Deus Ex: Mankind Divided lands in mere months, and while we got to tackle a relatively fully-finished Dubai level (it’s definitely a glossier, bigger sequel to Human Revolution), instead I’m going to talk about Breach, an additional arcade(ish) mode…
Winnie the Pooh was one of my childhood favorites. Perhaps it was because Disney made him so cute and loveable? Or perhaps it was because he was full of simple wisdom about how we can live a good life.
Here are seven quotes from Winnie the Pooh that hint at how we can be a really good friend.
Caring is a good thing. It is the emotion that holds us together and what seperates our friends from all the other humans out there. Don’t ever stop yourself from caring. Let yourself “care too much”. True friendship is built on love.
Prioritize your relationships with good friends, as it is these relationships that truly do make life feel sweeter. Having strong social relationships improves our overall well-being. Research indicates that those who have close and supportive relationships in their lives, have both better physical and psychological health. Your friendships matter.
Relationships are built over time, and feeling truly connected to another person doesn’t happen instantly. You need to be committed to developing your friendships and giving them the space, energy and time to grow naturally. Because you can’t spell friendship, you have to feel it.
A little effort goes a long way when it comes to being a good friend. It may be a simple text to let your buddy know know how much you appreciate them. Or as Pooh Bear suggests, you could deliver them a balloon, as it is hard not to smile when you’re given a balloon. We all have the power to brighten the day of another and we should look for the simple ways we can.
Give your friends the benefit of the doubt. Rather than becoming instantly frustrated or offended, if you don’t feel heard by a friend, try being patient with them. Nobody is perfect, and we all have times where we will be distracted. Your buddy will likely have a good reason for not being 100% present with you. Perhaps they are stressed or exhausted, or may have their ears full of fluff. It could be a sign to think less about yourself for a moment, and more about them.
Don’t forget to look for the good in others, and your relationships with them. Pooh is forever the optimist, always looking for the bright side. As we grow in life, many of our close relationships become interrupted by physical distance. Rather than focusing on the fact that your good friends aren’t physically close, focus on how lucky you are to have a connection with them. Even if you don’t speak to them all the time, it is nice to know they are there.
This is perhaps the best statement Pooh ever made. So many of us are excellent friends to others, yet we forget to also be our own best friend. Don’t forget that you too deserve a giant dose of your love and affection. Look for your own strengths and celebrate them. Speak to yourself and encourage yourself like you would your best friend. And don’t forget, you are more loved than you know.
Kate is a Life and Executive Coach at www.thrive.how. Through her individual coaching programs, she helps people clarify their thinking, grow into their potential and re-gain balance. You can learn more about Kate by following her on Facebook or Instagram, or sign up to her community to get a copy of her Thriving Life Mini-Guide.
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North West celebrated her 3rd birthday the only way the true princess of pop culture should: by taking over Disneyland.
“Thank you @disneyland for making all of my princess dreams come true today!” Kim Kardashian captioned a photo of the adorable 3-year-old surrounded by Bambi characters. North wore a tiara and pink princess dress, exactly what we would wear also if we were the most powerful toddler in the world (sorry, George and Charlotte).
Kardashian also Instagrammed a video of herself kissing her daughter, much to North’s resistance, captioning it, “I will never stop kissing you and loving you and annoying you.”
North is no stranger to the royal treatment, as she and her cousin Penelope visited the Bibbity Bobbity Botique at Disneyland last month for princess makeovers. Kylie Jenner also recently revealed on Snapchat that North’s sleepwear of choice is a purple princess gown.
Several of her famous family members took to Instagram to celebrate the youngest female member of the clan, who also chose to bestow her majestic presence on Disneyland last year to celebrate her birthday.
We imagine it’s only a matter of time until she resides in the castle full-time.
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Being a mother is weird. It really just is. I spend all day, waiting for her to go to sleep and then spend the time she is asleep wishing she’d wake up so we can play and snuggle. Chaos and clutter make me incredibly anxious, but the toys and clothes and shoes spread around the house are reminders that she lives here. The very idea of eating spaghetti with my hands makes me cringe, but watching her do it is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Some days, she talks so much and makes so much noise, I think my ears are going to bleed. But some days, I just want to sit and talk with her. Her little voice is so sweet…even when she’s being “mean”. I want her to grow bigger, but I desperately miss how tiny she was. Every single day, there are a million little things that prove motherhood to be a never ending dichotomy.
My emotions always come in waves, one right after the other. That’s still how I experience my emotions about 99% of the time. Anger then peace, sadness then joy. But I never knew it was possible to feel two things so deeply, so purely, at the exact same time until I held seven pounds of squishy perfection in my arms. And yet, this is what happens to me every single moment of every single day. I move through my days in a cloud of overwhelming compassion and viciousness at the same time. I want my daughter to know a love that has no bounds…but I also know that I have the capacity within me to destroy anyone who hurts my child.
It’s a strange thing, really. I’ve always had both of those in me. I have this sense of empathy that makes it very easy to relate to other people, but I also have a wicked mean streak that runs through me. I could verbally ruin someone if I wanted to (and I have wanted to). Fortunately, the compassion and empathy win out 9.9 times out of 10.
It used to not be that way. I used to let my anger get the best of me. I’d wish for awful things to happen to people who hurt me. I’d try to think of all the things I could or should have said in the moment or what I’d say the next time our paths crossed. I’d write emails I’d never send (except for the time or two I did actually press SEND).
But ever since that wee human came screaming into the world, my sense of compassion has taken over in ways I didn’t expect it to. I hear and read about all the awful the world has to offer and I am, at once, ashamed and angry and…heartbroken. I read stories of people hurting other people, doing horrible things to each other and while there’s a part of me that wants vengeance for the victims, there’s a huge part of me that thinks, “That’s someone’s baby.” And I weep. For the victims, for the perpetrators, and for their mothers…who have to watch and know that this is what has happened to their babies.
Motherhood has changed me. I find myself increasingly subscribing to a philosophy of non-violence (which is often frustrating, given the fact I’m married to the military) and with that comes a strange sense of knowing who I am in my faith. I find myself falling deeper in love with Jesus…His mercy, His grace, His compassion. And because of that, I’m finding myself more and more drawn to living that in my own life.
I’ve said it a million times over…no one is beyond the reach of grace. No one. But if I’m completely honest, I’m usually talking about people I’ll probably never come into contact with…ISIS, racist cops, evil dictators. So yeah, it’s really easy to say that about people who don’t personally affect me.
But what about the people who have impacted my life in awful, horrible ways? What about the people who damaged and broke me like I never thought possible? What about the people that I want(ed) bad things to happen to? That I want to see get their due?
Yes. They deserve grace and mercy and compassion, too.
Never in a million years did I think I’d be able to say that. I thought I’d always harbor hatred and ill-will…that there would always be some kind of black smudge on my heart because of how badly I’d been hurt.
It took seven pounds, sixteen months (or eight years, depending on how you look at it), and one podcast to finally be able to let go of the anger and to truly let compassion and empathy take hold. Sure, it’s important for my spiritual and mental well-being to be a more compassionate person, but what I really want is for my daughter to grow up to be a compassionate and merciful and graceful person. The world needs more of that. And she’s going to learn how to be a decent person at home first.
She’ll grow up and her heart will get broken. Her body may even get broken. I want – no, I need – her to know that even though I am capable of viciously defending her, I will always default to compassion. I need her to know that when (yes, when) someone hurts her, being compassionate does not mean bad behavior is okay…it means that we continue to value people beyond measure. I don’t have to trust people who have hurt me. I don’t really even have to like them. I don’t have to welcome them back into my life. But I do have to believe and honor that they have unsurpassable worth and they deserve love and joy and peace.
I will probably always live in this dichotomous state where compassion is constantly trying to take over the viciousness and vice versa. That’s the problem of being human. But I firmly believe that it’s easier to live in compassion…and it’s absolutely worth the effort.
Every. Single. Time.
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In the aftermath of tragedy, too often do we resort to a kind of cheap, regressive rhetoric. When trying to comprehend the incomprehensible, too often do we fall back into a binary, us-versus-them type of thinking that goes hand in hand with all the -isms and phobias imaginable — a mindset that seems to justify and excuse discrimination.
We witnessed this just this past weekend, as we all tried to make sense of the violence in Orlando. Some blamed the senseless slaughter on an entire religion, faulting Islam for the actions of one man. Others pointed the finger at homophobia, a point of view backed up by the statement of the gunman’s own father.
But that latter view begot a double standard that was too much for ESPN’s Jemele Hill. The journalist took to Twitter to reflect on the fact that in a country that to this day remains all too homophobic, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to damn another group for a similarly narrow mindset:
Predictably, Hill was flooded with angry responses, decrying her tweet for equating the two cultures — and for even suggesting that their histories of homophobia are remotely comparable. So to make her point clear, she wrote the following on Facebook:
I’m more offended by the culture we have created in which people can’t feel free to be their whole selves and for that matter even supporting those who just want basic freedom is considered a negative.
I have heard a number of people moralizing those with Muslim beliefs about their homophobic religion … as we debate and fight over access to transgender bathrooms. As if for centuries, we have not passed and championed laws that devalue and demean the LGBTQ community. Yet now we want to puff out our chest and say, “well at least we’re better than Islam!”
So a lot of folks today miss me with the hypocrisy.
Hill is not saying that the U.S. is more discriminatory, more freedom-restricting, more homophobic. She’s saying that we need to quiet our cravings to condemn other cultures for offenses of which we ourselves are guilty. That if we’re to cry foul on others for prejudice, we better be absolutely certain that such bigotry isn’t widely endorsed — and legislatively supported — within our own 50 states.
After Hill’s remarks, a faction of (largely conservative) users began to call for her suspension from ESPN. They cited how the network responded to Curt Schilling’s explicitly transphobic social media comments earlier this year — after a series of slaps on the wrist, it finally severed ties with the ex-pitcher — and demanded to know why a conservative man got cut for stating his views, while a progressive woman got to walk into work the next morning, scot-free.
Forbes posted an article entitled “Why Hasn’t ESPN Disciplined Jemele Hill For Political Tweet About The Orlando Shootings?” The far-right leaning Breitbart then followed that up with one called “So When Does ESPN Curt Schilling Jemele Hill Because of Tasteless Tweets After Orlando Mass Shooting?” in which they lambast Hill for her “idiotic opinions” and ESPN for supposedly misunderstanding what diversity means.
In Breitbart’s own words:
Abby Wambach can gain a employment at the Worldwide Leader in Hypocrisy after campaigning for Hillary Clinton and advocating for transgenders competing against the opposite sex in sports, Jemele Hill can tastelessly politicize a tragedy before we know the body count not fearing cancellation … but Curt Schilling gets canned after ridiculing males using the women’s restroom[?]
The comparison between Hill’s and Schilling’s comments, however, is missing an obvious leg of logic. For months, Schilling had been generating tweets, takes and tantrums that crucified specific religious, social or ethnic groups for such crimes as clashing with his sensibilities of what is the right way to live and love, pray and preach.
In August, he likened Muslims to Nazis. In March, he declared that Hillary Clinton “should be buried under a jail somewhere.” And in April, in the heat of the debate over North Carolina’s anti-LGBT bathroom law, Schilling went on an anti-transgender tirade, posting a meme seemingly with the intention of mocking those who identify as trans, and writing: “A man is a man no matter what they call themselves … Now you need laws telling us differently? Pathetic.”
Only then, after all that, did ESPN break up with Schilling, briefly stating: “ESPN is an inclusive company. Curt Schilling has been advised that his conduct was unacceptable and his employment with ESPN has been terminated.”
Suffice it to say there are a handful of issues when trying to compare Schilling’s situation to that of Hill’s — and when shouting to the clouds that Hill should be punished for her recent “political” posts.
The important one here is that Schilling didn’t get dropped by the network for having a conservative agenda. He didn’t split with ESPN for having his own personal, private opinions that differed from those of the higher-ups at Disney. Schilling left the network for trumpeting views that qualify as discriminatory demagoguery, for seemingly happily suggesting that some people are inherently less-than. And for using his platform as a highly visible ESPN employee to blast out those beliefs.
Hill was effectively calling for more love, more equality, more empathy in the world. Schilling, in his verbally violent tirades, was calling for more judgment, more division, more exclusion. Schilling’s words demand that we rank and revile entire groups of people for not looking or acting like our favored perceptions of ourselves. And Hill, despite the internet’s outrage, wasn’t calling for some overhaul of our deep-seated national belief system — she was calling for acceptance for all.
So no, Breitbart, in the wake of Orlando, ESPN shouldn’t “Schilling” Hill for writing of and lamenting our country’s all-too-evident biases and bigotry. Trying to address and abate prejudice isn’t an inherently political act. It’s a sensible, and, sadly, necessary one in a week when over four dozen people were gunned down for who they are and how they identify.
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Reunions aren’t exactly a thing of the past for Sara Watkins, but these days the co-founding member of a disbanded group of progressive pickers might be ready for some alone time.
Watkins, a fiddler, collaborator and all-around team player since she was a half-pint, laughed at the notion, knowing too well that she wasn’t all by herself while working on her latest solo record.
“It did feel singular in a way that my previous records and the projects I’ve done most recently hadn’t felt,” the singer-songwriter said on the phone last week of Young In All The Wrong Ways. The third solo album of her productive career will be released July 1 (New West Records).
The Watkins Family Hour and a 25th year reunion with Nickel Creek‘s Chris Thile and her older brother Sean Watkins were costarring roles with impressive collectives during the time following her previous solo release (Sun Midnight Sun) in 2012.
She also worked on a number of high-profile projects as “more of a supportive teammate” that included touring stints with the Decemberists, Jackson Browne, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan as the sweet treat of an Americana trio called I’m With Her, and, most recently, Patty Griffin and Anais Mitchell.
Those enriching experiences “recharged me in a way,” an introspective Watkins said from her home in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles two days before her 35th birthday, which she would celebrate by promoting the album in New York before dining with friends.
During the course of a wide-ranging 45-minute interview that went from pensive self-examination to spontaneous riffing as quick as some of her rapid-fire fiddling runs, Watkins discussed the importance in her life of “positive disruption,” the physics behind “not stalling out” and the southwest Colorado town of Telluride.
“I’m a big believer that if you’re in one band, you should be in two,” said Watkins, who started taking master classes in entertaining for a living in 1989, when Nickel Creek began. She was 8 years old.
“I think you’re a better leader for having been a supportive sideman and I think you’re a better sideman for having learned how to lead. I really do think they help each other and I’m very grateful that I get to do both. But that being said, this record does feel stronger in a way to me possibly because it’s the first record that I’ve written or cowritten all the songs on it.”
Expect many of those moving selections to be presented when Watkins performs a solo set Friday (June 17) at the 43rd Telluride Bluegrass Festival, which Thile opened today in one of the country’s most scenic settings.
Knowing Watkins’ collaborative nature and a history with the festival almost as long as her musical lifeline, there’s no telling who else might appear onstage during her performance. “I think there’ll be a couple special moments,” she said, not wanting to give anything away. “There’s always nice little surprises that happen there.”
The same could be said of Young In All The Wrong Ways, though Watkins slightly recoiled hearing her “breakup album with myself” quote that appeared in a recent press release.
“I hope that doesn’t become the overarching message of the album,” Watkins said softly, clarifying that the phrase mostly referred to “Invisible,” one of the album’s 10 soul-searching songs.
“I think everybody goes through these phases every five or 10 years or so when you do sort of like a course correction or a course assessment of your life,” she continued. “A lot of this album is not breaking up with myself (laughs) but breaking up with other people or situations. It’s just a changing course. And it was embracing disruption, positive disruption as a good thing, because it propels you towards change, towards forward motion. And that’s what I was getting at.”
I’m With Her at RockyGrass in 2015 (from left):
Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan.
With a stellar lineup of guest artists including Jon Brion, Jim James, Punch Brothers Gabe Witcher (who also produced), Paul Kowert, Chris Eldridge and Noam Pikelny, and harmonizing string sisters Jarosz and O’Donovan, Watkins’ earnest collection of reflection is expressed in tones ranging from serene (“The Love That Got Away”) to sanguine (“The Truth Won’t Set Us Free”) to downright demanding (“Move Me”).
The latter was the final song she sang for recording sessions primarily done in L.A. Saving the best for last was a wise choice because “Move Me” takes Watkins to limits she has never gone before vocally on a disc. With Brion unleashing a flurry of electric guitar fury, Watkins spills her guts while delivering an emotional message that’s more confrontational command than apprehensive plea.
“I was a couple years younger when I started writing this (album), but … I felt much more confident and strong in who I was in some ways, said Watkins, who began the process in the summer of 2014. “And I think that revealed to me other areas of my life … that I just hadn’t really reassessed in a while. And so that was, you know, a couple of relationships … I felt had sort of … that all parties had outgrown.”
“Move Me,” she said, was inspired by “long relationships that are very valued but that sometimes you take for granted that they still need maintenance,” whether they involve extended family, close family or old friends.
“You might cover the same turf because you know it’s safe and you know that that’s what you do because the risk of losing the relationship is enough to scare people away from confronting the big issues or even opening up to the idea that there are big issues,” she added. “And that takes a lot of nerve that often I have not had. And I think a lot of us shy away from that.”
With other personal glimpses delivered throughout the album, Watkins believes she accomplished her mission of positive disruption.
“The ways that I worked through identifying what my feelings and my goals for myself and for who I want to be and how I want to live were I processed this mishmash of feelings through writing songs,” she said of the method to her sadness. “Largely it’s how I process and problem-solve my own life and the world around me. So I learn from that, you know. It’s like therapy in a way.”
Examples of that catharsis can in found in:
• “Young In All The Wrong Ways”: Not only the name of the album, the title track that kicks everything off represents “how I was feeling at the beginning of this time in my life, identifying things that weren’t serving me well. Looking back on my early 20s and thinking and assessing choices or how I thought I should have been and even things that I’ve held on to.”
• “Say So”: The song cowritten with Dan Wilson includes a lovely melody offsetting a touchy subject — the frustration Watkins felt with a friend going through addiction issues, “and just wanting to see that change.”
• “The Love That Got Away”: Accompanied by her ukulele, Watkins quietly grabs the listener with irresistible force from the opening verse — If you live long enough / You start to think about a list of / What you would do differently.
Now 35, Watkins believes she meets that age requirement. Though unable to compile “a list that I could recite,” she’s sure others will relate to the song’s sentiments.
“A lot of us have moments when you’re driving down the road and you think about something you said or something you did, and I just groan, audibly groan. And I don’t even know that I’m doing it until it happens. It’s just like, ‘Awww.’ (laughs) It’s just this very guttural feeling of embarrassment and disgust or something. …
“There are ‘what might have beens’ in a lot of our lives. And sometimes that’s helpful to think about and sometimes it’s not helpful to think about.”
Looking back on the making of an album that has contributed to an emotional growth spurt, Watkins said she is “super-happy” at this stage of her career after finding a new manager (Aaron Sawyer), new label (New West) and new guitar (at the end of the recording sessions, a friend gifted her a 1953 Gibson ES-140 with the name “PAT” inscribed on the pick guard).
“I imagine (Pat is) some lady who sang country music in bars in L.A. I’ve got a very clear picture,” said Watkins, who used her Bourgeois acoustic guitar to write most of the album. “I’ve never named an instrument. I don’t name cars. That’s not something that’s ever really felt natural to me. But this guitar, I just can’t call it The Guitar. With a Gibson, it’s Pat.”
While hoping to eventually uncover the mystery of “Pat,” Watkins also was thinking about someone much more familial — her dad — and his three little words of advice that she’ll never forget — “Don’t stall out.”
Once that happens, “You might not ever get going again,” Watkins recalled him saying in 2008, when she was having trouble making a decision about the future of a relationship. “He was like, ‘Just keep going.’ I often think about the physics of like when you’re walking and you get pushed over, you can adjust and you can catch yourself and you can turn. If you’re standing still and something hits you, you’re gonna fall over.”
Whether she’s performing with or without fellow musicians, Watkins appears to be on solid ground. During previous solo stints on the road, she developed “more pride of ownership” in other aspects of the business such as tour managing and logistics.
“And I’m lucky. I feel like I’ve had some really good examples of people in my life who do a great job of that,” Watkins said. “That’s one of the things I love about touring with people is I get a peek into how people lead and how people run their business and how they support people. It’s really fascinating.”
The upcoming Telluride performance takes her back to Nickel Creek’s first appearance there in 1993, when she and Thile were 12, and Sean Watkins was 16. The southern Californians originally were asked to play the children’s stage, then invited to perform for 10 to 20 minutes on the main stage ahead of John’s Hartford’s set.
“We had this little arrangement of that fiddle tune (‘Katy Hill’),” Watkins said. “I remember just a crazy tempo that nobody should ever play at. And I’m sure it didn’t sound very good but we were so nervous and so excited. … We couldn’t believe it.”
Watkins laughed about attempting (unsuccessfully) to sneak backstage to see Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and Strength in Numbers, the bluegrass supergroup that also included Mark O’Connor, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas and Edgar Meyer, and tracking down bluegrass guitarist Russ Barenberg while trying to hang with his family. She collected signatures from a number of artists, including Hartford, who signed his name in calligraphy for her autograph book, one that she recently enjoyed rediscovering.
Twenty-three years later, Watkins (above left with Thile in 2011) is still like a wide-eyed kid in a candy store, eager to check out so many acts over a four-day festival appearing on a stage with “the best view that you could imagine.” Not wanting to offend any of her friends on the roster when asked to pick a favorite, there’s hesitation in her voice before she relents — “Emmylou’s gonna be there … can’t wait to see that.”
Watkins also is scheduled to host a set with some of her closest musical colleagues at 1 p.m. MDT Sunday (June 19) in cozy Elks Park, a more intimate setting “where a lot of the best moments happen,” Watkins said, knowing from previous experiences. In 2011, for example, Thile, Willie Watson and Abigail Washburn were among her guests along with members of the Decemberists, the innovative folk-rockers whose tour dates with her as part of their band that year included a peppy set in Telluride later that afternoon.
Nickel’s Creek’s Sara Watkins (left) and Chris Thile perform during
a Nickel Creek reunion in 2014 at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.
The Nickel Creek reunion on the main stage in 2014, where they also played in 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2006, “felt a little like a homecoming,” Watkins said. “When you get to play Telluride, it always feels like a privilege. However, since we didn’t have such a big moment early on in our careers there, it feels always like a special savoring moment to get to be there again. I think it’s a good reminder of the beginnings of that band. And it was wonderful.”
If there are any immediate plans to meet up again for even an impromptu Nickel Creek show, Watkins’ lips are sealed. But eventually, she promised, “I’m sure it will happen.”
So it’s anybody’s guess what will happen when Watkins, assisted by guitarist David Garza and a number of different drummers, takes her solo act on the road through the rest of 2016. Telluride is known for its all-star ensembles and expect the unexpected for Garrison Keillor’s final Prairie Home Companion broadcast July 1 at the Hollywood Bowl before Thile takes over as permanent host when the next season begins Oct. 15.
No matter who’s on the bill and where she’s playing, though, count on a collaboration of acquaintances that will be enthusiastically embraced.
While changing and aging gracefully, Sara Watkins remains young at heart — in all the right ways.
Publicity photos by Maarten de Boer. Nickel Creek photo courtesy of Benko Photographics. Other concert photos by Michael Bialas.
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Despite Donald Trump’s recent proclamation that “California has no drought” (!!), we here in California are pretty darn sure we’ve been experiencing a drought for lo these many years.
To the point where the Los Angeles DWP, for example, came up with some pretty ingenious solutions, including my favorite: the famous 96 million floating shade balls.*
But here’s the thing: to get to that innovative solution, the Los Angeles DWP had first to adopt an optimistic point of view. They had to be hopeful and confident that something could be done to remedy the problem. Regardless of the fact that they didn’t know what it could possibly be, they firmly believed that a solution – or many solutions – could be found. That is the hallmark of optimists: a hopeful and confident attitude toward the future.
Not, as so many people believe, a “pie in the sky” unrealistic shoving of problems under the rug. Not a “California has no drought” position of utter denial of reality. Because regardless of what you think caused the drought, we Californians are most definitely feeling it.
Now I’m not trying to take a political stance here, but rather wanting to point out the value of an optimistic point of view. You see, when you believe that the future can be good, you’re more willing to exert effort to move in that direction. You become solution-oriented, rather than staying mired in the problem (pessimism), or denying the existence of a problem altogether (denial).
So there you are, suffering from staggering credit card debt or an ever increasing adjustable mortgage, or an ever shrinking retirement fund. Denial would have you say: “I’m fine, everything’s fine!” as you apply for yet another credit card. Which pretty much guarantees bankruptcy in your very near future. A flat-out pessimistic attitude would have you say: “I can’t get out of this hole. I’ll just rack up as many goodies as I can, max everything out, and when they come seize all my worldly possessions, what the heck, at least I’ll have had a good time.”
An optimistic attitude would have you say something quite different. It would start with “Yup, I’m way overextended.” But then, infused with a generally hopeful and confident attitude toward your future, you’d say: “There’s got to be a way out of this. I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m sure I can find it.”
The mind is a funny thing. It pays attention to what we ask it to focus on. So when you start from “I don’t know what the solution is, but I’m sure I can find it,” you tune your mind to “Find a solution.”
As your mind deliberately sorts through all the stimuli that bombards us every second of every day, bit by bit, a solution reveals itself to you. It may not be the best solution, or the only solution, but it is a solution, and one solution leads to another and then you’re off and running towards getting yourself out of debt. Or whatever the problem is you’re dealing with.
As opposed to telling your mind “Everything’s fine,” whereupon your mind goes, “Whatever you say, oh great director of focus,” and obediently ignores whatever might actually provide you with a solution to your debt problem.
Have the courage to look at whatever your problem might be, acknowledge that it exists, and accept it as such. Phew. Step One done. Step Two: decide that there must be a solution, even if you haven’t a clue what it could be right now. That’s the hopeful and confident part. Step Three: start moving in that direction–walk your talk.
Maybe, just maybe, one of the reasons optimists live longer, are healthier, happier and more successful is because they’ve mastered Steps One, Two and Three. May it be so for you!
* Although the shade balls are not necessarily “the” solution for other reservoirs (for various reasons), they are still working just fine for the Los Angeles Reservoir, as well as provoking yet more new ways to protect our precious water.
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Nearly 6 million American men suffer from depression each year, yet many of them avoid seeking treatment. A 2015 analysis also found that men are more likely not to speak up if they’re having suicidal thoughts.
This aversion to support is likely due to the negative stereotypes surrounding mental illness and, when it comes to men, a (very incorrect) notion that mental health issues are “weak” and not masculine.
But more than a handful of celebrities are changing that. Take a look at some of these mental health advocates below. Not only do they slam the idea that mental health issues are something to be ashamed of, they’re actively reversing the idea that men who speak about them aren’t “tough.” If you ask us, that’s pretty brave.
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Conservative operative Laura Carno is out with a new book with the ridiculous title of, “Government Ruins Nearly Everything.“
But the subtitle should keep you from burning the book: “Reclaiming Social Issues from Uncivil Servants.”
If you ignore the “uncivil” part, you can look inside the 138-page volume and appreciate some of the ways that Carno tries to apply her free-market mindset to the issues of marriage, guns, abortion, and education.
She picked issues where her free-market, anti-government analysis might challenge conservatives (marriage, abortion) and progressives (guns, education), which is interesting. But I’d have to recommend that you skip to the chapter on abortion, because it seemed the freshest.
Carno comes up with a new term to describe herself, and I’m hoping when Carno sneezes at conservative gatherings, it infects the conservative world. She calls herself a “pro-life realist.”
As such, she supports Roe!
She opposes excessive government regulations of abortion, like mandatory ultrasounds prior to having one.
“A person can be pro-life and believe the government can’t reduce abortions,” Carno, who founded I Am Created Equal and is possibly best known for her pro-gun advocacy, writes, pointing to data showing that making abortion illegal results in more abortions.
“Where abortions are illegal, more abortions occur,” she writes in her straight-forward and easy-to-understand prose.
Pro-choice activists would say government policy can definitely reduce abortions.
See, for example, Colorado’s Family Planning Initiative, which was run by civil servants and is credited with lowering abortions among teens by as much as half. Now it’s funded by the state, as well as run by it.
Carno offers alternatives to banning abortion or using government to make it more difficult. These include misguided efforts like the Save the Storks program, which push ultrasounds to pregnant women, along with alleged counseling. But to Carno’s point–this is a private effort. And Carno doesn’t advocate deception among the crisis pregnancy centers she favors. Unfortunately, many of these outfits have been shown by NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado to be manipulative and predatory.
Carno suggests pro-life groups do more for foster-care and support adoption programs, not just of infants. Carno wants government out, of course, but we’ll take it.
She wants better education about contraception and access to birth control, including the pill and new methods.
I like Carno’s plea for empathy among people who are pro-life. It’s an attitude that both progressives and conservatives can learn from–and can move us to solutions across the issue spectrum.
Here’s what Carno has to say (page 67):
An increasing number of Americans don’t want abortions to be illegal, even though they consider themselves to be pro-life, why? Could it be that Americans are concerned about others who might be in a much more difficult situation?.. Pro-life realists…can easily imagine a woman in a dire financial situation who has an unplanned pregnancy. They fear she could be living out of her car if she experiences just one more financial setback.
The empathy is real, and informs their preferences, even though they are pro-life. Among even those who are not generally political, this is a common reason for pro-life people to want to want abortion kept legal.
Progressives can come up with lots of ways to critique this, even condemn it, but, hey, let’s acknowledge our mutual empathy and see where it takes us.
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There’s no denying that the regularity of mass shootings in the United States are horrifying. As we try to come grips with the murders that took place in Orlando, we are also marking the one-year anniversary of the Charleston shooting which took the lives of nine church group members. In an attempt to make sense of it all and also to memorialize the victims, here’s a brief history (the last four years) of the mass shootings that have occurred in the United States. This list is not complete, which sadly shows how prevalent gun violence is today.
Aurora: 7/20/12. 12 killed, 58 injured.
Newtown: 12/14/12. 28 killed, 2 injured.
Washington Navy Yard: 9/16/13. 12 killed, 8 injured.
Fort Hood: 4/3/14. 3 killed, 12 injured.
UCSB: 5/23/14. 6 killed, 13 injured.
Charleston: 6/17/15. 9 killed, 1 injured.
Chattanooga: 7/16/15. 5 killed, 5 injured.
Umpqua Community College: 10/1/15. 9 killed, 9 injured.
Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood: 11/27/15. 3 killed, 9 injured.
San Bernardino: 12/2/15. 14 killed, 21 injured,
Orlando: 6/12/16. 49 killed, 53 injured.
So now the question is, what’s the deal with federal gun legislation?
While the government seems too paralyzed by partisan interests to take action on gun violence, there was actually a period in time when legislation was passed to limit the sale of assault weapons. In 1994, after a series of shootings in California, Congress passed one of the most monumental pieces of legislation to date — the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.
However, the legislation had a few issues. One was the issue of nomenclature. What was an “assault weapon”? The law had an answer, but it was hidden in a series of complicated flowcharts and fine print, making the law easy to accidentally break.
Additionally, the law targeted only specific types of semi-automatic weapons because banning all semi-automatic weapons would affect almost every gun owner in the country. (Fully automatic weapons have been strictly regulated since 1934.) As a result, gun manufacturers were able to slightly alter their present models to get around the ban.
Where did the Federal Assault Weapons Ban go?
The legislation was written so that it would expire after 10 years. So in 2004, the ban was lifted. While the law wasn’t perfect, it is worth noting that it would have banned the sale of the AR-15s that the Orlando and Aurora shooters purchased legally.
So what regulations are in place at the state level?
In addition to federally mandated background checks conducted by the FBI, some states have passed measures of their own to tighten gun sale regulation. These measures include requiring waiting periods for prospective gun buyers, limiting magazine capacities for purchased weapons and further screening for prospective gun buyers on a state level.
Then how did the Orlando shooter get his gun?
Florida does not conduct background checks on gun buyers after the FBI does. Consider that the FBI rejects less than 1% of prospective gun purchasers on account of their criminal history, drug use or mental health. The lack of additional screening, therefore, makes it really easy for people to buy guns in Florida. In fact, Florida is one of 32 states that have no further background checks. That means that virtually anyone who wants to buy a firearm from a licensed dealer will pass a background check. Unless, of course, you buy from a gun show, in which case you likely wouldn’t have to go through a background check at all.
Florida also does not have a limit on the capacity of firearm magazines. Prior to the shootings in Newtown and Aurora, Connecticut and Colorado didn’t either. Connecticut now limits the magazines of its firearms to 10 rounds and Colorado to 15.
So now what? What’s the government doing to stop mass shootings?
Well, as it stands, not too much. While President Obama announced a series of executive orders in January 2016 that would modernize the background check process and hold gun sellers more accountable for their transactions, many were quick to point out that it was not in his power to make the reforms for which he was advocating. Technically, that’s up to Congress.
Congress, however, is at a standstill on this one (like so many other issues). Numerous bills to reform firearm sales have been introduced by Democrats to the Republican-controlled House, but they have died on the floor due to voting along party lines. In fact, tensions boiled over the day after the Orlando shooting when Democratic Rep. James Clyburn asked Republican Speaker Paul Ryan when gun control legislation would be voted on. Ryan dismissed his request and tried to initiate an unrelated vote. The House Democrats left the floor in protest.
Anything else?
Yes. President Obama and presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump all have something to say about the most recent shooting in Orlando.
President Obama was quick to condemn the “horrific massacre.” He asked the public if they wanted to be the kind of country in which it is easy “for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub.”
Secretary Clinton also denounced the shooting, sending grief to the affected while advocating for national unity rather than scapegoating America’s Muslim population.
Mr. Trump has used the most recent shooting to reaffirm his stance on banning Muslims from entering the country and to suggest connections between the shooter and President Obama.
Shockingly, however, they can all agree on one thing: meaningful reform must be made to stop the wrong people from getting firearms legally. This will likely be in the form of a “No Fly, No Buy” law.
-Tyler Bloom
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