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Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Alone During Holidays! What to do?

It's Christmas season and people are buying gifts and getting ready to celebrate. People also celebrate other holidays, including New Year,
Commercials attack our sensors. The eyes gaze at many adds. The ears hear blaring commercials. The seasonal smells engulf us. Everywhere the messages try to convince us that we have to buy gifts in order to make our friends and family happy. Commercials also try to convince us that our happiness depends on things we buy, on car we drive, on the travel destinations, on jobs we have, on groups of people we spend time with, on the way we look, on a car we drive, and on many other things. 
According to commercials, happy people are those whose lives are going great, those who have great jobs/careers, and those who have the latest gadgets. Some commercial say that our meaning of life is happiness of our loved ones. Here is the catch, in order to reach happiness you have to buy things--spend money. If a person gives you an expensive gift it means that the individual cares abut you a lot. But it means that you have to buy an expensive gift in return. Many people get credit from a bank in order to get expensive gifts. Some end up in a debt because of their shopping habits.
We are also bombarded with constant messages--it's horrible to be alone for the holidays, especially Christmas.
Our society puts immense pressure on individuals to avoid loneliness. Sometimes people endanger themselves just to avoid the loneliness.
You can be lonely anytime anywhere, even in a crowd. I had been to social gatherings where I felt lonely. You will be lonely in a group of people when you cannot connect. Honestly, the loneliness was so overwhelming that I felt less lonely in my apartment by myself. Just because you share a faith doesn't mean that you will not feel lonely among the people.
If you find yourself lonely this Christmas or the holiday season in general there are the things you can do.

Friday, December 4, 2015

The Environmental Role

How do we treat things that we don't own: with care and respect. Especially if someone asked us to look after the stuff. When someone asks us to look after a pet or to house sit (to look after the house while the owners are away), we do it with great diligence. Some people wouldn't do it. However, every rule has an exception.