College or Vocational Program?

 In the United States, the thought is that high school graduates will attend college and that is the road to success. 

That being said, we read reports of job sites halting projects because there are not enough electricians or plumbers for the job. 

There seems to be the belief that the only road to success is college. However, college graduates are leaving college or graduating with huge debt. Many times they have difficulty finding jobs and many are unhappy in their jobs. 

I don't think we have to persuade kids with low school motivation into trades but we need to allow children and teens to become aware of their strengths or "gifts" and help them find their place in the world. 

Some people are more agile than others when it comes to using tools and building, such a person would not be at peak joy in front of a computer analyzing data no matter how much money they make. 

We need to stop placing jobs and professions on scaffolding with certain jobs on top and others on the bottom. 

The person with callouses that builds furniture with a smile and passion is just as important as the person that buys that furniture for their medical office. The key is to find and help teens where they feel not just "passion" but a sense of pride and accomplishment by utilizing the strengths and " gifts" they were born with. 

One can also attend college and then become a house painter. College is about learning and growing. It seems as if we see college as a vocational institution but it truly is not. When we start college we all take the same classes and later focus on the core classes of our major. This is for intellectual growth that doesn't equate to a job. 

We live in a rather unhappy country and if you look up the statistics there is a lot of substance use and abuse, and a large number of people on antidepressants and antianxiety medication. Domestic violence, divorce and let's not forget mass shootings. We can and need to do better as a society. 

Let's look at our strengths, and our kids' strengths and quit being judgemental. Let's embrace all studies, all professionals including trades. 

Thank you for reading and think good thoughts! 

Learning to relax- it's a "work in progress" for many of us.

 It's Monday, and I wanted to gift you something. Trying this for a few minutes -as needed- during the day can be a good stress releaser. You can also begin or end your day with t

Let's talk about banging your head. Yes, head injuries.

 I am sure you have heard about comedian and actor Bob Saget and his death to head trauma that no one saw coming, including him.  This hits home for me as I was with a person, close to me, that fell , had a laceration a week before the conclusion of Bob Saget's autopsy came out. 

My situation was a person falling and having a gash on their head, seemed "ok" and of course there was blood. Fire Rescue was called and they seemed to think "maybe go to Urgent Care or ER for stitches."  

No one truly wants to head out to the ER after past experiences of at least a 6-hour wait in the ER and this was before COVID. 

So I took said person to Urgent Care, They walked in and seemed fine, got stitches but they recommended at Urgent Care that  I drive them or they could call an ambulance and go to the ER for a Cat Scan due to the person's age, just to make sure everything is OK. 

Fast forward to  Cat Scan and the person had a brain bleed and slight fracture. 

I am glad that we all followed medical recommendations. Not having known this information it could have had a very different outcome. 

I bring this up because we live in times where people don't listen to professionals and some people would have said, " oh, we will go tomorrow"- tomorrow would have been too late. 

Also, we hit our heads, touch it and move on. This may have been what Mr. Saget did. Honestly, I think I would have probably done the same thing. I now look back at all those times I hit my head throughout my life and think, wow, it could have gone so wrong. 

And a special shout out to people that ride bikes. WEAR A HELMET! I don't care what kind of bike or where you are riding, WEAR A HELMET! 

Thank you for reading.

WE live in a violent world, don't we?

 Ugh! turn on the computer and the headlines hit you whether you want to or not. When did getting a gun and shooting others become something that was OK to do?

Focusing just on guns, my highlights are that a woman was shot at a furniture store, and 6, I think minors, were shot at a Rap concert in Oregon. Not NYC, not Chicago, not Florida but Oregon. I don't think Oregon is a "big city" so this is happening everywhere. Forget about the shootings this past week, not going there now.

Somehow, people have learned to use guns to win arguments, express their power and just outright eliminate people.

I don't have the answers but this doesn't look good for the future of our society and country.

Prisons are not necessarily the solution as we have many of them, and they are full.

As trauma research, our question is not what is wrong with people but what happened to people. Intergenerational and historical trauma is a thing.

If we are dealing with trauma and a traumatized society with people dealing with trauma perhaps there is something we all can do.

Be the agent of change and treat yourself well and kindly as you treat others the same. Be the mustard seed of change, the change that we need. Kindness is not a weakness. That sounds like a start. Value kindness.

Here I am

 As I stated in my other blog, Copingwithlifeissuesjustask libia.com, technology is not my friend. 

Today is one of those days that I could not sign in so, here I am in another blog. Blogspot kept giving me this option so I took it. 

Life lesson: be flexible, quit hitting the wall, just change and go forward. 

So, here is my new blog and I hope it works better. 

Thank you for reading. 

My previous blog is at https://www.libiacasaslcswblog.com 

I just can't blog there........