Traditions

People like the comfort of having good, reliable traditions in their lives. This is especially evident around holidays. A lot of families have their regular routines where they prepare the same food and serve a big holiday meal at approximately the same time of day on a given holiday. I’ve noticed that people rarely go very far from these routines. Some people feel uncomfortable when finding out that a favorite food will be absent from the meal or that gifts will be opened on a different day. A whole family might be hurt or offended if one of the members announces that she is not going to be joining the group for an annual ritual. On one hand, people are very content having consistent patterns on which to depend. On the other hand, why do we fear trying something different from the usual customs? If it’s just for one year and then back to the common tradition, what’s the harm? Certainly there are many individuals and families who do not adhere to their customs as strictly as I’m describing. Why not toss some variety into the foods served at the traditional meal? Perhaps even try decorating the house differently or invent a new family tradition and see what people think of it? There are no set rules saying that a holiday, wedding, reunion, etc. has to contain particular elements to be correct. There are endless ways to celebrate a gathering of friends and family. I hope you enjoy your traditions!

To Do Lists

1. They never seem to go away
2. They always have some tasks that linger much too long
3. Sometimes we write something on it that we’ve already completed so we can cross it off
4. They stare us in the face daring us to finish everything
5. If things are not added to a list, we’re likely to forget to do them
6. Sometimes we have several different lists going concurrently
7. Some people refuse to keep lists because they don’t want to be tied to them
8. Some people lose their lists…purposely
9. What would happen if we actually finished all of our lists completely???

News Creates News

I’m starting to miss the good ol’ days when we weren’t bombarded with news stories about every single thing that happens every single day. We are able to receive up-to-the minute news on the internet and on TV, and I don’t think it always serves us well. The financial crisis in the United States is really bad right now, and in my opinion, it’s just made worse by the constant updates about it. When the initial “Bailout Plan” failed in congress, the stock market immediately took a huge dive as a result. Maybe there would have been a different outcome if we hadn’t been told what happened in congress…It’s hard to say. Americans are getting more depressed and worried about savings accounts and housing foreclosures, and perhaps there would be less worry and panic if we weren’t constantly exposed to all of the news about the financial state of the country. Hearing statistics about the number of foreclosures in California makes me worry about my own home. Then I remind myself that my home and mortgage really aren’t directly affected by those foreclosures. It just feels that way when there’s so much information thrown at us. We’ve fooled ourselves into believing that we need to know everything that’s happening on every corner of the earth, but how much of it truly is useful and necessary information? Especially everything we hear and read about each teeny tiny detail in celebrities’ lives! But that’s a whole other story.

Sports Fanatics

As I write some of the topics on my blog, I’m noticing how often my preferences and my lifestyle are so different from the way many other people live their lives. I hope that readers won’t interpret my observations as judgments or criticisms of other people. I admit, it’s a fine line as I try to be objective and simply ponder the questions of “why?”, “how?”, and the “isn’t that interesting?” parts of life. Anyway, on the topic of sports fans and the often over-the-top obsessions of fans, I know I’m way off to the side observing the proceedings with wonder. On game days, people go through so many of the same routines – dressing in the appointed team colors, starting the drinking and bratwurst eating around 7 or 8 am, and for a lot of fans, it’s important to be drunk before the kickoff. Many years ago, watching sports was primarily the domain of men, but these days, there are lots of women who get equally jazzed to tailgate, watch the game, and get swept up in the fervor. Football is probably the most popular spectator sport among Americans, but is barely followed in other cultures. Wouldn’t it be great if a majority of the spectators would spend the same amount of their time participating in sporting events in addition to watching them? We’d have a much healthier society.

Blockbuster Movies

As a general rule, I don’t rush out and see the highly-anticipated movies the first weekend they’re released. Far too often over the years, I’ve found that the more a movie is hyped, the less impressed I am with it when I finally see it. There are some “blockbuster” movies that I’ve enjoyed a lot, but I prefer to see the independent movies that have a small budget and don’t necessarily have famous actors. What makes any movie great is an original story, fantastic writing, and top-notch acting. A huge budget and mind-blowing special effects don't necessarily make a movie into a classic. Isn’t it curious that most of the movies that we hear about these days are either sequels to popular movies, or remakes of older movies, or remakes of stage musicals… Not that they can’t end up being wonderful, entertaining movies, but why do so many producers and directors take the easy route? Take more chances on unknown script writers and actors. Give us more original ideas. Give intelligent viewers a reason to really get excited about seeing new films!

Overcrowding

Our world is shrinking. Well, I suppose it isn’t physically shrinking, but it sure feels that way sometimes. There are more and more cars sharing the same roads, city planners are cramming new buildings into cities all the time, and the cities themselves are sprawling further outside of their borders. One place in particular that I’ve really noticed the overcrowding is at my office building. They recently reconstructed the cubicles in my area so they could squeeze more cubicles into the same space. They continually put shelves and filing cabinets and photocopiers in places that used to be walkways. There are days when I need to walk to the other end of our building for classes or meetings, and the hallways have become painfully narrow! Two people can not comfortably walk side-by-side and have a conversation. That’s the case in a lot of offices these days, and as we know, our world’s population is not about to plateau anytime soon. Enjoy the valuable wide open spaces and wilderness areas that we still have left in this bulging world. I hope they’ll be around for a long, long time!

Running Late

We’ve become such a society where we over-pack our schedules and we’re busy busy busy all the time. We sleep less hours than we used to, we eat our meals faster, and most of us would love to work less hours so that we can get on to the rest of our plans for the evening. J I witnessed something completely ridiculous this morning as I was pulling out of my driveway to go to work; there were three different people running to catch the bus at the end of the block. Perhaps they all slept late? Maybe they’re squeezing in a little jog for exercise on the way to work? I just found it so amusing. My pattern is to plan too many fun activities in the evenings and weekends to the point that I often have to rush to move from one to the next. Things get piled on top of each other, and that pesky matter of transportation between events just gets in the way! I consider myself a very punctual person, so I don’t like to be late for anything. It’s especially challenging during the summer when we have such a limited amount of good, warm, sunny days to cram in all the fun before winter comes crashing in again. I’m still waiting for someone to find a way to invent that one extra day each week that we’re all craving. Then we’d have oodles of free time and we could slow down the pace, right?