Making a Better Chili: Adding an ingredient, not replacing the chili.

In talking to a family member recently, I was reminded of something.  A good while back, I was talking to that family member who felt like I was giving them the short shrift.  The family member felt like I was putting my own life needs ahead of attention to family.  I tried explaining that if I was in a good/better place with my own life balance/piece of mind, then I would be able to find more and/or better time for them.   As you might imagine by the tone of this post so far, they didn't understand where I was coming from.

It became clear to me that that the person felt like I was shutting them out to focus on my own life to the relative exclusion of them.  It never really occurred to me that way.  The way it occurred to me is I felt my life balance was near where it should be, then I'd be more energized.  Imagine the commercial for the Energizer Bunny compared to other toy bunnies fueled by another battery.   The Energizer Bunny has limitless energy to anything and to go anywhere, while the other bunnies slowly wind down and eventually lose their energy to do anything.  The person in question felt like they were being ignored, but instead of ignoring them, I was working to make sure my life balance was in the proper order.  This would give me better energy, just like the Energizer batteries gave the bunny more stamina.  So, it struck me, how do I explain this in a way that effectively conveys it and I came up with an answer.

I like to cook chili.  IMHO, a good chili mixes multiple ingredients: black beans, chili beans, diced tomatoes or stewed tomatoes, etc.--I won't give away all my ingredients.  Anyway, you can create something and call it chili and as a practical matter it can be deemed to be chili.  But, if it is missing an important ingredient or two it can come off as very bland and could be less nourishing.  Yes, you can eat it and it will fill you, but it won't be very satisfying, nourishing, nor will you want to go back for seconds.   Add the right ingredient or two and the formerly bland unsatisfying chili will be the popular.   The chili will be filling and satisfying and have your audience rushing for extra helpings.  Think of chili as a metaphor for life balance. Anyway, below are examples of possible 'missing' ingredients in life balance.  

A few examples:

• If you are struggling with getting along or quality time with your family of origin, then it can tend to bleed onto other aspects of your life--marriage, job, relationship with your own kids (their relatives).

• If you are struggling with your job, you may tend to feel defeated and that can spill into other parts of your life, especially if there are any other parts feeling unsettled.

• If you are struggling with friendships (or lacking them or not having good healthy ones), it can sour your mood at home, on the job or elsewhere.

• If you are struggling with money, it can keep you on edge, especially when money is required, talked about or compared.  This cause you to focus too much on money to the exclusion of other important aspects of your life and/or cause you to be short in dealing with others in your life.

• If you don't have a good home life, that's a huge foundational crack that can affect the foundation of all parts of your life.

In each case above, your life balance (chili) is missing an ingredient (healthy family or origin, work, friendships, money, marriage/relationship family, ...).  Yes, you might have what you can call chili and it might be enough to sustain you, but it won't be a chili that is satisfying, keeps you coming back for more or gives you the energy to power you through the rest of the day.  The more ingredients that are missing, the less nourishing or satisfying the chili is.  At some point, the chili may not even be tolerable and you just eat it to be able to simply survive.

Anyway, when I explained to the family member in question, I think they got a better handle on what I was saying.  I wasn't trying to short shrift them.  I was trying to make sure I had a good life balance such I would be more energized (getting what I need accomplished more quickly/effectively CREATING more time).  This would also help the time I would set aside for them to be quality time, not time focused on any missing ingredients.  In other word, I wasn't trying to replace them like replacing a chili for a burger.  Instead I was trying to improve my life balance, by adding the proper ingredients in my life.  Just like trying to make a better chili. 

So, with the fall quickly approaching and the peak chili season gradually approaching, consider your  life balance like chili.  Does your chili have the right ingredients and are they quality ingredients?  If not, can you get the missing ingredients?  Can you make sure all the ingredients work together rather than having new ingredient seemingly replacing another?  If so, you are on your way to making a good chili (life balance) suitable to be seen in a 'cookoff'. 

Thanks for reading,

Rich

Life: A Highwire Act

I was talking with a coworker today about my mornings when I have my daughter and need to drop her off before work.  One thing she noted was that she has a checklist of things she needs to do before the kids are out the door and to where they need to be.  I too  have a mental checklist of things I need to do:

• Make sure she's awake and stays awake.
• Make sure she takes a shower if necessary and gets dressed.
• Make sure she takes her medicine
• Make sure she has breakfast or knows where she can get it--packing it if we are short on time.
• Take a shower and get ready and get dressed.
• Feed my cat his medicine
• Pack myself and her a lunch.
• Feed my cat his medicine.
• Make sure her backpack is packed and whatever needs signed is signed.
• Make sure I have everything I need.
• Make sure everything we need is taken out to the car.
• Kiss the wife goodbye and say bye to the kids if they are awake.

I'm sure I'm probably forgetting something, but I have to do all that in roughly about an hour.   That's just one part of my regular routine and by the time I drop her off, making it in about 80 minutes after I left, I feel worn out.   Suffice to say, I have to keep track of a number of things and make sure to stay focused.

Sometimes my wife is wide awake for this and sometimes she's resting.  I have such a routine going where everything is done in the same order.   If she's awake she sometimes tries to ask me if  I remember this or that.  Sometimes it's okay and sometimes I tell her, don't worry I'll let you know if I need help.  It might come across as being an ingrate or being brushed off, but I finally found the words to communicate what it is like in the morning to my wife.

Mornings are like a high-wire act.  I take one step at a time going from one end of the wire to the other end--that is to say I methodically check items off my checklist from the moment I wake up to the moment I start my commute.  I'm very focused an on task, but very intense, just like someone who would be crossing the high-wire.  Sometimes, when she intervenes, it breaks my rhythm.  I forget my place and have to readjust.   Just like if I was on a hire-wire and out of nowhere a person appeared in front of me on the other side.  It could startle me for a moment enough to throw off my balance.  I would quickly have to readjust, factor in the person on the other side and continue my progression to the other side.

So, if your significant other seems to 'reject' your help, especially in crunch situations, don't necessarily take it personally.  He or she just might have their own of coping with the situation.  Maybe after he or she has had time to exhale they can explain.  Perhaps if he or she realizes that the situation is hopelessly beyond their control they will know to reach out for hope.  Just my thoughts and realizations for the day.

Thanks for reading.

Positive narcissist vs. negative narcissist vs. balanced view

A while bac, I was having a conversation with a person whose kid sees himself negatively.  While I don't necessarily think what I am writing below applies directly to the kid,  the conversation did remind me of a theory or view I had developed on narcissism.

We all have ran across someone who behaves as if their stuff doesn't stink.   Similarly, we all have run across someone who is like  Eeyore who is gloomy, negative and often rates his or herself no good.  I call the first type a 'positive narcissist' (or simply a 'narcissist') and the second type a 'negative narcissist'.  I will elaborate on why I see both types as narcissists.

I don't know when, but it occurred to me that both types actually have a lot in common:

• Each type of person is being emotionally, intellectually, mentally and/or spiritually lazy.
• It is easy to label and/or rationalize to yourself that you are either just good or bad.   If you decide that you are either 'perfect' or 'rotten' by nature then you don't have to continually evaluate yourself.
• It takes much more work to actually dig and effectively evaluate yourself.  It takes much more work to separate the flaws from the virtues. 
• Each type is disconnected from his or herself.  
• Once again, labeling yourself as just a great person or horrible one or the other frees you from having to process or evaluate yourself.
• You can easily stay at the surface level and find an example or two to support your contention.
• Each type disconnected from others.
• A narcissist by his or her very nature has hard time has accepting anything that could be seen as criticism.  By itself, this shuts down much of the conversation that is possible with others.  Furthermore, the self-focus drowns out the ability to see ability to see past oneself and really see others.
• A negative narcissist by his or her nature has a hard time accepting anything that could be seen as a compliment.  Once again, this shuts down much of the conversation that is possible.  Once again, the self-focus gets in the way of being able to really others.
• Each type has issues with humility.  
• A narcissist lacks humility.  He or she may feign humility, but it's usually pretty easy to see through the false humility.
• A negative narcissist in a way lacks true humility too.  He or she may come across as not wanting to be egotistical, but what I see it as is really a defense mechanism.  To accept praise or to self-praise requires one to step outside his or her predefined role as a 'no-good' or 'worthless' person.  In a way, in the deflecting praise is not being modest, but rather a way of avoiding the shattering the 'negative self-portrayal'.
• Each type gives a way of freeing the individual with the given personality of culpability or responsibility.
• A narcissist will tend to think of his or herself as being incapable of making a bad decision or failing.   When they actually do make a bad decision or fail, he or she will either:
• Push fault on another (scapegoat).
• Push fault on the cosmos (it was beyond me control, even if it wasn't)
• Spin the poor decision as a good decision (or intentional) and the failure as insignificant or really actually a success.
• A negative narcissist will portray themselves as fatally flawed and incapable of doing anything but making bad decisions or failing.
• In their mind and heart this frees them.  After all, if I am destined to fail, in a way what does it matter how I got there?  In other words, since I am going to fail anyway, I can choose the 'selfish' option as it will end up bad either way.
• If I blame myself for everything, then in a way I am blaming myself for nothing.  In other words, I am not really evaluating my role, but rather just sticking a label on myself and the situation.  Just like sticking a label on a batch of cookies that look good without actually sampling them to make sure it is good.
•  Each type has esteem issues.
• Narcissim is often a way overcompensating for insecurity.  A narcissist, in buying into their inflated sense of self, often is trying insulates his or herself from the effects of their insecurity.  After all, if I buy my own hype, then I can suppress and otherwise ignore my deeply buried insecurity.  Thus anyone who poses a threat to bring them down to earth, threatens their cushion against insecurity.
• A negative narcissist in a sense has bought into his or her own insecurity or low esteem.  When assessing his or herself, a negative narcissist has effectively conceeded that their insecurity or esteem problems are legitimate.  In other words, they've decided that they are implicitly bad and/or a failure and therefore will tend to focus on that which 'supports' their contention.

I think most people have an element of each--positive and negative--narcissism in them.  It is healthy to think of oneself as inherently good.  But, it is also healthy to think of oneself as having the ability to make mistakes.  It is when a person doesn't attempt to balance out the ledger--see the good and the bad--that a person is not really mentally, emotionally, or spiritually healthy.

Getting in our own way...

I realized something last weekend.  Or maybe I'd realized it before, but it really stuck this time.  I had to make a decision regarding my dad's care.  Literally, a life and death type decision.  He was coming up upon a crossroads in his care.  
* Originally published on 3/18/15

I was so torn about what direction to take--that is until I got out of my own way and let God work through me.  Anyway, this led me to today's point.  Sometimes, we are so worried about the outcome of decisions we need to make and discussions we need to have, that we get in our own way.  Instead of surrendering our decisions to our God--our Higher Power--we struggle.  From my own experience and that I've seen of others we struggle for a few reasons:

• Codependence   
• We want our decisions to be accepted by others.  We want our choices to be accepted by all.  As I have learned, no matter what choices you make, you will usually have someone critical of them.  Best to pray on it, listen to the wisdom of trusted voices and consider what advice you'd give someone else in your shoes, in other word's step outside yourself.
• We want to be accepted by others.  It is easier to avoid a hard discussion/decision and pretend that all is well than to open up the door to conflict/disagreement. This is especially true when what hangs in the balance is significant (marriage/life & death decision).
• Lack of faith/fear/need to control.
• When our faith is low, we believe we cannot count on others, especially God.  This leads us to rely on ourselves.
• Proverbs 3:5 - Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding
• When we are so afraid of making the wrong choices/mistakes, we are paralyzed into not making a choice, which usually in and of itself a choice. A lack of choice pretty well means the choice is made for you.
• When we are afraid of an outcome that is out of our comfort level, we will overcompensate and try to 'control' the discussion and/or everyone and everything in the decision loop.

I've learned in life there needs to be a happy balance--the balance between trying to 'control' life and letting life control you.  In other words, doing the necessary planning and then letting God be God and trusting.