• "Shoulds"... 2.

    From Ardith Hinton@1:153/716 to James Bradley on Fri Mar 2 02:36:56 2018
    Hi again, James! This is a continuation of my previous message to you:

    ... there are various ways of accomplishing tasks which
    need to be done without shopping for sympathy or dumping
    them on somebody else. If my body objects when I persist
    in doing what I've always done without devoting much
    thought to it, a closer examination may be in order. :-)

    That implies that we shouldn't ask for help at all. <?>


    Au contraire. Sometimes it's difficult for eldest/onlies to ask for help when they need it... you may be in the same boat if you're the first-born male in the family. After years of being told (not by my parents, but... as I now realize... by later-borns) that I must learn to fend for myself, and after years of having to fend for myself because nobody else I knew had been where I wanted to go, I'm slow to recognize when (or how) to solicit aid. People will often crawl out of the woodwork exactly when I need them most, however, once I have acknowledged in my own mind that I'm feeling quite overwhelmed. And just as my Latin teacher used to say, necessity is the mother of invention.... :-)



    When there's never been any forthcoming from past
    attempts to procure it, some say it is insane behavior
    to ask again expecting different results.


    Hmm. IIRC I was hesitant to post that long diatribe about the young bucks who think the way to eliminate a mature stand of weeds is to chop up the roots & conceal the evidence under half an inch of topsoil, or the middle ager who brags about her genius-level IQ but doesn't see any significant difference between a message from Ardith to herself (typed in Fidonet format) & the notes handwritten by a third party on grocery receipts, fragments of junk mail, etc. Such people make more work for me, not less. I guess I should be grateful for those who seem to have good intentions but don't follow through... [wry grin].

    In my attempt not to be too wordy I probably left out some important context clues. Dallas & I know a family of four, for example, where everybody takes turns being sick. Whoever is sick doesn't have to lift a finger... with the apparent result that they're unmotivated to get better. It's not my style ... it's not your style... and it's not practical under the circumstances. We take turns shovelling snow etc. Dallas helped lengthen the chain on a ceiling light fixture once the idea had dawned on me that I wouldn't be able to get at it easily within the foreseeable future & I now ask him to hang up a few items such as the 13" frying pan which I dropped on my foot, but apart from that I'm trying to find solutions which don't put too much of a burden on him. In this household all of us have some degree of disability... in yours there is nobody else on call. Either way, being sick doesn't enable us to avoid work.... ;-)



    BTW, I heard on Dr. Oz that alcohol and peroxide type
    cleaners are too good at cleaning wounds. The bad stuff
    *and* the good stuff gets cleared off the table.


    Could be... I've heard much the same about antibacterial soaps. :-)



    Well, there's the irrefutable truths which everyone "should"
    do for their health *if* they want to live a long life.


    Glad to see you've put "should" in quotes here! You may recall that the same folks who are so keen to tell others what they should do are probably not looking very far beneath the surface & are almost certainly not looking at *you*. Their idea of "common sense", however, is difficult to refute.... :-)



    When every day hurts, it can be a struggle to floss the teeth
    every night to prevent a heart attack. (Or thereabouts. |-)


    Yup. On average, people who do (or don't do) xxx may be at a higher risk for yyy... but if either of us was average we probably wouldn't be having this conversation! When faced with unusual circumstances we must think beyond the sound bites du jour & arrive at an independent cost/benefit analysis. :-)



    I have a new (old) fridge in my broken down van. Once I get the
    hardwood flooring cleared from the landing and from in front of
    the old fridge, get the old fridge out of the way and the new
    (old) fridge in its place, then fix the charging system on the
    van; I'll get right back to ya. <G>


    Wonderful wonderful! Stay as sweet as you are... [chuckle].




    --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)