Thought for the Day:
I was telling a friend that since my amputation back in 2013, with all
medications I’ve taken, getting a little older, etc., I just don’t feel as
sharp mentally as I used to be. I’ve got
to say that the good news is since I started out life being so very incredibly
intelligent (Ha! Ha!) that I am still pretty smart, even after losing some of
my mental acuity. (Ha! Ha!)
That’s not saying that I don’t have my moments! Like the time that I locked my keys in my
truck twice on the same day. It’s bad
enough to call OnStar once to admit that you locked your keys in the vehicle;
but you’ve entered a whole new level of embarrassment when you call back within
a couple of hours saying that you’ve done it again!!!! Especially after promising yourself that
you’ll never do that again!
At the end of each day, I wash my silicone liner. It’s like a giant
tube sock that goes against my skin when wearing my prosthesis. It gets pretty sweaty, stinky, and slimy so
it gets washed inside and out each day. Yesterday,
I was thinking about other things as I washed it and forgot to empty the water
out of the inside into the sink before I started to dry it off. Instead, I waited until it was over my lap to
turn it upside down and all the water came pouring out drenching my lap and the
floor. Oh my! All I can do is laugh at myself!
“Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.” John C.
Maxwell
I don’t remember much from my High School Literature class; but I do
remember this quote from Lord Byron, “And if I laugh at any mortal thing, ‘tis
that I may not weep.” Yep! It is much better to laugh at myself than to
get upset and cry about it.
Having a sense of humor is very helpful as an amputee. You’ve got to find the humor in situations
that otherwise would bring you down. I
found that my short residual limb (that’s the amputated leg) often ends up in
the same leg hole as my other leg when putting on my pants. I often catch myself trying to use my left
foot (it’s amputated) to push my shoe off of my right foot when I’m really
tired. I go through the motions and then
wonder why my right shoe isn’t coming off until I look down and see!
I often have bouts of insomnia due to pain or discomfort. The other night, I was up for an hour in the
middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep. So at 4 a.m. I got out of bed and loaded the
dishwasher. The next day after it ran, I
found one of the Tupperware containers loaded in the dishwasher with its lid
still on. The outside was sparkly clean,
the inside—not so much! Maybe I wasn’t
as awake as I thought I was. Ha! Ha!
“We cannot choose how many years we will live, but we can choose how
much life those years will have. We cannot control the beauty of our face, but
we can control the expression on it. We cannot control life's difficult moments
but we can choose to make life less difficult. We cannot control the negative
atmosphere of the world, but we can control the atmosphere of our minds. Too
often we try to choose and control things we cannot. Too seldom we choose to
control what we can ... our attitude.”
John C. Maxwell
“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit
dries up the bones.” Proverbs 17:22 ESV
No matter what you face today, your attitude can make all
the difference in how it affects you. Laugh
a little, shrug your shoulders, and move on with life. Don’t beat yourself up. Just strive to enjoy life and live it as best
you can. Stuff is going to happen; that’s
just a part of life.
I’ve come to accept that I am part goof-ball and I do
silly, stupid things at times. So
what? It’s a part of who I am. And I like who I am. I make me laugh! And I bet that if you lighten up, you’ll find
that your life is pretty funny too!
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