Day 2384: Expect the unexpected

Yesterday, I got this unexpected email:

Dear Ann Koplow

We have been looking at the database of shows who still want something, either runs or infills.

We would like to offer you the slot(s) below:

Show number 306 provisional title Group “Therapy” with Ann

Mo 19 13:00-14:00 Natural Food Kafe Basement Room

If you accept, please email this address immediately.

If these are extra performances, you will already have sent a picture and blurb. If you have not sent a picture and blurb, please immediately send one via the form. Full instructions are attached.

If you don’t want what’s offered but want something else, please email back saying what. Be as precise as you can.

If you don’t want this at all, please email back and say so. Make things as clear as possible. For example, if you’ve asked for extras but now don’t want extras, but want to keep your main run, say that. We don’t want any mistakes.

All offers are immediately void if you have breached the Ethos and Rules by applying to any other free-admission promoter, including pay-what-you-want and pay-for-priority-admission-otherwise-free. Or breached them in any other way.

Please reply as soon as you can so that we can fill the spaces as well as we can, and get your show in the Wee Blue Book.

Thank you

Free Fringe Team

I didn’t expect that!  I expect that email means that I will have a show at the Free Fringe in Edinburgh on August 19 at 1 PM, unless my responding back six hours later wasn’t immediately enough.  I expect it was, but I never seem to expect anything for sure.

With my life (see as many posts in this blog as possible), I’ve learned to expect the unexpected. I expect good things will come my way and they often do! I also expect I’ll have trouble sleeping trying to anticipate and plan for the unexpected.

I expect I’ll have to market the hell out of this Edinburgh Fringe Festival opportunity, especially because of the time and location of my show.  Expect to read more about this, here, in the month ahead.

I just posted this unexpected news on my Facebook page:

I GOT A SHOW AT THE EDINBURGH FRINGE! August 19th, 1 PM, The Natural Food Kafe. Consider making this part of your vacation plans.

Unexpectedly, somebody already has replied that they’ll be going.

Expect the unexpected photos.

 

Expect an explanation of at least one unexpected photo.  That little fishing dude, directly above, reminds me of the old saying “Give someone a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach someone to fish and you feed them for a lifetime.”  I expect you’ve heard that one before.

Expect the unexpected video:

I expect that no one will watch or listen to that whole thing.

I expect the unexpected comment, below.

Expect gratitude here, every day, for all who help me live each unexpected day, including YOU!

 

 

Day 2349: What is the title of this post?

4 times be-4 (but who’s counting?), I’ve published blog posts with similar titles (here, here, here, and here).

I could label a title like  this — “What is the title of this post?” — as  lazy, or I could choose to reframe this choice more positively and with more self-forgiveness.

For example, maybe I am using this title today because I am interested 2 C how YOU might title a post with all these photos:

What is the title of this song by Da Vinci’s Notebook?

What are your comments about this post?

The title of this post (and all my posts) could be “Gratitude,” so thanks to all who helped me create this and — of course! — thanks to YOU!

Day 2301: How to have a nice day

Here are some hints about how to have a nice day (based on my nice yesterday):

• Take nice photos to share with nice people.
• Be ready to use helping signs.

• Nicely help yourself and others.

• Say “please.”
• Work on acceptance and hope.

• Be strong (and also vulnerable).

• Consider forgiveness.

• Use productivity hacks.
• Be open to (and less rigid  about)  new experiences and understanding.

• Put aside what’s not good for you (if only for the day).

• Do things for fun!

• Sing new songs, no matter who and how old you are.
• Consider the past and the future while remaining present.

• Plan a date night.

• Share love — locally and globally.
• Be where you are, completely.

• Make wishes.
• Celebrate old traditions in new ways (at a very nice restaurant).

• Look for treasures (including the Afikomen at a Passover meal).

• Accept good luck and all gifts that come your way (including a $25 gift certificate to a very nice restaurant).

How do you have a nice day?

Here‘s the nice Bon Jovi singing “Have a nice day.”

 

Nice thanks to all the nice people who helped me create today’s post and — of course! — to YOU.

 

Day 2171: More than words

There are more than words in this daily blog — there are often photos, like this one:

I often see those words, and more, on my commute to work. Here are some words to describe More Than Words.

More Than Words is a nonprofit social enterprise that empowers youth who are in the foster care system, court involved, homeless, or out of school to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business.

There are more than words in this world, even for those of us who depend on words.  There are feelings,

facial expressions,

moments of reflection,

forgiveness,

consciousness, art,

human rights,  music,

and words that evoke more than words in us.

I have more than words for the International Human Rights Day Celebration that I witnessed last night after work. Here are more photos (and a video) of my co-worker Sterling and his daughter, sharing words and music with us.

Sterling (a/k/a Steis)  wrote “Lost for Words” after the violent death of a beloved cousin.   There are no words, but Sterling found some, to heal and move on.

If you leave words in a comment below, that is more than enough for me.

My gratitude for those who help me create these daily blog posts and for YOU is more than words can express, but I’ll try.

 

Day 1978: Resentment

I hope there’s no resentment about today’s topic, which is discussed by Robert Enright, Ph.D. in a Psychology Today online article “Why Resentment Lasts — and How to Defeat it.”

I hope there’s no resentment about my choosing these particular quotes over others from that article:

To psychologists, resentment over a long period of time can be an unhealthy response to injustice.

This kind of resentment can lead to unhappiness, continual irritability, and psychological compromise including excessive anxiety and depression.

I know of one person who, upon having his morning cup of coffee, would replay the injustice and feel the inner strength as a way of getting ready for the day. He did this until he realized that over the long-term, such a routine was leaving him drained before he even left for work

How do I turn off the resentment?  What path do I take to have some inner quiet?  Taking up jogging might do it……but once you have recovered your energy from the run, the anger returns.  How about relaxation training?  Same issue: once the muscle relaxation is over, there is the resentment with its perverse smile looking back at you.  “I just don’t know how to rid myself of the resentment!” is a cry I hear too often.

Try to see the inner world of the one causing the disturbance.

Commit to doing no harm to the one who is harming you.

Stand in the pain so that you do not pass that pain to innocent others.

To forgive is a way of offering goodness to the one who gave you the unwanted present of resentment.

Which is the better identity: a life lived with an unwanted inner guest or a life free to be a conduit of good toward others and yourself?

Is there any resentment about these photos?

 

 

What is your personal experience of resentment?  What makes resentment more difficult for you? What helps you deal with resentment?

There will be no resentment about any comments you send my way.

Here‘s “Resentment” by Beyonce.

Another great antidote for resentment is gratitude.  Thanks to all who helped me create this “resentment” post and — of course! — to YOU.

Day 1670: Which way peace?

I have a peaceful way of choosing my post titles: I look at my pictures from the day before.

Yesterday, I facilitated a therapy group, listened, talked, walked, observed, and  settled in to our new home.  As always, there were ways to peace in every moment.

 

 

Somebody in last night’s therapy group suggested that the way to peace was “forgiving self first.”

Which way is peace on YouTube?

Peace and thanks to all who helped me create today’s post and — of course! — to you, for finding your way here.

Day 1649: Forgiveness

Please forgive me, dear readers, for writing another post about forgiveness.

Last night’s therapy group was about forgiveness. I hope you can forgive my messy handwriting on the white board:

Forgive me for asking: how would you answer those questions?

People last night had a lot to say about forgiveness. I said that I found it easier to forgive others than to forgive myself.  Here and now, I forgive myself for taking only one other photo yesterday.

I wonder if the New Yorkers reading this post can forgive me for being a life-long Boston Red Sox fan.

Earlier this week, my therapist, George, suggested that I write down hurtful things  people have done to me so that I can work on really letting them go. I believe that George was talking to me about the healing power of forgiveness — of my self and of others.

Forgive me for including more than one tune about forgiveness (here and here on forgiving YouTube):

I’ll forgive you if you don’t leave a comment, but I might not forgive myself if I didn’t ask that you do.

Thanks to all who helped me create this post about forgiveness and — of course! — to you, for the forgiveness you bring.

Day 1618: Do your job

When people aren’t doing their job, I’d like to say, “Do your job,” but I have trouble saying that.

For example, last Sunday I was standing at a supermarket counter waiting to order some prepared food  and nobody offered to help me for quite a while, even though they definitely saw me standing there.  Instead of speaking up, I got annoyed.

I shall do my job, now, and try to figure out why it’s difficult to say, “Do your job.”

Maybe I think it’s not my place to say,  “Do your job.”  Maybe I believe people should know what their job is without my having to tell them. Maybe I feel more comfortable being annoyed than annoying others.

Did I do my job there?

When I’ve been trying to do my job, lately, I’ve been dealing with Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV).  Rather than asking doctors to do their job and make that go away, I did their job for them yesterday by using this helpful YouTube video by Dr. Carol Foster.

Dr. Foster knows her job (as she says in the beginning of that video) and she does a great job there.

My job as a blogger includes sharing (1) useful information and (2) my recent photos.

 

I hope I’m doing a fair job here.

I hesitate to ask you to do your job and leave a comment, but I hope you do.

Thanks to all who help me do my blogging job every morning and to you — of course! — for all you do.

Day 1521: No need to apologize

Whenever somebody apologizes in group therapy, I automatically say “No need to apologize.”

I don’t apologize for that response, because my experience is that people apologize too much, especially when they’re feeling anxious or self-conscious. And in my therapy groups, I observe people learning to break the habit of apologizing for  being themselves and for being human. No need to apologize for that kind of progress.

But what if there IS a need for somebody to apologize?  Should I still say, “No need to apologize?”

No need to apologize for my asking more questions about the need to apologize:

1. When is there a need to apologize?
2. How do you apologize?
3. How do you respond to apologies?
4. Is there a need to apologize for taking only one photo all day yesterday?

 

No need to apologize for sharing the song “Apologize” by OneRepublic.

No need to apologize if you have some thoughts and feelings about the need to apologize. No need to apologize if you leave or if you don’t leave a comment.

There IS a need to apologize if I don’t express my gratitude to all who helped me create today’s post and to you — of course! — for being here, now.

Day 1500: Mistakes

In the one thousand and five hundred consecutive posts for this daily blog, mistakes have been the main topic at least five times, if I am not mistaken.

You can check for mistakes in previous posts about mistakes here, here, here, and here.

Yesterday, in therapy, somebody was focusing on mistakes.  Make no mistake, lots of people who come to see me for individual or group therapy focus on and feel bad about mistakes.  They often make the common mistake of believing that only they make mistakes every day.

Everybody makes mistakes every day.  Why?  Because we’re human.

Was it a mistake for me to take only four photos yesterday?

 

I may be mistaken, but I believe that first photo shows people  on their way to yesterday’s victory parade for the New England Patriots. And make no mistake, that last photo shows my boyfriend Michael’s latest victorious meal. Michael was afraid he’d made  mistakes by soaking the monkfish before trying to bread it (unsuccessfully) and then poaching the fish instead.  I thought those “mistakes” resulted in a perfectly delicious meal.

When I look at the news these days, I can get upset about what I see as other people’s mistakes. Sometimes I make the common mistake of forgetting that the only behaviors I can control are my own.

It’s never a mistake for me to look for music on YouTube I want to share.

What are your thoughts and feelings about mistakes?

Time for me to end this post so I can make more mistakes!

No mistake: I am grateful for Michael, my work, my blog, patriots of all kind,  Amanda Joy, good food, the opportunity to make mistakes, and — of course! — you, my readers.