Ambition and injury

Well I finally went to the doctor about my shoulder. 3 1/2 weeks after hurting it in the first place.

Turns out that I have done some damage to my rotator cuff. Oh great so nothing that I’ll need right? I wish. It’s more like the most used joint in my upper body…ish. So I get to go have fun with the physical therapy wizards and take lots of anti-inflammatory drugs. Ooh aah.

Unfortunately, now it’s spring and I live in Montana. Been cooped up the whole winter and now I want to get outside and start getting some things done. I’ve got old fruit from the trees to clear out, leaves to remove from flower beds, trees to trim, fences to paint and a garage to fix. Then there’s the inside. I can open the windows and let the air in without freezing so I want to paint! I want to tear out my living room carpet and get some hardwood floor action going on.

But guess what, I can’t. I’m stuck doing nothing. I tried to make some pull apart bread today using frozen bread loaves because I knew that they kneading of homemade dough would be too much for my shoulder, but even just rolling little chunks of dough around in butter then cinnamon and sugar was enough to kill my shoulder and it wasn’t even that much work! My shoulder is on fire even after icing it for an hour!

This isn’t fair!!

Why is that we always seem to be the most ambitious when we are injured?

I think that it comes from our deep seated need to be free to make choices and the need to prove that we are superior. Or perhaps it just our contrary nature.

Kind of like when people are being suppressed by a government they tend to rebel in every way they can imagine. Or when a child is told not to do something they immediately do it. How about when you see a sign that says “Do not push”, what is the first thing you want to do? Push it!

So if I’m told that I need to not use my shoulder for strenuous work then what do I want to do? Everything I can find to prove that I’m not broken are the first things that I put on my to do list. I don’t know if that make us the dumbest species on the planet or the most indomitable. Either way, I wish that I could just bottle my ambition and store it until I’m fully healed and ready to get back to working hard.

 

Advertisement

Generation Y move over. Here comes Generation Do I Have To

There are times when I just want to scream! I know it makes me sound old but the kids these days! ARGH!

I am part of Generation X. No one had any idea what we were going to do. Some of it has been good and some bad, but at least we are trying.     Then there is the Y Generation, questioning everything wanting to know why it can’t be better or different or even why its there to start with. I can understand that. Change comes from questioning things. I’m okay with that.

But the next group coming up AHHHHHHHH! They are the Do I Have To Generation!

They don’t want to work anymore than they have to. They don’t want the effort to outweigh the benefits. Come on people! If you don’t work for something you’ll never get anything.

I blame the “everyone is a winner” philosophy that started a few years ago. They didn’t want any of the kids to feel bad about not winning so they all got trophies. Well folks, I’m sorry, but someone has to win and someone has to lose. That is the nature of  life itself. I’m not talking about sporting events alone. There are all sorts of things in the world that require competition: jobs, health, survival of species.

If there is no winning or losing then there is no DRIVE! If there is nothing to strive for then why get up in the morning? Oh wait, I forgot most of this generation DOESN’T! They expect it all to come to them! Technology is helping their cause making everything easier and more accessible from the couch. Yes, we all dream of being independently wealthy but that doesn’t mean its going to happen on its own. Sometimes you have to go out and beat the world into submission and drag home your success like spoils of war!

Craftsmanship, Art, pride in your work, and Creativity is in decline! Stand up! Do something! Don’t be the Do I Have To Generation! Please for the sake of our species, be the Generation that demands excellence and strives toward that beacon of success like your lives depend on it because it DOES!

Do people really live like that?

I was listening to the song “Up on the Ridge” by Dierks Bentley and it got me to thinking. Do people really live like that or is it just an image of a goal we wish we could achieve? Like the idea of a house with a white picket fence, two kids and a dog; is it merely a metaphor?
In the song he sings of having time to gaze at the stars and dance around a bonfire living and loving life. Well, I don’t know about you but my life is so damn busy I have to do ten things at once most days. I don’t have time to even watch a full length tv show or read a chapter in a book that isn’t a children’s bedtime story.
My husband says that there are people who live like in the songs but they don’t strive for a high quality of life. They just live for what makes them happy at the moment. I have a suspicion that the only people who can live that way are kids just out if school who haven’t yet taken in the responsibilities of family and careers.
I keep looking at my life and wondering how I could adjust my life so that I can actually take the time to enjoy the summer or even take a vacation. I don’t see it. Maybe I’m blind or just too ambitious. I have my job, my blog, my writing that I’m working on and that I’m trying to submit to publishers, the crafts I make to sell, fruit trees I have to keep up with, a yard that seems to be able to make anything grow to gargantuan size, building repairs, two kids with full summer schedules and a husband that travels for work and is gone 6 weeks at a time. I’m not sure what to cut.
I envy those people who have no goals in their lives. That are happy just being and seeing what happens next. I would love to have that little pressure in my life. Sadly, even though I envy them I will never be them. I can’t help myself. I must write. I must create. And I will not give less than my very best when it comes to my family. So I guess I will never be living “Up on the Ridge”.