I haven’t looked at the news yet, but I’m predicting that much of it involves people predicting the future.
We humans specialize in predicting the future, especially when the present is uncomfortable and confusing.
When I’m predicting the future, I’m usually catastrophizing — assuming the worst case scenario. I do that to prepare myself, but that prevents me from being in the moment — which actually helps me to prepare better for what’s coming.
Two of my tweets yesterday were about predicting the future.
I was predicting that those tweets would be much more popular than they were. I couldn’t predict that this tweet would be MUCH more popular:
As always, I’m terrible at predicting the future. However, I predict that I’ll keep trying to do it.
Certain things are easy to predict, like my sharing images every day in this blog.
I wouldn’t have predicted that the Daily Bitch would be so non-bitchy today! Maybe that’s because it’s “National Love is Kind” Day.
What’s on your mind when you look at all the images I captured yesterday?
It’s on my mind to remind you to click on any of those images if you wish to enlarge them.
These mindful and beautiful performances were on my mind when I woke up this morning (here and here on YouTube):
As always, gratitude is on my mind, so thanks to Lani, Take 6, Donald Fagen, tigers everywhere, everyone who is coping and/or healing, and (of course!) YOU.
So you won’t be feeling left out, I want to explain the meaning of today’s blog title.
In yesterday’s therapy group, people wanted to focus on the topic of feeling left out. By the end of the group, several people had noticed the irony that feeling left out is such a universal and common human experience. Chances are, when you’re feeling left out, others are too, even if they don’t show it. I didn’t want to be leaving out this helpful reminder:
Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides.
In the group, we all wrote and/or drew about our personal experiences of feeling left out. Here’s my “Feeling Left Out” poem:
If you’re having trouble reading that, please don’t be feeling left out — I’m sure you are not alone. Here’s “Feeling Left Out” by me.
When I feel left out
I’m afraid to shout
“I feel left out!”
What is that about?
There must be shame
That’s the feeling I’ll name
Feeling left out of a game
Or anything else can affect me the same.
I doubt my worth
Been doing that since birth
If I feel left out
I have no doubt.
What helps with this?
It doesn’t miss
If I do self care
Compliment myself if I dare
Be brave enough to share
And emerge from my lair.
I don’t want my other photos from yesterday to be feeling left out, so here they are:
Nobody seemed to be feeling left out at the Steely Dan concert last night; even the police there were singing along to the songs. So that those of us missing the late Walter Becker wouldn’t be feeling left out, Donald Fagen thanked him at the end of the show.
I assumed that page was from Vivian, drowning in all the tasks she needed to complete. And it was. However, that page could have been from a lot of people, because many of us are drowning in tasks, work, obligations, news, politics, self-recrimination, violence, worry, guilt, and shame.
What do you do when you’re drowning? Do you reach out, like Vivian? How do you reach out?
I don’t worry about drowning in water, even though I can’t swim. Being near water keeps me from drowning. And so does blogging and taking photos, like these:
Yesterday, I gave and received many looks throughout the day, including some Goodbye Looks (although, I certainly hope, NOT the kind Donald Fagen is singing about in that song).
Why were there so many Goodbye Looks yesterday?
Two people I know are leaving the hospital where I work. One of them is Melvin (looking like this in yesterday’s post):
Here’s another look from Melvin, when he and I were talking about saying “Goodbye.”
Also, there was a farewell party for a very talented, skilled, committed, and friendly co-worker, named Brigitte. I didn’t get a shot of Brigitte, but I captured these Goodbye Looks on other people:
In the first picture, you’re looking at Kathy, Mark, and Terry (left to right). I was especially glad to look at Mona (in the second picture), since she and I had exchanged Goodbye Looks a while ago. Isn’t that great that Mona’s outfit says “Hello”?
Something else I looked at, yesterday, was a message from WordPress, in response to my question to support people here:
An easy way to free up storage space for my photos in the media library?
That plea, from me, was a reflection of concerns that:
readers might give The Goodbye Look to my posts if they take too long to read and
there might be goodbye looks regarding my storage in various locations, because of how much friggin’ space my photos take up.
Give a look to WordPress’s return message (which I inadvertently gave The Goodbye Look to yesterday) (in other words, I mistakenly put it in The Trash):
Hi Ann,
There isn’t a bulk action to adjust those photos. Changing your photo sizes is a good idea, however. I did take a look at the first few photos in your library and noticed that they had files sizes and dimensions in common:
File size: 2 MB Dimensions: 2448 × 3264px
This is far larger than you’ll need on your site.
Your theme, Adventure Journal, has a main column constraint of 690px in the 2-column layout you’re using. If you can adjust your photos accordingly from now on, you’ll extend the usage of your space upgrade greatly.
If you don’t have photo editing software on your computer, you could use a free one such as BeFunky.com. You’d simply upload your image, select Resize, make sure you have “constrain proportions” selected, change the width to 690px, and save the image to your desktop. Then you can upload it to WordPress.com. Your photo sizes will much smaller.
Unfortunately, you will have to adjust those older photos manually.
I took the liberty of opening this one by opening the photo from your Media Library, and clicking Edit Image: https://annkoplow.wordpress.com/wp-admin/upload.php?item=43116
The file was originially 2 MB and 2448 x 3264. I scaled the image to 690 x 920px. Now the image takes up 171 KB space.
I hope this helps. If I can address any other concerns or questions, please let me know. Cheers!
Words I liked looking at there included:
“Hi Ann,”
“free”
“simply””
“If I can address other concerns or questions, please let me know,” and
“Cheers!”
Words in that message I’d prefer unseeing included “unfortunately” and all the other ones implying I have a lot of work ahead of me, resizing all the kashmillion photos I’ve posted here since January 1, 2013.
Well, at least I’m looking at a three-day weekend, starting tomorrow.
Speaking of my photos taking up too much space, sometimes I fear I’ll get The Goodbye Look from people if I, personally, take up too much space. Coincidentally, somebody in one of my therapy groups yesterday was looking at something similar:
As you give whatever look you’re giving to that photo (which is taking up lots of space), you might assume the word “frggin” came from me. It didn’t!
What that woman said yesterday, in yesterday’s therapy group, is giving me the courage to post more photos (taking too much space) of other recent goodbye (and other) looks.
After all, we’ve all survived my photos taking up too much space here (so far)!
Preparing to give The Goodbye Look to this post just now, I said “Goodbye” to my 16-year-old son, Aaron (who’ll be spending the three-day weekend away, with his father):
Me: I’m giving you “The Goodbye Look.”
Aaron: The Goodbye Look?
Me: Remember that song by Donald Fagen? It’s not that kind of look, obviously.
Aaron: That’s good.
Thanks to Aaron, Donald Fagen, Melvin, Brigitte, Kathy, Mark, Terry, Mona, Mohammed and Winston (who work at the place I park my car), cupcakes and pets waiting to get The Hello Look, the construction guy (who said, “I hope I didn’t break your camera”), Jackie, Ted Williams, David Ortiz, people working in groups, and everybody, everywhere, giving looks and taking up space today — including you!
Focusing on one thing, and letting go of all distractions, allows one to be mindful and more present in the moment. That can reduce anxiety.
Does it matter what that One Thing is?
What do you think?
Because I tend to have lots of things on my mind, at any one time, here’s a list of possible One Things for me, today:
It’s the anniversary of my mother’s death, six years ago.
Robin Williams, whose genius and life-force seemed huge and unstoppable, is no longer with us.
Traveling can bring up fears and anxieties, for me.
I have too much to do at work, as usual.
Geesh! Having a list, like that, of MORE than one thing … kind of defeats my purpose, doesn’t it?
What to do?
Well, listening to music often helps me focus on one thing. But what one musical thing should I choose, today?
I see that One Direction, a UK group, has a song called “One Thing.” However, I don’t know that song, so I’m going to do what I usually do. That is, I’m going to share, with you, the one tune that’s playing in my head, right now.
If you play that YouTube video until the end, you’ll find out why that one tune was on my mind.
What else did I want to tell you this morning, about the concept of One Thing?
I decided, over the weekend, that — in order to make things easy on me and my son, while we are attending the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland — I may choose to show only one photo, each day, in my blog posts.
That’s very different from what I usually do, though. And breaking old habits is very difficult.
To practice for this possible new habit, today I’d like to show you only one photo, which I took yesterday.
But how to decide which one photo to show? As usual, I took several photos yesterday, not knowing what my blogging topic would be today.
And here’s one thing you should know about me: I love multiple possibilities, choices, and options.
I know! I’ll practice limiting my photographic choices today,but I’ll still show you more than one thing I took yesterday.
After all, I MAY show you more than one photo daily, from Scotland. It just helps me to know I have the option to include only One Thing.
I now choose these four shots from yesterday (in order of appearance):
I would like to end this post with one thing from Robin Williams.
My first choice, for that, would be an amazing stand-up routine I spent a long time searching for, just last week, so I could share it with my son: “Come Inside My Mind” from his 1979 album Reality … What a Concept.
I can’t include that here, right now. But one thing I can share is his final words from Reality … What a Concept (see Robin Williams Wikiquotes):
There was an old, crazy dude who used to live a long time ago. His name was Lord Buckley. And he said, a long time ago, he said, “People–they’re kinda like flowers, and it’s been a privilege walking in your garden.” My love goes with you.
As I’ve mentioned before, I have a fear of repeating myself.
Why? I’m wondering this morning.
What’s so bad about repeating things?
Especially since I talk to people, repetitively — in this blog and elsewhere — about how we humans tend to repeat and relearn important lessons, as we grow. (See my first post about that, here.)
Here’s an example of “good” repetitiveness:
When I really love a song, I want to play it, over and over again.
When I was a kid, I didn’t have the control to make that happen. When I loved a song, I would listen to the radio for days, wishing that it would play.
Yearning for that song. Waiting to hear it.
I first remember doing that, when I was very young, with this song:
I remember doing that, when I was about 13 years old, with this song:
Nowadays, if I want to listen to a song over and over again, I can! And yesterday, I did just that, with this tune:
At this point in this post, I wanted to tell you about another instance of helpful repetitiveness, but here’s what I’m thinking:
Geesh! “Repetitiveness” is such a difficult word to say and type. What’s another good word for that concept?
So, I just I looked for another word, and here’s something interesting, people! Most of the synonyms for “repetitiveness” are negative:
The Year(s) of Living Non-Judgmentally 