So I'm old now. The “big four-oh”. Sort of feels like Friday. I started to write something all introspective and "judgy" about where I am in my life, and I realized how mind-crushingly cliché that is. “Cliché” I can handle; “mind-crushing,” not so much. Let me instead mention some gifts I’ve unexpectedly gotten over the years, usually not on my birthday, that have helped me to get to today and will hopefully carry me on for at least another forty years. Ancient Wisdom and Management Fads This gift is credited to Ken Bralich. It would have been about fourth grade. We were at my house, in the back yard around my family’s pool. Ken watched me with puzzlement as I laboriously dried myself off from the feet up, having to go back often and re-dry places I’d already visited. Ken looked at me and said “You know, Jim, if you just dry yourself off from the top down, you won’t have to do it all over again”. To say it had never occurred to me is probably lame at this point...
Through most of my life, I've had some serious misconceptions about depression. I have long believed that depressed people were just irritating weak-willed whiners who needed a kick in the ass and to shake it off. So naturally, I got a nice dose of the irony of life and wound up with depression myself. The more I read about depression, the more I realize how long I've had it without knowing. Actually, a big sign of depression isn't necessarily crying/sadness or a tendency to listen to emo rock at all. It can often be severe detachment and apathy. I know there's probably a lot of people out there saying "Duh!" right now, but that was news to me. Actually, three of the big symptoms are: - Apathy/Detachment - Lack of Motivation/Drive - Forgetfulness All of these, I've had in spades for some time. A lot of the reading says if these last for more than two weeks at a pop, you could be considered clinically depressed. Now that it's been poi...