Open Some of your Pressure Valves

Our Lord inspired me to write this article to offer practical ways to let off steam without adverse effects.

Oddly, one of the first things that came to me was to eliminate any feeling that some of us might have to feel pressured to be “in style. ” Think about it. Most of the time, being “in style” causes people to look ridiculous.

I mean it causes older people trying to look young again to become laughingstocks. It causes younger people a lot of mental and financial pressure trying to maintain stylishness. And it causes overweight people to look even more so!

Years ago I also was caught in this same web. One year the hemlines were around the ankle, the next around mid-thigh. I was a single mother, and funds were tight, to say the least.

Thank God, one day I woke up and realized the ludicrousness of the situation. I simply got tired of jumping to the whims of the manufacturers (who could not have cared less how I looked), whose sole purpose was profit.

I had had training about ten years earlier in the skills of charm and modelling, which had included learning the styles which optimized my particular build. But, yielding to the pressures of fashion (and succumbing to my naiveté), I had abandoned those tried and true principles for what everyone else was wearing. Duh!

Finally, when I realized how expensive this habit of having to have the “latest” really was, I determined that I would no longer be a victim of someone else’s profit margin.

Ever since, I have invested only in quality clothing that is particularly suitable for my figure, frame, and lifestyle. As a result, my clothes are classics that are always in style and appropriate for me.

This is one pressure relief valve that is no longer needed!

The second valve that needs to be opened in many lives is taking back those lives. Fifty years ago life was a lot simpler (and a whole lot easier). Many of the “labor saving” devices we have today had not even been conceived then. And I’m not so sure that they do save labor . . . they may even make life a lot harder by virtue of the fact that we are required to take care of the devices we use to “save” time!

As an example, take the dishwasher. Unless you have a large family or entertain a lot, I would suggest that you wash your dishes by hand as you go along. Otherwise, most of your dishes end up in the dishwasher, either clean or dirty, when you want them. And it takes a lot of time to load and unload the thing. Plus, unless you practically wash them to begin with, they rarely all get clean. Why not just simplify this small task, not let them build up, and if you use a natural soap, your hands will benefit as well.

Next, if you have young children, don’t run yourself ragged trying to juggle impossible schedules of running from game to game to dance lessons to music lessons to karate lessons to this-that-and-the-other-thing.

I remember one mother (years ago when I was chauffeuring my own kids around) who had four children, all four of whom were on different baseball teams. She never actually had time to watch a whole game and enjoy it, because she had to keep running to and fro picking up and delivering, etc. She was always frazzled, to say the least.

And the kids themselves end up having frantic lives and never get to enjoy being kids. School is structured enough for them, without regimenting the rest of their time! Back in the “dinosaur” days, Summer days were long, lazy, and relaxed. We seemed to have all the time in the world, and Summer vacation was three whole months long. Today my grandchildren are lucky if they are out of school by the second week in June and have to go back around the second or third week in August!

Add to all of this the running to and fro among parents, step-parents, babysitters, day care centers, and it just becomes overwhelming at times.

It’s bad enough when we adults do not take time to smell the roses, but our kids don’t even seem to have enough time to learn what roses are!

I believe that Henry David Thoreau gave the best advice that anyone could hear many years ago: “Simplify, simplify. ”