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Wisdom From Jimmy John’s
1. Never under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in a single word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and will never achieve, its full potential, that word would be”meetings”.
3. There is a very fine line between a “hobby” and “mental illness”.
4. People who want to share their religious view with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
5. Do not confuse your career with your life.
6. Nobody cares if you can not dance well. Just get up and dance.
7. Never lick a knife
8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
9. You will never find anyone who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we continue to observe daylight savings time.
10. You should never say anything to a woman that remotely suggests that you believe she is pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is at age eleven (11).
12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that deep down inside, we ALL believe we are better than average drivers.
13. A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person (this is VERY important, PAY ATTENTION, it never fails).
14. Your friends love you anyway.
15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
16. Final thought of the day: men are like fine wine… they start out as grapes, and it is up to the women to stomp the snot out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with.
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Self-Medicated, what does it really mean?
Self-Medicated, what does it really mean?
If you hear the expression “I self-medicate”, what does that mean to you?
I often hear this from others when I am sitting in a support group setting and who are dealing with events in their life that has disrupted their norm.
So what is the definition of self-medication? Does it have to be alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes? Or can it be something else such-as over sleeping, binge watching TV shows, movies or spending time reading through social media.
As someone that has experienced a significant loss in my family and without detailing the reason or how the loss occurred, I have used all the above and at various levels to find a way to cope with the different days and level of grief, anxiety and the depression I am experiencing.
In the process of self-medicating I have moved further away from the excessive use of alcohol and prescribed medications to help with my days and nights, instead I am burying myself in other non-social events.
For example I like staying inside the house and binge watching shows and when it is time that I should be out interacting with others, I convince myself that I can do that tomorrow.
Before the loss, I used to rework all my life’s problems before falling asleep and in the mornings I had no issues getting up and moving forward. Now, I have no problem falling asleep and I have difficulty dealing with the half-awake state and struggling with everything that is running through my thoughts and makes me not want to get up.
As for the Alcohol, I drank so much the first couple of years because it was how I could lose myself and eventually fall asleep. The next day I would feel physically lousy and have somewhat of a hangover. The medications that were meant to help me with the coping started making me so numb and I wasn’t sure that I was dealing with the grief and the side effects were no picnic either.
So I did recognize that both the alcohol and medication were not the answers, but there were days where the initial effect I felt when taking them to forget was helpful to me, but that feeling the next day was not anything I wished for.
So what is the answer? What have you done to cope with grief and loss? What is your mechanism to help you? What would you tell someone close to you on what to do?
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Veteran’s Crisis Line
Suicide is Not Painless The Veterans Crisis Line connects Veterans in crisis and their families and friends with qualified, caring Department of Veterans Affairs responder’s through a confidential toll-free hotline, online chat, or text. Veterans and their loved ones can call 1-800-273-8255 and Press 1, chat online, or send a text message to 838255 to receive confidential support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Support for deaf and hard of hearing individuals is available.
Emotional Intelligence
TBN Staff: Ever wonder why they are so illogical? Why they don’t listen to reason? Why they make everything so difficult? Well it might be time to check out the man in the mirror and learn a little more about “emotional intelligence”.
By Kendra Cherry
Updated October 05, 2016
“Anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not easy.”
In this quote, the philosopher Aristotle perfectly sums up a concept that has become a hot topic in psychology, education, and business – emotional intelligence.
Emotionally intelligent people engage in a number of habits and behaviors that contribute to their ability to manage their own emotions and understand the feelings of others.
Do you know anyone who is keenly attuned to his or her own feelings, capable expressing emotions in an appropriate way, as well as empathetic and understanding of how others are feeling? That person is probably a very emotionally intelligent individual.
Emotional intelligence involves four major skills:
The ability to perceive emotions
The ability to reason with emotions
The ability to understand emotions
The ability to manage emotions.
Check out these key things that emotionally intelligent people do so that you can try to make some of these a habit in your own day-to-day life. And take this quiz to determine how emotionally intelligent you are, the answer might surprise you!
1. Emotionally intelligent people pay attention to what they are feeling.
Psychologist and author Daniel Goleman identifies self-awareness as one of the key components of emotional intelligence. Self-awareness involves the ability to recognize moods, emotions, and feelings.
Part of self-awareness also involves being aware of how your emotions and moods influence other people. This ability to monitor your own emotional states is a basic requirement for emotional intelligence.
2. They understand how other people feel.
Empathy is another of Goleman’s major elements of emotional intelligence.
This involves the ability to understand the emotions of other people. In order to interact with other people in multiple life domains, such as at work or at school, you need to be able to know what they are feeling. If a co-worker is upset or frustrated, knowing what he is feeling can give you a much better idea of how to respond.
3. They are able to regulate their emotions.
Self-regulation is absolutely central to emotional intelligence. Understanding your emotions is great, but not particularly useful if you cannot make use of this knowledge. Emotionally intelligent people think before they act on their feelings. They are in tune with how they feel, but they do not let their emotions rule their lives.
4. They are motivated.
Emotionally intelligent people are motivated to achieve their goals and capable of managing their behaviors and feelings in order to achieve long-term success. They might be nervous about making a change in their lives, but they know that managing this fear is important. By taking a leap and making the change, they know that they might make their lives better and come one step closer to attaining their goals.
5. They have great social skills
Emotionally intelligent people also tend to have strong social skills, probably in part because they are so attuned to their own feelings as well as those of others
They know how to deal with people effectively, and they are invested in maintaining healthy social relationships and helping those around them succeed.
6. They are willing and able to discuss feelings with others.
Sometimes people are empathetic and in tune with their emotions, but struggle to actually share these feelings with others. Emotionally intelligent people not only understand feelings, they know how to express them appropriately.
What exactly do we mean by appropriately? Imagine, for example, that you just had a particularly awful day at work. You are tired, frustrated, and angry about how things went at an important meeting.
An inappropriate expression of your feelings might involve coming home and getting into an argument with your spouse or sending a nasty email to your boss. A more appropriate emotional reaction would be discussing your frustrations with your spouse, releasing some tension by going for a jog, and coming up with a plan to make the next day better than the one before.
7. They are able to correctly identify the underlying causes of their emotions.
Imagine that you find yourself getting frustrated and angry with a co-worker. As you assess your feelings, analyze what you’re really upset about. Are you mad about your co-worker’s actions, or does your anger stem from underlying frustrations and pressure from a boss who has heaped too much work and responsibility on your shoulders? Emotionally intelligent people are able to look at the situation and correctly identify the true source of their feelings.
At first this might seem like an easy task, but the reality is that our emotional lives can be both complicated and messy. Locating the exact source of your feelings can be particularly tricky when you are dealing with powerful emotions such as love and anger.
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Fun with your wife
After I retired, my wife insisted that I accompany her on her trips to Walmart. Unfortunately, like most men, I found shopping boring and preferred to get in and get out.
Equally unfortunately, my wife is like most women – she loves to browse and leaves me with endless time to fill.
Yesterday my dear wife received the following letter from the local Wal-mart:
Dear Mrs. Harris:
Over the past six months, your husband has caused quite a commotion in our store. We cannot tolerate this behaviour and have been forced to ban both of you from the store.
Our complaints against your husband, Mr. Harris, are listed below and are documented by our video surveillance cameras:
1. June 15: He took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in other people’s carts when they weren’t looking.
2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5-minute intervals.
3. July 7: He made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women’s restroom.
4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, “Code 3 in Housewares. Get on it right away.”
This caused the employee to leave her assigned station and receive a reprimand from her supervisor that in turn resulted with a union grievance, causing management to lose time and costing the company money. We don’t have a “Code 3.”
5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&Ms on layaway.
6. August 14: Moved a “CAUTION – WET FLOOR” sign to a carpeted area.
7. August 15: Set up a tent in the Camping Department and told the children shoppers he’d invite them in if they would bring pillows and blankets from the Bedding Department, to which twenty children obliged.
8. August 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him, he began crying and screamed, “Why can’t you people just leave me alone?” EMT’s were called.
9. September 4: Looked right into the security camera and used it as a mirror while he picked his nose.
10. September 10: While handling guns in the Hunting Department, he asked the clerk where the antidepressants were.
11. October 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the Mission Impossible theme song.
12. October 6: In the Auto Department, he practiced his “Madonna Look” using different sizes of funnels.
13. October 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through yelled “PICK ME! PICK ME!”
14. October 22: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumed a fetal position and screamed “OH NO! IT’S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!”
15. Took a box of condoms to the checkout clerk and asked, “Where is the fitting room?”
And last, but not least:
16. October 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited a while, and then yelled very loudly, “Hey! There’s no toilet paper in here.” One of the clerks passed out.
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