Tag: depression

Why You Made a Mistake Marrying Your Husband

~ K ~ 2 Comments

I recently finished watching a comedy show on Netflix and came to the conclusion that I’m pretty much a failure.  Yup, hop on the loser train, because the next stop is disappointment and resentment.  

Now, most husbands would surmise that their life isn’t that bad.  You might have a spouse that also works so you have a duel income.  I’m sure you have decent cars, a fairly nice house, and the school down the street your kids attend isn’t that bad.  Maybe your kids give you a hug once in a while. As a husband, overall, it looks like a fairly normal life.  You listen to your wife and kids about 36-45% of the time, you don’t have any feelings so they can’t hurt you, and you remember most of the important dates you should know (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.).  Yet, if we talked to the wives and kids of these husbands (yes, I’m talking about your wife and kids), we would hear a much different tale.  We would hear a story of broken dreams, shattered promises, and unfulfilled desires.

Now let’s take those results back to the clueless husband and fathers (again this means you), you would learn that you (as the supposed breadwinner) are an utter failure.  If reality TV has taught us anything (and it has taught us a lot), you should be a much better person than you are.  How can Dr. Phil and Oprah be wrong?

But are men the ones to blame?  Certainyl as a woman, you should have been smarter and married the guy with higher earning potential, a happier attitude, and a better understanding of how you work.  You should have seen that your life wasn’t going to turn out the way you thought it would.  Would you have switched out the train engine at the roundhouse if you knew what your life was going to be like?

Whoa, hold on a second, Mr. Worthless Advice, my life isn’t full of doom and gloom, right? Or is it? Aren’t you regretting your choices? Doesn’t your husband work too much? Doesn’t spend any time with you?  He neglects the kids?  He plays too much golf, stays up too late, works out in the yard on the weekend.  This isn’t what you expected when you signed up.

If you had picked a better mate in the beginning, then you could have switched careers yourself.  You were probably a successful up and coming female executive.  You could have made the move to a being a housewife. Or a stay at home mom.  Now, that stay at home housewife idea might make you sick because (at one time) you enjoyed working a career and having a dual income household.

Sure, I understand your husband should have been making more money, you should have had a spa day every Tuesday, yoga on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 10:30 am, a haircut every three weeks on Thursday.  You definitely deserved to be driving a new Lexus to the gym everyday day.  That yoga mat isn’t going to roll itself.

As you read this from your lounge chair, I hope you are enjoying your vacation.  You do like vacation trips to Hawaii and Europe? Yeah, I bet you do. I bet if you had married someone better you could have stayed at the nice five star resort.  But you didn’t.  Life is rough, suck it up.

The Noble Profession of Changing People: You Can’t Change People, But You Can Change Yourself.

~ K ~ 1 Comment

We have this misguided notion that we can change people.  We believe it is a noble cause…we are the righteous ones that are here to correct the errors of others.  If we can just make people see the same way we see things, then everything would be just fine.  Our friends would always call us back in a timely manner, politicians wouldn’t lie, our dog wouldn’t hate us, and the neighbors would stop staring at us (or is that just paranoia?).

You can’t change others but you can accept them.  You can accept them for who they are and how they act whether it is good or bad.  Once you accept them for who they are, you can change how you interact with them. You can accept their behavior in a way that is beneficial for your own sanity.

In reality, we are utter fools for wasting our time on trying to change others.  People will not change unless they want to change.  You can try to tell people how they should live their lives and what they need to do to make their life better, but they won’t do any of it.  Sure, go ahead and talk to them until you are blue in the face, they won’t change until they want to make the change.

So sit back, enjoy a frosty beverage of your choice, and relax.  Embrace the concept of acceptance.  Modify your thought process and teach yourself that is OK not to be the overbearing, control freak you want to be.DSCI0254

Let’s Talk About YOU! (Because obviously talking about me isn’t working….)

~ K ~ 4 Comments

With the weather turning to gray overcast skies, even the die hard optimist can get a bit depressed with the rainy weather. Everything around you can be depressing; the wet roads, the bad traffic, the gray skies, the rain, the gray skies, the rain, the cold 40-50 degree weather. Did I mention the gray skies and rain?

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It isn’t always bad here in the Pacific Northwest but you would think it is because of all the lousy weather we are currently having. We had great weather up until the middle of October. Now, it is the normal Seattle weather. I tend to be very busy at work (since I am a school photographer) during this time of year. I don’t notice how bad it is until I have a little breathing room. And with Daylight Savings Time ending, you really notice that it isn’t nice here anymore. It isn’t as bad as Alaska but you do notice that it gets really dark around 4 pm everyday. We haven’t even seen the worst of it yet. The shortest day of the year: December 21 Winter Solstice.

That means from now until December 21, the days will get shorter and the people of Seattle will die a little more each day.

I don’t really care. To me, it is just another day in a series of depressing days where I live my life. Oh, before you get all concerned about my well being, just know that this blog post is about you, not me. I can weather any storm my way. I just jump on YouTube and get all pumped up by listening to some Tony Robbins or Les Brown. I like the crappy weather because it forces me to look at what I’m doing in my business and life.

Now, some people can’t handle all the rain and gray skies around Seattle. They complain, they mope around, yet here they still are…wet and whining in the Emerald City called Seattle.

For me, the rain and gray skies bring my busy work season. I know during this time of the year, I’ll be making the bulk of my income as a school photographer. I know that I’ll be busy working 60-80 hours a week. I know I’ll be getting up at 5 am, putting in a 12-15 hour day. On top of my work day I will also need to be a dad, a Scoutmaster, an aikido student and teacher, and a blogger. I will be attempting to balance my work life with my personal life during the months of the fall school photography season.

My darling wife is also more than willing to point out that I pretty much have summers off (work free) as a trade off for my busy, crazy fall. However, during this hectic fall season, I also think I should be creating an online business of some sort to balance out my income. I imagine it would be extremely nice to have a summer schedule during the rest of the eight months of the year. Don’t you think it would be nice to have a few extra thousand or tens of thousands of dollars to live on and invest in my retirement? People who say money isn’t important must not be too concerned about the future (or even the present). Money can’t buy happiness? But it sure makes life a lot more enjoyable!

What makes you survive the fall season? Do you feel you live in a better area and therefore can make fun of schmucks like me?

As always your sarcastic and non-sarcastic comments are welcome! At least hit that like button!

Too Many People Feeling Worthless And How I Can Help!

~ K ~ 2 Comments

I have to admit that I’m beginning to worry that chosen field of worthless advice may be becoming too crowded.  Most advice out there is worthless but at least I admit my advice is worthless and awesome.  However, the term “worthless” is being thrown around out there by everyone trying to butt in on my niche.  It is becoming annoying and rather troublesome to think that now I really have to pump out the worthless advice.

These clever imitators try to offer “helpful” advice but we know it is really “worthless”.  Top Ten Lists are the worst offenders making it easy to muck up the reader’s life by following the bullet points.  Worthless advice isn’t easy to dish out in a cookie cutter fashion.  You must be skilled at it.  You have to know that your advice really won’t help anyone but yourself.

As I scorn through the vast information highway, a simple search through my WordPress Reader makes me sick when I use the term “worthless”.

Bring on the depression when you click on the link to any blog with the term “worthless” in it.  I fall deep into a person’s written account of how they feel worthless and I need to fight the strong urge to stab my eyes with a letter opener to stop the insanity.  Then I realize that all the letter openers are in landfills because no one writes letters anymore and all those noble letter opener manufacturers are bankrupt.

Are these blogs I’ve stumbled upon really worthless?  Probably not.  Most of the writers admit that they have a good family life, a good home, and food in their stomachs but they feel worthless.  I just want to slap them upside the head and tell them to stop complaining.  Things could be worse for them.  They have access to the internet and time to write a blog about feeling worthless.  They could be stuck watching a local production of a musical by a bunch of untalented elementary students singing off key and missing their cues.

But then again, maybe they have some mental issues and I’m not being sensitive.  I understand mental issues and the problems they bring.  I know that the chemical imbalance causes havoc in the mind and crazy stuff happens.  I read a few of those crazy bloggers and they are some of the best blogs around.  You have to love craziness.

So I won’t slap them upside the head because I am sensitive (shhh…don’t tell anyone) and I do have a heart.  I usually write a positive uplifting comment on their blog to give them some encouragement.  Jeez, I’m getting soft, aren’t I?  Next thing you know I’ll be adopting sixteen cats and starting an animal shelter in my basement.  And even that wouldn’t be worthless to me or my sixteen kitty cats because I would be an awesome Crazy Cat Guy.

DSCI0327Good luck on your blog and write your witty comments below.