Baghdad merchant, had held on to his battered, much repaired pair of slippers even though they were the objects of derision. At last, even he couldn't stomach the sight of them. But his every attempt to get rid of his slippers ended in disaster: when he tossed them out of his window the landed on the head of a pregnant woman who miscarried, and Abu was thrown in jail. When he dropped them into the canal, the slippers choked off the main drain and caused flooding and off Abu went to jail.....The slippers in the story mean that everything you see and do and touch, every seed you sow, or don't sow, becomes part of your destiny. In order to start to get rid of your slippers, you have to admit they are yours, and if you do, then they will get rid of themselves. I hope one day you see this as clearly as I did in Kerchele. The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have and the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you will die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions but also our omissions become our destiny.
Shiva says his 2nd favorite number is 66 because if you take the numbers you can divide into sixty-six, including 66, and add them up, what you have is a square.What is your favorite number if 66 is your second favorite. He writes on the board 10, 213,223. Pray, tell us why would this number interest us? This number is the only number that describes itself when you read it. "one zero, two ones, three twos, and two threes!" It was the only bit of mathematics that stayed with me from that year.
Then there is this passage, sorry if this offends anyone, but I found it extremely funny. Marion is assisting his father Ghosh with a vasectomy. "Now, I tie off the cut ends with catgut. And then I tell the patient, 'No communication with wife allowed for the next ninety days'"
Ghosh turned to the patient and repeated the sentence. The patient nodded. "okay, you can communicate, say Good morning, darling and all that, but no sex for three months." The patient grinned. "okay, you can have sex, but you must wear a condom."
"I use interruptus," the patient said, speaking for the first time.
"You use what? Interruptus? Pull and pray? Good God, man! No wonder you have 5 kids! It's noble of you to try to get off the train at an earlier station, but it's unreliable. No sir. Interrupt the interrruptus, unless you want to reach your half dozen this year. You know what we call young men who use coitus interruptus?
The patient shook his head. "We call them Father! Daddy. Pater. Pappa. Pere. No sir, I have done the interrupting for you. Give me three months and you can tell your missus that she is not to worry because you will be shooting blanks, and there will be no more interruptions and you will be staying for dessert, coffee, and cigars."
Now for a more serious excerpt...Matron is talking with an American about funding their mission...God will judge us, Mr. Harris, by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace." I'll confess, Mr. Harris, that as I get older, my prayers aren't about forgiveness. My prayers are for money to do His work." "Do you know, dear man, that in my darkest moments, you have so often been the answer to my prayers?"
This next story is when Ghosh was in prison...and a fellow prisoner would tell the story of Abu Kassem. It was a tale well known to children all over Africa: Abu Kassem, a miserly Baghdad merchant, had held on to his battered, much repaired pair of slippers even though they were the objects of derision. At last, even he couldn't stomach the sight of them. But his every attempt to get rid of his slippers ended in disaster: when he tossed them out of his window the landed on the head of a pregnant woman who miscarried, and Abu was thrown in jail. When he dropped them into the canal, the slippers choked off the main drain and caused flooding and off Abu went to jail.....The slippers in the story mean that everything you see and do and touch, every seed you sow, or don't sow, becomes part of your destiny. In order to start to get rid of your slippers, you have to admit they are yours, and if you do, then they will get rid of themselves. I hope one day you see this as clearly as I did in Kerchele. The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have and the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you will die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions but also our omissions become our destiny.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Such a dweeb!!
Okay, I just read what I posted about "forgetting" who the author of the "Silver Sparrow" is....duh! That is the entire reason for this "blog"..to keep tract of what and who I read!! SO in the previous post is the answer to my brain sprain!!
I am currently reading a most wonderful book, need to get off here so I can read some more!!
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese I am only on chapter 15 but it is hard to put down. One comment made in this book is "God will judge us by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace." Is that a true statement or what!! And I feel the need to step up with more action by myself to help in ways I can here and now in my life!! And to remember a statement from a previous book, "you can't out give God".
Well, back to reading..
I am currently reading a most wonderful book, need to get off here so I can read some more!!
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese I am only on chapter 15 but it is hard to put down. One comment made in this book is "God will judge us by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace." Is that a true statement or what!! And I feel the need to step up with more action by myself to help in ways I can here and now in my life!! And to remember a statement from a previous book, "you can't out give God".
Well, back to reading..
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