Ray’s Daily
February 18, 2020
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
I hope you are doing as well as I think I am. Between taking care of my wife’s needs, eating three meals a day with friends, taking part in the activities offered where I now live, I end up with a lot of fragmented idle time.
I have been able to avoid spending my downtime in worry or in agonizing over small problems by filling my idle moments with reading and learning. It was just the other day that I realized that my handy computer tablets that I carry wherever I go provide me instant access to my reading material, news and so much more. So my waiting time is enjoyable timeas well as being worry free.
Of course I do run into a problem or two, but I try to handle them quickly so to get on with my good life. Here are some tips that may help those who want to worry less and enjoy more.
10 Cognitive Restructuring Techniques For Greater Happiness
By John D. Moore, PhD
- Avoid the playing the blame game – It takes courage to recognize you are responsible for many challenges you meet. Even if someone’s mean, how you view circumstances is up to you. When you blame another person, you let them control your well-being. It’s far better to take charge of your destiny.
- Create new mental pictures for stressful events – Whatever you picture stays alive in your mind. You feed memories when you go over them and focus on the worst parts.
If you can’t stop creating mental images of unwanted memories, play with what you see. Change them from color to black and white. Put a frame around them. Shrink them and add a silly cartoon character voice to lighten the mood and the pictures may fade.
- Recognize life lessons – Everyone must deal with problems. Happy people consider setbacks stepping-stones to their greatest achievements though. Without them, they wouldn’t discover what to do or increase resilience.
- Talk about what works – When you talk about difficulties often, you focus on negativity.
Before you can feel better, you must alter your mood. So, leave unproductive exchanges with pals for times when they offer wise advice unless you want to stay unhappy.
- Know your problems won’t last – Some challenges seem huge at the time you meet them. Your problems will shift, and in a few weeks or months you may wonder why they upset you in the first place.
- Encourage helpful conversations – Do you really want your confidants to approve of the reasons you give about why you should be unhappy? Rather than strive to get friends to agree with you and strengthen your misery, ask them to help you recover.
- Consider solutions – Never hang your hopes on one solution. If you think there’s only a single way to solve problems, you narrow your vision of what might be and miss opportunities to manage well.
- Understand you are not alone – If you don’t know how to cope, find out how other people deal with similar difficulties and learn from their mistakes and successes.
- Trust your inner voice – Follow guidance only if it’s useful and after carefully looking at other measures. People might offer sensible counsel, but discount advice from individuals who insist you do as they say. Only you know what’s best for you.
- Let go when it’s time – If you are hanging on to a problem, recognize the time has come to let it go. When you forgive people who have caused pain in your life, you surrender negativity and regain your emotional freedom and get back to the business of living.
~~~
“In all of living, have much fun and laughter. Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured.”
Gordon B. Hinckley
~~~
An Australian travel writer, touring Canada, was checking-out of the Hilton. As he paid his bill, he asked the manager, “By the way, what’s with the Indian chief sitting in the lobby? He’s been there ever since I arrived.”
“Oh! That’s ‘Big Chief Forget-me Not’,” said the manager. “The hotel is built on an Indian reservation and part of the agreement is to allow the chief free use of the premises for the rest of his life. He’s known as ‘Big Chief Forget-me Not’ because of his phenomenal memory. He is 92 and can remember even the slightest detail of his life.”
The travel writer took this in and as he was waiting for his cab decided to put the chief’s memory to the test. “G’day mate!” said the Aussie, receiving only a slight nod in return. “What did you have for breakfast on your 21st birthday?”
“Eggs,” was the chief’s instant reply, without even looking up and indeed the Aussie was impressed. He went off on his travel writing itinerary, right across to the east coast and back, telling others of ‘Big Chief Forget-me Not’s’ great memory.
On his return to the Hilton six months later, he was surprised to see ‘Big Chief Forget-me Not’ still sitting in the lobby, fully occupied with whittling away on a stick.
Remembering that one local had informed him that ‘How’ was a more appropriate greeting for an Indian chief rather than ‘G’day’, the Aussie greets him with, “How?”
“Scrambled,” replied the Chief.
~~~
If you want the last word in an argument, say, “You’re right.”
~~~
A little old Jewish lady is flying out of New York City on her way to Miami Beach. She looks at the businessman sitting next to her and asks him, “Excuse me sir, but are you Jewish?”
The man responds politely, “No, ma’am, I’m not Jewish.”
After a little while she again queries him, “You’re really Jewish, aren’t you?”
Again he responds, “No ma’am, I am not Jewish.”
Barely 10 minutes later, the little old lady asks him once more, “Are you sure you’re not Jewish?”
To which in exasperation, and in a final effort to shut her up, he replies, “Okay. Yes, ma’am, I am Jewish.”
“Funny,” she says, looking puzzled, “you don’t look Jewish!”
~~~
Power is the ability to do good things for others.
Brooke Astor
~~~
Heather meets up with her [blonde] sister Karen as she is picking her car up from the mechanic. Heather asks,
“Everything ok with your car now, Karen?”
Karen replies,
“Yeah, thank goodness! I was worried that my mechanic might try to rip me off, so I was relieved when he told me all I needed was blinker fluid.”
~~~
“The secret of longevity is to keep breathing.”
Sophie Tucker
~~~
The boss was very exasperated with his new secretary. She ignored the telephone when it rang.
“You must answer the telephone,” he told her irritably.
“All right,” she replied, “but it seems so silly. It’s always for you.”
~~~
Children need models rather than critics.
Joseph Joubert
~~~
A Norwegian took a trip to Fargo, North Dakota. While in a bar, an Indian on the next stool spoke to the Norwegian in a friendly manner. “Look,” he said, “let’s play a little game. I’ll ask you a riddle. If you can answer it, I’ll buy YOU a drink. If you can’t, then you buy ME one. Okay?”
“Ja, dat sounds purty good,” said the Norwegian.
The Indian said, “My father and mother had one child. It wasn’t my brother. It wasn’t my sister. Who was it?”
The Norwegian scratched his head and finally said, “I give up. Who vas it?”
“It was ME,” chortled the Indian. So the Norwegian paid for the drinks.
Back in Sioux Falls the Norwegian went into a bar and spotted one of his cronies, “Sven,” he said, “I got a game. If you can answer a qvestion, I buy you a drink. If you can’t, YOU have to buy ME vun. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough,” said Sven. Okay, my fadder and mudder had vun child. It vasn’t my brudder. It vasn’t my sister. Who vas it?”
“Search me,” said Sven. “I give up. Who vas it?”
“It vas some Indian up in Fargo, ND.”
~~~
“Do what makes you happy, be with who makes you smile, laugh as much as you breathe, and love as long as you live.”
Rachel Ann Nunes
~~~
Ray Mitchell
Indianapolis, Indiana
Management is not responsible for duplicates from previous dailies. The editor is somewhat senile.
Ray’s Daily has been sent for more than fifteen years to people who want to start their day on an upbeat. If you have system overload because of our daily clutter, let me know and I will send you the information via mental telepathy. If you have not been getting our daily you can request to be added by e-mailing me at raykiwsp@gmail.com. Back issues are posted at http://rays-daily,com/ currently there are more than 2000 readers from around the world.
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