Drama Free Challenges

I do not know how to throw down a challenge

If I search my memory I have known

in those days I desperately wanted to win

with no prize to be gained or won

Merely having my say and being believed

for the right that I’d been taught was the right.

after years of struggle, loud voices and tears

I decided to give up the fight.

Acceptance was key in this surrender of mine

Disagreement, I learned, was okay.

It is not up to me to hold onto the right.

Each one’s opinions hold sway.

Challenging lessons to learn?

Live without drama and strife

Be kind to myself and all others around

Have fun and enjoy this life.

“All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.”

~ Blaise Pascal

Drama Free Challenges

I do not know how to throw down a challenge

If I search my memory I have known

In those days I desperately wanted to win

Yet there was no prize to be gained or won

Merely having my say and being believed

For the right that I’d been taught was the right.

After years of struggle, loud voices and tears

I decided to give up the fight.

Acceptance was key in this surrender of mine

Disagreement, I learned, was okay.

It is not up to me to hold onto the right

Each one’s opinions hold sway.

Challenging lessons to learn?

Live without drama and strife

Be kind to myself and all others around

Have fun and enjoy this life.

“All of our reasoning ends in surrender to feeling.”

~ Blaise Pascal

Stigma: A Challenge on Both Sides

The challenge of stigma:

Deeply felt inside by both sides

Disgust anger fear or

Shame remorse guilt

When these two trilogies come together

Sparks and words do fly viciously back and forth

understanding and compassion become debris

communication and connection last in the tumultous storm

Stigma creates it’s own challenge of

“You’re wrong and I’m right!!” vs

“I must be a wrong person but I don’t want to be!”

“To not have your suffering recognized 

is an almost unbearable form of violence.”

~  Andrei Lankov

Timing Test

Timing
It never is quite right
An hour here for two hours there
Morning, noon or night
Office hours open
Only in the west
When in the east office hours
have closed and gone rest.
It never goes from north to south!
and of course there’s life to live ~
a day to work, to sleep or play.
It's a challenging timing test
to be solved with just a click
from faxes, texts and email
connections will be quick (sort of)!

“Time is the longest distance between two places.”

~ Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

A Place for Attitude

‘A place for everything and everything in it’s place’
Grandma’s voice coming to me from afar - or is it mom’s
Or….could it now only be me!!

Slowly packing and stacking until all looks ajumble
No order, no place, no direction!
Or….could it be that the place has changed.

From inside of cupboards and closets and drawers
with wraps of paper or cloth, tucked in boxes and bags
finding new places in this strange moving limbo

It’s a challenge to my heart for order and peace,
so now when I want everything in it’s place,
a change of attitude is in order ~ the only order around.

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”

~ Winston S. Churchill

Kindness Challenge

Into the deep well of human kindness is borne a wish 

for only goodness and light,
to ease the troubles of a world
tugging and pulling at right or wrong

It is easy to see the kindness in a smile or hear it in a song.
To practice kindness each day may not be so easy when life hustles and bustles around us.

Accepting this challenge within and to oneself is a good place to start.

Like a ripple in still water kind acts spread gently from the center
To carry sunny smiles and open hands to the next and the next
out from under clouds of fear or mistrust
to stand apart, yet stand beside, in fun, hope and love.

“Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness 

your daily modus operandi and change your world.”

~ Annie Lennox

Nap Culture

Challenges come in all sizes:
paying bills when the money’s tight
including rent, groceries and gas for the car
voting for just the right party to run the country

And then there’s the small ones:
taking a nap in the late afternoon
with the comfortablest blankie
when energies have been stretched and spent to the limit.

Naps for children are normal for most
(‘cept for me ‘cause I didn’t want to miss something)
Naps for adults are tinged with guilt for not doing something ~
That needs to change!

There must be this change in this great world of ours
so that naps are normal for most
not just normal, but expected and done
peacefully, calmly and with a purpose only to nap.

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, look to tomorrow, rest this afternoon.”

~ Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown’s Little Book of Wisdom

Follow-up Care

Challenges in nursing are many
But oh, the ease at the end of the day
When gratitude follows me home.

“A moment of gratitude makes a difference in your attitude”

~ Bruce Wilkinson