Rant & Raving, Family, & Passion

We need not look any further than Mayor Ford of Toronto, Canada, to see a person on the latest video circulating with the Mayor ranting and raving to understand what rant and raving looks like in it’s extreme.

People who absorb much of the nastiness of others along with life’s stresses often will blow with the help of alcohol. I certainly am not suggesting that Canadians need excuse Mayor Ford’s behavior, as an elected official, but instead I think we can all agree we are witnessing the effects of alcohol on the brain and he needs treatment.

I admit when I was still drinking, while dealing with accepting the fact I was becoming more disabled from chronic pain everyday, going through empty nest syndrome, and dealing with 3 women who took it on themselves to make certain I knew their point of view on a family matter was not in synch with my own, I did a little ranting and raving myself.

If I hadn’t of unloaded at the time, I’m not sure that I would be alive today. Stresses in our lives often build and we do sometimes in life, need to emit, but never to the extreme that Mayor Ford did.

My major upset with my entire extended family at the time was their refusal to understand why I was not the person to be taking care of a verbally abusive elderly person, which most rational people would understand and act accordingly. People who are facing disability themselves, are not in a position to care for another person who is also looking at the same future but extremely abusive as well. Most rational people do know and understand this, but because they refused to accept my own circumstances as being real, denial became their weapon of choice.

My own circumstances have already been written about by me in previous posts, but it would have been an equally heavy load to bare for anyone, much less someone who was fighting for their own health to stabilize. I found the betrayal I was going through way too much to have to deal with along with the total lack of understanding from those who felt I was letting them down. Needless to say I had no choice but to eliminate those people whose only concern was for their own beliefs and points of view from my life. Many times we can deal better without our loved ones’ opinions when it comes to dealing with our own problems than we can dealing with those who only have ulterior motives.

For years I pretty much accepted people for their own short comings and to have my own body turn against me at the same time I was experiencing the loss of motherhood while my sisters and mother were turning the knife, was a heavy load to bare all at the same time. Its not that I hadn’t experienced their criticism over the years or game playing in the past, but when compounded by other serious problems of my own, it was the straw that would have broken the back of a healthy back much less one that was already as injured as my own.

I didn’t deny their right to their opinions and still don’t but since I was the one who they took for granted would think as they did or do, and found their views self-serving rather than understanding or even practical I really wasn’t left with any choice but to spend my life criticizing them as they had criticized me, or walking away. When no one is listening it is never possible to find solutions. Since it was me stuck with the problems, it was my responsibility to find the solutions so I took care of it.

As I include what became the turning point in my life today, I want to point out how we too often may think life’s upsets or tragedies are very unfair, only to find out with time, it is true many times what we think are the worse storms of our lives are followed by sunshine and clear skies. It was when I was pushed as far as I could be pushed I found the real joy in my life. For the first time in my entire life I could truly enjoy the success of my marriage, children, grandchildren and my own struggles. I had given so much of myself away, through no one’s fault but my own, that I had lost my passion for life.

Perhaps its the people who are drawn to me that I find are too listless or unevolved in life, because when I really get passionate about my writing, collecting of antiques, travel,
and painting I often hear one person still partially in my life refer to my rant and raving during a difficult time being the same as my joy and passion for life today.

I don’t pretend to understand why it is so difficult for some to ever get passionate about anything. I just know those who I do know that never do, never raise their voice an octave regardless of what kind of excitement is taking place in their lives. They also accuse all people who do get passionate and raise their voices in excitement as ranting and raving.

There is a parable in the Bible that says”…….An God will vomit forward the lukewarm…” I can relate to that, because there are too many people sometimes in the life of all of us who never get excited about anything and if we surround ourselves with too many who don’t,we do lose that passion we are all reaching for in life.

Nothing brings down anyone more than someone whose opinions, ideas, or actions are as changeable as the wind. Too often people who lack passion themselves become a real downer in our own lives if we allow them to as most caring people can and do become affected by the moods of those people who we surround ourselves with on a regular bases.

I find the same people who accuse passionate people of ranting or raving when they are simply exuberant about life almost resentful of those who do get a kick out of life.

My own experience is: I find people who misunderstand or are pretty well lukewarm about most things in life, are quick to criticize a smile, a different point of view, judge those who express themselves through the joy of living differently from what their lives may be. They tend to be too quick to blame instead of achieving on their own,and too many times hear nothing but their own inner voices.

I feel sorry for people who do not even want to in some cases, or can’t in others, get passionate about their own lives. I don’t expect them to get the excitement out of life that I get out of my own, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all could at the very least understand the difference between passion as verses rant and raving?

Find something this weekend that you can share with your friends and see if you surround yourselves with people who are passionate about life, lukewarm, or simply don’t give a damn. It takes a real friend to share our excitement with us! Have a good weekend all.