Kevin's Watch

Posted: **Wed Apr 26, 2006 10:07 am**

Seareach wrote:I'm really down. I no longer know how to make everyone happy...not that I ever did to begin with but I tried.

You're approaching this from the wrong direction SeaReach. First make yourself happy, then if you have any time left over, give a thought to all these other people.

Congrats or commisserations everybody else, or get well soon, or hurry back to us, and be safe.

--A

Posted: **Wed Apr 26, 2006 10:10 am**

Avatar wrote:
Seareach wrote:I'm really down. I no longer know how to make everyone happy...not that I ever did to begin with but I tried.
You're approaching this from the wrong direction SeaReach. First make yourself happy, then if you have any time left over, give a thought to all these other people.

Excellent advice, Avatar.

Posted: **Thu Apr 27, 2006 3:00 am**

Seareach, happiness is NOT on your job description. People (meaning everyone around you) are responsible for their OWN happiness. Don't make the mistake of thinking YOU are the one to provide it. It's up to THEM to find it! And your own happiness is what will guide others to find theirs.

Happiness is infectious - you can only catch it if you feel it! So be happy, chickadee!

Posted: **Thu Apr 27, 2006 3:14 am**

www.geocities.com/happinessisournaturalstate/

Posted: **Thu Apr 27, 2006 1:11 pm**

Feeling down. Very worried my novel wont be accepted.

Posted: **Thu Apr 27, 2006 2:45 pm**

Seareach wrote:I'm really down. I no longer know how to make everyone happy...not that I ever did to begin with but I tried. I feel so run down at the moment, my body is in rebellion. I feel like I'm doing so many things for other people that I've left no time for myself. And I don't know what my motivations for doing these things are anymore. I keep saying to myself "why is it so important" and I think I know the answer...but I hate the answer...so I kid myself, I pretend I'm doing these things for the "right" reasons. Somehow I don't think I am.

Seareach, someone e-mailed this to me the other day.....figured I'd post it for you......

John is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"

He was a natural motivator.

If an employee was having a bad day, John was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up and asked him, "I don't get it!

You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

He replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or ... you can choose to be in a bad mood.

I choose to be in a good mood."

Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or...I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it.

Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or... I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.

"Yes, it is," he said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood.

You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live your life."

I reflected on what he said. Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that he was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, he was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.

I saw him about six months after the accident.

When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.

"The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon-to-be born daughter," he replied. "Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or...I could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.

He continued, "..the paramedics were great.

They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man'. I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me," said John. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes, I replied.' The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Gravity'."

Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."

He lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude... I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34.

After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

Think Positive & Live.

You have two choices now:

01. Delete this.

02. Forward it to the people you care about.

You know the choice I made.

Posted: **Fri Apr 28, 2006 1:25 am**

lore: i'm saving a chapter in my novel for the rejection notices. some good will come from all the negative.

Posted: **Fri Apr 28, 2006 2:44 am**

sgtnull wrote:lore: i'm saving a chapter in my novel for the rejection notices. some good will come from all the negative.

Good idea. Thanks for the advice.

Posted: **Fri Apr 28, 2006 4:25 am**

Anyways, look at it this way, Lore...many authors had their novels rejected many times before the RIGHT publisher saw their potential. Then...BOOM!! instant bestseller. Bet that made the publishers who reject them feel really dumb! I like focussing on THAT idea most of all!

If one publisher doesn't see the potential, find one that does. Better still, get an agent to do all that crap for ya. That's what I was advised at the Santa Barbara Writer's Conference last year. Sure, they'll get a percentage of your profits, but hell better to get someone else to do the legwork while you concentrate on the creative side of things. That's why I go to an accountant - I can't be arsed doing my own tax return!!

Posted: **Fri Apr 28, 2006 4:27 am**

and there is always self publishing.

Posted: **Fri Apr 28, 2006 4:28 am**

I can help design the cover for it, Lore!

Posted: **Fri Apr 28, 2006 4:33 am**

Thanks, Elfgirl. Much appreciated. And knowing how good your artwork is, I'd be very much inclined to have you design the cover.
Thanks again, Sge.

Posted: **Fri Apr 28, 2006 4:37 am**

no problems, all is well. we have saturday off for the draft in Houston. sunday is my b-day, and no rejection for the house yet.

Posted: **Fri Apr 28, 2006 4:50 am**

Happy birthday for Sunday, Sarge! (i prolly won't be online in time so I'm getting in early...)

Posted: **Fri Apr 28, 2006 8:36 pm**

Finished my last written test of the semester. Looks like As and Bs again. I'm ashamed, since I made all As last year. Heh, not really. As and Bs, woo!

Anyway, last official day at school for me is this Tuesday, and all we're going to do is eat donuts and watch The Hours. Kick ass. Britain on May 14. Did I say "kick ass" already? Well, kick ass.

All right, time to go to my best friend's sister's apartment, where me and three others will watch Ran. We're also going to watch Advent Children. Fun, fun, fun.

Posted: **Fri Apr 28, 2006 9:40 pm**

I feel depressed. I have no support system in my career field, and very little personal support system, and I don't know how to get one at this late date.

I am also being very hard on myself today.

Posted: **Fri Apr 28, 2006 10:14 pm**

I know the feeling, MsMaryMalone. Both feelings, actually; and I sympathize. Support systems are hard to come by, and the more you need them, the less you can get them.

For decades, people have been telling me I have no self-confidence. I just today realized that they've been wrong or lying all along. I have immense self-confidence. What I do not have is trust in other people. Specifically, I don't trust them to believe in me or help me or approve of anything I do, and the reason I don't trust them to do these things is that they don't do them — not when it counts.

By this I mean this. I need paying work, but the only people who think I can get it aren't in a position to hire anybody. I need a publishing contract, but the only people who think my stuff is publishable aren't in the publishing business. And (it shames me deeply to admit it) I need someone to love, but the only people who think I could possibly have that are people who would never themselves love me in return, or permit me to love them. It amounts to a huge exercise in buck-passing and pious humbug.

Late last night I wrote some verses touching upon this matter, which I posted in the Hall of Gifts where they have had the usual reception.

Posted: **Sat Apr 29, 2006 12:37 am**

MsMaryMalone wrote:I feel depressed. I have no support system in my career field, and very little personal support system, and I don't know how to get one at this late date.

You have support here, Ms Mary.

MsMaryMalone wrote:I am also being very hard on myself today.

Whatever you do, don't be like that. Love yourself each day, don't put demands on yourself.

All the best with looking for work, Variol Farseer. Keep us updated, and don't be too hard on yourself, either.

Posted: **Sat Apr 29, 2006 5:29 am**

lore: have a look at this.
www.lulu.com/

Posted: **Sat Apr 29, 2006 5:40 am**

Variol Farseer wrote:Late last night I wrote some verses touching upon this matter, which I posted in the Hall of Gifts where they have had the usual reception.

Well, the Hall is pretty unactive in the first place. 96% of my poems go unheard, but I don't mind. Guess it's different for everyone. I just wouldn't take much stock in how a subforum on an obscure message board receives your poem, heh.

Kevin's Watch

How do you feel today?