earl pike, AIDS taskforce of greater cleveland, facebok “salon” question: what gets you out of bed? (2030)
What Gets You Out of Bed in the Morning (when over-
whelmed, discouraged,
etc.)?:
Answers to Sunday’s
Question
Julie Cristal had a good idea: so many good answers today (October 18) they should be “preserved” in a single note. Here they are:
- K.D. Miller: the fact that I have a world to change for my eight year old sister!!
- Lisa Hirzel: the need to keep my job.
- Peggi Cella: The belief that every new day holds endless possibilities and I want to be available to them.
- Kathleen C. Rolenz: Putting on my running shoes and running. Like I am doing right now
- Steve Louzos: I think of a dear friend who died a few years back. Steven would call up, blurt out a phrase and then abruptly hang up. Here’s what he would say, “Something wonderful is gonna happen today!”
- Susie Gavazzi: Looking out the window at the amazing existence of nature and the world gets me out of bed. My kids keep me going (more to set the example that each one of our lives is a gift that we choose to manage properly–I am not a copter parent). I am fortunate that I am pretty get up and go–happy by nature…even when the doldrums hit. And they do. When that happens, I turn every light on and put music on, which elevates everything. I turn the computer off too…it’s very easy to hide here….
- Suzy Scullin: Steve- what you shared just changed my outlook for the day. Thank you!
- David Caldwell: I feel so utilitarian reading these. I get out of bed on days I don’t feel like it because I made commitments on previous days (when I presumably did “feel like it”).
- Nancy Marcus: coffee.
- Julie Neskey Cristal: My personality can be extreme, so the potential for one day can easily become weeks, months, years. I don’t want to look back at a life that wasn’t lived. So I get up.
- Diane Kalchert: I must say that even with having major depression (for which I’m taking medication) I have never felt so discouraged or overwhelmed that I couldn’t function. For that I can only give thanks to Creator God for making me alive. It is difficult to find transcendence though…perhaps it is because of those moments of pure bliss that I’m able to muddle through the blahs. Good question!
- Ingrid Vargas: Sunday service! I just sit and listen God’s message on wisdom, patience, love and prosperity!
- Mary Laura Bowers: Right on Nancy and Kathleen! I do not think I remember a time I went for a run and returned worse for the wear. The other thing that helps me is the thought that “I am able to, or I get to…” Just knowing I can do something and would choose not to, has gotten me up many a morning.
- David Goodman: It’s a great good fortune to have the opportunity to be a conscious being, even for the tiny bit of time we have it.
- Ruchi Sobel-Indich Koval: Earl, IMHO this is one of you best questions. I enjoyed all the answers from the sublime to the mundane. Here’s mine:
1. My kids are counting on me and people are counting me - thankfully I was blessed with a strong sense of responsibility
2. The awareness that G-d is watching and taking notice of my every effort and action and cheering me on
3. There are so many great things in my life to look forward to! - Heather Harrington: A huge sense of responsibility-to myself, my coworkers, the women I serve. Also, I am old and I KNOW that if I get up and get out and do, at the end of my day I will feel content, actualized, engaged.
- Debbie Kline: Knowing there is always a way through everything, no matter how difficult it may seem at the time. My personal motto is “put a wall down in front of me and I will figure out a way over, under, around or through it.”
- Diane M. Jackson: The hope of getting out of myself and helping someone else
- Susan Berger: What gets me out of bed? The silly but true response - the need to go to the bathroom! What gets me out and keeps me going? The serious but true response - gratitude. Even on a bad day, life is good and surely beats the alternative.
- Renee Matthews Jackson: Knowing that I have to do it anyway, because no one can do it for me (whatever “it” is) and it is rare to get exactly what I want anyway. My brother once said; “if you’re too tired to get up then, lay there and die…” Have to get up then! LOL
- Katharine Johnson: The alternative is unacceptable. You never know which day that you saved the world through whatever small act. We’ll only know that day that we fail to.
- Melissa O’Grady: my dog.
- Cal Zunt: If I am having one of these days, I usually make a deal with myself to get out of bed and do one or two things and then if I am still overwhelmed, I go back to bed for a bit.
- Earl Pike: I love all these answers!
- Gloria Ferris: Every day is a new 24 hours . You can use it, waste it or change the world. God has given me free will to be who I am. Living each day to its fullest is a gift that keeps on giving.
- Judy Benson: It is the right thing to do. It is the” responsibility” thing for me. It is my mission to treat everyone I meet with kindness, dignity and respect regardless of how I feel. If I still feel lousy at the end of the day, at least I feel I have fulfilled my obligation and gone though my day uplifting others.
- Jessie Gupta: my bladder
- Judy Benson: Yeah, but that gets me up a few times in the night too. I don’t think I can count that.
- Ribbon Sylvester: sometimes I just want to sleep… but when I’ve gotta be somewhere I deal with it… the woman I care for (Alzheimer’s) drives me…and I drive an hour to get to her place. I guess it’s just compassion that compels me..
- Liz Highleyman: If I *really, really* don’t want to, sometimes I don’t (the joys of being self-employed), which makes it much easier the following day.
- Kathryn Knott Thompson: OK - coffee gets me out of bed because I have a serious addiction. And what then gets me to face my day is a sense of self righteousness (my number one fault) that I am very reliable, count onable and show up no matter what.This is certainly not an admirable quality, but it does get me through
- Dawn Glenny Jones: commitment to yourself to constantly improve yourself and work hard on behalf of others through whatever adversity comes along - and sometimes renting a thoroughly stupid comedy helps get you out of a slump!
- Nan Alexander: When it all seems like too much I say, “You don’t have to do it all. You just have to do something and something is possible.”
- Mati Senerchia: mom? mom? mom? MOHM? i want to do that sewing thing? that thing we talked about this summer? did you forget? i tried to run the machine, i know i can do it, but mom? i didn’t mean to, but it made a noise… mom, it was a really bad noise. plus mom? hershey threw up something blue. it maybe was clay. or a blue permanent marker? it’s on the couch.
- Mistinguette Smith: The needs of my body push me out of the bed, but the needs of others pull me back into the light on the morning’s I wake stranded in shadow. On a good day I can see the light all around me, but it is for the hard days, the not-so-transcendent days, when my spiritual practice of looking for that light reflected in every other being keeps me from being lost in darkness.
- Ann Garson: wow!! Getting up tomorrow morning is going to be a lot easier after reading all these!! I should put them on pieces of paper in a hat and on a hard day just pull one out!!
- Julie Neskey Cristal: Earl, a few weeks back you compiled Sunday responses into a note. Time again? Beautiful. Or at least save these and others for a future “Tales from the Cleveland Salon: A Social Activist Takes on Social Media.”
- Steve Louzos: There’s some real inspiration in there! WOW!
- Diane K. Kovacs: My dogs… they demand to go out and there is nothing discouraging enough to stop me from caring whether they pee on the floor or not
- Alan Glazen: What gets me going us that I lucked in to another day
- Earl Pike: Oh, Alan, you have fabulous coffee to help you get out of bed . . .
- Jennifer Downey: Work. My job gets me up in the morning, that and my cat - she doesn’t like me sleeping when I could be petting, or more importantly, feeding her.
- Joni Christian: I am doing something really spectacular for the world!
- Richard Kearns: i don’t sleep the night. i write while i dream, & when i wake i start transcribing, on paper or to computer, minimum movement. i start to medicate so the pain of moving won’t be so bad. i wait for the sun to show himself. usually at least 60-90 minutes. at least that’s been the drill for this summer. it changes.