Never too Late

This blog occasionally touches on mental well being at least in the context of how physical activity and relaxation exercises can boost mood and how healthful eating can moderate it while also preventing irritability from blood sugar spikes and lethargy from consuming foods high in fat.

The blog only rarely goes into emotional or psychological well being in regards to positive self talk and dealing with big stresses. I do recall mentioning something I had heard about stress almost always emanating from feeling out of control. One is either not in control because they do not know what is about to happen, or they do know, but have no power to stop it or change it. In these situations, it takes a powerful sense of self to remain calm (or to get calm) and to find what part of the event, because there IS one, that you can affect. Persons with an internal locus of control, versus an external one, are better able to do this. An internal locus of control is the belief that you do have the ability to make things happen, while an external locus of control relates to feeling a victim, to being someone that things happen to.

You can change how you are - I am pretty sure that I have done a great deal of shifting in the last decade or two. I bring this up today because in this month's issue of Real Simple, Amy Bloom lists a few things that she considers Life Lessons and one of them is this:

The same thing can happen to two people and the outcome can be very different. An example she gives is two people who are severely and permanently crippled in an accident. One of these persons becomes very miserable, angry, defeated and despaired while the other ends up gregarious and well liked, comfortable and content. Ms. Bloom says that tragedies and circumstances do not make a person BE one way or another, but bring out that persons character. You DO have control over what you do even if you do not have control over what happens TO YOU. Sometimes it's big. You may have the ability to go back to school and change your career, like I did. You may have the chance to choose between two different assisted living facilities in which to live instead of despairing that you must leave your home, you might decide to laugh or to cry when you burn the Tday turkey, but you can decide.

And I won't paraphrase or explain the last thing Ms. Bloom said on this topic, because I want it to be as profound a sentence for you as it was for me:

"You have the chance to be the person you wish to be, until the day you die."