Thought For The Day

Quote #1

“Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.” (Henry Rollins)

Quote #2

“Loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself.” (Rupi Kaur)

Quote #3

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature, and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.” (Anne Frank)

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Do You Think Loneliness Truly Goes Away When You Get In A Relationship?

There are those who are single that truly believe being in a relationship would take care of much of their loneliness. I beg to differ only because I’m currently in a relationship and feel lonely more than not, yet I don’t blame my partner for that whatsoever. That’s because I don’t think there’s any partner out there who could eliminate my feeling of loneliness. I’ll also go so far as to say I don’t believe there’s any human being out there who can erase anyone’s feeling of loneliness just by being in a romantic relationship with them.

That’s not to say that loneliness doesn’t take a seat on the back-burner for a while when one enters a new romantic relationship. At first, everything seems so bright and glorious. The world appears right-side-up for once where feeling lonely is often the furthest from one’s mind. That’s because there’s such utter excitement with everything in the beginning. I always refer to that part of the relationship as the “gushy-gushy” phase.

During it, each individual becomes gushy while sharing first meals out together, first sunsets seen together, first sunrises together, first sexual connections together, first trips away together, first gifts received together, first movies together, and well I’m sure you get my point. The only loneliness usually felt during this time is when the two are apart and can’t wait to be back in each other’s company and arms.

But, what happens when all that gushiness starts to wear off? When the cute quirks of the other person that you really liked at first become more annoying than silly? When various negative behaviors start coming to light that your newly romantic heart wasn’t able to see so clearly early on? When their needs, wants, and desires begin to take a much higher priority over your own?

Well, you could do what I did. You could start jumping from relationship to relationship to relationship and keep that gushy-gushy feeling going from one person to the next, never allowing yourself to truly feel lonely for any great length of time. Except eventually, you’ll realize like I am now in my current relationship, that the feeling of loneliness has never left me, I just never remained still enough to see that. Yet, I am now, and here I am, on a Saturday night, after spending the entire day alone, and continuing to do the same this evening, sitting with this feeling, rather than doing something to run from it. Yet, that didn’t stop my ego from really attempting to lure me to do just that.

I’m thankful I didn’t. I’m thankful for spending my day entirely alone taking a little walk through a park by the river, watching a movie at the theater, getting some ice cream, taking a stroll around my neighborhood as the sun went down, watching some television and ending it by writing this article. While my ego definitely wanted me to do any number of things that would have staved off that feeling of loneliness for a short while, I resisted it for once and instead sat completely with the loneliness. It’s amazing just how long I’ve been running from dealing with this to be perfectly honest.

This is the very reason why I haven’t resorted to doing my old cut-n-run routines because maybe this is exactly where God wants me to be right now. Maybe I’m just meant to be looking more within than without, seeking a Higher Connection rather than a lower vibrational one, and learning to unconditionally love myself a lot more than I have over the years, when I was always looking for someone else to do that for me. As maybe then, that’s when my loneliness will truly go away, once and for all…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Silly Joke Friday

Silly Joke #1

Four guys were at a deer camp. They had to bunk two to a room. No one wanted to room with Daryl because he snored so badly. They decided it wasn’t fair to make one of them stay with him the whole time, so they voted to take turns. The first guy slept with Daryl and comes to breakfast the next morning with his hair a mess and his eyes all bloodshot. The other two said, “Man, what happened to you?” He said, “Daryl snored so loudly, I just sat up and watched him all night.” The next night it was the second guy’s turn. In the morning, Same thing happens again, his hair is standing up, eyes all bloodshot. The other two said, “Man, what happened to you? You look awful!”  He said, “Man, that Daryl shakes the roof. I sat up and watched him all night.” The third night was Frank’s turn. Frank was a big burly ex-football player; a man’s man. The next morning, he came to breakfast bright eyed and bushy-tailed. “Good morning,” he said. The other two couldn’t believe it! He looked rested and wide awake. They asked, “Man, what happened?” He said, “Well, we got ready for bed. I went and tucked Daryl into bed, patted his butt and kissed him good night. Daryl sat up and watched me all night.”

Silly Joke #2

A college teacher reminds her class of tomorrow’s final exam. ‘Now class, I won’t tolerate any excuses for you not being here tomorrow. I might consider a nuclear attack or a serious personal injury, illness, or a death in your immediate family, but that’s it, no other excuses whatsoever!’ A smart-ass student in the back of the room raised his hand and asked, ‘What would you say if tomorrow I said I was suffering from complete and utter sexual exhaustion?’ The entire class is reduced to laughter and snickering. When silence was restored, the teacher smiled knowingly at the student, shook her head and sweetly said, ‘Well, I guess you’d have to write the exam with your other hand!’

Silly Joke #3

Last week, we took some friends out to a new restaurant, and noticed that the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket. It seemed a little strange, but I ignored it. However, when the busboy brought out water and utensils, I noticed he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket, then I looked around the room and saw that all the staff had spoons in their pockets. When the waiter came back to serve our soup I asked, “Why the spoon?” “Well,” he explained, “the restaurant’s owners hired Anderson Consulting, experts in efficiency, in order to revamp all our processes. After several months of statistical analysis, they concluded that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil. This represents a drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour. If our personnel is prepared to deal with that contingency, we can reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift.” As luck would have it I dropped my spoon and he was able to replace it with his spare spoon. “I’ll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an extra trip to get it right now.” I was rather impressed. I noticed that there was a very thin string hanging out of the waiter’s fly. Looking around, I noticed that all the waiters had the same string hanging from their flies. My curiosity got the better of me and before he walked off, I asked the waiter, “Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string right there?” “Oh, certainly!” he answered, lowering his voice. “Not everyone is as observant as you. That consulting firm I mentioned also found out that we can save time in the restroom.” “How so?” “See,” he continued, “by tying this string to the tip of you know what, we can pull it out over the urinal without touching it and that way eliminate the need to wash the hands, shortening the time spent in the restroom by 76.39 percent.” “After you get it out, how do you put it back?” I asked. “Well,” he whispered, lowering his voice even further, “I don’t know about the others, but I use the spoon.”

Bonus Silly Joke

A man walks into a book store and asks the clerk if she could tell him where the “self-help” area is. She replied, “Of course I can, but that would defeat the purpose, now wouldn’t it?”

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson