Comments on: Who Wants to Do Things that are Unwise or Foolish?

By: Kathy Warnock

Kathy Warnock — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:50:58 +0000

I’ve given a lot of thought to this post — why I do what I do. I was just installed as president of an organization of women old enough to be my mother. I have only been a member for two years. Last year I served as secretary. I truly don’t want to be president and dread some of my duties. Why did I agree? Because my oldest sister sponsored my membership, because I see that there’s logically no one else to do it, because they need me, because it’s the right thing to do.

My ideal of the retro woman is my mother (1909-1997). It wasn’t that she was a great housekeeper. The time she devoted to her love of the feminine arts interfered with keeping a straight house. But she had her standards nevertheless. For instance, the dishes were to be washed and put away before we left the house, and this applied to every meal. As a young person I felt that these standards of good housekeeping placed undue strain on the household and failed to establish such standards for my own home. In other words, I missed the point. But I am beginning to see that if I don’t follow some disciplined course of action, I won’t have the quality home I desire, neither will I be the person I want to be.

By: Dr. Julie-Ann

Dr. Julie-Ann — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:39:29 +0000

I think, though, that sometimes we get caught in a feedback loop of doing things that we think we *should* do even though there isn’t an ultimate goal. For example, I still try to be polite and gracious with toxic people but I **finally** realized that I didn’t have to try to heal their pain or get sucked into their constant hysteria. If they didn’t get what they wanted from me, they would find someone else willing to be part of their constant drama.

Also, until we have disconnected from the media, we have NO IDEA how brainwashed we’ve become as a culture. We think that we HAVE to work at X job in order to “earn a living.” But, a lot of that “living” isn’t authentic to us–it is what Madison Avenue or politicians or whomever has led us to believe is what we “need.” When we began trying to live a more simple life, I quickly discovered that the Real Simple magazine was designed to get me to buy more stuff. I realized that shopping wasn’t really a recreational activity (horrors!), I realized that spending money I didn’t have because we were attacked by terrorists was probably one of the most unpatriotic things we could do despite what our president told us.

I guess this goes along the vein of “mindfulness,” doesn’t it? *smile*

By: Lyn

Lyn — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 03:29:49 +0000

When I started reading your blog and I could tell where this was going. The last few days I’ve been pondering why I do so many things that I do not like, but I have to concede that though I may not care for the many task there is an ultimate goal. 