JAN 26, 19 .. ATTITUDE

I’m using the above subtitles to this Post to gently call to your attention that this is going to be ‘one of those Posts’ that has suddenly erupted out of nowhere. The very micro-second the ‘S-word’ slips into my mind, if only for one fleeting moment, I TAKE ACTION on that alone.

M. Scott Peck published an amazing book, The Road Less Traveled, in 1978. I read it. I attended in person a lecture of his in San Francisco and met and visited with him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Scott_Peck

The Road Less Traveled is about the road to good mental health. It is indeed, The Road Less Traveled. Most people do not want to look within themselves for the solution to their problems and issues in life. No! They prefer to play The Blame Game. My problems are because of YOU (the great YOU that includes everything outside of yourself).

All of a sudden, right-out-of-nowhere, in spite of having everything I want in my life at this instant, I am finding myself with a suddenly, ever increasing, bad attitude. How dare I, with everything that I have to be grateful for, suddenly find myself with negative thoughts.

So the time has suddenly appeared for me to look at what-on-earth is going on in my head.

ATTITUDE .. by .. Charles Swindoll

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think, say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play the one string we have, and that is our attitude… I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes”

I have to act my way into right thinking. I can not think my way into right actions.

Hungry Angry Lonely Tired.

Hungry. Nope. That mischief maker I’ve got covered. I am eating what I want and I am eating what I enjoy. This very morning I enjoyed the below breakfast.

Liquids come under Hunger for me. That rascal I’ve also got covered like a blanket.

Above is my assembly-line for liquids. Lots and lots of (just check out the below) cool / cold liquids.

One (Hunger) down and three to go.

Anger.

Play a letter game with me. Take the letter D.  Have you got it. Is it in your left hand? Are you holding onto it? Now reach out above and in your right hand pick up the word Anger. Now you have a letter D in your left hand and the word Anger in your right hand.

What if you merge them together?  D in your left hand and Anger in your right hand.

D + Anger .. What have you got?

DANGER.

When I am feeling Anger coming into my mind instantly I think DANGER.

I don’t want anger in my life. I don’t need anger in my life. So when it arises I take it seriously. It is an insidious, creeping, mental cancer that can, and will, spread past what initially created it into other phases of my life.

I’m getting ANGRY and upset and riled up because of this idiotic phenomenon of me hurting me.

My latest great mis-adventure occurred as I was getting off the train here in Tayshet Russian Siberia. On the train you have a bench-seat that you sit and sleep upon. Under your bench-seat is a place to stow your luggage. On the Trans-Siberian trains, you can lift up the bench seat by rotating it upward (it is hinged) to a position where it snaps-open thus holding itself open while you place and retrieve luggage under it. This bench-seat is heavy. It is VERY heavy. Once you are finished with having it up in the open position, you reach down and press upon a retainer mechanism that releases it. I did what I’ve done a lot of times, pressed the release. And bam down came this VERY heavy seat. It caught the side of my left leg about mid-thigh and then blasted its way down into its closed-position and in so-doing it injured my left knee.

Ladies and Gentlemen. Sports Fans. I greatly need each of my two knees to be in good working order! Mike bailed me out by shaming a huge Russian man in his 30’s to carry my rolling suitcase up the stairs and then down the stairs.

Stairs Captain?

I’m getting ANGRY at all of these (expletive) stairs that I am facing.

As totally irrational as it seems, and it is indeed irrational, I’m starting to get ANGRY at them! “Captain! Just look at the great exercise you’re getting!”

Here in my hotel in Tayshet. More, seemingly ever-more, stairs.

And back in Mariinsk.

I know the answer : Acceptance.

I cannot change this fact of having a lot of stairs in my current life. I MUST just accept the hard and cold fact that what is .. IS!  I certainly can not change it.

I also am having some ANGER issues over this ‘bait and switch’ (now a fourth episode here in Tayshet) issue with the hotels we’re staying at charging more money that we’d been advised we’d be paying. THE SOLUTION is this : I can well afford these extra charges that I’m being hit with. So I’ve simply got to practice accepting what is, as simply being the reality of hotels in this neck-of-the-woods.

Instead of being grateful for the Wi-Fi I have I’m getting angry that it is in-and-out as to speed and reliability. So I keep losing text and photo uploading is often arduous.

Two down (Hunger and Anger) and two to go.

Lonely. I do miss having Patti here with me, and it will be great to have her beside me, but I am certainly not dangerously lonely nor am I isolating.

Three down (Hunger, Anger, Lonely) and one very important one to go.

Tired.

I’m not merely Tired, I’m a notch or two or three past being just Tired.

I am Tired. I am on the verge of total exhaustion. In all of my life, this clinically-significant-manic-episode that I am on is beginning to rival some of the greatest runs ever. Let me tell you I’ve had some really great runs!

I am of the opinion that this sudden mental negativity is 90% the direct result of fatigue.

If I can’t think my way into right acting, then I’ve got to Act my way into right thinking.

This is an action : Today, Saturday the 26th of January, I’ve slept a lot. I’ve stayed in the hotel. Next Tuesday I’ll be back home in Irkutsk.

And?

This is a good example of taking a personal inventory (doing a tenth-step) to look at what’s going on in my brain.

Just doing this, just owning my issues, has helped me.

Over And Out.

Cap and Patti.

• ← JAN 25, 19 .. WE’VE ARRIVED INTO TAYSHET RUSSIAN SIBERIA
• JAN 27, 19 .. I LIVE IN A WORLD OF ONE-LINERS →