I just came from a three-hour, Bingo benefit for the teacher who has cancer. It was an excellent turn-out. 150 people. There were 75 items for the raffle. This is a good area with good people.
Comparison skill. Remember ACCEPTS of distress tolerance? People do not have to help me pay my bills so I can concentrate on trying to save my life. I am a ‘mature’ (yeah, sure) adult who could retire on state teachers’ disability and social security now if needed. Life waited to bite me in the butt.
And compared to what she has going on, AMD is a little nip. Comparatively speaking, I am just great!
Second distress tolerance skill: contribute. I paid my $20 and played Bingo. I spent $10 on raffle tickets. The same raffle tickets I had actually purchased and donated. Contributing is a way of forgetting things are not so great for you either. It also makes you feel like you are in the fight, even if it is not your particular battle. In other words, I cannot cure my eye problems, but I can help this teacher get travel money and grocery money and whatever she might need to pursue her cure.
To quote from the Mental Health Foundation, altruism is associated with all sorts of positive things. They include a decreased sense of hopelessness, less depression, increased self-esteem and better physical health. Altruistic people even have better marriages.
Berkleywellness.com tells us altruistic people have longer lives than people who do not practice helping and giving. Some of the theorists thought this was due totally to the social engagement factor. Not so. Just the interaction is helpful, yes, but at the end of day, being the one doing the helping has the greater benefit. Something to do with having a purpose in life. We circled back around to Viktor Frankl again. Remember “if you have a why, you can tolerate any how”?
So altruism is good stuff. Now moving on to perhaps more frivolous topics, I put an Ott light at the end of my ironing board. I think I am doing better in seeing colors with the increased illumination. At least I matched today. Hopefully this fix will work for a while. I hate being mismatched!
Bingo. I had not played in years but it went OK. Most of the time I was playing four cards at one time. My friend was sort of looking over my shoulder. In 20 games she corrected me one time. Not too bad.
We used the disposable, paper cards and dabbers. I could see the numbers with bare eyes but I experimented and my handheld reader would have been an option as well. Not so much the magnifier on the iPad. For that I would have had to bring the Justand. Too many wobbles over three hours.
One of the issues I had was dealing with the different layouts of each card. Having a few cards that were consistent game to game would have been nice. I looked guess where [Lin/Linda here: starts with an a, followed by amazon.com ::smile::] and large print Bingo cards are about $4 apiece. You can also avoid the Bingo chips sliding dilemma by paying significantly more and getting a plastic board with sliding panels on each number. I cannot believe anyone would object to your bringing your own cards. It is not cheating.
So how did I do? I did not go “Bingo!” but I did win a turkey fryer in the raffle. I brought it home to my husband but he doesn’t want it. Probably re-gift it to another raffle. Does THAT come under the heading of altruism? Maybe not.