Quote:
Originally Posted by Dion
I was a volunteer in a Calgary nursing home for a number of years where I would visit a woman in her late 70's who was blind. You could argue she had every right to want out of life. The facility didn't cater to the blind and other than me and her 2 daughters, she didn't have a lot to live for.
Dispite all that she was happy. She enjoyed our visits that often included me pushing her in her wheel chair around the court yard, me reading the newspaper to her, coversations and by weekly games of Bingo in the games room. PCA's and nurses said she was delight to work with everyday.
Sometimes life comes down to an attitude we have about it.
TBQH I have wondered if we will get to a state where we put our elderly in Pods when they become a burden to society, both cost and housing wise. A slippery slope type of thing where this Pod thing changes over the years where we reach that point, I hope not.
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Just goes to show...
Happiness is a state of mind, not a circumstance.
People eventually learn this when they attain their goals and wants and realize they still don't feel accomplished or whole, but instead just move on past them looking towards the next thing/goal/marker, perpetually postponing any allowance of sustained contentment.
You train yourself into happiness, in the present, even while things are incomplete or a work in progress, or certain things aren't going to happen for you (the ability of sight). It doesn't suddenly happen upon you once x and y are fulfilled, especially if you've trained yourself into dissatisfaction for much of your life. You've created a groove/pathway in thinking that is years deep in the thoughts of "I will be happy when..", so there's no way you can suddenly flip that switch for good when your outer circumstances reflect what you said you wanted. That's the thing that I think evades so many people in western culture, because we're swimming in visuals of how a happy life is supposed to look like, instead of determining that for ourselves.
Society convinces even the best of us that we need to always be collecting, attaining and pursuing, often at the cost of our mental and physical health, and the opportunity for happiness in the present.
Being happy all starts with gratitude, for just the minute, little things. And grows from there. Giving is a good way of getting there too, which I'm sure you experienced in doing that volunteering.
That is awesome you did that. Not many people would spare the time.