eralewis

A Deeper Understanding of Lying

All too often people say a lie, thinking to themselves, “It is just a little lie. No big deal. It doesn’t matter. Someone else can hurt, pay for this, do this work… I need to have my needs met at all costs.”

Unfortunately for the liar, it is a big deal. Why?

The universe in a harmonious state is at equilibrium in the concept of truth. That doesn’t mean nothing is happening, it means that universal laws are followed and in order.

When people lie, they disrupt the order of truth within and around them. Think of it this way. Instead of being in a calm pool where you can swim and breath easily, the pool become violently disrupted with choppy waves – the forces around the person who lied become challenging for moving or breathing. How long the pool remains in this state will depend on the severity of the lie.

Apologizing and/or accepting consequences for actions maintains universal order and although the outcome may not be as you would hope, the pool can remain in a state of equilibrium. Thus, the way back from an error, is easier.

We Need Laws for Online Dating Sites

In November of 2019, I was using an online dating site. I had used them before but was still hopeful. This time, things took a nasty turn for the worse and I ended up harassed. When I told a guy not to contact me again on my phone, he did, even when I told him further contact would be considered harassment. I should have been wise to the sites, as you see, I had a dear friend who was raped by a man she met on an online dating site.

I posted my experience on Sitejabber, what a wonderful service that company provides. Within a few weeks, my review of the online dating company posted on Sitejabber got over a 1000 reviews, and it is still going. I wondered, how did that happen? What is going on? I will tell you what is going on.

Online dating sites prey upon people.

Here is what they do:

They publish fake profiles. Oh, yes they do. I have seen these “model” looking guys and their pic is on the web site for Years. I can almost pick them out by looks alone now. These people don’t exist, and they are used to draw you in and get your money.
The sites are so lax that you often don’t have enough information to make a decent assessment of a person.
They set up the sites in such a way that you are often stuck “approving or disapproving” a person without the ability to see a profile, all you see a picture. That is very unhelpful.
They publish fake “results” of happy and married people. Just like the model guy up above in item 1, these are lies.
And, I am sure this list is just the beginning of what is happening.

It is time we take a stand as women and say no more lies. If you can’t try to sell a car that doesn’t exist, you shouldn’t be able to advertise a date who doesn’t exists. We need some laws and some serious caution statements posted to customers every time they get on the site.

Let’s try these caution statements when you log on to a dating site:

Caution: We do not screen anyone for being convicted of a sex crime or harassment. Use at your own risk.

Caution: We use fake profiles so you will spend money on this site. These people don’t exist and are guaranteed to make you feel like a looser when they don’t ever respond.

Caution: We don’t make people give enough information so you can make sound judgements. And, people lie on the information they do give.

Caution: We have no way for you to ever meet anyone safely. There is always a risk of harassment, physical harm, or death.

Let’s call it like it is; very risky. Let’s take action and get some lemon laws (term used in America to protect consumer from goods that fail to meet quality standards) to protect people: #onlinedatinglemonlaws

The Blind Silkie and The Orphan Chipmunk

Several years ago, I was raising silkies. One of my yellow hens hatched out a large brood of chicks. I noticed from the start, that one chick wasn’t accepted by the mother hen. It did alright, but something was off. Later, I came to discover, it was blind. So I put it in a small fenced pen in the yard and used a large dog crate for shelter and to keep it safe at night. It was a friendly and sweet bird.

One morning, as I was checking on my chickens, I found the blind silkie sitting on something. To my astonishment, it turned out to be an orphaned chipmunk. A very scared and dehydrated chipmunk. With some internet searching, I found what to do to take care of the chipmunk and finally reintroduce it to the wild when it was big enough and ready.

Any other silkie wouldn’t have allowed the chipmunk to seek warmth under it and the chipmunk may have otherwise died in the cold of night. But the blink silkie had no preconceived notions as to what would be a friend. May we all be a bit more open minded as to what might be a friend and how we can help those in need. Beauty is found in the giving.

My lovely blind silkie only lived a few years. I was heartbroken when she died. She must have had other health problems. But she will always hold a special place in my heart, and I am sure, in the heart of the orphan chipmunk.

Giving Back To The Wild Birds

The wild birds are back.

When I first moved on my farm, I was surprised that I didn’t see more birds. I grew up in the area and remembered jays and robins. Where were they now?

I began to change the farm, as I wasn’t interested in a fir tree farm. I wanted chickens, ducks, goats, and horses. The farm was transformed. There were coops and barns for animals and with that came an unlimited amount of compost as the barns and coops got cleaned out. As I have worked on the yard, adding bee and bird friendly bushes, the bird population has increased. They thrive in the orchard, visit the barns routinely, and wait for more compost to be brought into the yard. They eagerly flit around in the morning feasting with the chickens on the chicken scratch I throw down.

As I have come to love watching the birds, I give them their own scratch feed in areas where they don’t have to compete with the chickens.

The birds are back and I couldn’t be happier about that.

Did I Become Insensitive to the World And How Can I Change That?

It is Christmas Eve day and I awoke at 2:00 in the morning, troubled by the state of the world. In the quiet of my home, I can’t help but wonder – why are there are so many people on the planet who are suffering. One study I read said we have the largest, most unprecedented number of people moving (migrants), with no home or place to call home, on the planet that has ever occurred. Why is this? Why are there so many more homeless people in the U.S.? Why are young school children sleeping under bridges in town? Why?

I have a few ideas.

So many of us want and want and want, without regard to what it means for others. Here is what I have done to try and change the wanting into understanding. If I don’t hog so much, perhaps others can have some too. I need to change selfishness into self-control.

I turn down the heat in the house. Utilizing huge amounts of electricity, which impacts the environment, so I can run around the house like it is summer when it is winter outside, has been dramatically stopped during my time on the farm. Warm clothes in my house is a must. Some days, most of my house might be in the low 60s or mid 50s F. I better dress warmly. One room might get some heat, but that is usually the limit. In the summer, it is the opposite. There is no AC. Better accept the warm nights.
I don’t expect to retire. Spending a large swath of my life utilizing resources so I can enjoy myself sounds completely unrealistic and selfish. How could the planet sustain so much “getting”? I have decided – I am hoping to work until I die. If I die of a heart attack at 70, while planting a fruit tree, that is not only acceptable, but desirable.
Use it till it wears out, and then use it some more. This is a common theme in my home. I get out the sewing machine and stitch up the clothing falling apart. If I don’t like the idea of people being mistreated in sweat shops, then I best use what I have to the fullest. If I don’t want more air pollution from harvesting and moving cotton, then shipping the fabric, then shipping the garment – if I don’t want to impact the air someone else is trying to breath (only one of the problems of mass transportation), I best make my own clothing from seed to garment, or I better understand and limit my footprint. Mending clothes makes more sense.
I don’t take vacations. Trips in my vehicles are limited to needs, not wants. Driving is a huge luxury, so I do my best to limit the time in a car.
Even when I am tired, I am often working. I use my physical or mental abilities to think, problem solve, analyze, improve, help… Idleness leads to wastefulness leads to impacting someone else.
And there is more I am doing, but I need to get back into bed, so I can get up early and start working.

The Unfathomable Human

I was recently reading The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes by Jack Bickham. One chapter in the book says you should never use real people in your fiction book, and he provides several reasons. One of those reasons struck a chord with me. It said fiction characters should be more understandable; real people are too often unfathomable, impossible to comprehend.

Isn’t that the truth.

If we find it hard to understand others, it really shouldn’t be so surprising given we often don’t understand ourselves. Therein lies a huge problem. We feel things but don’t apply enough reason to understand the cause of the feeling.

One method of reasoning I learned at a job was using the 5 Whys. It was often used for troubleshooting safety or production issues, but I realized it works for “troubleshooting” our own self too. Let’s try an example and see if it might be something you can use to better understand yourself and actions you need to take.

I become impatient and intolerant when people are more than 15 minutes late to meet me.

Why?

Well, I have many demands, so I hate sitting idle.

Why?

I am trying to take care of a farm on my own.

Why?

Because I believe it is important to “work” a farm when you own the land.

Why?

Because then I can give back to nature in important ways.

When I looked at this, I realized I could avoid uncomfortable situations with people if I explain to them that I am over-worked and therefore it is important to the operation of my farm that they are on time. I could then ask if they can be on time and what their latest arrival time will be. From there, I could calmly state that if they don’t arrive by that time, I will need to get back to work and will no longer be available.

Now I wonder how many frustrating events I could have avoided in the past.

I am going to try this and see how it goes. I will let you know.

The use of 5 Whys was written about in my book, A Woman’s Guide: Cultivating Everyday Personal Magnificence, under the topic of worry. In this case, the 5 Whys can help a person take action and avoid worry.

Perhaps you can try the 5 Whys too.

The Importance of Conscious Gift Giving

When you think about what gift to give someone, it is important to evaluate what the recipient’s needs. There are many personal factors affecting what type of gift a person will enjoy and that often has very little to do with what you, as the gift giver, enjoys. So we understand how this looks in real life, let’s look at some examples.

You might enjoy a bottle of expensive scotch on a holiday, but you certainly wouldn’t give it to a person who was recently in treatment for alcohol addiction.
A very wealthy person who already has one too many watches, might not want a material gift, but rather they would like for you to take them out to tea.
A person in assisted living may have limited storage space for gifts, but yarn to knit gifts, making the person feel useful, might be the ticket to happiness.

It is too bad that sometimes we keep doing the same thing, thinking that is all that needs to be done. We run on some type of autopilot all the time. Try turning off the autopilot and see your friends and family in a new light. If you don’t understand their needs, try asking. The answer might surprise you.

Several years ago, I spent time arguing with a dear friend that I was the one always calling on the holidays – they never called me. Unfortunately, such a simple solution as a phone call as a gift wasn’t, for some reason, possible. The outcome has been a strained relationship because what is vitally important to me was never available or given. And, it didn’t really cost anything.

Many years ago a counselor told me a story about a family. One child committed suicide. The gun used by the one child to end their life, was given to the other child as a Christmas gift. Most of us should recognize this as an appalling situation.

Being aware is key. Or ask. You might be surprised that the best gift does’t cost much.

Learn from the Honey Bee

The Queen depends on the Workers and the Workers depend on the Queen. One is not better than the other.

Working is honorable.

Cleaning the hive is vitally important.

It is necessary to store food.

Be sure to share the flowers.

The Ladder of Emotional Action

In the writing world, there is something called the ladder of abstraction. When you write about an object, it can be very solid such as a rock, or more abstract, such as religious perseverance. A sentence can take us from solid ideas to abstract in a second: The girl with golden hair flew on the wings of imaginary grandeur.

In the same way, emotions we have can inhibit action or they can lead to great activity. At the bottom of the emotional action ladder is boredom. We all know the state. Sitting in a chair doing nothing with no ideas on what we want to do. We might yammer on about nothing. There are other emotions that sit near the bottom of the ladder: timid, stunned, resignation and more. If you want to take action, these emotions should be avoided and booted out of your mind.

Emotions that get us moving swing at the top of the ladder. Think of all the things people do for or out of love. Then there is anger and we all know how it can set a fast moving pace in many situations. Optimism, introspective, and hostile are a few examples of emotions that lead to movement. Action can be physical movement or mental action.

If you want to get something done, be sure you understand where you are on the emotional ladder. If you are at the bottom, cultivate those emotions near the top, and watch activities soar.

What My Father Taught Me, Helped Me Stop an Assault

My father was in his 50’s when I was born, so I didn’t get a lot of time to spend with him before he passed. Yet, I am alway thankful for the father I had because he taught me how to stop an assault and not in the ways one might think.

First, let’s look at the situations I was in and how disastrous they could have gone. 1)It was early one morning in an elevator on my collage campus. I got in, the doors shutting behind me, only to have a wicked man staring me down. 2) I was jogging alone early one morning near my college campus. Two men stopped in a car and got out. 3) A nude man chasing me on an isolated beach in Santa Barbara. He kept hiding behind bushes, so I couldn’t get a good handle on the situation.

What my father did, which prepared for me these situations, was he allowed me to struggle as a kid. He monitored and watched for safety issues, but he didn’t step in and fix things for me. If I was struggling with getting the sheep on the stand to groom them, he let me do it. If I was to feed the cows and struggled with the hay bales, he let me do that. If I was struggling with math, he directed but let me figure it out. If I had to get the saddle on the horse, he suggest a stand might help, then walked away.

After 18 years of my father’s approach, I ended up with a bit of an attitude – I could do it. I encourage dads to let their daughters discover their strength. Watch for safety issues, correct those as needed, but let her know that she has power by letting her do lots of things.

It is in those lessons that help the grown woman to present a powerful front to would-be criminals. And sometime, that is all that is needed to give them cause to pause; to decide that this woman presents too much of an unknown and too much power.