Words of wisdom and miscellaneous facts by Dr. Wysong and others.
This is an accumulation over several decades and the accuracy cannot be attested to.
70. FINDING HOME
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11/19/2019
It is common for young adults to look for greener pastures. They think that surely they can do better than their parents. I was no exception. After graduating from college, I gathered my little family and went west. Colorado seemed like a beautiful place to live. There were mountains, milder winters, wilderness, and lots of perfect skiing. It would be all I imagined and more.
But it was not long after I arrived that the giddiness subsided as I became swallowed up in the day-to-Āday activities of work and life. There was not much room to enjoy the romantic reasons for the move. To find a job in Colorado, I found myself in Denver, a city about fifty times bigger than my hometown. In three years in Colorado, I skied twice. One weekend I decided to take a backĀpacking trip with the family up the mountains into the 'wilderness.' After driving for four hours, we found ourselves trekking up a mountain on a two-lane footpath of backpackĀers. I could have found more private natural areas ten minutes from my home back in Michigan. The Rocky Mountains are an incredibly beautiful place and I'm sure there are remote areas. I just didn't have the time to find them. Everyone, it seemed, was moving to Colorado for the same reasons I did and it was becoming more like a park than wilderness. This is not really to criticize Colorado, just to point out that problemsālike the big city population one I tired of in Michiganācan follow you. Many people move because of social problems created by their own personality, or because of pickles they create by not thinking through life choices. Problems we create follow us. They don't shred and break off along the road to a new destination. Additionally, living away from where one has grown up is difficult for many people. It can be tough to develop a sense of belonging. The little things from home such as family, friends, history, and familiar geography create a sense of belonging and security hard to duplicate elsewhere. Some scientists even argue that the unique magnetic, solar, and lunar circumstances peculiar to the place of birth are implanted in us, creating a sense of uneasiness only resolved by migrating back home. These are also the factors possibly underlying the homing mechanism in migrating animals. When I finally did move back to Michigan the sense of home was quite overwhelming. There is not much color in the semi-arid desert on the eastern plains abutting the Rockies where all the big cities are. So as I drove into Michigan in the early summer, the green was overwhelming, like a verdant fluorescence bathing my eyes with soothing familiarity. My new job was back in the college town from which I had fled. But that didn't last long either. It was but a few years before I moved back to the small city I was raised in. None of these moves were consciously a decision to come home. Nevertheless, it was a little humbling, even embarrassing, to find myself back at the starting line of the greener pasture quest I set out on several years earlier. There was an unmistakable comfort in being back in the place of my childhood where all was familiar. By then I had also come to realize that happiness is something we make for ourselves within our little private sphere. Changing geography does not create it and may even stand in the way. I still fantasize that there must be, somewhere, that perfect place to live that I'm missing out on. But I have come to respect the inherent draw of my place of birth and know that I cannot disengage from it with impunity. Traditional Navajo felt similarly. They would bury the umbilical cord of their children in the floor of the hogan so the child would always be drawn to home. Pauline Whitesinger, a Navajo Big Mountain Elder, wrote: "In our traditional tongue, there is no word for relocation. To relocate is to move away and disappear." On the other hand, we should not be afraid to explore and find circumstances more suited to our liking. For example, some people struggle with heat or cold and need to be where climate is more suited to them. For some, the only way to pursue a career they love is to move. So it is a matter of motive. If there are objective reasons that another place will help our happiness that is one thing. If we believe location in and of itself creates success or solves personality problems, we will find ourselves as disappointed as standing in line trying to get tickets at a sold out Super Bowl game. Life is something we create for ourselves, and as such it has a way of following us around. The greenest grass is not likely in the distance. It is under our own feet if we nurture it properly.
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11/19/2019
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Introduction
1. We Can Agree 2. Possibility Thinking 3. The Solver Principles 4. Our Owner's Manual 5. We Live in A Unique Time 6. Being Health Smart 7. The Illusion of Youth Health 8. The Good Old Days 9. Timing Life 10. Exercise 11. Hormones and Steroids - A Two-Edged Sword 12. The Female Hormone Problem 13. Growing Older 14. Squaring the Curve 15. Healthy Dos and Don'ts 16. The Medical Profession 17. The Greatest Threat to Health 18. Don't Surrender to Medical Care 19. But We Live Longer Today 20. Dollars Don't Make Health 21. Disease Does Not Strike Us 22. Germs Don't Cause Disease We Do 23. From Where Does Healing Come 24. The Best Food 25. Food Ethics 26. Healthy Weight 27. Healthy Eating Ideas 28. First Things First 29. Hopelessness 30. Depression 31. Memories 32. Addiction 33. Blaming the Parents 34. Surviving Tragedy 35. Touch 36. Music as Healer 37. Humor 38. Pets as Life Savers 39. Pet Keeping - A Serious Responsibility 40. The Myth of 100 Complete Pet Foods 41. Feeding Pets as Nature Intended 42. Industry vs. Earth 43. Population 44. Modernity's Deception 45. Animal Rights 46. Biophilia 47. Respect for All Life 48. Doing Good With Business 49. The Global Economy 50. The Power of Money 51. Financial Affairs 52. Work as Friend 53. Government 54. The End of Civilization 55. Freedom Is Not Equality 56. Sex 57. Being in Love 58. Marriage - The Union of Opposites 59. Divorce 60. The Family Nest 61. Having Babies 62. Children 63. The Empty Nest 64. Experience 65. Education 66. Life Is Uncertain 67. Things Mound Up 68. Murphy's Law 69. Life's Predictability 70. Finding Home 71. Learn From History 72. Shaping the Future 73. The Other Line Always Moves Faster 74. Little Things Add Up 75. Growing Up 76. Alone 77. Hope 78. Paying the Success Price 79. Change A Wonderful Thing 80. Being the Best You Can Be 81. Do Something, Something Happens 82. Change the World 83. Growing Good People 84. Words 85. Genius 86. Listen and Learn 87. Mind Over Matter 88. Looking Good 89. Protecting Yourself 90. Self Sufficiency 91. Life Is Math 92. Ethics 93. Conscience 94. The Long View 95. Being Real 96. Change 97. End and Beginning |