Sack Lunch ( A little long but worth reading)
I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned seat. It was going to be a long flight. ‘I’m glad I have a good book to read. Perhaps I will get a short nap,’ I thought.
Just before take-off, a line of soldiers came down the aisle and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation.
‘Where are you headed?’ I asked the soldier seated nearest to me “Petawawa.” We’ll be there for two weeks for special training, and then we’re being deployed to Afghanistan.
After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that sack lunches were available for five dollars. It would be several hours before we reached the east, and I quickly decided a lunch would help pass the time…
As I reached for my wallet, I overheard a soldier ask his buddy if he planned to buy lunch. ‘No, that seems like a lot of money for just a sack lunch. Probably wouldn’t be worth five bucks. I’ll wait till we get to base.’ His friend agreed.
I looked around at the other soldiers. None were buying lunch. I walked to the back of the plane and handed the flight attendant a fifty dollar bill. ‘Take a lunch to all those soldiers.’ She grabbed my arms and squeezed tightly. Her eyes wet with tears, she thanked me. ‘My son was a soldier in Iraq; it’s almost like you are doing it for him.’
Picking up ten sacks, she headed up the aisle to where the soldiers were seated. She stopped at my seat and asked, ‘Which do you like best – beef or chicken?’ ‘Chicken,’ I replied, wondering why she asked. She turned and went to the front of plane, returning a minute later with a dinner plate from first class. ‘This is your thanks.’
After we finished eating, I went again to the back of the plane, heading for the rest room. A man stopped me. ‘I saw what you did. I want to be part of it. Here, take this.’ He handed me twenty-five dollars.
Soon after I returned to my seat, I saw the Flight Captain coming down the aisle, looking at the aisle numbers as he walked, I hoped he was not looking for me, but noticed he was looking at the numbers only on my side of the plane. When he got to my row he stopped, smiled, held out his hand and said, ‘I want to shake your hand.’ Quickly unfastening my seat belt I stood and took the Captain’s hand. With a booming voice he said, ‘I was a soldier and I was a military pilot. Once, someone bought me a lunch. It was an act of kindness I never forgot.’ I was embarrassed when applause was heard from all of the passengers.
Later I walked to the front of the plane so I could stretch my legs. A man who was seated about six rows in front of me reached out his hand, wanting to shake mine. He left another twenty-five dollars in my palm.
When we landed I gathered my belongings and started to deplane. Waiting just inside the airplane door was a man who stopped me, put something in my shirt pocket, turned, and walked away without saying a word. Another twenty-five dollars!
Upon entering the terminal, I saw the soldiers gathering for their trip to the base.
I walked over to them and handed them seventy-five dollars. ‘It will take you some time to reach the base. It will be about time for a sandwich. God Bless You.’
Ten young men left that flight feeling the love and respect of their fellow travelers.
As I walked briskly to my car, I whispered a prayer for their safe return. These soldiers were giving their all for our country. I could only give them a couple of meals. It seemed so little….
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to ‘The United States of America ‘ for an amount of ‘up to and including my life.’
That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.’
Author Unknown
Why You Can’t Eat Healthier (post by Leo Babauta of zen habits)
Posted: 28 Aug 2012 09:41 AM PDT
Post written by Leo Babauta.
Most people have a hard time moving to a healthier diet, and they don’t understand what’s going on.
I was one of those people: 70 lbs. heavier and addicted to junk food, I would often tell myself that I’m going to start a diet, and even buy a bunch of new food, only to find myself snacking on chips, grande lattes, cookies, French fries and more after a few days.
Why? Because I used those foods to meet many of my needs, and taking the food away meant I had no way of dealing with some difficult things.
Food is a coping mechanism for most people, and to change our eating habits, we need new ways of coping.
Some examples of how we use food to cope:
- We eat when we’re stressed. If you change to a healthier diet, how will you cope with stress instead? You need new stress coping strategies.
- We eat when we’re sad or depressed. How can we learn to cope with these emotions in a healthier way?
- We eat as a reward, when we’ve done something good. What will we do to reward ourselves instead?
- We eat to socialize. How will we socialize without food?
- We eat because we’re bored. How will we cope with boredom instead?
- We eat because we’re angry. When we get in a fight, how will we deal with our anger instead of using food?
- We eat for pleasure. Are there healthier ways to find pleasure that we’ll learn instead of using food?
- We eat for love. We often equate food with love (our moms might have given us food lovingly as kids, or our lover used it to romance us), and so eating becomes a substitute for love. Where will we find love instead?
All of these (and more) are real needs. We all need love and pleasure and rewards, and ways of dealing with stress, boredom, sadness, loneliness, anger and frustration. For many of us, food has become the default way of meeting all those needs — and we can’t just take away the food without finding a healthier replacement. If we do, we’ll fall back into our old habit quickly.
It has taken me years to figure this out and to slowly build new, healthier habits to deal with all of these needs. But I can honestly say I’ve done it, and it’s possible. Do I still think about food when I’m lonely or sad or stressed? Sure. But now I have consciously built up some replacement coping mechanisms that work better for me, and I’m much healthier, leaner and fitter as a result.
Some things that have worked for me (your mileage will vary):
- Exercise – a great way to deal with stress, boredom, anger. After awhile, a run can also be pleasure and a reward.
- Meditation – excellent way of learning to deal with all of our emotions.
- Tea – also great for stress, boredom, anger, but for me a great reward and source of pleasure.
- People – I’ve learned to get my love from friends and family, and to use them as ways of dealing with my tougher emotions — talking with them, working out with them, simply spending time with them.
- Cleaning – decluttering, mindful sweeping, mindful wiping things down with a rag (TM). A great way to mindfully deal with stress, boredom, anger, etc.
- Solitude – I’ve found solitude a great way to deal with tougher emotions (you learn to work out your problems instead of avoiding them by eating food), and solitude can be a reward as well.
These are just a few ideas, and what works best for you will be highly personal. The idea is to figure out what you’ll do beforehand — before the need arises, or it’ll be too late — and then learn to be aware of these emotional triggers as they happen. When they do happen, very consciously do the new habit instead of the old. It’ll take awhile to form the new habit, especially as you’ll probably forget sometimes, but just remember my mantra: “We are all learning.” And have patience with yourself.
Food has become so many things to us, as individual people and as a society. It’s how we socialize, celebrate holidays, watch sports, show love, find comfort, deal with pain. And yet, that’s not always healthy: we are getting fatter and fatter because of this addiction, and it’s time we rethink our main strategy for coping and loving.
I should note that this idea is the same for any other addiction: biting your nails, smoking, drugs, alcohol, etc. We use them as crutches to cope with our needs, and to beat them we need to find healthier methods of coping and meeting our needs.
Live Your Own Destiny
” It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of someone else’s life with perfection.”-Bhagavad Gita
Always Have Problems
If you can’t learn to enjoy your life when you have problems,
you may never enjoy it because we’ll always have problems.-Joyce Meyer
People More Important Than Plans (by Kirk Weisler)
“Plan your day but live for the interruptions. They often turn out to be the part that matters most.” J Devin Cornish
(taken from my wife’s book of collected wisdom)
I can’t think of a time when the kids said, “Daddy can I help?” and the job got easier or done more quickly. But I can think of a thousand times when it got more rewarding when I said yes with the right attitude.
I’m a fairly new bee keeper and when it was time for me to do my first hive inspection I called my neighbor and asked if had time to come and walk me through it in the coming weeks. He said, ”How about right now.” Below is a picture of Dave Richardson doing just that… something he could have completed in just minutes on his own. When Josh and Brooklyn asked if they could also participate .. his reply was a warm and instant … “Of course you can, now let’s get your gear on.” He spent nearly 3 hours with us, and when we thanked him he said, “It was the best interruption of his day.”
May some of the interruptions of your day…be the best part.
No matter how hard you squeeze (post by Kirk Weisler)
This is a classic that I have referenced many times and posted a couple times…but it I feel the need to share it again.
“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Choose your words, for they become actions. Understand your actions, for they become habits. Study your habits, for they will become your character. Develop your character, for it becomes your destiny.” ~Unknown
We think it before we say it… (even in anger when we try to excuse ourselves with things like “In the heat of the moment I didn’t really know what I was saying”…or “You made me angry” (implying that our awful and intemperate response was actually the fault of the person who received it???) The truth is that what comes out of us is what is inside of us. (including in moments of pressure and stress) Said another way… you can’t get apple juice from an orange…no matter how hard you squeeze it.
Yesterday Rebecca and I (and the kids) celebrated our 21st anniversary. During the course of our marriage we have often discussed the importance and power of words. And how words are the most powerful tools in helping to set a tone for our home, our relationships and our lives. Words are the parents of thoughts…thoughts the parents of behaviors….and our behaviours = our outcomes and our very lives. When we get casual with our language, we have become casual with our thinking… we think it doesn’t really matter and it does…and the result of casual …well it’s just 2 letters short of casual(ty). Don’t let your relationships become a casualty of your language.
On the other hand…the moment we begin to enrich our language, we begin to enrich our lives. The more uplifting our language…the more uplifting our lives.
Finally to show how just a few words have the power to uplift our lives…refocus and renew our commitment.. let me share this picture with you. Last night when Rebecca and I came home from our dinner…. the kids had decorated our room, lit some candles, had romantic music playing….and really worked together to “set the mood” for romance and help us celebrate our 21 years. Additionally …they had each written us a note expressing (in words) their thoughts about what our marriage has meant to them. As we read their words…. we laughed, we cried, as we were filled with gratitude for the opportunity we have been blessed with to be parents and to have a family. We also recommitted ourselves to continue to strive to become the best parents we can be….and at least for our youngest Ash…the kind of parents she seems to think we already are. 
Still speaking of words… I have often taught that “People become what we say about them.” I hope this is true…. especially after reading this note from our Ashly
Don’t Judge Me
You never know what a person is going through.
Mzsunflower's Say What? 