You Are Alive; Why Would You Not Take Advantage Of It?

 

WOW, life... I am going to take advantage of this!

Image generated by Ideogram AI.

Imagine for a moment, that you are a sentient life form on another planet and just like human beings you live and die a certain amount of time. But you know for certain there is no afterlife. Would this affect how you approach your existence?

 I asked this question because I find an ever-growing number of people don't take advantage of what their life offers. Put simply, that is that they are aware they exist; they can affect change in their environment and yet they do not alter their situation in a positive manner but instead reinforce negative behavior, and all the while completing bitterly about the situation. This is analogous to putting one's hand in very hot water and yet insisting that they do not want to take their arm out of the scalding liquid, because that would be a change. For years, this same group of individuals keeps stating that they are unhappy but they keep doing the very things that entrench their discomfort. Any change in the status quo is met immediately with negativity. Offer to give them empowering tools and they resist that too.

 The only way I can rationalize this in my head, is that they must be waiting for some marvellous afterlife. But I'm willing to bet they would resist that change as well. This boggles my mind. Yet I know people just like this today, in the 21st-century. A time in human history when there are so many opportunities, regardless of your physical or mental situation. It does take a fair bit of work in some cases to utilize these opportunities. One may have to negotiate with funding sources for equipment, or take a field of study. In the situation where the person cannot do any of the things necessary to utilize opportunities, they can form a group which could assist them in reaching a goal.

 To illustrate, the other day it occurred to me that anyone can create artwork. You can literally give one the many AI services like the online service IDEOGRAM a description of what you want and it will produce an image for you, this service has a free option so to create this image would cost the person nothing. Then they could dictate the text to go along with the image to their phone or computer. Again this is free to do. So basically you could write a book complete with images. You could then use this new book to mobilize others to assist you further. Perhaps form an organization which would then in turn qualify for funding. You could then pay your self a salary.... This is an oversimplification but you get the idea. The old axiom comes to mind "Where There's a Will There's a Way."

 The older I get the more enthusiastic I get about what life has to offer. Because I now know that the opportunities are short and should not be taken for granted. I have also seen what "The other side of the coin" described above, looks like and to me that is mediocrity at best and indeed a waste of life at worst. I shall scream: "That Ain't Me, Baby!" Until the end of time.

 Maybe things are too easy and the beginning of the 21st-century. When you think about it, it's the challenges in ones young life that build the skills of self-reliance and deeper understanding. Do any of my readers remember learning how to use a physical card catalogue at a library? If so leave me a comment. That one skill brought together many aspects of awareness and understanding. 

 

The card catalog in Manchester Central Library
March 2010. Photo: Ricardo Creative Commons License: CC BY 2.0

 

Now you just go to your favourite search engine or AI resource. There is no need to work out a solution, now one just tells the machine what you want and poof the answer is there. There is no need for the individual to change or evolve. Maybe that explains some of the behaviour I described above. These people are waiting for something else to do the hard work of finding a solution. Then again it is unlikely that the solution would work if the person was not willing to adopt alteration in their behaviour.

 I was told of a similar situation earlier this year and involved a person on welfare. To be clear they were very poor and just getting by. This year the provincial government made available at extra $200 per month for people who also havw a disability. The person I am talking about would indeed qualify for the extra money in this case. But there was a catch, there was a separate application process. To this day they still have not filled out the one form in order to get the money.

Ministry of  Social Development and Poverty Reduction June 20, 2025 
News release: "B.C. helps people keep full federal Canada Disability Benefit" 

 I am so grateful that my life experiences have shaped me in a way that allows me to see the possibilities. Difficulty is not a problem, it is an asset,  an opportunity to get creative, and thereby in solving the problem one gains a slightly deeper understanding of the world Add up these difficulties and their respective solutions and what you are left with is quite in the encyclopedia of understanding. The ultimate toolkit for life if you will 😀

 This Christmas was particularly shocking in the supported living building I am a member of. Most tenants actively argued against Christmas celebrations or decorations. In the six or seven years that I've been here I have never seen it so bad. Yet as mentioned above by maintaining the negative status quo one only entrenches and makes worse the situation. Dr. Seuss's the Grinch could take lessons from this crew. However the staff were able to break out the ornaments and festivities that go along with them at the last minute. It did result in a mild elevation of the buildings' mood. So there is a way to improve the situation.

This pleasant turnaround in the atmosphere actually really surprised me. I was convinced that absolutely nothing would break them out of their "Ebenezer Scrooge mindset". As I have said before in this blog, I think mindset plays a major role in one's life. (Click this link to see all the articles dealing with mindset and motivation on the blog.) Much larger than it is given credit for. I would go as far as to say: "your mindset, not only affects how you see things currently, it can affect your long term health". And I don't suggest this idea likely. Since a person's mindset has an impact on their entire perception of the world, I don't think it is too much of a reach to suggest that it may have a health impact if the same mindset is held on over a longer period of time.

 What I'm suggesting is that a profoundly negative mindset and open you up to a whole variety of health concerns. Maybe not biologically but definitely because you are not going to see the warning signs. I have noticed that many people in my facility have verily shallow inner awareness. Most of their stimulus comes from external sources like the Internet, various substances, all of which are just a form of distraction.

 This reminds me of the old story I was told as a young child about the ostrich which would stick it's head in the sand so that it did not see the approaching threat. Or to put it another way, "Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind". Of course this behaviour doesn't do the ostrich any good at all except it is a virtual guarantee that the poor birds life will be shorter. The same holds true for anyone who holds on to a negative mindset or seeks constant distraction from a real-life.

 It can be very difficult to break this pattern, but as the short Christmas experience positively by the tenant in my building has shown it is not impossible. So, since you are alive and reading this or watching the companion video, please take the time to do something large, or small, with your life right now. That step may be all it takes to change your perception and have a great new year in 2026.

 Take care Patrick

 

** NOTE: The picture "Image generated by Ideogram AI" displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

 

 

 

 

Your Mental Margin

 "Use It or Lose It" holds true for your mental well-being as well.

Ever since joining a cognitive therapy group I have become very aware of the way people process their environment and indeed their own sense of reality. I joined this group because I am 66 years old and even though I am in good health I have noticed a slight decline in my memory and cognitive skills. So when the opportunity arose I jumped at joining the group.

The adage "Use It or Lose It" really has come into focus for me as I look around and I see young and old people mentally drifting through life or taking things for granted. Assuming that the facilities for have now, they will always have. Mind you I think everyone does this at different stages of life to some degree, I recently saw a video clip of Arnold Schwarzenegger who is now 78 years old, as of the writing of this blog post, commenting that when he was 30 years old he never thought about losing muscle mass. Especially with the incredible amount of exercise he committed to every day. The idea even if it occurred to him what it seemed inconceivable. What makes "Use It or Lose It" even more important is, we live in a world that is much more interconnected and technical on all levels. Society and individuals simply cannot afford being ignorant of society and technology. The late astronomer, Carl Sagan said, and I'm paraphrasing this: 

"We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces."

It is my point of view that in order to get the best out of life, one must be fully involved in all aspects. One must avoid taking things for granted or as I've mentioned many other times in this blog going on a kind of mental autopilot. The more you exercise your mind and body the more margin you build up. To put it another way, the more reserves you have to deal with the challenges of life the better. A little bit of difficulty throughout one's life is necessary. Try not to become overly comfortable in your lifestyle or routines. Make a commitment to do something uncomfortable and potentially productive every few days or weeks. It is these uncomfortable activities which tend to break down the walls of isolation and help to keep you connected to the society and realities around you.

When was the last time you read a physical book? The act of reading something written or printed on paper is very different than reading the same material off a screen. Come to think of it when was the last time any of us read a book or other physical medium like a magazine or newspaper from beginning to end.

It is these kind of things that help you stay connected and alive in the world. It helps build up your mental and your physical margins, so that when your help does decline you have a much better chance of enjoying your later years with friends and family.

I probably will add more to this article in the next few days. But for tonight I wanted to get this out there just as a starting point.

Second instalment: October 18, 2025

Speaking about "mental margins"and really using the facilities of one's brain to think and consider a person's environment. I keep meaning people who really don't understand at all how different things in their life relate to each other. This leads into a real difficulty for them when they try to use technology. For example a friend of mine recently bought a Smart TV. They asked me to assist them in the set up and I realized partway through that they did not have any comprehension of what was meant by a "smart TV". As a result they are having great difficulty using it. When their PVR (Personal Video Recorder) had a momentary glitch in a recorded program and froze for a few seconds they immediately thought it was a problem with the new TV. They don't see the separate components which make up modern media experiences. To them the television set is all encompassing and so when I explained initially that they had to use two remote controls one for the PVR  and one to control the volume on their TV they really got confused. It was not until I realized how they were looking at the devices that I understood what the problem was.

There are extenuating circumstances here which I won't go into but it still remains that a great number of society's people are now using hardware and services with no understanding of how it all works together. This is a point of greatest concern for me because it guarantees that not only will the devices not be used to their best advantage, it is for certain there will be confusion and problems down the road. Yet I am also reminded that there are many very creative people out there still. But when I run into people that don't want to learn or expand their boundaries I get a little frightened. It reminds me of the movie "Idiocracy" (movie trailer) which takes place in the future in a city where everybody has been dumbed down. It is a comedy but the underlying message cannot be ignored. "Use it or lose it"

There has been a shift in attitude toward knowledge and learning

In my family, understanding a concept or discovering how something worked was a real sign of achievement, as a matter of fact I remember the expression on my father's face when he would describe some little aspect of an idea, there was sheer joy in his face. The message and the behaviour were transferred directly to his children. At the time we might not have understood what he was describing fully, but we got the message that it was something worth striving for. Now, knowledge and learning seemed to be, if not devalued, taken for granted… After all there's always "Google" or ChatGPT to fall back on.

What's missing is the sheer excitement which I still experience when I discover and understand something new. I still have quite a number of eureka moments in my life 😀. This means that many people also don't really appreciate discovery and achievement anymore. Especially if the undertaking involved some commitment over weeks or months. In part, this is likely due to everything being viewed as transitory, as well as what now qualifies as a lengthy commitment.
 

Take care Patrick

Side note: The Rose photograph (More about the creation of this image in the article "Find Some Time to Disconnect from All the Chatter") depicted at the top of this article is based on images generated by an AI initially and then slightly adjusted by me. The moment I saw the Rose I thought:" It be great to have this backlit in a light box. Wouldn't you know it, I did some searching and there is a small company on Etsy which does just that. Here's a link to their storefront: Q AND L GIFTS. You do have to provide the artwork as a very good scan but I have been most impressed I must say. This is not an official endorsement of this product and I am not being reimbursed I just thought others might find this beneficial.

Can Depression Become a Habit?

 

Author of this article, Patrick Clark.

Can the depressive state some people fall into become a habit? --That is can it become the default behaviour when facing something the individual does not want to deal with. My initial answer to this question is a gut feeling of "Yes, it can become an automatic reaction." Over the course of the coming days and months this article will expand as I find related documents and topics either disproving or proving this question. In actuality it probably will be somewhere down the middle of the road, but we shall see.

My family, especially the males in my family, have all suffered bouts of serious depression, occasionally becoming clinical. So I'm very familiar with the question above. Currently I'm going through a mild depressive state and it annoys me because there are things I must do in life. Yet I have noticed that whenever I approach the actual task my emotions tend to tank. Today is no exception, and I have a large amount of paperwork waiting for me on my other desk. I really feel of resistance yet and I will get this done today. But it does annoy me having to go through this mental brick wall. Even five shots of pure espresso to didn't help the matter.

Just a thought on the spur of the moment... I decided to ask Chat GPT this question. Can Depression Become a Habit. Here is its response verbatim. Note remember this response is generated by an AI. To make it clear in the text is a different colour.

 Depression is a complex mental health condition influenced by a combination of genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors. While it's not accurate to characterize depression itself as a habit, certain behaviors and thought patterns associated with depression can become habitual over time. For instance, persistent negative thinking, social withdrawal, and avoidance of activities once found enjoyable can reinforce depressive symptoms, creating a cycle that's challenging to break.

Understanding these patterns is crucial in addressing depression. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one therapeutic approach that focuses on identifying and modifying negative thought patterns and behaviors. By recognizing these habits, individuals can work towards developing healthier coping mechanisms and breaking the cycle of depression.

If you or someone you know is struggling with depression, it's important to seek professional help. In Canada, resources such as the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) offer support and information. You can visit their website at https://cmha.ca/ for more details. Additionally, consulting with a healthcare provider can provide personalized guidance and treatment options.

Remember, reaching out for help is a vital step towards recovery, and support is available.

The following is most definitely my personal opinion. Depression can become a habit. A knee-jerk reaction, if you will to any sufficiently distressing situation. After all is the ultimate disconnection a method of letting go of all issues and responsibilities. Your subconscious doesn't care however if this hasn't any negative impact on your conscious mind. The subconscious just knows this is one way of immediately resolving the situation. Especially if it is something you truly don't want to do. Your mental circuit breaker has just blown wide open and you stop and so to speak.. Even if that means falling into the sea. You have changed things.

If an hypothetical "Operations Manual for the Human Brain" was ever written, it most certainly did not take into account the current environment the human brain and mind are currently in. It may be, trite to say but, life and society are moving so fast and there is so much information needed to be filtered and processed that evolutionarily it is just not prepared. Like a Commodore Vic 20 compared to a current smart phone it has not yet acquired the processing power meeting to keep up with things. Yet, in society's race to discover new things we have not considered this fact. Now, I am not saying we should slow down progress, what I am saying is we need to consider the impact before we bring something new to the party.

By not considering the impact of new technology and social change we end up overwhelming our minds and brains collectively. I remember many years ago I was working with a gentleman who was very excited to look up a new laser printer to his computer. Initially I got a phone call from him saying that the print out from the brand-new printer was very slow. When I took a look at the computer it was obvious what the problem was, the machine was ancient I think it actually might've been an early Pentium and of course whenever it needed to produce his company logo the amount of data he needed was just beyond what the old computer could produce at a reasonable pace. To be clear it worked, but you could have a coffee break in the time it took to print a single page.I believe this is the situation some people find themselves in now and it is no wonder that depression appears more frequently in modern society.

A partial solution to this is then not so much to slow down, rather it is to realize the impact life is having on the individual and make appropriate adjustments. Depression can show up when one least expects it but in my experience that means that things in one's life need to be paid attention to. "Timing is everything." as they say. 

An Aside: Artificial Intelligence Does Something Interesting with a Photograph. 

While trying to think up an image for the top of this article I decided to use a photograph of an atomic bomb exploding and render it through some AI software I have. What it came up with is so unusual that I just have to posted here

Image created using Vision FX 2.0  software 
by Distinct AI.

 I did give the AI a little direction saying that I wanted it rendered in a comic book style with saturated colours. My idea was to create something which depicted the "explosion/implosion of the mind" a person sometimes feels with depression.

Unfortunately I cannot display the original photograph due to copyright restrictions. Of course the above picture has no such restrictions, so feel free to download it and use it as you wish.

 

Even though that the feeling of depression can become a reaction to any sufficient the negative situation, this does not mean it set in stone. Reactions can be altered by changing a routine and the first step to that is to recognize that something has become a routine. Sometimes this is not the easiest thing to do in the moment, so we visited when the situation is different, perhaps later in the day. There are always ways to alter one's interpretation.

As always, feel free to leave comments. 

Take care, Patrick.

 

 

You Don't Know What "Democracy" Is, Because You've Never Lived In A Country Without It.

My views on politics and life in general are pretty simple: "Everyone has the right to govern their own lives and are also responsible for what they do." Of course this is an extremely oversimplified statement, but at the heart of my thinking, that is it. The individual is free to do what they want and they must owner what they do. But It seems that today people are yearning for the exact opposite, rather than freedom, they want more "guidelines". There are now more socially implied  rules and it is much easier, at least from my perspective, to step over some politically correct boundary. What is going on here? Globally, societies seem to be throwing away the idea of democracy. They may call it something else in the media but I think that's what it boils down to. You just need to look at what is going on in the United States right now to see how polarized the liberal and conservative camps are becoming. It doesn't matter the topic either. There is less true debate and more justification of why any particular viewpoint is correct. It is almost as though every idea is being approached as though it were a sales pitch, literally a commercial. Rather than discussing a viewpoint or position, individuals are selling their point of view. There is no discussion and interaction involved.

Don't take democracy for granted. The "Good Old Days" were not as good as you remember.

Democracy and the responsibilities that brings with it are being thrown away bit by bit. My concern is that the people doing the "throwing away" don't know what their giving up because they've always had it. Some of you reading this paragraph may say "Patrick, don't be ridiculous. It will never get that far." My response to them would be "Look at the world. Look at how polarized people have become in their viewpoints." There seems to be far less a willingness to discuss and debate any issue now days we seem to go straight for the extreme.

On 11 February 1990 Nelson Mandela made
his first public speech, after 27 years in jail.
Source: South Africa Gateway.
License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Is this because modern communication systems have taken face-to-face meetings and interactions out of discourse? Instead of dealing with a real person in a group, the debate is happening over a video chat? Which takes out that small but very important responsibility involved with dealing with someone personally, physically in the same space. They used to  call this  video chat side effect "The Ivory Tower"; it meant that the person was out of touch with the topic and not seeing the broader picture. I think this might be what is happening today with society. Therefore it becomes easy to complain about democracy or any other concept because people are seeing it only from their own ivory tower. It is very much like dealing with someone over the phone rather than a person. When you are right there with the individual there are many more subtle cues and motivations. The two people may understand the issue much more thoroughly, because meeting in person brings the topic alive for them. They still may not agree, but there is much more understanding and I bet her list of the tendency to become polarized on the issue at hand.

The bottom line is: People need to gather in person more. To rebuild those connections that originally brought societies together and allowed sincere debates to occur without the dangers involved in thinking in extremism terms. It's a slower process absolutely. But everyone wins no matter what the outcome because dealing with people face-to-face makes you acknowledge the humanity and the complexity. People are stronger emotionally and I believe intellectual as well.

Whereas with the Internet and other communication media it is far easier to write your comment, click the submit button and off you go to somewhere else. You can't do that in real life. You have to deal with whatever the issue is, with the people right there with their comments and rebuttals. Everybody comes out of this real-life experience with them far richer understanding.

As far as democracy goes, debated with someone in real life. Meet with them over time. Go through the pros and cons of not only democracy but any other system you can think of. Then you will know what it is like to live without it or at least have some depth on the topic.

Take care Patrick.

Fractured Days

Photo by: Wenjie, Zhang License: CC BY 2.0

This article might turn into a rant.

Constant interruptions.

Yep, that's what I call the last few days. A collection of small, albeit not intended, disturbances. On a both personal and public level. I'm going to get a little X-Files here but I really am beginning to believe, at least a little bit, that my building and/or the inhabitants even though they are well intentioned go through cycles of disturbance. No sooner does one have a plan in place that there is something that happens. Could be a knock at the door or as it happened earlier today, one staff member ran in flew around my apartment counting of all things garbage cans. When I inquired with another staff member, because the first one it already flown the coop, as to what the heck was going on. The reply was "Last time we ordered garbage bags in masse the size was wrong. So this time, were going to fix that."  ... Yes indeed it was a garbage can audit. I'm guessing that it'd be dropped on the staff out of the blue because the "auditor" was running like mad.

The day went on like this with people running in and to checking the various things. Or wanting to make relatively small talk. Just important enough that I couldn't say "no" to them. There have been a few other days like this in the past week.

Minor chaos presides.

Something is going on with our flooring and painting redo of the building. It was started in a flourish of activity then all of a sudden it stopped before completion. About a week is gone by and I noticed the handyman is doing a lot of part on his own. No word as to what is going on when things will be completed.

Even my computer has gotten into the chaos act. The software I use to create videos for this site and other projects has decided to become rather unstable. Quirky might be a better word to describe it. 20 minute projects turn into an hour-long at least. When I finally finished one project I went uploaded to YouTube and I gotta very ambiguous message saying that it on no one error had occurred. Now fortunately you can go to YouTube and drag-and-drop your material in a standard browser. But the automated system is much nicer because it compiles the video into a finished product and then uploads it. If you do it the manual way you have to check back several times to see if the movie is ready for uploading. The process of compiling and converting the video to the right format is rather lengthy. And so this automation feature is very handy.

Mind you I have a few odd issues to deal with myself and am feeling a little bedraggled. I get this way whenever things don't progress. Where I live, although I love the staff and a general environment it is all very segmented. I really do miss the days when I can get into it six-hour stretch and just work on a project. Over here two hours is kind of the average. The days go by a little too fast for my liking. A friend of mine said to me the other day "Well at least you're not bored." I laughed and said "I am working now more than I ever did when I was younger." And that is true.

Tomorrow will be better I hope, and I'll get more done. I had planned today to get a package out for a board meeting I'm having with another organization next week. That didn't quite happen. So tomorrow's going to be another lightning finish to get it out the door. Because one of our members does not do email. Yes you read that right. Because of their condition they can't look at a monitor. Or any screen for that matter. It gives them a relatively quick migraine.

Okay that's enough for now.
I shall report more tomorrow. Take care everyone and thanks for stopping by.
Patrick

Why does pessimism exist?

Graphic based on image by
Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay.
Used under the Pixabay License.

 I am, by my very nature an optimist. It intuitively for me doesn't make sense to me to waste one's time on negativity, and that's not to say that life is been a breeze, sweet and easy. Far from it, as a matter of fact, the way one faces challenges indicates whether a person is either a natural optimist or pessimist.

Being an optimist is fairly straightforward and it makes complete sense, because it focuses on the benefits of a "bright" point of view, for lack of a better word. It is self reinforcing. If you see the good in that challenge, you don't feel overwhelmed, indeed one gets a sense of accomplishment and joy. In short it is "Good in One End results in Good out the Other End."

So why does pessimism exist?

I have met people who, even when positive events occur they intuitively and automatically strive to think up some negative angle.   If let's say they win $1000 they would immediately think "That's good, but gee I wish I won the $10,000 prize." This behaviour goes on with the person in the myriad of more  subtle ways as well, and in some cases it seems they are in a constant negative loop. It truly is, I believe an addiction mentally - An addiction to pessimism - the default mode of operation for their mind. Still they must be getting something out of it. There must be some larger benefit greater then the grief caused by pessimism.  It has become clear in the last while to me that these people put themselves through hell. They are anything but content. They are not even neutral, but buried in the darkest of emotions. So what is their big payoff?

One possible answer occurred to me. Their pessimistic outlook relieves them of any responsibility. Their negative situation is always due to something else. It is an eternal playing of the "victim card" - something is always being done too them - And whatever it is, it is beyond their ability to control.  In the short run this appears to greatly simplify their life. By transferring all responsibility over to someone else, in the short term, they get to sit back and enjoy the beninifts. Taken to the extreme, the person may believe themselves to be utterly incapable of doing something, and therefore the rest of the world runs in to save the day. Whoever plays the superhero will goes away initially feeling empowered. While our pessimistic friend gets the benefits of some action taken on their behalf without any of the consequences. Or at least that's how it appears at first.

This stage would be equivalent to the "high" effect of a drug. But it only lasts for a short time, because more often than not, since they didn't take any responsibility for what ever occurred, they don't appreciate the value they received. It becomes inconsequential because they know they can call on the superhero at any time. In my view the pessimist then misses out on a great deal of life. To work toward an achievement and then eventually reach the goal is a tremendous feeling. Even if you don't achieve the end result at least you are aware of what you learned along the way and that may be knowledge that you could not have of gained any other way. The person who avoids such challenges limits their opportunities to grow, and become resilient.  Every incident crushes them, because the don't know from passed experience that it is possible to bounce back.

I am so glad that as I was growing up, I met the people I did, and had marvelous creative parents who existed just a little bit outside of the normal line. My father was one of the first anesthesiologists in British Columbia Canada with Polio in the late 1950s, while mother was registered nurse, and I have Cerebral Palsy.  Yup, we were and are, outside of the "norm" and thankfully so.

As in the movie Star Wars "The Force" has both a light and a dark side. Both sides, optimism or pessimism,  regardless require some form of payment, either in effort and challenge or the loss of control over one's life.  Ingrained pessimistic behaviours send a message to everyone that this individual is "incapable" to one degree or another. Once people have made that judgement about a person, they often have to fight very hard to prove themselves as capable. It takes the very things and actions they are so conditioned against: 1) Taking a risk, and 2) Being responsible for the outcome. This for them must be a frightening situation. Yet if their life is to improve by what ever measure they choose, they must undertake it. In small steps no doubt and they must get used to failing and approaching their challenge in different ways.

As one deals with the various challenges in life, a degree of appreciation for the all too rare skill of "patience" is acquired. Knowing that true gratification comes in bits and pieces, and appreciating them as they appear. From my own perspective I find the little achievements much more gratifying, simply because I know that I have the appreciation to be aware of them. It's not the big gift, that makes life worth living, it is a little diverse ones. That if you're observant appear every day. That, I think, is one of the founding pillars of my continued optimism.

The hard part is of course getting others who are addicted to their pessimism to see that little achievements are made up of their own perceptions and their reality is really what they make of it. The key point is that they can change it. I suspect the first step in combating pessimism is disengaging the negative autopilot. And it is obvious this particular pilot is not going to want to let go of the steering wheel. Because it is used to being automatic. Putting one's outlook on life back into manual is at first incredibly difficult and inefficient because one must face a myriad of resistive ingrained to be a views. In many ways, from my point of view this resistance is actually a good sign it means that the individual is altering the very thing that needs to be altered. It is the beginning of a journey, but if one can see the steps and the progress, then one is truly on the way to improving their outlook and well-being on the whole.

If you have overcome pessimism or are dealing with this challenge please leave a comment with your story.

Take care Patrick Clark

Are We Daydreaming Our LivesAway?

 "Think about all the time in one's daily life we as a modern society are absorbed in the attention we give twirl electronic devices." 

Putting aside for the moment what happens after one dies, and let's assume for this little question that you only live once, each moment in one's life is unique, and never to be repeated. On the surface this is something everyone knows and acknowledges. Now think about all the time in one's daily life we as a modern society are absorbed in the attention we give twirl electronic devices. I bit the average for most people is several hours a day. Next time you take public transit have a look around and you will see many people, almost mindlessly quietly interacting with their phones and other devices. There is also a good majority of people with earbuds completely tuning out the world, and to some extent reality.

This is a completely new situation for the human animal, at least that's how I see it. We may be closer to the original themes of the Mattrix movie then anyone would care to admit. Riding home today on transit I was struck by how quiet it was and no one was really making eye contact. Faces buried in the various devices… You could tell most people were just trying to make it home and ignore the current boring reality by distracting themselves. But what made the event boring? Everyone reading this knows the answer, it was boring because no one was interacting. I wonder how conscious people on my train were of this fact. It's over an hour ride from Vancouver to Surrey British Columbia each way twice a day. When you work it out that it's over 730 hours a year if one were to do this every day that would add up to an entire month. Which is just gone… A month of adventure, a month of discovering, a month of being loved and loving. All missed because we are distracted. The human lifespan is not all that long, and even when they manage to extended to 150 years with the coming technologies in the scheme of things that still short.

Your entire life, is a one time event, which just happens to take 80 or so years to unfold. And even if there is a glorious afterlife for humanity it will be different than this reality. There will be things you miss, because it just won't be the same.

Before the masses were so distracted people worked together, played and occasionally had arguments together. Indeed, they did also two things together, and the human being at heart have evolved to do just that, in concert with one another or with the group. Not alone. Even introverted people when you examine their lives closely have a few cherished connections throughout their lifespan. They may indeed understand the topic better than most of us because the quiet introverted people I know cherish their realities and are usually not caught up in distraction. For some of them the world is too real, and so they pull away for a while. For the rest of us we need to find a balance between these two extremes. Cherish being aware of every moment whenever you can. It never does repeat.

The above few paragraphs just occurred to me as I was travelling home tonight and I wanted to get them down "on the modern equivalent of paper". Comments are welcome of course.

Patrick Clark