BE MINDFUL WITH A MIND ALREADY FULL? OK BOOMER

You hear ‘be mindful’ and what do you think?

I hear it and think, ‘watch your step around this one.’

Is there more?

Go ahead and check as many boxes, mental or otherwise, to make it through a mindful day.

Be nice is mindful.

Treat others how you’d like to be treated is mindful.

Does anyone else hear the Golden Rule?

Call me a cynic, but when I hear a reminder to be mindful I want to know more about that person, like who are they to remind ME, instead of taking things in stride.

All in all, I like the idea to be mindful, to be present, aware, and considerate of others.

And that doesn’t make me a pushover for anything less than mindful, although there was that one time.

I was encouraged to listen to someone once, so I listened, listened hard, and listened some more.

I listened to everything they had to say.

Two days later I was listening to the nurses in the local ICU.

But that was not normal. My normal is more sassy, but I made a deal to behave better

 

Mindful Children

Is there anything better than being around kids who have found their footing?

I’ve got plans for my two young men to recreate this photo with their Mom.

First they need to be strong. They’re strong. They need to be willing. They are willing, I think.

Do they need to be mindful of their Dad? They already are in our father/son bond.

After all I did was my best impression of a dad. Not a movie dad, TV dad, but my Dad.

If my grandkids turn out the way I hope they will, thank Great Grandpa, not me.

Does that mean they will be mindful? Probably, but more in their own way, not the dictionary way.

More like my way? No, their way.

I’m married thirty-eight years to the same woman.

My Grandma on my Mom’s side got fifty years in her second marriage.

My Mom got twenty-five years with her two husbands.

Will I get fifty? I think so.

The Golden Rule of the Golden Anniversary.

Let’s go.

Will I be mindful enough to make it another year?

Things are looking that way. So far.

 

Who’s On The Mindful Bus?

This is the time of year for sports fans to work their fan-hood.

They have fantasy teams, college football with the #1 Oregon Ducks, the NFL with the spiraling Dallas Cowboys, the start of the NBA with the experts predicting who’ll make the playoffs and who’ll be in the finals.

Most of all, it’s the time of year for the World Series. This year is the classic East v West rivalry of the Yankees and the Dodgers.

Sports are a great draw. It draws families and friends together, brings workers into lotteries together.

At the end of each season there’s a winner and a loser.

After posting wins and losses all season it all comes down to the final series, the final game, the final pitch, the final at-bat.

Even the bitterest loser tends to be mindful of the end. They know they didn’t win. The scoreboard says they didn’t win.

In the history of sports no team has ever whined the entire off-season about being cheated out of a win.

No boxer who lost by knockout has said, “I wan’t knocked out.”

No MMA fighter has said, “I didn’t tap out.”

No baseball player who didn’t get a hit says, “I got hits all the time.”

Ever hear of a basketball player say they made every shot they took?

A football player saying they connected on every pass they threw?

Any tennis player, golfer, or politician who whined after a loss shows bad form.

Still whining a year later? Four years later?

Call me too mindful, but if that’s not a red flag, what is?

Who hasn’t gotten the short end of the stick when they tried their hardest to win?

I have. It’s a hard reality, but it is reality and that’s where I’m rooted.

When I see and hear another man who can’t accept reality, the reality of losing, who doesn’t concede and promise to try harder next season, I know there’s something wrong with them.

They are not being mindful of their people, their party, or the office they aspire to.

Who needs a whiner pleading year after year for more money to prove they won after everything points the other way?

That’s not mindful, that’s whine-ful.

In the days of old someone could accuse someone of being a witch and if they had enough ‘proof’ their words sent some poor woman to the gallows.

In our modern world we understand science, we have an idea of how things work, and no one is accused of witchcraft and hung.

It’s the irresponsible person who claims to be a modern victim of a witch hunt.

The rules of law apply no matter how much whining.

The last time I saw a gallows erected for fun and games was during the Jan. 6 insurrection riot at the capitol.

Was Mike Pense a witch? Was that the idea?

Let’s do better, register to vote, and end the senseless whining of a loser.