Quick fixes for life

It seems with the advent of the Internet life had gotten more complicated rather than easier, why is that? I have a few ideas to answer that. Everything comes in an instant now, you want to know something you Google it. There is no more time to stop and think. We are busy, busy with our lives, working raising our kids, playing, doing what we want to do when we want to do it. Then when life seems to be going downhill fast we open our internet browser and look for quick fixes.

Money - How to make money online seems to be the #1 Googled question of right now. Maybe 10 years ago making money online was something you could do quick, now it takes time and effort. The changes that are being made require a lot of learning on the part of the person wanting to make money. People get discouraged when that big fat paycheck don’t come as rapidly as they thought it would.

College - What ever happened to college? College used to take a few years to complete. Now you can take courses online, and be finished in a matter of months rather than years, with the ‘guarantee’ of job placement. What they are really guaranteeing is that they will show you how to apply for jobs. If you should choose to seek out a specialized career you can have that completed in 6 to 8 months as well. Graduating with a cap and gown and the whole shebang.

Sex - That is another high google question, anything about sex. You’ve spent years working, playing and doing whatever you wish and all of a sudden you want to have meaningful sex with your partner. So you seek out a quick answer.

Kids - You’ve spent your life working, cooking, cleaning, paying bills, going out entertaining yourself and your child has gotten into trouble. So you Google a question of how to fix my child.

Illnesses - This is another highly Googled word. You have some symptoms of one kind or another so you Google what you can do to fix yourself. You are relying on the expertise of someone sitting on the other side of a computer screen?

Family - You spent your life working and all of a sudden you realize that your family has moved on and you want to know how to get them back. So you Google it.

Voting - This may seem odd subject to be putting on here, but yes it is important. With the information available as it is, people will Google the most popular name out that is running for election, read their own webpage and decide ‘Yep’ that is the person for me.

Alcoholics - For years you have drank to your hearts content and now that your family has said give it up or get out, you go online to try and get a quick fix on how to stop drinking.
This also applies to smoking, and drugs.

Now to address what you can do: STOP - LOOK - LISTEN, as children, some of us were taught this when crossing the street. This is true in life as well. We have to STOP and see what is wrong in our lives. LOOK at the people in our loves and LISTEN to what they are saying.

Making money online is going to take time. Imagine you have opened a store, you might get a few visitors the first few days, as it is something new. But after they have seen something in your store the first time, they will only come back when it is needed. You have to keep stocking your shelves and bringing in new items. The same goes for online work, it takes times. People need to come and see what it is you have to offer, if they like it they will share with others. Over time search engines will pick up your sites and people will come to it. You are not going to get rich quick, that is only in the movies.

Years ago people went to a college, took classes paid their dues of eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for 4 years, surviving on little to no sleep because not only did you go to school full time but you also may have worked a part time job. Now you can stay at home and learn online. You may get the basics down, but are you learning to deal with people? Have they offered those classes? I am not down playing higher education in any way shape or form. But what seems to have happened to the young people of today is they want to hurry up and get on with life. They quit school, possibly get pregnant, have a child get a job then figure out they need something more, so now they are trying to raise their child, go to work AND go to school. All the while trying to have a social life and wondering why they are so tired.

A marriage is a life long commitment, give and take with compromises. A good marriage takes work, yes folks I said work. Married people get busy with life and end up in ruts, there is no quick fix to a broken marriage. It will take time, you will have to spend quality time with each other. Time to re-learn your loved one, time to figure out their wants and needs. A bouquet of flowers may say “I’m sorry” but it’s going to take more than that to fix whatever ails your relationship.

Kids - If I hear Quality over Quantity one more time I think I’ll barf. Kids NEED your time, even if it is to say “look at what I can do!”, just so you can watch them jump over a pebble, they need that. They need you to look. Yes, there are things that need to be done around the house. Try and enlist their help to get it done quicker, or wait to do it while they are sleeping. My son used to go to sleep to the sound of me clanging around in the kitchen cleaning. What is quality time? Taking them to McDonalds or the mall what are you doing? Spending money on them. What do they learn? That you are buying time from them.

Do not expect to have a well balanced teenager when all they have ever seen of you is when you are spending money on them. Do not look at them and ask “Why are you doing drugs, drinking etc…” when all they have ever asked of you is your time, and you couldn’t find the time to do so. There will be no quick fixes for this. Your child will get that time now, when you spend hours in counseling together.

To me it says a lot that my teenage daughter asks me to go on ‘double’ dates with her. Her and her boyfriend (who ever it may be at the time) will invite me along to dinner, the movies or lately, canoeing. How fun is that? If your teenager hasn’t invited you, ask them. No pressure, just say “Hey Mom (or) Dad and I are going to the movies do you and (insert name here) want to go with us?” No one is saying to give up your ‘entertainment’ time, just include your kids with you.

No one says that you have to be a perfect parent, you just have to try and keep on trying and when that dosen't work. Try some more. Parenting and child rearing is a learning experience for all concerned. It is the most time consuming yet rewarding thing you will have ever worked so hard for.

You live life in the fast lane, eat wrong, drink too much and pollute your body with too many things and then wonder why you don’t feel good. Start by eating right, putting good things in will only cause your body to put good things out. Take a walk, get outside do some gardening, do something like play ball with your child. You will be killing two birds with one stone here, spending time with your child and doing something for yourself. Not really a quick fix, but it’s a start.

You’ve spent your life doing what you wanted to do and you actually think your family is going to wait around until you want to spend time with them? There is going to be nothing easy about this one. You will have to change your entire lifestyle to fix this, if there is even a remote chance that you can do so. Do you know what your wife’s favorite flower is? Your child’s favorite color, friend’s name, their favorite food? Remember a child’s mind changes like the wind. What was their favorite thing last week, will surely be different this week.

Did you really take the time to research your choice of candidates for office, or did you just go with the popular vote? Did you go to different websites or just to the one promoting themselves? When it comes time for voting for a candidate I look at both sides, not a ‘party’, check out the good and the bad and weigh the differences. Basically, I take the TIME to make my choice. I don’t listen to what one person has to say, I listen to what many people have to say. I could go right now and make a website that promote what a wonderful person I am with terrific ideas but if you have no proof of these things, how do you know how wonderful I am, just because I said so?

If you’ve taken the time and effort to spend all that money and time drinking, you’re going to have to spend that same amount of time stopping. There is no magic pill that is going to fix your problems. There are ’aids’ to help with the physical side effects, but it is going to take time and effort and day to day living to stay stopped.

I like analogies to explain things so I will share one with you: Life is like a leaking toilet, if you fix it as soon as it starts leaking you will have solved the problem. If you wait and let it continue to leak until you feel you have the time to fix it, you are going to have more problems than you bargained for. You will end up with rotted flooring, rotted floor boards and as your sitting on it you may end up going through the floor to the basement.

Take the time now to fix the problems. Work on them daily, a little at a time, then they won’t seem so momentous and overwhelming. Don’t wait until your life has rotted away and you’re sitting in the basement, then begin looking on the internet for that ‘Quick Fix’.

Truthfully - There are no easy answers to these questions. Life is time consuming-plain and simple. It takes time for things to happen.