Living Proof

There is a lot of truth to that saying, "Whatever you resist persists." I've heard it before, but sort of dismissed it as one of those nonsensical inspirational kinda' quotes that you usually find on social media. But think about it: whatever you resist will persist, so when you stop resisting, it will stop - it will discontinue . I remember telling my therapist about all the panic attacks I was experiencing. She said, "Acknowledge it and accept it. It's like the riptide: the more you fight it, the more it will attack you." So basically, what she meant was: what you embrace is what will dissolve. Think about it - if someone taunts you and tries to get your goat, what happens if you ignore them? What happens when they get no response from you? They stop. But what if that person gets an angry response? It continues. And that was my entire problem - even recently. I mean, I would react to things that I didn't want to happen. So, it would go on and on...

You could imagine the look on my face when I heard a mother telling her teenaged daughter, “That looks just awful. You look like a lesbian.” The young girl walked out of the dressing room, swirling in front of the mirrors, hoping the black buttoned down dress shirt fit properly. The mother kept on, “They’ll think you’re a lesbian, between the short spiky hair and a man’s dress shirt.” The girl just sighed and then rushed back into the dressing room embarrassed. The mother shot me a look to see if I was listening. Our eyes connected. “Right? Doesn’t she look like one of those lesbians?” I smiled and said, “Nothing wrong with looking like one. What does a lesbian look like anyway?” “You know, those girls who cut their hair really short and wear men’s clothing. It’s awful for a woman to do that to themselves.” “Ah well, if they’re happy, I don’t see a problem with it.” I said, not looking straight at her. “Being a lesbian is no life to live, especially for my daughter. She was raised ...

Our privacy is our biggest concern when we’re on the internet. We feel vulnerable and at times, we feel we’re being ‘watched’ by Big Brother. And we are. Depending on ‘who you are’, is a matter of if they’re paying attention or not. For instance, Google logs every single word you type into their search engines. It all gets saved on a huge database. Sometimes, it’s even used if an employee of Google sees, “how to commit suicide” or “I want to kill someone” - this will sometimes be a cause for alarm. What about the little guys like me who blog and have Site Meter or stat counter of some type? Many people who are not that familiar with how the internet works usually do not realize how much info they’re putting out there for people to see. This is one of the reasons why I was able to tell a blogger that I was in a heated debate with, how long he was on my website as well as how many page views he had. I told him what computer he was using, part of his ip address, as well as his internet pr...