Many people have asked me how I am doing and how things are at work. This isn’t easy to talk about as you will see as this goes but let me just be as transparent and as open as I can be. I am not good. We are not good. Work is not good. It is to the point that we no longer say, “How are you?”, we say, “Are you ok?”

I don’t do much on Facebook anymore. I rarely find anything more than advertisements for food delivery plans and weight loss gimmicks, or politics. Occasionally I find something that amuses me or amazes me or makes me think. Today as I was scrolling, I heard the voice of Sir Anthony Hopkins, so I listened. Anthony Hopkins is one of my favorite celebrities. I’m sure we don’t agree on everything, but he loves cats and is a brilliant actor, and I have found several of these thought-provoking episodes he has posted. I really liked this one and thought I would share.

As I drive to work each morning, I say my morning prayer. One thing I often thank God for is letting me live in this area where I am surrounded by his beauty and good people. Me being me, I got to thinking, what makes people in some areas good and others not so much. Why is there always a ‘wrong side of the tracks’ or ‘the hood’ in most towns? I remember being lost in Memphis one night after picking someone up from the airport. I could tell I was in a sketchy part of town but figured I would be fine if I went to a gas station/mini mart that was well lit, to get directions. I walked in and there was a black man behind the counter. His eyes got very large when he saw me. When I got close enough to him, he said in a hushed voice, “You shouldn’t be here.”  To which I responded “please, tell me how to get out of here.” He told me how to get back to the interstate and watched until I got back into my car and left.

The world of psychology accepts that there are six basic human emotions: happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger. Every emotion we have that is not one of these six either falls under one or is a combination of two or more. I’m not sure why, but lately I have been thinking a lot about regret, and it seems to come up a lot in what I listen to on podcasts and in conversations. It just seems that regret is on a lot of people’s minds these days. I was just trying to think of something to write about this week and I remembered a Facebook post of a friend that I read last night. It was about all the things we have and all that we find important in this world, in the grand scheme of things, are meaningless, for in the end, the only thing we take with us is our soul. Nothing on earth means anything to us after we leave the world of the living. So that made me think of regret again. Of course, I had to look up the word to make sure I had it correct, and the best definition I found was this: Regret – Sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one’s control or power to repair. It almost makes you cry to read the definition, huh? So where does regret fall in the realm of human emotions? Sadness I would say is a definite, possibly anger and/or fear or disgust may also fit in there somewhere.

This is the third psychology truth in an eventual series of ten. The first two have been previously posted.

You can probably tell by the title what this one is going to be about. I think I have stated for the past couple years that I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. There are several reasons for this, number one being that I try very hard not to lie, and as soon as I make a resolution, I just lied. I have much better luck with something if I don’t make a ‘resolution’ to do it. Second, I have found that instead of saying I am going to accomplish this or that specific thing, it is much more doable to say I am going to improve in some area. I have found some success with this technique where I cannot remember a single resolution I have ever kept.

Merry Christmas! It is that day again, and I still can’t wrap my head around it. A couple weeks ago it was an oven outside, and I was at the beach on vacation. I’ve always been told that the older you get the faster time goes by. I am ready for it to slow down now. I am a believer.

This is the second psychology truth. Part I was posted previously.

I thought I would try something different. I don’t get on Facebook often, and when I do, I don’t see much besides weight loss systems and food delivery advertisements, but a few days ago an item got my attention. First, it was narrated by Sir Anthony Hopkins, who is one of my favorite actors. It had some beautiful scenery, and the message was very true and thought provoking. Each point of the message has affected me at some point in my life, or I have seen others who are close to me affected by them. I started writing one post with all of it and it became huge, so I decided to hit one truth at a time. They will be shorter than usual, but probably some of you will welcome that. Here’s the subject:

Today is that day that comes every four years that the pundits tell us is the most consequential day in the history of our nation, or our lifetime.  It is Election Day. For years I have believed this schtick as truth. For those of you who have fallen victim of such fearmongering, let me ease your mind, the President makes very few decisions without the support of the House and/or the Senate. Even an executive order can be overturned in many cases by the Supreme Court, and many have. The President is mostly a figurehead unless their party is in power in both houses of congress. If that is the case, they could have a lot of power, unless they have a John McCain or Joe Manchin on their side that throws a wrench in the gears from the inside. As we have seen with most presidents with the power of both houses, not much gets done, even when the power is on your side.

It never gets old to see an outsider come to the South for the first time. Whether it be someone from the Northeastern United States, sunny California, or another country, they all seem amazed by the South. I feel I can write this because I have spent nine months in Korea, nearly two years in Boston and nearly two years in Washington, D.C. I have been around, worked with, and made friends with many city folks, many coastal elites, and many foreign nationals and immigrants. Many of them take a liking to me immediately for one reason, not my personality or my looks, but my accent. There are two very contrasting stereotypes when it comes to the Southern accent. The good one: it is very charming. The bad one: it sounds unintelligent. I’m not sure what sounds so unintelligent about it, have you ever heard the Bostonian or New Yorker accent? And we sound unintelligent? Once while living in Boston, my parents came to see me. My boyfriend’s parents invited them to their home for a visit and the six of us were outside talking. My mom and his mom were sitting with their feet in the pool talking. At the other end of the pool, my dad and his dad were in lawn chairs talking. Now my dad is an Arkansas country hick, and his dad has a blue-collar Boston brogue. Mat (the boyfriend) and I just sat back and watched them for a while and couldn’t figure out if they were even having the same conversation. I’m not sure the dads understood much of what each other said the whole weekend.

I haven’t written anything political in a long time, and this probably won’t really be political, but I keep getting asked what I think about the candidates and the debates and the conventions, etc. I’m just going to cut everyone off from the beginning and say, I haven’t watched any of it. Period. I know who is running, and I know who I am voting for, if I vote, and that is about it. This is actually the first time since I was of legal voting age that I have thought seriously about not voting.