Update:
I was kept busy on the phone with
people most of the day on Wednesday. About 3 p.m. I got a break and went
outside to plant the flowers I purchased on Tuesday. They turned out really well. Once they grow they will fill the containers
and overflow (cascading petunias). I was
able to walk out to the shed and get the wagon and then pull it through the
grass to take the potting soil and flowers to the containers. I ended up pulling the wagon to the backyard
and dug some dirt to mix with the potting soil.
By the time I got that done and with getting up and down to plant the
flowers, I was tired.
My son, Jon, came over and helped
me get my yard waste out to the village burn site. Some of the stuff was left from last
fall. Being ill and then recovering, I
never knew what was out back behind the shed until about a week ago. I tried to help him lift a heavy garbage can
off of the trailer, but it was too much weight on my prosthesis, so I couldn’t
do it. I’m learning my current limits.
After dinner, I decided to walk
my street. I only got about 30 yards
when my leg started hurting again (like last weekend). I made some adjustments and then boldly
started out again. I got to my
neighbor’s house at the end of my street and every step became painful. I sat down on their retaining wall looking
down the street at my house wondering if I could stand the pain and limp
home. Fortunate Dick and Michelle came
out for a walk. He drove me down to my
house and then went in and got the wheelchair for me and then got me inside. That was a timely rescue!
Unbelievable! I just had my liner adjusted and everything
was fine for about 28 hours. I know that
this is happening because I am losing weight and my stump is changing size
because of it. So overall this is a good
thing; but it is a bit discouraging. I
was hoping my adjustment would last a week at least. I would guess that when I wake up on Thursday
morning, my leg will have increased in size enough that I will be able to walk
for a while before the pain hits again. I’ve
got a request in for an appointment with my prosthetist so we can some
adjustments and get me walking comfortably again. This is just going to keep happening until I
lose all my weight or until my stump cannot shrink any more. This really puts a damper on planning
anything at this point.
I’m glad I found the quote from
Scott Hamilton and posted it before I went for my walk. “The only handicap is a bad attitude.” Right now my knee is hurting and I’m a bit
discouraged; but I am going to go do about 45 minutes of exercises and then
feed my mind by doing some reading and then head for bed.
By Thursday morning, my attitude
will no longer be a handicap for me!
Thought for the Day:
Life isn’t fair!
“Ironically, recognizing this sobering fact can be a very liberating
insight. One of the mistakes many of us
make is that we feel sorry for ourselves, or for others, thinking that life
SHOULD be fair, or that someday it will be.
It’s not and it won’t. When we
make this mistake we tend to spend a lot of time wallowing and/or complaining
about what’s wrong with life. “
“One of the NICE things about surrendering to the fact that life isn’t fair is that it keeps us from feeling sorry for ourselves by encouraging us to do the very best we can with what we have. Surrendering to this fact also keeps us from feeling sorry for others because we are reminded that everyone is dealt a different hand, and everyone has unique strengths and challenges.”
“When we don’t recognize or admit that life isn’t fair, we tend to feel
pity for others and for ourselves. Pity, of course, is a self-defeating emotion
that does nothing for anyone, except to make everyone feel worse than they
already do. When we do recognize that
life isn’t fair, however, we feel COMPASSION for others and for ourselves. And compassion is a heartfelt emotion that
delivers loving-kindness to everyone it touches.” [Richard Carlson, Don’t Sweat the Small
Stuff…and it’s all small stuff].
So get your mind wrapped around
the fact that life isn’t fair. Bad
people sometimes enjoy a very pleasant life and good people face incredible
hardships. If life was fair, it would be
just the opposite. As some have put it,
if life was fair, schools would be fully funded and prisons would have to hold
bake sales to meet their budget. Nice
guys would finish first and no good deed would go unrewarded. But life isn’t like that is it?
I’ve even heard people say that
they want God to treat them fairly. Oh,
no we don’t. God created the world and
everything in it (including us). He sat
the standard for His acceptance of us at a very high level—perfection. Fairness says that if you didn’t reach the
required standard, you fail. Since none
of us can reach the perfection standard, every person on earth would fail. I don’t want God to treat me fairly. I want God to treat me graciously. I want to receive mercy not fairness.
Even in our personal
relationships, when we mess up we don’t want to be treated fairly. We want those we have offended to respond in
graciousness and grant us forgiveness. We
want to be treated compassionately and with understanding.
Fairness would mean that every
single time you speed, you receive a ticket.
Instead of being treated fairly, I think that what we really want is to
be treated in the same fashion as everyone else; but even that doesn’t always
happen.
As a society we have decided that
handicapped people get an unfair parking advantage. The rest of the population has to walk a
greater distance to the store.
Handicapped people get to park right near the entrance. Sometimes we don’t really even know (or agree
upon) what is fair. There are several
conflicting perspectives on welfare and taxes that people in our society
hold. How do we know for certain that
our perspective is correct? What is truly fair?
The bottom line is that we don’t
have to worry about that much about ‘what is fair’ because life rarely is; and
if we focus on whether or not it was fair, we are focused upon the wrong
thing. We will be wasting our time and
energy on something that we have no power to change. Instead, we should accept that often life isn’t
fair; and then act upon whatever comes our way, making the best of the
situation. Instead of whining that ‘life
isn’t fair’ we need to admit ‘it is what it is’ and move on.
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