Manely Firm - November 2020

Manely Firm - November 2020

Al l fami ly law. Al l around Georgia. Al l around the wor ld.

N ovember 2020

D ía de los M uertos : H onoring T hose W ho ’ ve P assed

In the religious practice I come from, we honor Día de los Muertos by bringing a picture of our loved one to an altar at church. We light candles, sometimes speaking their names, reflecting upon who they were and what they brought into our lives. For us, it’s similar to Advent: While many churches celebrate Advent for Christmas, we honor Día de los Muertos starting on the first Sunday following Halloween. While I haven’t been so formal as to set up an altar in my home to celebrate the holiday, I must confess that I’ve considered it. Setting up something to honor my grandparents and parents at home would be nice, but I’ve always done so at church. Día de los Muertos is something I’ve celebrated my whole life, though I believe my family’s celebration is a little different than if you were in Central or South America. The holiday there is far more elaborate — it can come across as a type of carnival at times. Everything is so brilliantly colored; people dress up in extravagant attire and paint their faces to resemble skulls. One popular tradition, too, is to make and decorate sugar skulls, which are used to decorate the offerings provided at the altars of a person’s loved one. This holiday is part of the beginning of the high holiday season. Halloween begins on Oct. 31, which then moves directly into Día de los Muertos . From there we celebrate Thanksgiving with a feast, and by the following month, we have all the holidays that come with December. While we move into November, let’s prepare for the holiday season, whatever it may be like for us this year.

F rom Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, people will celebrate the Day of the Dead or Día de los Muertos . While I’m aware not everyone celebrates this particular holiday, I’m sure many people are aware of it because it is the Mexican holiday featuring colorful skeletons, dancing, and almost party-esque celebrations. More recently, this holiday was thrown into the light by the movie “Coco,” where the main character, Miguel, finds himself in the colorful Land of the Dead during Día de los Muertos . Growing up, my family celebrated a number of holidays throughout the year, which made us quite diverse. We certainly celebrated holidays like Thanksgiving, but we also observed several other holidays, too, including Día de los Muertos . One of

the most central parts of this holiday is honoring your dead ancestors, the people who were part of your family who have passed on. This type of celebration is not unlike All Souls’ Day, which is celebrated throughout Europe. Although Día de los Muertos is not celebrated around the globe, it’s observed throughout Central and South America and much of Europe, too. The significance of this holiday is what it celebrates. Although it is known as the Day of the Dead it’s a celebration of life and death. It’s an opportunity to honor the lives of people who have come before and made an impact on your life. It’s a celebration of how they influenced you and the direction you’ve taken in life because of that influence.

Happy holidays, everybody!

–Michael Manely

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Cal l for a Consul tat ion: ( 866) 687-8561

M editation A lternatives For People Who Don’t Like to Medi tate Meditation is lauded for its health benefits and is often suggested as an effective way to clear the mind, organize thoughts, and reduce stress. Realistically, however, it’s not for everyone. In fact, some people don’t experience any benefits at all from meditating. In a recent study published in New Scientist about the effectiveness of meditation, researchers confirmed that some people do not benefit from meditation and that about 8% of people who try meditation experience an “unwanted effect,” such as an increase in anxiety.

If you’re not interested in meditation, or it just doesn’t work for you, here are some alternative ways to clear your mind and reduce stress.

Get serious about physical activity. Aerobic exercises — like walking, jogging, running, cycling, and swimming — are great for clearing your mind and getting your body moving. Really, any exercise that gets the heart pumping and increases your respiratory rate will do. Research supports that aerobic exercise is a great alternative to meditation that yields many of the same benefits. Exercising outdoors or in nature — especially in new places — enhances these benefits. Because your surroundings are going to be unfamiliar, your mind is more focused, which can help if you’re searching for clarity. Stay mentally engaged. Many people achieve clarity, focus, and stress reduction through simple but engaging tasks, such as immersing themselves in an adult coloring book, doing brain teasers, or assembling LEGO sets, which proves they can be effective

therapeutic tools or alternatives to meditation. The LEGO Company has actually been developing more products for adults with this sort of research in mind.

But why LEGO products specifically? In addition to being objects you touch and push together, LEGO products come with clear, step-by-step instructions, which make them easy to put together and allow you to focus more on the task at hand. Even if you don’t complete the piece in one sitting, working on a project a few minutes a day can be a beneficial way to find a little clarity.

M eet Z achary C ole Law Clerk and Performance Analyst (Art ist )

Before entering law school, Zachary Cole, one of our amazing law clerks at the Manely Firm, first entered college intent on achieving an engineering degree. However, as he neared the end of his college years, Zachary switched over to a more liberal arts focus in preparation for his new passion, law school. The legal field is something he was very interested in, even throughout middle and high school. Zachary was drawn to the idea that anything can be true in this field because legal issues are not usually cut and dried definitively one way. Usually, facts and rules are involved in such a way as to make an argument either way. As he began to research these nuances more, that interest pulled Zachary toward the law field. This led Zachary to discover two other passions in the law field: “First, specifically with clerking, there’s all the research and delving into what the law actually says in a situation,” he says. “There are quite a few arguments to be found there. When an attorney asks me to research how certain rules apply, I try to find a lot of cases that suggest one thing and then another which suggests something

else. I try to contrast those cases and differentiate them, then try to apply them to our fact pattern.”

Zachary continues, “Second, I have another job at the firm as a performance analyst. I gather all the >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

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