Friday, July 5, 2019

Relax! It's all about good chocolate!

     The mainstay of chocolate is still the Hershey's milk chocolate bar with nothing added except maybe a roasted marshmallow and a graham cracker broken in half!  Okay, it's still the "go to" fix for so many of us.  Admit it, you love chocolate and take measures to ensure it's continued prominence in your life!  I have, yes I admit it, hiding places for my chocolate.  No, I'm not going to tell you or anyone where those places are!  My love of chocolate is in direct proportion to how my moods run.  Feeling angry, depressed, anxious?  Chocolate!  Feeling happy, content, or hopeful?  Yep, chocolate!  I even have beer brewed with chocolate in it.  Smoothies?  Can't even tell it's in there!  My life was once saturated with chocolate and other pleasures that seemed to almost become akin to an obsession. Don't have chocolate?  Better get some.  Now that I'm more mature and elderly, I don't need the chocolate as much as lust after it.
     But, I'm preaching to the choir; as they say.  You know what I'm talking about even if your choice isn't chocolate.  Our preoccupation with diversions get the best of us to succumb to the distractions we feel we need in our lives.  I have ADHD and am easily distracted anyway!  Maybe you are too?  My one Boston Terrier, Jasmine, has a distraction and an obsession problem.  She is always on the hunt for anything that moves and can be chased!  Her distraction and obsession takes the squirrel or lizard to a standoff under my truck where she bites and claws at her intended prey until she shreds parts of my wiring harness!  Three times now!  I've put a barrier in place now so that both she and the squirrel can take their game elsewhere!  I've forced another scenario for both of them.  Maybe they will just stop?  I don't think so.  You and I don't stop our distraction and obsession easily why should they?  By the way, the squirrel is named Cal and he's recovered from their latest skirmish.
     What I'm trying to do in my life is take the power of the obsessions in my life and exchange them for other obsessions.  For instance, putting unselfishness in place of selfishness, putting charity in place of selfishness, using love to replace selfishness.  My, and your, core problem is we are living in a self centered world and have let the selfishness become the norm.  We've even taught our children and grandchildren to do the same.  Then we are astonished when they do as we do and not as we say.  We are a weird bunch of people!  I can't or won't surrender my selfishness all at once.  I need to let go of selfishness one element at a time.  Then I need to have it replaced by the love of God which is perfect unselfishness!  Letting go means with both hands and clinging with both hands to the replacement...Jesus.  Remember, it's always your choice.

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