A Moonlit Walk

Tonight before I began getting three very adorable little girls ready for bed I stepped outside to get some fresh air.  The house was a warm 78 degrees and outside it was in the low 60's.  It was so georgeous that I decided to ask if anyone wanted to go for a quick walk.  They all decided that they did want to enjoy some of the night air before faces and hands got washed and it was time for bed.  Putting on sweaters they exited the house with me and two fluffy very happy dogs.  We walked and it was dark.  Reilly was a little frightened and wanted to be carried a portion of the way, but for the most part it was an unusual adventure and I thought to myself how much life has changed for kids and I don't believe it to be the for the better.  When I was little and when my parents were little children could go outside and play until it was getting dark.  Often you walked home in twilight, and sometimes if you were lucky adults would let you play bloody murder or tag after dark in large groups.  The adults would sit on their porches drinking their favorite beverage and talk to the neighbors while watching all of the kids from a distance and ensuring that they were safe.  How sad is it that my kids don't get this opportunity and will not make this sort of memory.  I view it as a lack of society and also of the justice system that we have to hide our children away from the very thing that inspires creativity and imagination-nature.  Then there are video games which just stunt their growth and give them carpal tunnel at a younger age and contribute to obesity and heart disease.  I think I will try to organize some sort of after school kids play group in the neighborhood and see if I can find any takers.  I doubt I will, so walks and other games will have to be played by only family, but that is still fun.  Another thing I have been greatly upset by lately is the state of Womens rights in this country.  I have noticed time and time again that the only way a woman is allowed to be aggressive is sexually.  It is if the whole womens movement ended the day they burned all the bras.  Men said, sure you can be free sexually.  Sure you can be assertive sexually!  What has it gotten us?  More pornography and abuse of women and children.  More women dying of heart disease because they are now doing literally EVERYTHING.  They are working outside the home, going to school, doing the majority of the household chores, and still have to "ask" their husbands to "babysit" their own kids.  On top of that they are to be the nurturers for the elderly and the disabled!  Many men are not working.  I am married to  one, and it is not just that they are not working-they do nothing in the home.  I have needed my own home cleaned for weeks while he had nothing to do and I was working on schooling and interviews only to do the housework while he watches Anime or looks at pornography.  What is the world coming to?  There are men who would say that this is the fault of the equal rights movement.  To them I would say "NO, it is the result of the twisting and abuse of the womens movement!"  Women are so easilly duped it seems these days there are many that believe that they are enjoying equal rights while they are solely responsible for the majority of childcare and they are also doing all of the work!  The goal of feminism should not be to make women like men!  It should not be the goal of women everywhere to eliminate mens need to contribute!  The goal should be for male and female to be EQUALLY emotionally and physically invested in the rearing of their children, and EQUALLY invested in the support and maintenance of a household.  This includes concerns over their physical and psychological health.  If this became the norm men would struggle with feelings of guilt when they worked as women do.  If this became the norm men would worry about the women out there who are first abused and then used to make pornography to benefit men who make the lions share of profits and considered respectful while they are shunned except in circles that want to perpetuate the cycle of use, and not accept it.  If this were to be the norm a woman who is in her 50's would be more valuable at the office than one in her 20's.  If this were to become the norm wars would be waged less and discussion would rule the day.  If this were the norm, men would be happier and so would their children.  They don't see however that their dominance and enslavement of women is really the chains that bind them and cause them not to be free.  Religion is another tool for these men to keep women fighting amoungst themselves and submissive through distraction and  concern over being a "righteous" woman.  It plays to their fears and inadequacy and excuses their feelings as sinful instead of good judgement.  This needs to change!  The steps and discussion that Elizabeth Cady Stanton started over one hundred years ago needs to be finally taken up again!  Her ideas, radical for the time, were right and were inspired by God.  Who could condemn a woman who had raised so successfully a family and who had walked so victoriously in so many philisophical debates before?  It is time for women to stop bickering amoungst themselves, hold those who are truly responsible for the hurt they feel accountable, and to get past religious sentiment to understand that Eve did not make them the forever bound slave to mankind!  Gods words to her were a prediction of what would come at mans hands not a prison sentence!  Women wake up!  It is not through submission to men that you will gain your salvation!  It is not through stupidity and acceptance of injustice or inaction!  It is through the love of your sisters and through the path of discovering yourselves.  Can you imagine what we could accomplish if we were to make men accountable for their own sins?  Can you imagine if instead of looking at that 16-25 year old beautiful young girl as a threat something evil you looked at your significant other drooling over her as a threat and something evil what the world would become?  Yes men wouldn't like it at first.  At first they would be downright upset that women were defending ALL women EVERYWHERE!  They would have no one to dominate, no one to convince of their inferiority based on purely physical attributes.  They would have to start caring about more than mating and more than surface features.  To many of you I know this prospect seems scary.  Many of you enjoy blaming that women in the grocery store for your husbands wandering eyes, and some of you have learned to enjoy the fact that he leaves you alone.  This is wrong.  You deserve more and so does your significant other.  It is time to rewrite society and womens role in it. 

Wise Men Don't Need Advice, Fools Don't Heed It...Benjamin Franklin

An interesting area of self awareness comes when you finally no longer seek advice from others, and they are somewhat uncomfortable with the sudden conversation shift.  I have had episodes where people close to me have asked if anything was wrong because it must be or I would be an open book sharing all of my most intimate thoughts and concerns with them. I have, as a result of this discomfort on their parts, asked questions I had no desire to have assistance with in order to make those I have been associated with for a long time more comfortable.  I don't ask important life determining questions because at this point that is up to me, just simple ones but they are happy enough to have an input in someway and receive that feeling of power and being needed. At one point in my life I would have gone to a Bishop, a woman leader, etc. for ideas with decisions needing to be made in my life.  Almost certainly I would receive an answer that I need to repent of this or that (you haven't prayed enough-when I was praying 17 times a day -NO EXAGGERATION)  Still, it is both freeing and terrifying because now there is no one to blame.  Don't get me wrong there are those people who will try to make living your dreams more difficult, but if I allow that to stop me it is only myself I have to blame.  Being a Mom I do not have complete autonomy and shouldn't because I am responsible for another human being, but as far as failures or successes in my life the buck stops here!  When you have challenges the important thing is finding the tools to overcome those challenges, and this is another area of life I need to work on to achieve success in my goals.  I have heard from a very wise and for the most part successful woman "create lots of buffers around yourself"  She meant make extra time for everything, enlist the help of a support system, be creative.  Her advice, while not solicited is some of the wisest I have ever heard for a single parent or a parent who is married but has a disabled spouse.  I am off to work on a better buffer, and build support and I offer my support to those who need a kind word.  Have a great day.

The Why not the What

I recently stumbled on an inspirational speaker who talks about achieving success in leadership by always leading with the why and not with the what.  I realized that he was right, and also that this is something I have done all my life, but have been lost in translation trying to provide the what.  Let me explain.  For as long as I can remember I have loved learning because it expands my perceptions and beautifies this experience called life so much more greatly than any other task we can occupy ourselves with.  I love reading the thoughts of brilliant men and women.  However, when talking education with someone the one thing they ask is not the why but the what.  What is/was your major of study?  What kind of money can you get from that?  What kind of power or prestige can you get from that?  etc.  No one has ever understood that I learn because I have a belief that learning is the largest contributor to beauty in this world.  They have difficulty understanding someone who will research just because they truly want to know something.  I have encountered individuals who have asked me what I hoped to gain from this or that, and the reality was I was gaining vision, sight, beauty.  They were interested in the tangible and I the intangible.  One thing I have not embraced fully is learning through experience.  I would prefer to learn from others experiences and not put myself to far out there where I would be forced to sacrifice the comfort of being able to not commit to something.  Not that I haven't taken on plenty of causes because I have, and I will commit to a person, an employer etc.  No, I am talking about committing to myself that I will try something and allow myself to fail.  That if I were to fail I commit to cleaning up the mess, and then to forgiving myself and moving forward.  Everyone talks about Thomas Edison and his 2000 times of making the light bulb.  I am not someone who could say "O.K. that didn't work, lets try something else"  when it comes to life.  There is evidence of this in the fact that I married at 18, have only ever been with one man, refused to leave a religion that was hurting me and I found hypocritical, allowed a portion of my choices to be dictated by others and secretly wonder if what others believe about me is accurate.  Well, part of becoming sentient is taking responsibility and owning who we are, and committing to invest ourselves in things we believe may be rewarding or may be giant flops.  To be successful we need to know the Why though.  I have several why's that I need to fully address and understand.  They are core beliefs and they dominate my actions so becoming self aware in this manner is key to change and awareness.  This should be a fun process.  What about you?  Do you know WHY you do the things you do?  If not, you should begin searching like me. 

With Purpose and Precision

It is with purpose and precision that I initiate this blog out of the view of those whom I have known and who have known me.  Not because I am hiding from them (because my name is in the heading) but because I know that my personal journey has led me in a direction that would receive much condemnation from them.  This would cause my phone to ring off the hook with well intentioned soul savers who genuinely want the best for me, but who themselves do not see the forest for the trees.  I have been raised in a religion that has become (after a great deal of research, cover-up, and investment on the part of its leaders) mainstream.  Many of my friends and colleagues are also a member of this elitist group, and it is for their peace of mind I find my voice in the shadows.    I am generally a person who loves a good argument, but when it comes to religious zealots there is no arguing because they see no reason.  Don't get me wrong I am religious.  I am a Christian and I believe in God.  You have not come to an Atheist camp or even someone who wants to disregard all of what they have been taught because some of it has great value.  I appreciate the morality with which I have been instilled and I have not sinned against it, which is the first thought of those soul savers I mentioned.  On the contrary I have upheld that which I have always believed, but I have disregarded mans interpretation which always somehow favors Man.  So I begin this adventure of life both with the purpose of finding myself, and with precision in avoiding that cult mentality which makes heretics of heroes and sinners of saints.  To clarify who this Ann Hanson you are reading about is let me just state the following.

I believe in honesty, integrity, morality, chastity, humility, knowledge and wisdom. 
I believe in them because I see the benefit to society and myself from having them-not because someone tells me they are accurate, and not because if I don't, I will be shamed and disciplined.  I have the courage to believe in something without being told too.
I believe in beauty-both in people and in the world around us.
I believe in second chances and forgiveness.
I believe that I am the keeper of my own destiny.
I believe that it is never to late to have the life you have always wanted.
I believe that all men AND women are created equally.
I believe in freedom.
I believe the differences in mankind make the world beautiful, not scary.
I believe I have said I enough for now.

If you have come here to read this I thank you and I hope that you leave feeling that you can believe in something, like for example yourself.