2022 July 26 Recognize the joy to find your happiness

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website by, for, and about Baby Boomers. Thanks for joining me tonight for an episode about talking about being thankful by being mindful and being aware of all that’s around us. So let's get started. 

But first,the regular reminder: I'm not a medical professional. I'll be talking about things that I personally find useful and helpful. If you find yourself feeling truly hopeless and depressed, please seek professional medical help, or just dial 911. Now, finally the three digit short code for the national suicide hotline, 988 should be operational throughout the United States.

So if you're really feeling particularly bad and want somebody to talk to either dial 911 or 988. Of course, the old number still works (800) 273-8255. Good information to keep in the back of your head either for yourself or for a friend. 

So let's get started with this evening. Tonight was kind of a funny night. I was getting ready to start writing the script for tonight, and it's a little more free form than normal. Part of being mindful and really appreciating life is appreciating what is happening right in your life, this very moment. 

What was happening in the moment in my life was finding myself unexpectedly with a number of good friends. They ranged in age, but it was really nice. We talked about a lot of different things, and I ended up spending a fair amount of time with them. It changed my attitude for the whole night. It's like, Wow, this changed the day from a fairly stressful day of work, and it made that go away. It made me realize even more of the good things that I had in my life. 

Being thankful for things is probably the easiest way to make your life more fun. If you can find things that you like, and things to be thankful for, suddenly it brightens your outlook and it makes the rest of things just seem better and easier to look forward to, and to have a good day with.

Most of modern-day marketing, actually marketing and sales probably since forever, are based upon trying to fulfill a need. It's the old, If you have a headache, we sell aspirin sort of thing.  But the downside of it is, if you don't happen to have any real needs, they're trying to somehow convince you that you really do have a need, whether it's real or perceived.

It's this kind of clever intermingling of needs and wants. Elective wants are fun. Of course they are. Wanting a new car, wanting some pretty jewelry, wanting a different house, wanting to go on a big vacation. Those are all fun things to mull over in the background.

But you have to be careful recognizing the difference between elective wants and real wants. Real wants are really needs. As we often speak about Ukraine, and her people, they need peace and security. There's nothing elective about it. That's true throughout the world.

In Africa, there's all sorts of things going on. Those people need those things. But do you really need a new car? Do you need a new phone? Do you need anything beyond safety, security, basic life needs and companionship? Once you start to focus on all the things that you actually do have, and especially things that other people really crave for, and may never get, you start to realize what an amazing life you probably really have.

Certainly those people who have some major needs - we hope those situations get resolved. But particularly, for many of us, and certainly anyone watching us watching me on YouTube or Facebook, you're living a life where your core, basic needs are taken care of.

If you remember that, and you focus on that, that will tend to make you happy. Possessions will never make you happy in that same way. This isn't insane that you have to live like some sort of a minimalist, or you can't have anything or that you just always walk around. Oh, I'm, I'm so lucky to have anything at all.

No, no, but if you do splurge and you go find something to buy, something elective, go out and buy candy, buy a fancy dessert, whatever it is - recognize it for what it is. It's something special and it's something that can be appreciated. If you appreciate something, it automatically brings you joy. 

This really hit me last week. I was looking up physicians and I wasn't finding one with particularly good reviews in the specialty that I was looking for.  Then I suddenly realized that I had a choice of doctors to consider. I could go on the internet and search around and say, Oh, this one has some bad reviews. I like this. I don't like that. But while much of the world has no access to medical care of any kind at all, I was so fortunate that I could actually choose which doctor I wanted to select, and just that small amount of recognition and being aware of the real situation in that moment made me immediately appreciative of all that I had, instead of being annoyed that I wasn't immediately finding what I wanted.

So this is not groundbreaking advice. We hear it all the time. We've been told and, and we try to live it, but it's still very important. It's particularly important as we move on in years, because it's too easy to believe all the ageism comments we hear, and become withdrawn because we're told that we're out-of-date and irrelevant.

Well, we may feel we really can't participate in life because we're behind the times or we're not technologically good enough to keep up with modern trends. But first off, let me say that no one who's really relevant goes around labeling others as irrelevant. So you can immediately dismiss any of those labels, any of those comments you see, anything you see on social media, any jokes, any snarky comments. They should have no effect upon how you live your life. The people saying them are in no position to judge anyone else. If that's the sort of thing that they're saying. 

But more importantly, we're only irrelevant if we aren't doing something that we ourselves feel is important. Part of feeling important is doing things to help others improve, improve their own lives and to find joy in their lives. By sharing our knowledge with others, no matter what some group or society may try and label us as - if you give help, loving and caring, to others in your life, you are always very relevant, and that should bring joy and happiness into your life, which always brings us back to the beginning of our discussion.

If we notice all the little positive things that do go right in our lives, we'll start to feel a lot better about life. If we feel better about life, we will generally feel better about ourselves. Then, if we take it one step further, and appreciate all that we do have, we've become totally immune to the constant barrage of advertising and comments and everything telling us everything that we should think is missing from our lives. 

We're immune because every day, maybe even every minute, we see all the things that we do have, and hopefully we're not missing any essential things in our lives. So then by being mindful of all that we have, we can now see how our lives really are living in unison with our goals and our vision.

And if we're being consistent in our goals and in how we live our life, then we are living a life that's always relevant and is always satisfying, regardless of what anyone else may say. As always, we have a lot of input determining how we perceive our own situation and happiness. If we're determined to try and find the joy in life, nothing can take that away from us. So that's it for the evening. Thanks for stopping by. As always, stay healthy. Care for others, but remember to care for yourself, so you can always be at your very best.

As always, UKR7.com. If you want to look for donations for the people of the Ukraine, this page is just a page of links that will take you to other places where you can provide humanitarian aid or whatever other sort of aid that you want to do, because acting even in a small way, and especially acting in a manner consistent with your core beliefs, you'll find you feel less threatened by the world or more involved and confident, and you'll just feel more involved in the world in general. It will really make you feel just a lot better about a lot of things.

Of course, if anyone asks you, What can I do to help? Or, Do you hear anything about Ukraine? The war is still very, very, very active there. Just when you think Russia could find no new lower level, they surprise me every day with that they have no bottom limit. Absolutely none.

So that's it. Remember one of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others. If you can, and you're able, please check out the page, help others, and see what you can do to help out the people of Ukraine. 

So as always be true to yourself. Live your life aligned with your true goals and feelings. Thank you for stopping by. If you found something interesting or useful, please pass it along. If not, please drop me a comment on what you'd like to hear on YouTube. Hit the like button, I really appreciate it. If you have any comments, please drop them in the comment box. Always glad to get feedback of any sort. 

Have a great week. Thanks for visiting. Remember to live the life that you dream of, because that's the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone, and see you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com. Thank you so much.