Opinion

It’s VII:XXIII at night, and I’m going to finish this by X, because I have to go to bed by XI and get up at VI:XV in order to get ready to take my grandkids to school by VIII:LV so they can be in class by IX.

Catch any of that?  I remember having to suffer through Roman Numerals in elementary school, a whole chapter in my math textbook, but not in high school.  And little by little over the years (it was actually probably pretty quick) I forgot all but the basics; long numbers are now a mystery to me.

Decisions are a part of life that we face every day. With everything from what we will wear to purchasing a new washing machine, our choices contribute as key components of our success and failures which are also directly connected to our peace and joy. Sometimes we are strongly influenced with the mesmerizing sparkle and emotional excitement that pulls us into a hypnosis and this crossroad can be a dangerous place to make a long-term commitment.

One night I loaded a cart with plant starter trays, but I kept thinking to myself, “I am loading solar lights,” and I was going down that aisle to stock.  I held the idea firmly in mind, and actually went to that aisle.  And sure enough, there was a customer looking at solar lights. Wow, it worked!  I made that person go down an aisle I wasn’t stocking! I smiled a smug smile and strolled to the trays aisle.  There stood a customer, looking at the trays.

I had a serious conversation the other day with a middle aged man and we talked for a couple of hours about God. I’ve known him for years and we’ve had these discussions before but I noticed he has become stronger in his opinions which by the way are based on atheism. He is a likeable person, hard worker, great husband and popular. He is also a very talented artist and sculptor and concentrates much of his artwork on the dark world of the supernatural.

Memories can be a wonderful place to visit when they are pleasant and filled with peace and joy. On the other hand, not all of our experiences have been good and can be more like a haunted house on a dark and stormy night. We all have our collections of thoughts and our own task of trying to figure out a way to deal with them. As most of us know, there are positive ways and negative ways to handle our past experiences. We can look around and see that many people are not doing such a good job when it comes to emotional management.