My sister feels that it does make someone better. The meds don't work wonders. And although you could try to wait it out, that is neither pleasant nor a guarantee. She is a counselor so she does have a bone in the fight, but she thinks it is meds in combination with counseling that make the difference in recovery. And at least her style of counseling is not just a 'listen to you work through your problems', instead she challenges her clients and their ways of thinking. She teaches them how to process their thoughts and feelings so that they can slowly dig their way out of depression.

This is what I'm trying to say, but saying it badly. "Habits of mind" is *part* of the solution. This is what my sister teaches as a counselor. It is a skill that must be learned and that takes time.

I had a hot flash last night which kept me up for about an hour, which left me little to do but think! So I started thinking about what I would specifically do in your circumstance, and this is what I came up with. Working Life - 8 hours per day Negative thoughts: If I was stuck in a job for many good reasons, I would get rid of all negative thoughts about it. Not thoughts like I need to talk to my boss about bad things happening. I mean get rid of the thoughts that say that this job is not meaningful, or below me, or not fun. I would simply cancel those thoughts like I have taught my son to do. Negative thoughts about a job I cannot change will not help me or my life. Positive thoughts: I would work to develop positive thoughts every day in my job. This is mindfulness. I would notice all the small things I like and keep a gratitude journal just about my work life. Gratitude journals make a difference to how you *perceive* of your life. Small changes: I would make small positive changes in my own productivity and interactions with my workmates. This might mean responding to emails within the hour, this might me improving my lecture notes to be even more clear, or improving the layout of my report I'm turning in. Basically, doing the best job I can do, rather than just making it through the day. Big changes: I would be entrepreneurial in my own job. I would offer to take on work that looks interesting. Being a scientist, I would start an after school outreach program for girls, or I would create free science content on line. I would make this job that I am stuck in, more. More what I want it to be. Leisure Life - 4 hours per day + 2 days per week Given that my job is not what I really want to be doing, I would use my leisure time to matter to others and make a difference. For me, my leisure time is about being self absorbed in personal improvement - reading, studying, fitness, etc. But if I want to 'matter', I would spend 3 months at a time rotating through different projects. Either I would find something I love, or in 30 years, I could reflect back on the 100 cool things I did to help my community. Fleeting vs permanent impact: I'm talking helping in a soup kitchen vs building houses for habitat for humanity. In covid world it would be more like tutoring online or writing the community newsletter. Joining an ongoing project vs creating my own volunteer group: Joining a project is easy (soup kitchen) but I may want to be less replaceable. Instead, I could create my own volunteer group. Create my own tutoring center, or create a conservation group that plants natives in my local park. Something Bigger than just joining an ongoing project. Volunteer vs Paid work: I think I would rather volunteer, but I could certainly get paid for another job in my leisure time. I could make things to sell, or I could help old people set up their computers, or I could be a professional organizer. I have many many hours of leisure time in the week to do other things! ----------------- So if I was stuck in my job, I would do these 2 things 1) make that job better and 2) make my leisure time matter. I may not ever find the golden goose that gives me great meaning, but I would have had a beautiful life with so many memories and have impacted so many lives. That is what I lay in bed thinking about. And I will say that it has inspired me to get started right away. 🙂

I thought for quite some time about whether I wanted to post that post, and I did because I did think it would be helpful because it had been helpful to me. I am deeply sorry that it was the wrong thing to say. I have had severe mental illness, and I have taken care of someone who had severe mental illness - she lived below us and I kept her pills, went to her appointments with her, and kept her alive on Christmas day when she tried to commit suicide. I worked with her for about 5 hours a day for a year. We can only walk in our own shoes, and through my experience and her experience I have watched and learned. Her choice was meds and therapy, my choice was to change the way my mind worked through meditation. There are really only so many options. With mental illness, the problem is in the mind so the mind has to change. I don't think that is a controversial statement. My sister is a counselor, and she works to help people change they way they think. She gives them homework and they have to do the work. She gets really frustrated when her clients won't do the work. There is just no magic pill, even the meds require therapy, and therapy requires work. There is no way around it, changing how your mind works is a difficult task, I'm sorry if you thought I was suggesting it was a light switch.

I believe that we choose. We choose to be happy and positive. I'm going to bring up my niece in the wheel chair again because she said something to me once that really impacted how I view the world. It was about a month after her accident, and she was still in the hospital. She was despondent and would not eat or talk -- she had woken up 2 weeks prior to find that she would never walk again, that she could not have children, and that her life expectancy was 45. She was 21 at the time. She told me about a visitor she had who was the Wisconsin paraplegic of the year or some such. And this girl gave her the Hard Talk. People did not want my niece to be upset. People did not want to hear her angst. She needed to get over it and find a way to make it on her own in this world. To not be dependent financially or emotionally. That it was up to her and her alone to change her attitude and rejoin society. It was up to her to be the person she wanted to be. Tough love, but it worked. She finished college, started dating, got married, and became self employed. I think people *choose* to find meaning in their life. I'm not talking about finding a silver lining in hardship. Rather I'm talking about accepting the life you have, choosing to make the best of it, choosing to enjoy the small things, choosing to be a joy to those around you, and choosing to embrace who you are. I am not some pollyanna, but I would rather enjoy life than be constantly dissatisfied. How you interpret your life is in your mind.

Sorry you guys are going through this. 😞

Are we not all replaceable?

Well, it sounds like being satisfied with a simple life is hard for you, so if you can emotionally at peace with where you are in life then you have 'achieved.'

Ah, the old pulling your fist out of bucket of water problem. Well, teach in a way that makes you better than anyone they could replace you with!! Haven't you ever had a teacher whom you adored?!?! My organic chemistry teacher at Duke was a.m.a.z.i.n.g. And my coastal geography teacher has impacted my perception of policy in a profound way all these years later. I'm guessing you get no recognition for all your efforts even if you matter to these students, which is really stinks.

I disagree with this. Achievement is how *you* define it. Recognition is if you want others' to value it.

I actually do have one of my purposes is to read through all the economics and political science content on Wikipedia. I *love* it. It is so fun, and it gives my life purpose. But I also am ready to matter to more than just a few, which is why I want to clean up rivers!

Ok! Now I see where the problem lies. You don't want a purpose, you want to matter. Well, do you want to make profound impacts on a few, or minor impacts on many. That is your starting point I think.

Wow that is rough. How about finding your next best option? There is nothing wrong with finding purpose in a secondary love. My niece flipped her car driving back from university at the age of 21 and is a paraplegic. She was going into costume design, but when she finished her degree (delayed by a year of recovery), and moved out to LA, she found that she could not get a job because she could not reach the hangers that the clothes were hung on, and she could not climb the steps to the second floor, etc. She is now focusing in teaching people to sew. They come to her house for lessons. Not what she wanted when she was younger, but she is enjoying it now and has quite a clientele base. She made peace with her limitations.

I think these things are different. I can make no impact in this world, and still be excited about life. I can plant a beautiful flower garden this year, knowing that it will be gone next year. Nothing to show for the work I have done. But I can gain great joy by planting it and seeing the flowers. If you want your existence to matter, you need to think carefully about how you define that. Is it impacting lots of people like a politician making policy or a novelist who becomes quite famous. My father who I mentioned above had small impacts on many many people through his doctoring, teaching, and policy making. He was important with a big I. But me, I impact just a few people, but do it in a profound way. I have taught a girl who was living out of the dumpster and convinced her to do the work to get into university and focus in political science because she was such an activist. So to 'matter' do you want people to remember you? Do you want to change your community? I want to clean up NZ rivers. I can make a major impact to the environment and to people who love the rivers. But if instead, you just want to enjoy life, you can go sit in your back yard every day and listen to the birds and read a good book. You could set goals, like reading all of the Mann Booker Prize winners. These things won't make you matter, but they can give your life purpose.

Can you expand on this. I'm not clear what you are talking about.

I was just talking to my younger about these issues, and he started saying such clear things. So I stopped him, and started him again while I was typing. This is what he said: " I have different values for bad thoughts. I have some thoughts that are just ugly and just should be dismissed without thought because they have no purpose. Those I simply brush aside and then my mind just moves on. Then I have important thoughts which I am too close to to be able to judge properly, this usually comes with anger or frustration with other people. These I split my mind into 2 pieces, and have my intellectual piece judge whether my emotional piece is justified. I make myself a calm observer who is observing a ball of fury. If it is not justified anger, it dissapates as soon as I realize it is so. Lastly, I have overall mood swings. In particular feeling depressed and these are the hardest to change. And require a concentrated focus on a single personal image of clear skies and a quote that I love. (I made this up when I was 8, and it is a strange concept). I visualize me walking up a hill with a spear and all around me the skies are a dark dismal grey and pervade my thoughts at which point I thrust my spear into the air and shatter the leaden skies and saying my quote "above every cloud is blue sky" at which point my depressive thoughts usually go away. Otherwise, if I am feeling super bad I will meditate on a single very strong pathway which I have etched into my brain which will remove all my other thoughts."

Honestly, I'm not sure. I have it, my 2 sons have it, my dh does not. My sister is a counselor and she says that what I can do, most people cannot do. But yet I have taught it to my boys from a very young age, and Charlotte Mason also wrote about the concept so I am not way out there. Maybe we need to ask people who meditate if they can do it. Maybe that is the key.

I remember reading years ago about Charlotte Mason's thoughts on "the way of the will." The interpretation that I read was "if you don't like a thought, then change it." Clearly, this is easier for some people than others, but apparently Mason had come upon the same approach that I fell into. If I don't like a thought, I change it. I have taught 'the way of the will' to my younger son from a young age, and he has mastered it. If he is really upset and hormonal, it might take him 5 minutes to turn it around, but he knows how to control his mind and can usually do it in the moment. I don't want to be dismissive of all the struggles that so many people out there have especially if mental illness is involved, but learning meditation might be something to consider to help with the feelings of ennui.

I hear you. My dh is stuck in his job right now because of Covid, and it is not very pleasant. And although what I would really love to do is environmental engineering, the engineering university is 6 hours away, so I can't do what I really want to do without some serious marriage issues. I guess, I just work within the limitations I have. I will continue to tutor for the money even though I am seriously over it. But by doing that, I reduce the stress on dh if he loses his job. I'd rather not, but we all make compromises. So I'm doing something that is second best but taking a positive attitude and getting excited. Change is fun. So I am changing.

Oh, I completely agree. But I just wouldn't plan for 15 years of anything. My father was and is a role model for me. He changed career paths every 10 years or so. He was a heart surgeon, then retrained in hospital administration and ran hospitals, then switched to running a university medical center, then switched to working in the Department of Health for the state government making policy, then became a professor and ran the cadaver human anatomy classes, then switched to be a professor in public health and public speaker, then at 78 they asked him to be the head of the department so he spent 2 years cleaning it up (he did at that point have a LOT of management experience), and now that he is retired he has 5 book contracts -- 2 in health and 3 in history. He was never locked in, and I won't be either. My grandmother lived independently in her own home until she was 103 (still wearing high heels until 3 weeks before she died), and my father at 82 is writing books, and lots of them. I'm 50. I just can't say I'm ready to coast. That is a LOT of coasting given my genetics, and I don't think I can do it. But if I don't like the field that I choose, then I can *change*. If doing water remediation becomes boring, then I can go into communication on science topics. Or I could go into lobbying. Or I could teach. I can be like my father and change when I need a shake up. I am keen to enjoy my life, help where I can, and embrace the positive.

My son's favorite was Crime and Punishment.

Using this quote as a jumping off point, my response is not directed at you. 🙂 I have been aware of the potential for this. So with 2 years to go, last year I started thinking about my future. What do I actually want to do when this homeschooling gig is over?!?! And I have decided to retrain in environmental geology and work in water and soil remediation. 🙂 I start university next year. Can't wait! I will continue to tutor to pay for it, as I can make a teacher's salary in 15 hours per week with my tutoring gig. When deciding my plan, I had to consider what I already had that I could build on. I've been a teacher, a statistician, and a scientist in my past life. I had to consider what was different about me now compared to back then, and think about how to leverage my talents and knowledge and qualifications to move forward. It took a good year to work through all the options. But now that I know where I am headed career wise, I am working to prepare this year. I've got a lot of chemistry and physics to review, which is fun and motivating. I've even considered the need to dye my hair to get a job (I'll be 55 when I'm done with my degree), or if I can't get a job, I've made sure that the career path I have chosen has outstanding volunteer opportunities. I can definitely volunteer as an expert for conservation groups. The point is, I can start on a new path later in life. I don't have to coast if I don't want to. There are so many awesome options available in our world, pick one and enjoy it. I have a friend who has decided that she will be going into fabric art - spinning, weaving, textiles. The range of possibilities is endless, and there is no right answer so you don't need to fear deciding.

Both my dh and ds17 wear Mediums. DH has waist 31-32 (height 5'6"), ds has waist 29-30 (height 5'9"). Apparently the band is pretty flexible. My dh got a large once, and the band is still fine but they are just baggier in butt and crotch.

They are reacting fast. I think they will contain it before it gets too big.

Done. But I don't have a TV.