Expand Your Mind: 4 Stories to Inspire You
by Miki Saxon
The holiday season brings out a wide variety of emotions, from elation at the years accomplishments to excitement that a new year, a blank slate full of opportunity, is almost here, to the holiday blues and, for some, depression.
It’s also the time of year I like re-reading stories about real people that lift my spirits and I thought I would share a few with you.
First up is Filippo Callipo, who became the most successful businessman in southern Italy in spite of not playing ball with the mob.
Callipo’s refusal to play ball with the mob in an area where organised crime forces many businesses to pay extortion money and even dictates which suppliers companies must use has made him somewhat of a local legend.
I know many people with schizophrenia or manic-depressive disorder who, with the help of therapy and medication live their lives with relative degrees of success. The one complaint I hear from them all regards the medical arrogance that dismisses any ideas or insights they offer as worthless. It doesn’t surprise me; medical thinking still believes that there is no way a lay person with no training could offer any kind of intelligent commentary. Milt Greek and a few others are publicly proving them wrong.
Yet people who have had such experiences often disagree, arguing that delusions have their origin not solely in the illness, but also in fears, longings and psychological wounds that, once understood, can help people sustain recovery after they receive treatment.
Have you ever thought about who you were during a great life experience and wanted to repeat it now, as the person you’ve become? Bruce Weber, a reporter for the NT Times, did exactly that—18 years ago at age 39 he rode his bicycle across the country and he just did it again. His reflections on both himself and the country he rode through are well worth reading.
If there’s one thing the ride this time has impressed on me, it’s that the present is where I want to live. Never wish away distance. Never wish away time.
85 year old Boyd Lee Dunlop isn’t wishing away time. A nursing home, an old, broken-down piano and a chance meeting proves that the world can change at any time.
Instead, Boyd Lee Dunlop, 85, is the featured performer at a concert on Saturday night at the Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in downtown Buffalo. Admission is $10. And if you want to buy his debut CD, that will cost you another $15.
Have an inspired day!
Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho
