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Old Mar 27, 2007, 06:45 AM
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Perna Perna is offline
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Okay, you get a do-over; you're growing up again, 6-21 years old; what do you advise yourself to do differently and why don't you do that now?

I would have spent more time with my stepmother, just talking with and trying to get to know her. She's deceased now so not an option but I also spent 15+ years in my "room" (safe inside my womb :-) so my other advice would be to go out and meet people, talk to others, take risks meeting people.

I'm reading a book, Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, "and other secrets to success, one relationship at a time - How to Build a Lifelong Community of Colleagues, Contacts, FRiends, and Mentors." This semester I'm taking a face-to-face course that requires I go out of town for a week and give speeches, etc. and I graduate with my second BA this semester too so when I get finished (early May) I think I'll start concentrating on getting "out there" and join a few things, take some "fun" local community college courses and find some social "risks" to take?
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  #2  
Old Mar 27, 2007, 11:13 AM
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Ok... you've got me thinking hard here...

Not much I could do to change things up to the time I became a teenager.

1. Rather than rebel so strongly against my mother, I would have done as she asked and at least given some effort to "becoming friends" with her.

2. I would have spent some more alone time with my aunt. Instead of going off to boarding school, I would have asked to spend a summer with her... without the grandmother.

Both are impossible now. So... meet new people? I have a neighbor whom I've grown to care for. She's suffered abuse all her life and the last stint was at the hands of one of her daughters. I've been encouraging her to stop the abuse. She goes to a day care center for seniors and has shared that abuse with her case worker there. She's received a visit from a couple of men from Elder Abuse.

Most of the time I can set my resentment aside because I can't get a word in edgewise as far as life stories go. There have been times I felt like hugging her but haven't. I'll follow my insticts next time.

I'm having trouble with the relationship my best friend and I have. I'll get to work on that.

How's that for starters? Do-over

Perna, thank you so much for starting this thread! What a positive thing to do! Do-over
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  #3  
Old Mar 27, 2007, 09:15 PM
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Good thoughtful questions. You're current life sounds good, Perna. You are really out there, getting things done. Brava!

There isn't much I could redo about my life 6-18. I was raised in a strict family. 19 to 21: even though serious depression, drug use and drinking came into my life, I also started my career as a newspaper reporter. I used to say that I didn't care if alcohol was false confidence so long as it gave me any confidence whatsoever.

Maybe I am overthinking this, but I see very few decisions I've made or paths I've taken as things that could be a do-over. I see my path as intertwined with circumstances and elements of my personality that had to go through those experiences. I know why I did what I did and I generally do not think I was nuts or impulsive (maybe I should be more of that, lol) to have done what I did.

One of my spiritual mentors says, "People would do better if they could do better."

John D. MacDonald in the Travis McGee mysteries repeats several times in the series that every person is doing just about as good as he or she can at that moment. We say we wish we could have done better, if we could have we would have.

I feel I would have to be a different person than I am to have lived my life differently.
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  #4  
Old Mar 27, 2007, 11:30 PM
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my first answer would be: i would not have married my first husband........BUT, i wouldn't have my daughters......
  #5  
Old Mar 28, 2007, 12:09 PM
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Perna Perna is offline
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Wants2Fly, I agree with you; it all "works out" having gotten to where we've gotten and we did what we did and that made us who we were. I was merely thinking about "easier" ways there might have been to get here, now that we have all the experience we do. I'd like to think I wouldn't have gained the 125 pounds :-) now that I know how hard it is to lose it and how slow and insidious it was gaining it, etc. It was often hard to "see"/understand things but now we do and if we could take that understanding back, tell ourselves "Now hold on there!" what points do we see when we would have done that. Yes at the time we had to drink to help the courage but do you now? Perhaps no, so "technically" we might have been braver if we knew back then what we know now :-)

But even more, now I "know" these things, what am I not acting on, having gotten use to the "old" way that doesn't work just because it's habit? What can I see in the past with its resolutions that I should apply now in my present?
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  #6  
Old Mar 28, 2007, 01:28 PM
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</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
I was merely thinking about "easier" ways there might have been to get here,

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

If I had taken an easier road, I wouldn't be who I am today. I wouldn't change that for anything!

I'm with you on the weight thing, though. Several people along the way kept telling me I was losing my "girlish figure" but they never gave me the tools nor the knowledge to get it back and keep it. I blame my mom mostly for it. She had no conception of what a healthy diet was.

It's only been in the last little while that I've realized that I've taken after my paternal grandmother. I've wound up just like her... obese and in a wheelchair. Never met the woman so I don't know why she was in a wheelchair. I can use that as an excuse and I can use the fact that I'm in a wheelchair to not lose the weight. I tell myself that I hardly eat anyway, and it's the truth. I tell myself that at my age, who cares!? I certainly don't... until I catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. But do I do anything about it? Nope! I tell myself I "should" but I don't care enough to do it. When I hear myself say "You SHOULD do something about it" I hear my mom speaking. My argument? "Yeah, and? You said yourself you could never make out of me what you wanted." Do-over Do-over Damn old tapes, anyway!
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  #7  
Old Mar 28, 2007, 08:28 PM
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I can't do that, Perna, I can't go back with the knowledge I have now and make a different decision, say "Now hold there," because then I'm not the me-I-was-then.

The things that I probably shouldn't oughta have done are probably the things I am happiest I did. And things I'm not happy about having done, are things I was compelled to do.

Perhaps all this reasoning shows is my remarkable lack of imagination, Perna (but I secretly don't believe that, lol).

Good topic thought. Glad you brought it up.
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  #8  
Old Mar 29, 2007, 08:00 PM
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Perna, you're question flitted through my mind on my commute home this evening, and it came to me very clealy that what I need is not a do-over but to forgive myself for the things I didn't get right. That would be more healing for me. And unlike a do-over, it is something that maybe someday I will accomplish.
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  #9  
Old Mar 30, 2007, 08:52 AM
InACorner InACorner is offline
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I know this sounds terrible of myself...cause God knows im anything but perfect but i wouldnt do one thing over again. Mainly because i try to live my life without regret...so this started when i was around 15 or so and if things came up id ask myself..will i regret this...will i regret that...and if there was a tiny chance then id go for it or i would do it differently...plus i look back on my life and i realize i wouldnt be talking to you all right now if my life hadnt been the way it was...i mean if i wouldnt have been kicked out by my parents..i never would have met my boyfriend...never would have met him then i never would have moved to Cali never moved to Cali then i never would have had internet access...and the list goes on..yes my life has been to hell and back but i can sit here and smile once and awhile and say i earned every darn speck of this air im breathing right now...so no...i dont regret anything and i wouldnt do anything all over again
but its a good question!!! Love, Inny
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  #10  
Old Mar 30, 2007, 01:53 PM
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That's great Inny that you figured out when you were 15 to ask yourself and do things right the "first" time :-) Mostly now I'm not thinking in terms of back then but what holds me back from those (which?) lessons I hopefully learned back then! If looking back I would have worked at communicating harder, am I doing that now? If not, what am I waiting for!?*^@
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  #11  
Old Mar 30, 2007, 06:27 PM
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Inny, I really it, too, that you look back as having taken the risks you wanted, and maybe that's something I could give myself credit for and haven't.

Perna, I'm wondering when you say, "looking back, I would have worked at communicating harder" if you are stating that you want to have been someone else back then. Because didn't you communicate as effectively as you were able to at that point in time?

Yes, you are marvelous at communicating. I also think you do a good job of hitting in at key issues in some of the posts, and offering a pointed, pithy, reply. I wasn't sure what you meant about what were waiting for -- to do your best to communicate well? I think you do that. For what it's worth.
Do-over Do-over Do-over Do-over Do-over
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  #12  
Old Mar 30, 2007, 10:52 PM
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Yes, you're right Wants, I was who I was and did the best I "could" but getting my "do-over" :-) I now see I had no "need" to be as conservative as I was, as scared; the world was NOT out to get me as I saw, it was my perception that was screwy (not ME :-) and now I know that. I didn't know that information then. So, if I knew then what I know now. . . :-) I'm not "different" I'm still who I was, still as brave and wonderful but my perceptions have changed over time because I've learned more. If I could have the benefit of what I've learned now. . . And, in a sense I do have that benefit. Now, theoretically, I "should" know it's my perception, not Me that is the problem and correct for that?
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  #13  
Old Mar 31, 2007, 10:47 AM
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Wants2Fly Wants2Fly is offline
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Do-over

I dunno, Perna. This thread cross-overs with others I have started -- I think you've noticed this, too. Almost as if we are carrying on one discussion on two or more different threads. A hologram. LOL.

So on this topic of taking the confidence of what you know now about perceptions and misperceptions -- I try to be my authentic brave wild woman self, yet express politely, respectfully, and I am accused of having been other things ("on a tear") as perceived from the other person's perspective -- (see thread I screwed up today in Self-Esteem). So I feel as if I (not necessarily you) can be "slapped down" when I try to be that brave self.

So I'm back to "I dunno" in response to your Q.

The other thing to this Q relates to a thread in Relationships topic area where the idea of discernment was launched, and for some of us, that doesn't seem to kick in until the 40s.

I deal every day with approximately 20 year olds. And they can be worldly wise and cynical beyond their years, yet at the same time immature and naive. Their assertiveness often seems more like bravado and boundary-testing then as coming from a place of inner strength.

Observing differences between them and me as I went through middle age to senior citizenship has suggested to me that it takes life seasoning to arrive at certain wisdom and discernment. And even the very smartest and more self-confident cannot be other than young, immature, and unseasoned until they have lived their lives.

The notion of discernment, to me, suggests that we can make fine distinctions between one type of person or experience and another. If we do not have a broad range of experiences, including perceptions, among which to discernment, perhaps wise discernment is not possible???? Do-over

This has/is a wonderful thought-provoking discussion for me.

I feel I have grown a lot in the past three days, through prayer, self-reflection, as well as attending to the several forums in which I participate.
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  #14  
Old Apr 01, 2007, 08:10 AM
InACorner InACorner is offline
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lol oops i must sound like a self prophisizing twit!!! my mistake....hmm

i think it would be growing up my family wasnt really a family...each individual created an individual...and if you let yourself vunerable to the "family" you were seen as weak...now i have a bf and new future inlaws and a new family...who has new ideas...lol....and i am actually learning that today as a matter of fact...that once i am vunerable to the family then they will accept me more...lol saying that is one thing...but actually doing that will take more time then a few seconds to write this hehe....
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  #15  
Old Apr 01, 2007, 08:37 AM
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It sounds as if you are doing some positive growing, too, InACorner, in a wonderfully loving family of in laws.
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  #16  
Old Apr 02, 2007, 02:12 PM
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When I was 15 I prayed that God wouldn't just send the good but the bad also so that I could appriciate the good. Well I got it alright. But I wish I had not married my first husband and done the things I wanted to do. Travel. My confidence would have been stronger and I would probably stayed away from all the criticism in my family that can still destroy me when I least expect it.
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