Two teenage cancer patients begin a life-affirming journey to visit a reclusive author in Amsterdam. [...]
[...] As readers, we not only learn more, but we are also more proficient at deciphering misinformation – our habit of reading gradually improves our judgment. And being able to correctly size up a situation is crucial for being effective at whatever we’re doing.Some good topics covered here. The authors are Life Coaches. Excellent content, good food for thought. I will be referring to this list again and again.
Speaking for myself, I know my reading habit has sharpened my edge. I’m always enamored when I’m working on a puzzling issue and some out-of-left-field piece of information comes to mind from something I’ve read that helps me put all the pieces together.
So with the importance of reading in mind, it’s time to read or re-read our 12 most popular posts (based on the number of reader views, social shares and comments) from this past year. If you give them a chance, each one of these quick reads has the power to change the way you think, live and love, so you can stay on track to living at your greatest potential… [...]
Norway has done it again.I was a bit surprised by the #2 spot. Weather was not included in the ranking, but #2 has good climate as well, making it even more attractive.
The Land of the Midnight Sun was named as the best place to live in the world for the 12th year in a row in the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report.
Released today, the report includes an index that ranks 188 countries according to livability. Each country was given a score based on data in three areas: life expectancy, education and income-standard of living. [...]
[...] Dr. Volandes, a staff physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, noted that “in the abstract, fighting every second of the way and pursuing aggressive life-prolonging interventions sounds admirable.” But he wants doctors, patients and families to consider the likely outcome of the fight and how much suffering it will involve.They are some good questions. Read the whole thing for embedded links and more.
He recognizes that “there are no right and wrong decisions about medical care at the end of life” but insists that all decisions should be fully informed. To ensure that patients and families understand the options, he has developed a video tour of what medical interventions like ventilation, CPR or placement of a feeding tube look like, which often prompts a change of heart. As one patient put it, “It looks so different on television.”
The video, produced by ACP Decisions, a nonprofit group devoted to advanced-care planning, is licensed to health care providers and insurers who can show it to patients and families to facilitate shared decision making in planning for care at the end of life.
In a randomized trial of the video’s effectiveness among 50 patients with advanced brain cancer, a quarter of patients in the control group who had only a verbal discussion about end-of-life care with their doctors chose life-prolonging care, half opted for limited medical care and only one-quarter chose comfort care. But none of those who saw the video opted for life-prolonging care, a handful chose limited medical care, and 92 percent decided on comfort care, Dr. Volandes reported. After watching the video, patients said they had a better understanding of their choices.
However, even just a discussion with their doctors about goals for end-of-life care can often make a huge difference. The one-third of patients in a 2008 national Coping With Cancer study who had such a discussion were less likely to undergo CPR, be put on a ventilator or be placed in an intensive care unit. Most enrolled in hospice, suffered less and were in better physical shape and better able to interact with others and for a longer time.
Their survivors, too, fared better; six months after the deaths, they were markedly less likely to experience major depression.
Options regarding end-of-life care should be discussed well before an emergency — or for those with dementia, during the early stages of mental decline. “The absolute worst time to contemplate decisions about medical care is when one is critically ill and in the hospital,” Dr. Volandes writes.
The kinds of questions doctors should be asking:
[...]
Judy was born in Portland, ME [...]. Raised mostly in Hartford, CT, she spent a lot of time with relatives in Maine. She often spoke of her grandmothers, Nana Bea and Ma Curry. She lost her beloved brother, Jimmy when he was just 20 years old. They had a very special bond and throughout her life she shared her many memories of him.She was suffering from pulmonary hyper-tension and a calcified heart valve. She underwent surgery to replace the heart valve, but her lungs were too compromised, and she did not recover from the surgery. She was removed from artificial life support on June 11th.
She wed her truest friend and the love of her life, Quintin, in 1956. From 1958 to 1963 they had 3 children – James, Charles and Quinci. Judy always said she knew she wanted to have a family of her own.
Who She Was to Her Husband and Children
She was a survivor, of circumstances in her youth over which she had no control. She took control of her life at an early age and created a life and family for herself.
She made our house feel like a real home. She made curtains for our bedrooms, painted the rooms of the house vibrant colors, did paint-by-number paintings to decorate our walls. When her kids were young, she would read magazines and get ideas for Christmas decorations. She could perfectly recreate anything she saw in those magazines, making glittery and colorful hanging mobiles above the stairs, decorations around door frames, wall hangings, paintings of Christmas scenes on the glass of the front storm door... she transformed our house into a magical Christmas Land! We kids were “wowed” by her artistic talents; it seemed like she could do anything.
In the summer, she planted beautiful flowers, morning glories up the sides of the front porch, a rock garden with portulaca in the center of the lawn, Easter Lilies and Jack-in-the-Pulpit in front of the house, and she grew all sorts of indoor plants. She had a green thumb, and taught us kids how to grow things, too. She and dad worked on the vegetable garden, giving us a bounty of vegetables in the summer, with enough to can for winter.
She always prepared delicious and balanced meals for us, and friends were always glad to stay for supper whenever they had the chance. She also loved to bake. As we got older, she insisted that we do our share of housework, such as showing us how to cook simple things, mend our clothes and do laundry. It wasn’t until we moved out that we realized she had taught us how to take care of ourselves, helping us to be self-sufficient and independent.
Judy had a rich sense of humor, even exchanging pranks with her kids and laughing when others may have scolded. Her love of animals and appreciation of nature have always been an important part of who she was.
She could be shy and retiring, a bit of a recluse, but when it was necessary to interact with a lot of people (as in the hospital), she would rise to the occasion, and be very sociable. She used to knit afghans and sweaters for people, with bright colors and interesting patterns, and give them away.
She created a lot of beauty in our lives that we took for granted, thinking that's just how life was supposed to be. Then we went out into the world and found that it's not always that way. Someone has to be doing it, to be making that beauty. And fortunately, we had a good example from our mother as to how that is done.
“She was our father's wife, and our mother, and we loved her, and to us the world was a better place just for her being in it. Just knowing she was there was a great comfort, and her absence now is sorely felt. We miss her, because she was a part of us, and still is, and always will be.”
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
[...] Sometimes, in the darkness, we need to give our minds a rest, and find a distraction. Games are good for that. It reminds me of Billy Wilder’s film, The Apartment. Shirley Maclaine’s character has tried to kill herself with an overdose. Jack Lemmon’s character finds her, resuscitates her, and then tries to keep her awake and busy by playing cards with her. When she asks him what’s the point in life, he replies: ‘shut up and deal’ – a line she repeats to him at the end of the film, when she has recovered and they’re in love.Read the whole thing. It actually starts with a letter from a reader, who talks about how his relentless search for meaning of the mysteries of life, lead to great and deep depression. And how he eventually got himself out of it, through distraction therapy, while still remaining a "seeker". The article then goes on to talk about how many of the great minds of history knew this, and how even modern medicine is recognizing it today.
One of the few philosophers who understood our need for distractions amid the existential confusion was Blaise Pascal, the 17th century French philosopher and mathematician. He’s a fascinating figure – he was one of the leading mathematicians of his age, he almost died in a riding accident, and then had a sort of near-death experience (known as his ‘nuit de feu’ or ‘night of fire’), after which he became a religious philosopher. But he’s fascinating even if you’re not theist - he’s really the first existentialist philosopher, in that he has an acute sense of the mystery of existence and the absurdity of human endeavour.
His Pensees, or ‘thoughts’, are a collection of brief meditations on existence. Here’s one of them: [...]
[...] This is exactly what I felt like when I was in late adolescence and early adulthood. And I think it’s a classic psychological journey. It’s the Fall of Genesis. It’s also what happened to the Buddha – happy teenager, then a sudden shock to his world-view, then a period of depression and searching. A lot of us go through the Fall when we’re in our late teens or early 20s. It’s a nasty surprise, not something our parents or teachers told us about, although it’s described in many books.There's a lot more, with embedded links too. Pretty good stuff!
The Fall is really an awakening. It’s our consciousness realizing that some of the things we believed in are actually a bit of a charade.
When I was 17 or so, I went through one of these awakenings – suddenly, the world seemed a rather sordid and selfish place. Everyone else seemed a bit of an egotistical phony, chasing after their shallow and pointless goals. Getting a career, getting a nice house with a nice lawn and a nice wife, getting a thousand followers on Twitter…what’s the point!
People are like greyhounds chasing after a mechanical rabbit, desperately trying to out-run each other, and if one of the greyhounds stops, scratches his arse and says ‘it’s just a mechanical rabbit’, they call him crazy.
And what lies beneath all the ego, all the desire, all the shadow puppetry? Nothing. The abyss. Human life is a game of charades played over a trapdoor of nothingness, and every now and then the trapdoor opens, one of the actors disappears below, and everyone goes on like nothing happened!
[...]
I didn’t exactly choose to awaken to the emptiness of constructed reality. It was an accidental awakening – maybe through drugs, which can alter our consciousness and make us see things differently. Some people go through similar accidental awakenings through, say, meditation – suddenly everything seems a bit empty and pointless. Or it might happen to them when they first lose someone they love. They notice the trapdoor beneath their feet and think: ‘what’s the point!’
This kind of awakening to the emptiness of our constructs has been called the Dark Night of the Soul. In truth, it happens occasionally through life. It comes with being human, unfortunately, and with being blessed / cursed with consciousness.
So how do we get out of it? How do we discover a sense of purpose or meaning?
People get out of the darkness two ways. Firstly, some people just fall asleep again. Life changes, and they stop thinking such deep thoughts, and get caught up in the game once more. Actually, this happens to everyone. You fall in love, you get a great job, you go on holiday, and things are fun again, and you shelve your inner Hamlet and enjoy the festivities.
There is nothing wrong with this at all. Sometimes the game of charades is a really fun game, and it’s fun to get involved, though unfortunately we often forget it’s just a game and end up totally believing in it and taking it very seriously.
Secondly, some people get out of the darkness by discovering a philosophy or an attitude that helps them through it and gives them a sense of meaning. Their old philosophy – ‘be happy-go-lucky’ - doesn’t quite work anymore, but they discover a new philosophy which works better.
I’ve turned to different philosophies to help me when I’m lost: Buddhism, Stoicism, Sufism, Taoism, Christianity. These are all quite different philosophies, but I think they have a core message to them.
Which is this: We’re here to know ourselves, to discover our nature, and to help other people do the same.
The journey to know ourselves is not an easy one. It involves a lot of wrong turns, a lot of dark forests, steep mountains and sinking swamps. And we meet bad people along the way, fools, liars, egotists, and people who wish us harm. What makes the journey particularly difficult is, when we ask passers-by how to get to our destination, they all give us different directions, and they all seem immensely confident that they’re right.
On this journey, I don’t think you can go backwards. You can’t go back to the Happy Valley of childhood. Frodo and Sam can’t go back to how things were, they’ve got to go forward. You have to go forward. Your consciousness grows – sometimes accidentally, sometimes through education and experience – and then it’s like you don’t fit into the old clothes any more, they feel cramped and ridiculous. That means it’s time to go forward. [...]
The Being Human -blog that you are reading just now is at the moment a collection of 434 smaller and larger essays. Their subjects range from the nature of our universe to things like the reasons why masturbation is seen as a sin in Christianity. I started this blog in December of 2007, and this blog has since had over 860 000 visitors from all over the world.There is much more. He talks quite a bit about the things that were important in his life, and that helped him. I had linked to some of his posts in the past, and am very grateful for his contribution to my education, about things I've wanted to learn about.
During all these years, I have told very little of myself. My aim has been to air my ideas and not promote myself. This blog is not weblog, but a collection of little essays. Not a single posting has been tied to a particular daily event or happening. They try always to be reflections on ideas on a bit wider perspective. How I have succeeded in this, remains for my readers to judge, of course.
Things are about to change. Just now I see a need to record some of my personal history also here in this blog that has always been the favorite child among my blogs. The basic reason for this is that was diagnosed with inoperable cancer in November of 2011. Cancer was by then already deeply embedded in my liver and lungs. It simply cannot be removed from liver without destroying the liver also, anymore.
I am still here thanks to chemotherapy that has given me an additional year and a half, but the therapies were terminated a week ago because their ability to fight my cancer has waned off. I am on my own now, but nobody knows how soon the end will come. However, it is quite certain that I will not see my 56th birthday in January of 2014. [...]
At the Wall St. train stop people were covered with papers. A plane crash. That's what everyone said. Then a boom. Everyone ran. I ran to my office and called my brother in the Midwest.
I wanted to be closer. At the corner of Church and Broadway, I angled my way through a large, packed crowd to get the best view. We talked about people jumping. The police stood behind the yellow tape. Minutes later, there was a boom. I thought it was a bomb, so I crouched, but people ran, so I ran. I couldn't see anything. I don't know how far I ran. Couldn't see where I was running. Didn't know if I was in a street or next to a building. Didn't know what street I was on. No one could talk because the dust filled our throats. After about ten steps I tripped over a pile of people and then people tripped on me.
I laid there. The only sound was the falling of dust and debris. No one moved under me. The weight of people on top of me got heavier. I couldn't breathe. I knew we were all going to die in that pile. I pulled myself out of the pile. My slip-ons slipped off. I stood up and saw nothing. Not even an inch in front of me. I put my hands out and felt for something. [...]
(CNN) -- Mississippi Winn didn't get caught up in the amazing statistics that accompanied someone her age.
Only 1 in 5 million people in the industrialized world live to be 110. About 60 people that age live in the United States, with another 300 or so scattered around the globe. Nine of 10 are women.
Winn was believed to be the oldest living African-American when she died Friday afternoon in Shreveport, Louisiana, at 113.
Investigator Milton Carroll of the Caddo Parish Coroner's Office said he was not permitted to disclose a cause of death, but a relative said Winn -- who was nicknamed "Sweetie" -- had been in declining health since last autumn.
Robert Young, a senior claims researcher with the Gerontology Research Group and a senior consultant for Guinness World Records, visited Winn at Magnolia Manor Nursing Home in July 2010.
[...]
Winn, who did not marry and lived independently until 103, appears to have lived a life that made her especially well-qualified for the elite club of supercentenarians -- those who live to be 110 or older.
"She had always been kind to others," Hollins said on Saturday. "She was always respectful."
[...]
The secret to living to and past 110, besides not having an unhealthy weight, said Young, is a positive attitude and emotional and physical stability. Most supercentenarians take little medication during their lives, he said.
"They do things in moderation," he said. "They don't get upset."
Most were still walking at age 105, he added.
[...]
Winn was clear about what she liked.
"She was a disciplinarian," said Hollins. Right or wrong, it was her way."
A member of Avenue Baptist Church, Winn received visits from church members and was able to attend a service on August 29. The chuch will hold her funeral next Saturday.
She outlived many of her church friends.
"When each one passed I could see part of her leaving with them," said Hollins, whose grandmother was Winn's sister.
In time, Winn came to enjoy the attention paid to her age.
But she remained even-keeled, said Hollins, recalling what her great-aunt would say.
"I'm just going to stay here until he's ready for me."
The oldest known African-American is now Mamie Rearden of Edgefield, South Carolina, who is 112.
The world's oldest known living person is Eunice Sanborn, 114, of Jacksonville, Texas, according to Young.
It is possible to live on minimum wage.[1] For most people, however, it's not likely to be very much fun. Whether you're forced to live in this situation, or you want to know that it's an option, this article will show you how it can be done, assuming you bring home $1000 USD a month after taxes. [...]
[...] # Find the free stuff. In towns of any size, there are resources available for the impoverished, from free dinners at churches to food giveaways to soup kitchens. Look around for the free stuff and use it – it’s there for everyone to utilize. When you must spend money, be as frugal as possible. Ramen is very cheap, filling, and full of carbs, for example.
# Be Humble. Pride often keeps people from walking into a soup kitchen. Don’t let it. That kind of pride is an obstacle ground into you by a life in a consumerist society. People who are there to help you want to help you stand on your own two feet – give them that opportunity. Look for every opportunity to help you with your situation, from consulting to WIC to Medicaid to welfare. If you don’t know where to start, start off by asking a pastor or a clergyman for help. [...]
This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed. Here goes...
My father never drove a car.
Well, that's not quite right.
I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.
"In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it."
At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
"Oh, bull——!" she said. "He hit a horse."
"Well," my father said, "there was that, too."
So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars — the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford — but we had none. My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.
Our 1950 Chevy
My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one."
It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.
But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.
Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying once.
For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps — though they seldom left the city limits — and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.
The ritual walk to church
Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.) He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home. If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church.
He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."
After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. (In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.") If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out — and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream.
As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?" "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.
"No left turns," he said.
"What?" I asked.
"No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn."
"What?" I said again. "No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights."
"You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support. "No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works."
But then she added: "Except when your father loses count."
I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. "Loses count?" I asked. "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again."
I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked.
"No," he said. "If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week."
My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom — the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.) He continued to walk daily — he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising — and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.
A happy life
One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news. A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer." "You're probably right," I said. "Why would you say that?" he countered, somewhat irritated. "Because you're 102 years old," I said. "Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day. That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet." An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:
"I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have."
A short time later, he died.
I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.
I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life.
Or because he quit taking left turns.
Life is too short to wake up with regrets.
So love the people who treat you right.
Forget about the one's who don't.
Believe everything happens for a reason.
If you get a chance,take it & if it changes your life, let it.
Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would
most likely be worth it."
ENJOY LIFE NOW - IT HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE!
