Hindsight is 20/20

Hindsight is 20/20.  Life happens and then we sit and analyze the shit out of it.  We believe we have the power to control the outcome of any situation. I should ofs are scary and guilt producing.  The only way we have any control is how we react to the situation.  We have control over our emotions more than we realize.   Step back and look.  Could we have avoided or helped the situation.   Maybe.  This is hindsight.  Look at it and then let it go.  It is done.

Culture

I just returned from the United Tribes International Pow Wow  in Bismarck, ND.  This will be the second time I have attended.  It is fascinating!  I experience a people's pride in their heritage and culture. 
There was a time when this was not understood.  This was heathen and evil.  I say no.  It was judged by someone who could not open their mind to something that was not their way of thinking.  Or their experience with someone in that culture was not a good one.  Their are good and bad individuals in every culture.  It not not specific.
How many cultures have been down-trodden or destroyed because of bias.  Have we missed seeing the beauty of their ways?   I really am disappointed the way religion and strong armed their way into other cultures.  Religion has destroyed beauty, all because they feel the have the correct way of doing things.  It is so closed minded that it is frightening.
I believe in a deity greater than myself.  I don't believe in a deity that destroys.  I believe in a deity that evolves all people into a greater understanding.   

Thinking

Why?  I like when thinking takes me to an Ah-Ha moment.  I t releases me from old damaging thoughts and creates a new outlook.  We are bombarded with so many people telling us how we need to act, think and do.  We forget we can think and speak for ourselves.  How 'bout it.  You know what you think and feel.  If any cannot be good with that--let them go.  There is a reason some people never can go along for the ride--they can't let go.  They need a push.  Don't be held back because it's safe.  Move ahead and beyond your comfort level.  The times that I pushed myself were the best times I've had.  I pushed myself to write this blog.  I would have never before let anyone else know the feelings I held in.  Now it's like I have lost 50 pounds.  

Reading

What is it about reading that takes you away.  I was wishing I could not think for awhile.  Then the book I'm reading jogged my thoughts.  I guess it was a form of not thinking.  Not thinking about what is bothering me.  Just letting the story take me out of it.  Reading is my way of forgetting about certain problems.  Sometimes the solution comes to me while I'm reading.  Good way to move on with your life.  I know I need to read more.  The past few days have made me realize this.  I let my reading habit lapse.  Reading is my thought process.  Reading filters out all of the junk.  Reading brings knowledge, relaxation, joy, peace and calm.  

Coyotes

Last night was the closest the coyotes have been.  It was amazing.  Coyotes really don't howl.  It was alot of yipping and a sound that is very hard to describe.  In my reading about women homesteaders,  they have described hearing coyotes.  These women of course would tend to be very religious.  One woman described it as sounding like the gates of hell opened and demons escaped.  At first in was a little frightening because I was sleeping.  It sounded just unreal.  The second time I was awake and it was still unbelievable.  In the two times I heard them, only once each time sounded like a howl.  They were right across the highway in a pasture.  We were listening to the birds as we fell asleep and it sounded like we were in Africa.  It is such a rush to listen to all the sounds.  We used to have cattle.  When we were calving, I had the graveyard shift.  I  would hear the coyotes, but they sounded farther away.  Last night  I was glad I wasn't in a tar paper shanty.

Don't Rock The Boat

This is probably heard by most of us at least once in our lives.  But really what does it mean?  Do we really think we'll tip over?  Or is it we have to be careful that we might piss someone off?  I believe it is the later.  Some have more control over our lives than we like to admit.  Our lives can be made miserable.  But what if you  didn't rock the boat.  Our lives can be made just as miserable.  Talk about a lose, lose situation.  I think I would rather rock the boat and deal with the consequences than keeping it steady and be miserable.

How To Be?

How to be?  Is to be yourself.  Wow, how many times do we need to hear that before it sinks in.  It is something you need to tell yourself until it is a part of your thought process.  If one lesson I could pass on this would be it.  Be Yourself.  We need to realize not everyone will love us or like us.  The ones who are worth it are the ones that make the cut.  We take the world way too seriously.  Like it has the final say on who we are.  We all have ups and downs.  In reality, the ups have the higher percentage.  We just tend to focus on the downs, as if there was something in our control to change it.  Leave it scattered on the floor and move on.  We have control over more in our lives than we realize.