Mourning Celebrities

It's fascinating to see how the world mourns the passing of big celebrities in such a communal way. Last night Facebook was all abuzz with people talking about the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. It's nice to see our humanity shine through even though, realistically, not every human being is shedding tears or necessarily thinking about a given celebrity's death for more than a short time. It's just comforting when so many people take a moment to pause and reflect on the person's career, sucesses, struggles, impact on pop culture, or whatever personal connections an individual might have had with a famous icon who lived so much of their life in the limelight.

The Beauty of a Holiday Weekend

The great thing about national holidays is that most people in the working world are all looking forward to having time off at the same time. Of course, not everyone works a "standard" job with typical Monday through Friday hours, but for those of us who do, we can all share in the excitement for an upcoming long weekend. In my office, we spend the whole week leading up to these sorts of weekends asking each other what fun activities and trips and family gatherings are planned for the time off. Some of us will stretch it out to longer than 3 days, so we aren't really sure exactly what day we'll all see each other again or how sparse the office might be on the days adjacent to the weekend. Then after people start to roll into work after the holiday, we enjoy comparing notes on all of the fun things we did, and we collectively bemoan the fact that the time goes by way too fast, and "Wouldn't it be great if we could have a 3 day weekend every week?!" :)

How Green are we Willing to Be?

We hear a lot of talk about the threat of global warming…saving the planet…being green…it’s unfortunate that so many people ignore these conversations. And some folks are aware of this ever-present topic, but they assume that it’s up to someone else to do what it takes to save our planet. We need to make it a part of our daily habit to reduce, reuse, recycle. Americans have made some efforts to gradually change their ways over the years, but we really have a long way to go if we want to reverse the effects of our wasteful, damaging ways. Sadly, laziness plays a big part in people’s habits, but think about how little effort it really takes to make a difference. Turn off light switches when you leave an empty room. Reduce the amount of paper products and water that you use. In fact, reduce the amount of food that you purchase, consume, and throw away! Keep scrap paper on hand when a whole sheet of paper is not necessary. Print documents on both sides to use half as much paper. If we aren’t willing to lessen our impact on the earth now, when will we take it seriously? When summertime temperatures regularly go above 130°? When one or two of our coastal cities have washed away due to higher ocean levels? When our national parks become garbage dumps? When we have to pay $10 a gallon for clean drinking water? Forgive the preachy nature of this, but conservationism is a cause that’s always been very important to me. Let’s green it up!!

Getting Out of Touch

We have so many ways to stay in touch and check in with each other these days that it makes a person’s head spin. Email and cell phones have been revolutionary enhancements to our lives, and after all of these years it’s hard to imagine life without them. Add to that the many social networking sites, Twitter, instant messaging, GPS systems…and it starts to feel like we’re supposed to keep everyone constantly apprised of our every move and every thought in our heads. Maybe we’re going too far. Sometimes it’s refreshing to spend time alone; a good, healthy dose of escapism is good for the soul. It’s also good to be present with our friends when we are spending physical time with them, rather than allowing ourselves to be distracted by phone calls and other pulling and tugging from outside sources. Allow yourself to get out of touch every once in a while and reap the benefits of tuning out and focusing your attention on the present moment.

Proud to be an American?

How many of us are truly proud to call ourselves Americans? We do live in the "land of opportunity" and "it's a free country", but things aren't necessarily all that rosy these days. The president we had through most of this past decade was a source of embarrassment for a lot of us, and our economy is growing ever darker right now. There are a shocking amount of corrupt people in politics, business, banking, etc. Admittedly, people usually will say that we're lucky to be born in the United States, particularly if you’re born into a good family. We have a lot of advantages, comforts, and opportunities that are not available in many other countries. However, is that enough of a reason to be proud to be an American? Some of us are proud to live in a certain city, or proud of our state; some are content to say that they are making a positive difference in their own little family/neighborhood/corner of the world. Maybe that’s really what’s important, because you can have a powerful impact in the smallest ways. Are you proud of yourself as a human being?

MyFacebookSpace

Social Networking sites have become very popular lately, and I can see why. It’s an easy, entertaining way to stay in touch with people and to dig up friends and acquaintances with whom we had lost touch at some point in life. It allows us to create and maintain a sort of community with a combination of folks that we see all the time and others whom we haven’t seen for many years. One thing that’s ironic about these sites is when people get a friend request from someone they don’t know very well, don’t like all that much, or barely knew in high school. It begs the question: Do I accept this person’s request? The down side to having this person on your list is that you don’t necessarily want them thinking they are your “friend”. They are then allowed access to your personal corner of the internet. One of the main pros AND cons to having people linked to your page is that it’s very easy to share photos and information with them. Regardless of the good and the bad aspects of these sites, they’ve definitely carved a place in our culture. People become addicted to spending time posting their random thoughts and reading other people’s thoughts and comments about their daily activities. I’m all for it. :)

Ages of Enlightenment

It's interesting to see how our perspectives change as we get older, primarily our view of what's considered old and young. As a young child, we think everyone who's over 20 is elderly. Most teenagers are eager to add years onto their young life so they will be taken more seriously by adults, so they can move out of the house, so they can have the perks that come with adulthood, etc. Then as we move through our adult years, the concept of "middle age" or "old" tend to glide farther into the higher numbers. Having recently turned 40, I've been pondering how my friends and I might appear to others. When I'm out somewhere with my friends, laughing and having a grand old time, it's quite possible that teenagers who see us think that we're just a group of "old folks". It doesn't matter what they think; I just find it humorous because there are times when I still feel like I'm 15 years old, and that certainly colors my perspective. Sometimes it actually feels like my group of friends is just a bunch of goofy, energetic kids who just happen to look older on the outside. Maybe keeping that youthful internal core is the true secret to staying young.