Allocating Chores in a Multi-person Household.

 In our household once the 2 boys were old enough to participate we bid for chores in 1/4 hours. Lowest bid got the chore. Wash, vac, and dust went cheap. Bathrooms and catbox went high. Evening meals including cleanup stabilized at about an hour. Breakfast was high as only one wanted it. Weekend dinners were higher. Bidding ended when everybody had about the same bid hours for chores.

Was this a money transaction?

 Nope hours. Catbox 2hrs. Each dinner 1hr. etc bid until every chore was covered and everybody had same bid hours of chores, which may or may not have had any relationship to hours to do the chore. The catbox was 5 min per day and 10 minutes once a week to change litter, but only one of us wanted to do it. A chore had no time associated with it until bid on.

 Allowances, tuition, lunch money, etc. were basically need based, adults and kids alike.   Unadjusted for incomes which went into the common fund.  

Illnesses of Older People.

I recently had to deal with a diagnosis of serious throat cancer.  The reflexive recommendation of the Tumor Board for cancer of this stage was Radiation Therapy and simultaneous Chemotherapy starting ASAP. Radiation Therapy for throat cancer has a known side effect of damage to the vocal chords, which as a lifelong singer with a concert coming up I could not allow. 

This dilemma caused me to pull together a lot of things that had been in the round tuit box for some time.  First and foremost get the Advanced Directive registered with my health provider.  Secondly figure out what my priorities for the rest of my life should be.  Cancer, like strokes, heart disease, and many other ailments are to old age what head and neck injuries, joint damage, and wounds are to younger people.  If it doesn't kill you, you have to decide what compromises you have to make to continue to live a meaningful life worth dying for.  In other words, get your living priorities articulated in a way that can be discussed with others that are significant in your life including your medical team.  

At 76 I am well aware that life is finite and death will come sooner or later, preferably much later but not at the cost of compromising those things that make life worthwhile.  While alive my priorities sorted out to be 

1. Don't die.
2. Live as you have enjoyed living most of your life, in my case keep singing among several other high priority activities that make up my daily life.  
3. Deal with serious health issues in a way that keep the above in perspective.  

In my case once I convinced the tumor board that radiation was not an option, they recommended an accelerated and dangerous Chemo protocol that would allow me to sing the concert if it didn't kill me. Knowing the risks I elected the protocol which indeed almost killed me, but knowing the risks enabled good choices of emergency treatment which allowed me to sing the the concert.       

And many more as it turned out the protocol worked beyond most medical expectations and at this point the tumor and metastases are gone according to the usual cancer scans.  There is nothing useful that medicine can do at this point but watch for a recurrence.  

11/1/17 It did come back and some harder choices are to be made, but technology improves and radiation is now able to miss the larynx.  We shall see. Halfway through and I am still singing.    

New Thoughts on an Old Legacy

LEGACY
by
John Dobbs

I leave you this space
which I have occupied
temporarily,

now clean as a vacuum
to hold short sorrow,
and brief remembering.

There are no shards,
no broken statuary.
I had no idols.

The proud thoughts
and the humble things
remain unshattered.

I leave you this valuable
and useful
space.


Posted with permission from the old boards.



The proud thoughts and the humble things I have taught to others are enough for me. I did what I could to make my space a little more valuable, useful, beautiful and loving for those who will occupy it temporarily and make it even more valuable, useful, beautiful and loving based on what I have given them while occupying that space.  That is the way of life.  We do what we can with what we find and the next generation will be able to do better with the results of our doing and our taught wisdom.  

I learned what I could, did what was possible, and taught what I learned.  There is no need for me to continue in my present limited and obsolete form, I have done my part.  I have lived a life worth dying for. 

A Life Worth Dying For

Aug 13, 2015 -- 1:45AM, Kwinters wrote:

The fear of death and loss are enough to turn some people's brains off and stop them from questioning the pure nonsense that religion spouts.

If from birth it is drummed into your brain that nothing you can do in this life is important to God: that everything you do including those things that are natural and necessary for the survival of the species is sinful and must be expiated by a vuvuzela; and that even after death you will be judged not by what you have done but what you have done that is forgiven; it is little wonder that people are "tired of living, and feared of dying." 

If from birth it is drummed into your brain that your mission in life is to improve the lives of your neighbors and the environment in which they live so that all children can look forward to better lives; and that you only get one shot at doing so; it is easy to "live a life worth dying for" (Forrest Church).  Some do a little, others do a lot, but what you do is more important than how much:  A little girl, Alex Scott, was a victim of childhood cancer. She decided to do what she could to help other victims of childhood cancer.  She couldn't do much, but at 4 years old she convinced her family to help her set up a lemonade stand and donated the proceeds to her hospital "for research."  Sure a few bucks wouldn't do much research, but others noticed her determination and set up their own Alex's Lemonade stand, By the time she died at 8 she and her friends had raised millions.  You might still see an Alex's Lemonade Stand, if you do stop and cool off and remember a little girl whose life was worth dying for.  

Live a Life Worth Dying For.

Good Bible quotes for Atheists

Ecclesiastes 9 -
5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward; but the memory of them is lost.

Good old Ecclesiastes: Probably the first atheist. How he got into the Bible is still one of the great mysteries of life.   

I would, as an atheist, modify 9:5 ... they have no reward but the memory of them in those they have affected. 

Forrest Church is remembered and probably will be long remembered for, among many other things, "Live a life worth dying for."  Even special animals can live on if only as an abstract in fiction:  Balto the sled dog IRL and Lassie representing all working/companion dogs. 

Why I Live.

beliefnet

Why do you desire to accomplish well your endeavors? Are you pleased with your creations / your accomplishments?  - 
iamachildofhis

Since they are in fact the meaning of life or at least mine, I had better accomplish my endeavors well, as they are how I affect others in my community, and how I will be remembered by them.  Overall I am quite pleased with my creations and accomplishments.  I chose most of them carefully as being beneficial to my community, and molded and shaped them to the best of my ability to
continue in the paths I set them on. Sooner or later I will die, leaving to my community my creations, my accomplishments, and "This valuable and useful space which I have occupied temporarily"  John Dobbs, atheist, from Legacy.  

This Too Shall Pass

From Miniver Cheevy

Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Living in the space between birth and death.

How do you think about death? - Beliefnet Forums:

"From a different part of Legacy, from John Dobbs:
Quote:
REMINDER
The world began the day that I was born
and on the day I die the world will end.
Between these dates there will have been
matters of great importance.


I have no problem with the fact that the world began on the day that I was born. From my predecessors, alive and dead, I was left a rich legacy of a valuable space, filled with beautiful music and wonderful people. Many of of those wonderful people are dead, some long dead, but I can still appreciate their art and thinking from their legacies. Each day I look forward to the exciting challenge of incorporating as much as possible into my space. I eagerly do what I can to make the space even more valuable. Then, with as much love as possible I pass it on to those who will pay it forward.

I have no problem with the fact that, again from
Quote:
REMINDER
...there is nothing I can leave
on the final date
but a legacy of urgencies.

If I have lived my life well, and loved enough, there will be many around willing and able to deal with those urgencies."

Love-and-Death.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Love-and-Death.pdf (application/pdf Object)After enjoying a year of fine health, this past Thursday I learned that my cancer had recurred, having spread to my lungs and liver. There is no way to sugarcoat this news. I shall undergo a regimen of chemotherapy, more for palliative than curative reasons, but must face the certainty that my cancer is terminal and the great likelihood that my future will be measured in months not years.

On the death of a friend.

A D Community Room - Beliefnet Forums: "So I too share in her legacy and will carry forward that memory. I was on the way to a visit to my son who asked about the visit, he is a part of our beliefnet atheist community, and so the ripples spread,"

Forrest Church on being alive and having to die.

In a Richard French Live Profile in Courage Forrest discusses the recent recurrence of the cancer which is almost certainly terminal within the year. A wonderful discussion well worth the too few minutes to watch. "If you want to learn how to live, you should watch someone who is awake and aware die."