Values and PSTD

In moments of uncertainty and stress, one's values determines how quickly one moves forward from uncertainty and stress to certitude and success.

Problems are not only a part of life but are an opportunity in life. Each problem is an opportunity for better dancing on the one stage that is one's life--pro ballein(ballet) ... better dancing! A problem can throw or project one forward in life. A problem is an opportunity to packet a solution for a profit--pro esse ... forward existence.

Over the year, this problem-sufferer has become a very profitable problem-solver with a growing collection of valuable mental vitiamins:

1. Serenity Prayer:
   GOD, grant me the Serenity
   to accept the things
   I cannot change,
   Courage to change the
   things I can,
   and the Wisdom
   to know the difference.
   [Complete poem]
2. Serenity Prayer Nutshell: It is what it is [which is what I say when I behold my Bodhi Dharma Bump.]
3. Desiderata:
   Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
   and remember what peace there may be in silence.
   [Complete poem]
4. "I can't go on. I must go on. I will go on."
5. "Attitude determines altitude."
6. "I am happy because I live like a baby chicken: cheap, cheap, cheap." [bob barnett]
7. The road to success and happiness is always under construction. How fast and how far you travel depends on how you handle the bumps, potholes, flat tires and road ragers.
8. The music of your mind is the records you play on it.
9. The Puritans thought God had forgotten them if they did not have problems in their lives.
10. PTSD, like any problem, becomes a bigger problem if you dwell on it.
11. If you have a bucket list for dying, you should have two bucket lists for living productively (pro duce, forward leading):
    1. Manic list
    2. Depressed list
       
       Do not piss away your life in false, wasteful celebration when you are in a manic phase--do something productive. And, if depressed, don't sit on your ass. Do something productive for yourself and others. Again, if you were willing to fight and die for your country then you should be willing and able to fight and live for your country. You will have blue days. Start a garden. Learn a musical instrument.
       
       Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what you and your country can do for each other. JFK revised
       
12. Don't take mental medications more than a four days a week. Expect the blue days in-between. Avoid the complex drugs that require a long-term ramp-up before becoming effective--you are screwing up your metabolism that will lead to worsening physical and mental illnesses.
13. Beware of religions and counselors:  Like a prostitute, they are there for the long-run only when you give more than you take. Before Prozac, there was tithing.
    1. Morality without practicality is immoral.
    2. Visions are glorified opinions, illogical answers of a wannabee's opining. Visions are like opinion and arseholes--everyone has one.
    3. Visions without reason are treasons to reason.
    4. When promised something-for-nothing, your something becomes nothing.
    5. The most expensive things in life are first free (A Japanese Proverb):
       1. Free parking ... $100 towing fee.
       2. Free financial advice ... no savings, penions or retirement.
       3. Free love ... 18 years of child rearing costs.
       4. Free eternal life ... hell on earth.
    6. Igknowance is bliss until the igknowed problems blitz your life.

Remember, in the end, you are on your own. No one can hurt you unless you have the values that let, or worse, encourage, them to hurt you.

[I was lucky, I went to college not for job-training and money-making but for an answer to the question: What is the meaning of life? Disdainers of a liberal education may have more money but they will not liberate themselves from the problems of their lives since money will not buy you happiness. It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe. Thomas Carlyle. Values list of author. ]