#and theres nothing bad about that because they are snapshots so at the least there is usually some loose theme running through them

[lorenlily]

the "there's a good album in there" takes are so funny to me

[me-musing]

mus·ings

a period of reflection or thought: volume 1 

October 17th, 2019

took about an hour

1038 words

about: joker, briefly + destiny + life + happiness

I don’t know exactly what I got out of this movie. It made me feel really unsettled at first. Not really sure why, but it just did. maybe it was because I could see that arthur (the joker)  was just trying to do his best with what he had and the world just wouldn’t let him no matter how hard he tried, no matter how many times he got back up. Did no one see how hard he was trying? Was there no one else around? He just kept getting kicked while he was down. None of it was even his fault but i guess they were just the cards he was dealt. Which i guess may be what got to me. It was all up to chance, some people luck out and some people just don’t. I do believe in fate and things being written for you but I always think of that in a positive way, like the things I’m dealt are meant for me, good or bad they’re things that i need to develop as a human being. That a “bad” thing that happens to me in life is just something that leads me down a different path in life that maybe I wouldn’t have gone down otherwise. I guess that’s how I picture life, a path that starts off as one straight line and as you grow in age and wisdom the path starts to fork and soon there are hundreds of crossroads that you could choose and each one could change your life infinitely. But if you choose one path, you could leave behind so many opportunities and destinies that could have been yours. How do you know what you’re leaving behind, how do you know what you could have done or could have been? do you even get to choose, really? If i believe in fate or kismet doesn’t that mean i don’t really control the path I walk? I don’t think its like that, I think destiny isn’t a map of your life thats written down to the littlest details, like what toothpaste you use in the morning. I think its more fluid than that. Maybe it changes as you do too. There may be so many ways your life goes and you get to choose how it goes but the things you learn from them are written for you. Maybe fate isn’t what you make of your life but what you learn from it. Like there are things you may understand better than others and certain things they know better. We all have different things we need to learn and things we inherently know. Like its written in our dna or something. Maybe the way our life goes is just us going through trials and lessons and happinesses to learn the the things we’re missing. And we don’t know that we didn’t have the answers until after we get them. I feel like thats how my life has been. I keep coming up with answers for questions i didn’t know i had. But now that i know them life looks so different. I do the same things and I see the things Ive been missing for so long and things are so much more layered than I thought. Things make more sense but I also wonder how i’d missed certain things when they seem so obvious now. It also makes me wonder what else I’m still missing, what things i’m just not picking up on. I think I’ve always been the type of person thats been sure of life, of things i saw and people i met and things I thought. It always made sense and I thought i saw the world and life for what it was. Even as a child i thought so many people went through life obliviously. like the answers to life and happiness were so easy and i had them all figured out. everyone else was just overreacting. which like - why do i think i know life better than people who have lived three of my lifetimes? idk. But i was just so self assured, and I think that made me feel like life was straightforward and easy. I felt like I had all the answers which i guess made me feel secure. But nowadays i’m constantly surprised at the things I realize. Before, I didn’t understand what kind of problems existed that made people so upset. I thought it was easy to be happy with life. you just are. happy. thats all there is to it. there was nothing that ever felt big enough to deter that. but i guess that was just me being naive, not as smart as i thought i was at the age of eight, go figure. but like i also feel like happiness isn’t some big fluffy thing you feel. its contentment. not in the way of stagnation but in the way that it just is. maybe we think of happiness as almost an event in life because of how we feel sadness. It feels so foreboding and consuming like things will never be good. it kinda takes over your life, so we think happiness must be the opposite of that, euphoric maybe. but thats not true. that’s some crazed overdosed version of it. those are just snapshot moments in life. mostly happiness is pretty even keel i think. when you feel comfortable. and of course theres always gonna be the usual up and down that comes with being human but mostly its good overall, average -happy. i think we’re told never to be comfortable because everyone wants to always go go go and achieve more and be better than the next person, better than yourself. Which isn’t bad but also i think you become better just by living and always reaching for something better isn’t really organic. but also you learn things other than what you were reaching for in the first place so i guess theres always growth. I guess what I’m saying is that maybe we don’t choose how we grow, life kinda just hits you over the head with things and all of a sudden your like, oh this makes sense. maybe you go through life reaching and pushing and excelling trying to get the answer you’re looking for. but then when you least expect it, when you’re not looking, you get the answer to the question you should have been asking the whole time. and things make a little more sense. and maybe that’s destiny.

[amberlynn111-blog1]

Sad buried hatred in the dirt

So many people are up in arms about donald trump being president. He got elected despite saying some awful racist sexist things during his campaign..in fact,one might say that that was the very reason he got elected. Its a sad true fact people...not only is he himself a racist,hateful, sexist person but apparently there are so many others in this country that they gladly jumped out of the woodwork to vote and put him in office. Why? So they could come out of the shadows and be as hateful and racist as they want. The media nowadays...everybody has to be careful what they say/post/represent or else if someone gets "triggered" theres a HUGE backlash over it..even if its something small and stupid. I got news for you people...trying to control the racism and sexism and other forms of hate by white washing if off the media in every way does NOT and i repeat NOT make it go away..in fact.its like a seed..you try and bury it,it sits underground growing like a weed until something comes along and frees it.. like trump coming into office...all those hateful mean people just burst out of the shadows and came forth,eager to show how hateful they were and be bold about it,and why not? the freakin president is a hateful sexist prejudiced man why cant they be? You cant control everybody nor everything. White wash the media and the hate is still going to hang out and live somewhere. You can take hate out of a magazine or tv but not the one place it lives..a persons heart...and the only way it can die is if the person who has said heart decided to change it. There is always going to be hate in the world and thats a fact. If you have LOVE then you must have HATE because hate is the other side of that coin. Everything in this world is balanced out with its polar opposite. We need to stop thinking we can turn this world into a completely peaceful planet. Not gonna happen..ever. Too many fuckers concerned with getting rich and not giving a shit if others starve or suffer as a result. Too many people so self absorbed and concerned with views on YOUTUBE that if something awful happens instead of helping their fellow man they whip out their phones and record the pain and violence instead. We live in a world where people are so busy following air headed stupid celebrities and watching reality tv shows that they dont strive to make their life better. They live in misery,they swell up with hate and jealousy and then strike out at others. How many people have died because of online bullying? How many more will die this year and the year after that? countless souls gone because hateful souls lashed out at them and made them feel worthless and alone. Unnessesary. The internet was supposed to be a positive thing..a way to learn whatever you wanted whenever you wanted basically free..a way to talk to others and enlighten yourself by being exposed to other cultures and ways of living. What happened...it bred a community of hateful angry self loathing trolls who search out ANYTHING to rag on..."omg...your room is so messy..PIG!!!" "OMG..you are so fat..lose weight you chub!" "ha! look at those shoes..omg..horrible!" ect..its too bad that whenever negative comments are posted that a snapshot cant be taken of those people and their names and locations exposed. It would cut down on the cowards alot. To survive in this world now you have to almost employ soldier tactics. Grow a VERY thick skin so you can go through life and live without fear when people shoot verbal bullets and try to make you bleed. March forward and steel your resolve and focus on the life at hand and dont get distracted by the bullshit of trash tv, negative people,self absorbed enemies and entitled fools. Make positive strong people your batillion and band together to add strenth to your dreams and hopes. So trump is gonna be in office. Nothing to be done about that now people. Just come to grips with the fact that no amount of white washing is going to clean out the dirty hate. As long as there are people there is going to be hate..there is going to be at least one fool in the room who will get full of himself and want to rule all no matter what cost. Someone is going to get the notion that hes better then all others and go to great lenths to stand at the top of the hill...and hes going to be clever or powerful enough that other fools will believe him. Dont believe me? Look at who our president is now...nuff said. So,in closing,all you can do reader is just live your own life and give what good when you can. You cant change others and you shouldnt even try. They have to change themselves. im out

[themoneybuff-blog]

Mastering the abundance mindset (and changing your money blueprint)

Shares 531 Old habits die hard. When you get to be a middle-aged man like me, you have forty-nine years of learned behavior to guide your actions and decisions even when you know your choices arent necessarily for the best. Our mental blueprints (including our money blueprints) are deeply ingrained and tough to change. Dont worry. I havent turned into a spendthrift or anything. But Ive been thinking a lot lately about how certain parts of my past continue to affect me, sometimes in huge and annoying ways. For instance, I fight an ongoing battle against a scarcity mindset. I havent been able to master the abundance mindset.

Scarcity and Abundance Ive been reluctant to talk about scarcity and abundance because the terms have been co-opted by Law of Attraction types who use them to encourage magical thinking. I hate the New Age-y approach to these concepts. I want to discuss them from a psychological perspective. With a scarcity mindset, you believe that everything is limited. Time is limited. Money is limited. Love is limited. This causes you to worry about the future. Youre consciously or unconsciously more concerned with what might go wrong than with what could go right. You make fear-based decisions. Youre afraid of missing out. Youre afraid of not having enough. You have trouble with moderation and often exhibit all or nothing behavior.With an abundance mindset, you believe theres plenty for everyone. Theres plenty of wealth, prestige, and happiness to go around. Youre optimistic about the future. You think things will work out even if there are bumps along the way. You make decisions based on the Big Picture rather than a single snapshot in time. Its easy for you to balance tomorrow and today. Ive written before about my trouble with impulse control. In the past, Ive had problems with overspending, overeating, video game addiction, alcohol consumption, and borderline hoarding behavior. (Im a compulsive collector of Stuff.) All of this the collecting, the addictive tendencies, the lack of self-control stems from a scarcity mentality. But I didnt realize it until a few years ago when my therapist helped me see the source. Because my family didnt have much when I was young, I find it difficult to defer gratification. My default mindset even when life is grand is that if I want something and its available, I should get it now. Somewhere deep inside, I feel as if there wont ever be another chance. My father had this mindset. My mother had it. My brothers have it too. (Like me, Jeff and Tony have both learned to fight the feeling of scarcity in their own fashion.) A Real-Life Example of the Scarcity Mindset Over the past year, my deeply-seated scarcity mindset has begun to manifest itself in another annoying way. Since moving into our new house last July 1st, weve had to make tens of thousands of dollars worth of repairs. About $56,000 of these costs came from the sale of our previous home, but that still leaves us on the hook for $30,000 or $40,000. We have one last project to do before we believe were finished: We want to replace the rotting back deck and install a hot tub. (This was the first project we had planned to tackle when we moved in, but we had to put it off for more pressing priorities.) Kim and I know without a doubt that well use the deck and hot tub nearly every single day of the year. (TMI: Currently, she and I both take several hot baths each week. If we had a hot tub, wed be able to soak together.) Its not a question of whether well get value from building an outdoor oasis. No, the problem is that Ive reached some sort of mental breaking point. Im reluctant to spend another penny on home improvement. Im over it. I hate the idea of cashing out yet another chunk of my index funds. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I feel like thats money Ill never get back. (I feel this way despite the intellectual understanding that wed recoup maybe 80% of our costs if we were to sell the home in the future.) I recognize that this is my scarcity mindset kicking in, yet I cannot shake these feelings. Theyre a part of my money blueprint. Heres the thing: In so many ways, financial freedom depends on casting aside this scarcity mentality and embracing an abundance mindset instead. Financial well-being is fundamentally tied to positive expectations of the future. Lets look at three ways the scarcity mindset can manifest itself and how to embrace abundance instead. Jealousy and Spite For some, the scarcity mindset manifests as jealousy and spite. These folks resent the success of others, financial and otherwise. They find it tough to be happy when something good happens to a friend or family member. Theyre territorial, reluctant to co-operate toward a greater common good. Heres how Stephen Covey describes this flavor of scarcity in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: People with a scarcity mentality tend to see everything in terms of win-lose. There is only so much; and if someone else has it, that means there will be less for me. This type of scarcity mindset is the source of the average Americans love-hate relationship with wealth. Most people want to be wealthy but are suspicious of those who already are. They typical person believes that when she makes money, its a result of hard work and skill. But others who get rich? Theyre lucky jerks who dont deserve it. People with this form of the scarcity mindset dont just hold back themselves but they keep down the people around them. This usually manifests as gossip and griping. Sometimes these people keep score. In extreme cases, they actively work to sabotage the success of others. People with this type of scarcity mindset are a drag on life, a net negative to the world at large. What if you suffer from this sort of scarcity mentality? Train yourself to be happy for others. Recognize that my success does not diminish you. Life is not a zero-sum game. To that end: Dont compare yourself to other people. Focus on yourself, on your own goals and accomplishments. If you must compete, compete with yourself. Strive for constant self-improvement.Practice a win-win approach to life. Look for ways to improve your own situation while also helping those around you. When faced with a conflict, dont try to be the victor; instead, work toward a solution beneficial to both parties.Teach yourself to share. Force yourself to give things time, money, resources to other people. When you have a surplus of something, spread the love. (More on this later.) Jealousy and spite can be overcome, but it takes work. Making the effort is a great way to change your outlook, creating a better life for yourself and the people around you. Never Enough

For others, the scarcity mindset manifests as fear of the future. These people think and act like children of the Great Depression. Theyre so worried about how bad things could get that theyre unable to recognize and enjoy what they already have even when they have a lot. Let me give you an example. I once met with a woman who had over $6 million in the bank. She was my age mid forties and lived a modest lifestyle. She wasnt overly frugal, but she didnt spend a lot either. Plus she had just landed a job that paid half a million per year. Nice position to be in, right? Not to her. She was scared to stop working because the didnt want to run out of money. Based on standard assumptions about inflation and stock market returns, this woman could probably spend $240,000 per year for the rest of her life and still die rich. (Thats without taking into account her new $500k per year position!) Her spending was closer to $50,000 per year, yet she fretted about not having enough. Other folks are more extreme. Ive known retirees who have millions in the bank but who are so frightened of the future inflation! peak oil! stock market collapse! that they wont spend on needed home repairs and health concerns. What good is all of that money if youre dead or your house falls down around you? These folks arent harming anyone else (at least not directly), but theyre doing severe damage to their own well-being. They sacrifice happiness today in order to have more tomorrow but they never enjoy tomorrow. People with this type of scarcity mentality never have enough. No amount of money will allow them to sleep soundly at night. What if you feel like youll never have enough? Unlike those who suffer from jealousy and spite, you should keep score. Do this in two ways: First, keep a journal a standard daily diary. It doesnt have to be detailed. Write down the most important events from your life. And every day note at least one thing for which you are grateful. At the end of each year, go back and re-read what youve written. (This exercise will increase in value the longer you keep at it.)Second, track your net worth and spending. Know how much you have and how much you need. Remember this rule of thumb: For every $25 youve saved, you can probably spend $1 each year without worry. (If youre really nervous, you might change that to $1 for every $30 or $40 saved.) If you have more than enough stashed away and still fret about the future, force yourself to spend. Im dead serious. Pick something youve always wanted to do or have, and go get it. Money is a tool to build a better life. If the tool sits unused, whats the point? Instant Gratification Finally, there are the folks like me, people who find it tough to wait for what they want. Were shopaholics and compulsive spenders. With our flavor of the scarcity mindset, were so skeptical about tomorrow that we enjoy too much today. We want it all and we want it now. A decade ago, when I still struggled with money, I had nothing saved. No retirement, no nothing. What I ought to have been doing was paying down my debt and building a foundation for the future. Instead, I was spending everything I earned on books, comics, and computer games. It never occurred to me to wait. I wanted things now, so I bought them. As I mentioned at the start of this article, my therapist helped me to understand that growing up poor had given me a loathing of uncertainty and an inability to delay gratification. My money blueprint was largely constructed around a fear of missing out. During my transition from spendthrift to money boss, I learned to put off potential spending. I learned to wait for the things I wanted. Like the last group, people with this sort of scarcity mentality never have enough. But the lack manifests in a different way. Instead of needing more money, we need more Stuff. We buy and buy and buy and are never satisfied. Theres no amount of possessions that will make us happy. What if a feeling of scarcity drives you to always want more? Practice the art of deferred gratification. I learned this skill by using the 30-day rule. Heres how it works: When you see something you want, make a note of what it is, where you saw it, and how much it costs. But dont buy it yet.Over the next 30 days, be on the lookout for free or cheap alternatives. Does the library have that book? Can you borrow that tool from a friend? Could the local thrift store have a similar shirt?At the end of 30 days, if you still want the item then consider buying it. In most cases, however, youll find the urge to purchase has passed. Also practice moderation. Recognize that most things in life dont require an all or nothing approach. You can have some, and thats okay. Finally, keep a gratitude journal. The fundamental problem with this type of scarcity mindset is not appreciating what you already have. Force yourself to catalog the good things in your life. From Scarcity to Abundance A scarcity mindset leads to self-defeating behavior. It sabotages your chances for future financial success. Even when a Depression-type scarcity mentality helps you accumulate piles of cash, youre unable to enjoy it. Youre afraid to. Fear is always at the heart of scarcity: fear of failure, fear of the future, fear of missing out. Those with a scarcity mindset cling to the notion that theres a limited amount of everything, and theyre afraid they wont get their share. Well talk more about fear (and overcoming it) next week. For now, you should recognize that in order to achieve financial freedom, you must adopt an abundance mentality. If youre worried about lack, you arent free.

Ive already suggested several ways to fight specific flavors of scarcity. To finish, lets look at a technique anyone can use to move from scarcity to abundance: To get what you want, give what you want. What do I mean? In an amazing article from the academic journal Psychological Science, researchers suggest that giving time gives you time. The authors found that spending time on others (instead of yourself) boosts how much time you think you have in both the present and the future. Many of us feel pressured by the modern world. We feel rushed, as if theres never enough time to do what we want. We feel a lack, a scarcity, of minutes and hours and days. To cope with this, we tend to turn inward. We watch TV. We play videogames. We get a massage. But studies show that wasting time like this truly is a waste. When we spend time on ourselves, we feel like the time is lost. On the other hand, when we give our time to others helping friends or volunteering in the community, for instance we experience feelings of time affluence. Plus our time seems fuller. We feel better about ourselves and what weve done. And as a bonus: Giving time to others not only increases the givers sense of subjective time but can also increase the recipients objective amount of time, such that giving time contributes to the well-being of both the self and others. That, my friends, is abundance in action. The bottom line? When individuals feel time constrained, they should become more generous with their time despite their inclination to be less so. The same idea applies to other areas of your life in which you experience feelings of lack. When I started giving away and selling my Stuff several years ago, for example, I came to realize just how much I had. Before, when I was constantly in acquisition mode, I felt like I had very little. I was wrong. I had mountains of things! If you feel a lack of respect from others, give respect to others. If you feel a lack of compassion from others, be compassionate to others. If you feel like people dont love you, love other people. If you feel broke, donate time and money to the poor. If you feel like youll never have enough wealth, systematically give away some of what you have. In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey writes: The abundance mentalityis the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity. The abundance mindset comes from understanding theres plenty in the world: plenty of money, plenty of love, plenty of time. Theres plenty for everyone both for you and for others. Theres plenty now and therell be plenty tomorrow. Enjoy it! A Real-Life Example of the Abundance Mindset While we were wintering in Savannah two years ago, Kim hustled to get her dental hygiene license for the state of Georgia so that she could earn some money. She spent a couple of days driving across the city, dropping off rsums and speaking with doctors. Soon she started getting calls asking her to do fill-in work while other hygienists were sick or on vacation. She also got an offer for a long-term position at a big office in town. Kim could have taken the long-term gig. In fact, she was tempted. What if I cant find any other positions? she asked as we talked through her options. This is a sure thing. Maybe I should take it in case nothing else comes along. After a few days of internal debate, Kim decided not to take the long-term offer. Im getting plenty of calls from other offices, she reasoned. Ill bet I can stay busy just with the short-term stuff, and thatll give me greater flexibility. Sure enough. Because she refused to make a fear-based decision, because she chose to believe shed have more opportunity rather than less, she was able to pick and choose when and where shed work. She had more offers than she had time. She constantly got new calls asking her to fill in. When we returned to Portland, she used the same experience to find permanent dental hygiene positions. She cast her net wide, then waited for the offers to come. And they came. By exercising patience and an abundance mindset, she landed two gigs that she loves. (Plus, she still gets fill-in offers all of the time.) Shares 531 https://www.getrichslowly.org/abundance-mindset/