Tag Archives: Advice

Dumbfounded for MVB, Jan 18, 2025

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It’s never too late to experience growing pains. If it is our onus in life to grow and to change, with no cutoff point after which we are absolved of this duty, then why are we dumbfounded when those pains of adolescence occur again and again at each stage of life? We perhaps grow more serious over the years, but need we become less sensitized? Does the snub, the willful wounding, the being overlooked, the derision become less important? If so, why? Perhaps it is a mark of self-worth, and that is good, but if it is merely the building of a cocoon around ourselves, except in the direst of circumstances, it becomes more of a punishment than a defense.

We are born into this world to experience and therefore, are given defenses to deal with the negative, but when those defenses grow to isolate us, then they become more than protective blankets. They become walls which become our prisons. We were meant to experience and to be vulnerable to changes. And lest we atrophy, from the cradle to the crematorium, we need to fight to keep ourselves open to those experiences that invite change.

For MVB the prompt is “Dumfounded.”
I wrote this advice to myself four years ago on my birthday, but decided to remind myself again of its message.

 At Fourteen

There is a whole world out there and you’ll see it soon enough.
It is the world inside of you you’ll find especially rough.
Try to write about it, and try to tell the truth
about the things that happen that you find uncouth.

Write about what hurts you, and hurts that you have done–
all those shadows in you brought into the sun.
Ask those around you why they act in ways that might seem cruel
and try to live your own life by the golden rule.

Take chances and do not be cowed when you achieve less
than what you might have hoped for, and when you’re wrong, confess.
Don’t just do what your friends do. Don’t act before you think.
However strange the ones around you, try to find a link.

The world has enough meanness. Try not to add to it.
Try harder in environments where you seem not to fit.
People who are petty will cut you like a knife,
but the chances that you take will be what will make your life.

Other people’s rules pinch like a too-small shoe,
so don’t let other people dictate what you do.
Do not fear to step aside and go out on your own.
The fields that yield the sweetest crop are those that you have sown.

Post this advice up on your wall and read it now and then.
Use it as a means to reassess where you have been.
Then when you are older, and your life grows thin,
do what I am doing now. Consider it again.

 

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “From You to You.” Write a letter to your 14-year-old self. Tomorrow, write a letter to yourself in 20 years.

You are Loved If–

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You are Loved if–

They are there when you need them as surely as when they need you.
They predict what your needs might be and try to provide them–within reason.
What  they provide is what you need as well as what they themselves need to give.
They will dance with you every now and then even if they look silly and step on your toes.
You can tell you are their favorite person to be around.
They have the confidence in you to tell you the truth about themselves.
Their face lights up when you enter the room.
They would be willing to give up their favorite chair to you without revealing they are doing so.
They try to understand your dog, your art, your poetry and your cooking.
They are good to your relatives.
They are kind in telling you what they perceive to be the truth about you.
They console without judgement.
You can tell they’d like to be on your side–for your sake– even when they really aren’t.
They are not always the one to say good night first.

(After I posted my writing to the prompt today, I realized that the topic warranted more thought.  All of the points in both posts apply both ways, of course.  Love is a two-way street.)

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