Still thinking about the same issues - do you feel at home in this day and age?

Hi, bon soir, France :-)
I feel justified in greeting my French readers, as they have been absent so far, and suddenly they have arrived...great, welcome!

This will be yet another follow up on the post about a positive mindset and the theory that many people can't keep up with the pace of our modern life and thus feel (mildly or severely) stressed out and even depressed. And stick to a 'hey, let's see the glass as half full, for that's better for our health' attitude (like me, and a couple of you who told me)

I'm writing this seated at my garden bench, watching a crescent moon and listening to the numerous birds singing their little hearts out around me. We are experiencing a 'false' summer, when it is only April...amazing weather! And I try to enjoy it to the maximum, for in our Wetlands you never know how 'much' summer you will get from year to year.

Mind you, there is a storm front moving in, with thunder clouds, so you may see me fleeing inside soon.

Depression linked to the pace of life.

That's the ongoing theme of this post. I was distracted, sorry.

One of my favourite writers, Redmond O'Hanlon, states he was born in the wrong century. His reaction to this fact of life is to live his life largely as if he was born a hundred years ago. Being a bestseller writer, he has the means to do so (at least, that is my assumption).

But my son, 21 in two weeks time, says he feels like this often, as well. He usually shouts it in frustration when some piece of technology refuses to do what he wants it to do.

And I certainly know I feel like this! I can bring tears to my own eyes (sentimental biddy that I am) by remembering the many letters I used to get every month. I am a great letter writer (hah!), and my average was 5 letters a week during the seventies, eighties, nineties. Until email arrived, and the letters I got petered out. But were they replaced by emails? Nope. Hence the sentimental nostalgic tears.

And now we have Whatsapp. I have installed it to keep in touch with my daughter. Sigh. But it's pretty handy sometimes, and I'm nifty with it. ("Where R U??? You said you would take the 10 pm bus?????")

So, I hanker after letters on real paper with real ink. And curse my laptop sometimes when I'm supposed to internet-bank. Hate it! And walk flights of stairs at work to actually try to talk to people instead of sending them email after email, although (yep) I do that too.

But I suffer from stress related nasty little thingies. Like migraines (thankfully not often) and backaches (often), and skin rashes (damn). And I wonder if all this stress is:

1. work-related (probably)

2. age-related (I'm definitely post-menopausal)

3. day-and-age-related (I can't keep up with technology for a fact, and can't be bothered with lots of things younger people find very important )

4. relationship-related (hubby is post-menopausal too, whether he wants to or not)

5. food-related (I'm convinced that the food we buy in the supermarket is pure poison. Well, almost pure poison)

I would rather travel by horsepower than fly. Yes, I know, not very practical if you want to reach the US. But still.

I prefer 80 km/h to 150 km/h.

My favourite pastime is having a good meal with friends, preferably al fresco.

I never watch TV in bed (I don't have TV in bed). I read. Or listen to music.

I walk to the shops, or cycle if it takes more than 20 minutes to get there.

I would love to dress myself in flowing robes and skirts, very witch-like (but don't, as my pupils would freak out and so would my boss, and come to think of it my husband and kids too)

So...all this adapting I do to 2014, is that what causes my stress???

Your thoughts?

Is the pace of life too much for many of us?

Hi there,

In a follow up on last night's post (about a positive mindset), and a discussion by readers of my post about this topic on FB, I would like to pose the following question.

Is the fact that the pace of life has speeded up so enormously for the last couple of hundred years, and especially during the last century, the reason for the great increase in people being depressed and experiencing a burn out in Western Europe?

Or: is it simply that it is more accepted that people admit to being depressed and/or burnt out ?(thank you, Sabine)

Let me know your thoughts on the subject, please?

What makes YOU happy?

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens...

Maria van Trapp knew what made her happy.
One of the most played songs on the radio at the moment is one that has 'spread the happiness' as a chorus.

It's the end of the year, the festive season is upon us, and many people are evaluating their lives. So am I. It is a default mechanism when the last days of 2013 are speeding by.

What makes me happy?
Writing.
Eating.
Listening to music.
Singing, always.
Watching my children.
Cuddling my pets.
Laughing with people (not at them.)
Watching the birds in our garden.
Exchanging smiles with the teenagers at school.
Marrying folks.

Seeing the faces of dolphins. Dolphins always seem to smile, don't they?

hard times

I'll let you in on a little secret. After all, we've been on intimate terms for weeks now.
2013 Has been one of the shittiest years of my life.

When you've hit rock bottom, the only way is up, someone said (I forget who. Story of my life. My head is full of quotes which are doomed to be nameless). There wasn't just one cause, there were many. An endless chain of things going wrong, frictions, friends dying, friends leaving, people getting awful illnesses, losing the job I adored doing, and fuck me the economy crashing around our ears didn't help either. And to top it all an ancient trauma, long buried, suddenly surfaced and demanded attention. 

Now, we in the Wetlands are living a charmed life. We have plenty. Stuff. Things. Even if you lose your job over here, you get help finding another one and you get money (the fact that I've been paying into this benefit bank since I was 17, which means I have been paying for 38 years, is neither here nor there). At least for a while. Compared to, for instance, Rumania, we are filthy, decadently rich over here.

And yet almost everyone I speak to these days is complaining. Everyone is tired. A lot of people are worried. They tell me they are looking forward to the holidays but with the same breath fret about having to do all that shopping/cooking/partying and who will take the old folks this year?

(Photo by Wibe Koopman)

Plan B

'I have a plan, I'll never plan again', is the opening line of a popular Dutch song from 2013. 

As an obsessive planner, I will take this to heart. For 2014, I have a plan: I will heed the old lesson my long-departed beloved Grandma taught me when I was a little girl. She told me two things:

1. a human suffers most from the suffering he fears

and

2. always count your blessings.

In 2014 I am going to face my fears. And count my blessings.

And do the things that really make me happy.

Let me know what makes YOU happy??

Having That Gloomy-End-of-December-Blues?

In my country, the Netherlands, we have an expression to describe the days before Dec. 24th: " the dark days before Christmas " (de donkere dagen voor kerst). If you, like me, suffer from a lack of sunshine, and this makes you feel a bit down, this is a post for you!

Gloom...

Now, if this --> 
is what you like to see, and darkness, gloom, dank, wet, windy, foggy weather is what you get...

you have a problem.
Oh... I don't mind frosty weather, as long as there is a frost, no wind, and sun!
But in my part of the world (my name for my country is The Wetlands, b.t.w.!), the conditions are usually as described above.

The Wetlands near my home town (photo by Wibe Koopman)

Here you go. This is what I experience during Winter...

I am a Summer child!!!

Perhaps it's because I was born during a sweltering August (long, long ago). But I am definitely a Summer person. I adore balmy sunny weather, eating al-fresco, sitting next to my goldfish pond, staying up until midnight under the wooden roof in my garden, watching the night moths on my flowers and smelling the roses. Being able to go outside without bundling up like an Eskimo. Seeing daylight during the day (is that so much to ask?) when going to work, instead of travelling to Rotterdam at 6.40 in the dark and coming back around 18.00 in the dark. I feel like a ruddy mole!

SO: the anti-dote!

I don't know what you do to battle the gloom, but I have a very simple remedy. I evoke Summer.

Instead of this...(photo by Wibe Koopman)

I imagine this! (photo by Wibe Koopman)

And I take a glass of wine, light a rose-scented candle, put on some lovely music, and dream of Summer!