Left handed

When you grow up left-handed the world happily lets you know real quick something's wrong with you.  Even in elementary school I knew I was missing out on something because you can't even cut with those kiddie scissors if you're left-handed. You can't hold your pencil well either so penmanship is out the window. The world is backwards.  I found this article the other day and it just about caused me to explode.  So now, not only am I on the wrong side of things, I get to die earlier too.  Turns out they're not kidding when they say it's a right-handers world.  Here's my favorite quote from the article:

"The world isn’t just driving lefties to drink, though. It’s also killing them. Left-handed people seem to expire anywhere from a few months to a few years before righties, all other things being equal. One of the deadliest problems is simply that the world isn’t laid out best for lefties. This leads to left-handed people being five times more likely to die in accidents than right-handed people."

Nothing like a little good news.  Geez.  


That article called to mind Bill Bryson's book I'm a Stranger Here Myself  which is one of my favorites.  Did you know that phrase is where the title of this blog came from?  Anyway, in one chapter he describes stumbling across an index, a table really, in  "The Statistical Abstract of the United States." Its truly one of my favorite discoveries ever.  Table 206: Injuries Associated with Consumer Products is the actual title.  I know you are thinking BORING, but trust me on this. 


According to Bryson, this Table 206 lists various injuries involving normal folks (probably seemingly normal, but they could be left handed folks) and normal household products.  It documents that lots of folks get hurt on stairs and with sharp things, of course, but the surprising part is that tons of folks (tons!) injure themselves with things (like clothing??) that I cannot imagine would warrant any sort of medical attention. While the data he mentioned was last updated in 1992, it is alarming to hear that 400,000 Americans every year suffered injuries "involving beds, mattresses, or pillows."  Listen: They've been injured by their bedding.  You gotta wonder how.  And here's the thing: In order for this to have been documented, someone had to actually ENTER an Emergency Room and have this injury verified.  Now I don't know about you, but there is absolutely no circumstance in which I would willingly admit to an ER doc that I had been injured by my pillow.  


Put those two readings together AND let me happen upon video last week of that poor woman just walking along and FALLING IN A DAMN SINKHOLE and you can imagine how close I came to actually losing my mind.   It's crystal clear to me that ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN and since it appears that my left-handedness means it will happen to me earlier, I'd better get on with the big living STAT!  


Living is one thing, but living the life you WANT is another.  I used to read articles with titles like "You Can Have it All" and "How to Find Your Purpose" and mostly by the end of them I felt no more enlightened, just more bummed because I couldn't even stay with the article long enough to successfully absorb it.  I mean, hell, who has time to find a purpose with all the grocery shopping and laundry? And if you found it, would you be able to afford to make it your actual life? Nah. But the truth is, that big life isn't gonna come and find you. You won't become anything better than this if you don't DO anything better.


But what if you just started, what if I just started, with just making your DAY what you wanted?  What if between laundry and groceries you just spent 15 minutes doing your favorite thing? What if you had just 15 minutes in a day that you could look forward to? Something you could try that was new or something you used to love? Or created something? Tried something you were afraid of?  Would that qualify as a big life? Maybe.  


For me, it was. I used my 15 minutes to write (with my left hand!). And then I used it to paint (also with the left). And 15 minutes grew into longer.  A few months later I have YOU and I have people who actually pay me for paintings.  Sure, I have dinner to prepare and laundry to do also, but I'm not consumed by the boredom of that because I'm too busy with all of this living.  And maybe next week bird paintings won't sell and maybe you'll quit reading, but I'll be too busy creating something else and examining my pillows for sharp edges because it really is true that just about anything can happen in this big life.