Autonomy

Why are you using such big words? What’s it mean anyway?

Breaking the word down backwards it says, ‘my auto”, and if it’s your car you can drive it wherever you want. But the Greek meaning is self-legislation, self-governance. This means you are to be in charge of your life, your actions, your decisions. Basically, you tell yourself what to do. (You drive your life where you want it to go.) You tell yourself what is best for you and do it. You don’t need other people telling you what they think you should say, do, think, where to go to school, who to marry, what to like, dislike, who to vote for etc, etc, etc.

Autonomy is a self-regulating freedom. As with any freedom and freedom to make your own decisions, we have guidelines in communities, cities, states, countries of what is allowed or not allowed, and our freedom must abide within those guidelines. But autonomy is a wonderful thing. Many countries in the world and over the centuries had no such freedoms. They were always told what to do and when.

But we have the freedom, ability, to decide if we want a better life we can go after it. We want a better relationship with our friends and family, no one can stop us. We want to give up a bad habit or two, we are able to direct our lives that way. There is no law preventing you from doing any good thing you want to do. We don’t tell other people what to do and conversely, we don’t let others tell us what to do.

We get to decide what’s good and beneficial for us and ours and move in that direction. We do not need permission from higher anybody to do the right thing.

Now what do I really want to do – to see happen in my life for good? How could I make it happen? The reins are in my hands.

Let’s get the ball rolling!

Tenant vs Resident?

Are you a tenant or a resident? The words mean basically the same thing, but in my mind they seem different.

When the kids were small, we moved a lot. Rather than buy a house we rented. We were tenants. We lived in somebody else’s house, on their property, under their jurisdiction.

My husband had a rule of thumb. Always leave things better than when you found them. One time we borrowed his younger brother’s car while ours was in the shop. Before we returned it, he said, ‘We’re going to vacuum his car and wash it. Then we’ll fill it with gas before we take it back.’ He felt it so important to leave it better than when we got it.

This translated into the houses we rented. We always improved upon them any way we could. Putting in flower gardens, keeping everything swept and tidy, doing painting, deep cleaning, maintenance, yard care, anything we could do to make it better, and others noticed, including the landlord. We didn’t want to ‘live up’ to the name ‘renters’!

That was the difference in my opinion. A tenant was a ‘mere’ renter…living in somebody else’s place where the landlord did all the work. The tenant did nothing…maybe even was destructive to the place.

We were residents! We lived there, it was our home and we wanted to take good care of it like it was our very own! We were proud to live there and help keep it up. It was a true sense of ‘ownership’

How do you feel about this?

Your Good

How many times have we had a good idea, good intentions, and never followed through with them?

How many times has it been a result of what somebody else said?

Don’t let another person downplay or destroy your good!!!

In other words, don’t stop doing your good because someone else does not approve or puts you down for doing it.

This can be seen in so many areas of our lives…we quench ourselves (hold back)…

  • If I appear to know the answer, someone else might feel bad (I have to remain at their level)
  • If I wear this new outfit, people will think I’m showing off (I have to look the same)
  • If I buy a nice car, people will think I’m trying to get attention (I can’t allow myself to have what I like) 
  • If I have a better idea, people will think I’m trying to ‘one-up’ them (I cannot share my thoughts)
  • If I help that person, people will think I’m trying to get something from them (I can’t be who I want to be)
  • If I want to improve my life, some will say ‘I’m too good for them’ (I can’t choose  betterment for me)

What’s the common denominator here?…’What will people think???’

Since when is our life to be determined by what other people think? We are adults, in charge of us, steering our own/family ship. The waters of life are tumultuous enough, why do we need to add the additional wave of other’s opinions and fears to sweep over us? (in some cases capsize and drown us out)

Let’s get back on board, start paddling in the direction of our own good choosing and keep moving forward!

There’s so much good needed in our individual arenas. Don’t let others stop you. Take charge of your own thoughts, ideas, and lives and keep on going!

You can do it!!!


  • 17 years after Strauss Brothers Meat closed its doors, the Strauss family members decided to bring back to life their unique history of ‘small batch’ meat seasonings – originally perfected to go with the family’s upstanding meat butchery from the early days of Detroit’s Eastern Market beginning 1954. We visited the market yesterday and met/talked with some of the ‘New’ Strauss Brothers family… sampling and purchasing their 3 prime meat seasonings. They could have let the good family idea remain a thing of the past, but decided instead to revive it and move ahead reintroducing quality taste for today’s good-meat-eating. Kudos to them for not getting lost in only a dream, but choosing to make it happen so we could experience some of their family flavors!!! https://www.straussbrothers.com/