Contentment about the Future: We Are Free To Decide For It

Every four years we have an national election for President.  After one particular election, a coworker and I were having a very civil discussion on the election (and the inauguration) that had just past.  If I remember, her choice did not win.  I said, you know after every election, there is a large segment of the population that is not happy.  I said, no matter who wins or loses, we ultimately have go on with our everyday lives in much the same way.  Besides, in another four years, everyone will get a chance to be heard again.  She seemed to appreciate and accept that point.  This election (2020) and the last election (2016) were no different.  In each case, it seems like there is a sizeable segment of the population that feels hopeless, like it's the end of end of world and that life as we know it is over.  Perhaps at some point in the future, election results may signal the 'end of world', but I don't think we are at point yet.

As bad as some feel after a their side faces defeat in a hard fought election, I don't think it can compare to the end of the world hopelessness that many likely felt during WWII.  I expect that sense pervaded Europe in particular and the world in general at the time.  I can't even begin to fathom what prisoners in places like Auschwitz had to face.  Seeing and facing starvation, cruelty, torture and death all around them with seemingly no end in sight is something I think few can relate to  A friend recommend a book to me called Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.  In that book the author chronicled his experiences as a concentration camp prisoner and how he identified a purpose in life to feel positive about and then immersed himself in imagining that outcome.  In other words, in a horrible and seemingly hopeless situation, he was able to find a purpose, meaning and hope.  He was saying that even in the worst situation, that we have a certain freedom to decide how we are going to view life. 

I'm not even going to imagine that I can relate to the search for hope, meaning and purpose in such a horrific circumstance.  Yes, I've faced some blows in this life, but nothing quite like that.  But, I have experienced enough to know that survival and even eventual thriving is possible during and after bad circumstances.  Finding Jewels in the Darkness tells my ability to find good at a bad time in my life.  I'd literally lost much of what was (or seemed) important to me--my brother, my house, my job, my marriage, much of the custody of my daughter--in the space of a year.  However, things started to settle down and I was able to find some special moments with my young daughter.  Moments that I would have not likely had or paused to appreciate otherwise.  I was able to strip down life to the basics and figure out what mattered.  Among the things I found was my writing voice, a greater self-respect and the understanding that I could survive serious blows in life.  In other words, I sort of found myself.   Eventually, my finances and job prospect and personal relationships looked up, but I couldn't have necessarily seen that during the height of the storm. 

I'm not going to be Pollyannaish and say everyone does survive life's seemingly harsh blows or that everything turns out fine.  But, to me life is like a journey where picking up "wins" along the way and avoiding "loses" is important, but not nearly as important as the good fight we fought along the way.  After all, what else do we really take with us besides the intangibles of a well fought life?  I believe there is a dignity of striving to be the best version of one's self even as days grow more cloudy, even as the journey works towards a close.  There are many things we can lose in our life with little or no control over the process.  We can lose our worldly possessions, we can lose others we love, we can lose our independence and in some cases, we can lose the battle with sickness and disease.  However, there are some thing we don't have to lose.  Among them our dignity, our spirit, and our freedom to decide how to see our lives.  Those things we have to be willing to part with.  I'm not saying holding on to those is always easy.  However, we can, if we choose, hold onto those things.  

I believe in the lives of many/most if  you dig deep, you will find a point in which they have felt hopeless.  The key for me and the key for many in that circumstance is to find something to hold onto to or for.  It could your faith.  It could be your family.  It could be your memories of surviving before.  It could be your vision of what could be.  It could be your knowledge that there is someone who championed us--and may have passed away--that we'd hate to disappoint.  It could be our pride.  It is important to be able to find this and when we do we have a choice at that point.  Do we give in to the brokenness or hopelessness OR do we decide that we want to find that which sustains us?  For some, it seems the brokenness is too great and they don't feel like they have a choice.  But, for those who are able to recognize it, we are free to decide to push forward and to decide to accept life on its terms or work to change it.

Tying back to this election and prior elections, many have or had a deep sense of dread or hopelessness afterwards.  For many people, it feels/felt like 'the wrong person' won.  If feels/felt like our country is/was headed down a dark, unrecoverable path.  There is always a risk to what we perceive as poor leadership dragging down our country.  However, elections do not have to feel like an impending disaster.  This election for some, like past elections for others doesn't have to feel that way.  We have always had the choice, even when we aren't happy with the results, as to whether view ourselves as a victim of them OR to view ourselves as those who continue to fight for what we believe in or what is important to us.

Whether you are happy with this election, upset about it or ambivalent, how we choose to view it and our lives in general is ultimately up to us.  This is something I cannot stress enough.   So, let's decide to come together and set an example for our leadership on all sides of the aisle.

Just my 2 pennies worth,

Rich

As an aside, there was another time I was woefully underemployed in my field.   I had an undiagnosed severe anxiety condition.  It hindered me in getting my Bachelor's degree, but didn't stop me.  However, it made it almost impossible to interview effectively before and after I graduated.  Anyway, it was four years before I got a job in my field after graduating college.  I could have given up, but something inside kept me going forward.   Just like the struggle above in "Jewels", I fought depression and a feeling of hopelessness at times, but something inside me said, no, it's not time to give up.

Bad Days and Mondays: Being a Hostage to "Bad Days" of Others

A while back I was reminded by a sibling about a toxic relationship that I'd been in long ago.  I have been meaning to write about it, but Covid-19, the George Floyd situation and other things had taken from my attention.  But as my patient audience, you will be rewarded by what I hope is a good read.   So, the short version of the story is that I was dating a single mom of a young child.   She had primary custody of her daughter and was both a full-time mom and she worked full-time.   Naturally, she portrayed herself as the responsible one who had had to pick up the slack for an irresponsible, incompetent dad.  In other words, she had to be supermom.  That should have been my first clue as to problems.  Anyway, we met and dated for a year and a half, off and on.   

So, as we know, new relationships are 'great'.  In new relationships you try to prove yourself supportive of your significant other and all that entails.   However, I noticed a trend early on.  She would complain a lot about the pressures of being a single mom and having to maintain her full-time job.   So, being the good sport, I listened and tried to be as supportive as possible.   Anyone who knows anything about me knows a few things:

• I hate drama and like peace.
• I used to be people pleaser/peacemaker.  This led to
• Being too tolerant of people crossing my boundaries
• Being too tolerant of manipulative people.
• I have dealt with an anxiety disorder for much of my life and sometimes that means pushing away for the moment stressful things.  Not ignoring responsibility so much as trying to find a way to push aside stressors.  This means avoiding discord.
• I don't particularly like adding to the stress of others, though I'm sure I have.

I "knew" that having a lot of responsibility like she had is a tall order and stressful.  I knew that I like being supportive.  I knew I didn't want to add to her stress.  I knew I hated confrontation  and that I wasn't looking to strongly challenge people.  Basically, I just wanted peace and being appreciated.  Unfortunately, the combination above is perfectly suited for a controlling person.   For whatever reason, members of her family apparently didn't think that I was good enough for her.   They hadn't liked her ex too, so you know...  In any case, she was too 'mindful' of their thoughts.  So, you know I'm just trying to mind my own business, be a considerate/supportive boyfriend, trying to be helpful and trying not to make negative waves or give her or her family a reason to dislike me.

As you might imagine, this type of relationship could not last.  I was criticized by her for not having my anxiety under better control.  Anyone that knows anything about anxiety knows that the worst thing you can do is negatively highlight an anxious person's anxiety.  You might as well tell a suicidal person what a lousy person they are, IMHO.  In any case, I consistently heard from her, woe is me, life is hard as a single, fully employed mom.  So, I would try consider her 'hardships' as such when dealing with her.  If that mean, not adding to her stress by avoiding addressing things bothering me, well that happened.  If it meant trying to do what I could do to 'change' to ensure I brought her no extra stress, that happened too.  If it meant my desires not being considered properly, well shit happens, you know.  So, over the course of nearly a year in a half, she pressed her anxieties on me, she let others have undue influence in our relationship, she shut me down and she told me that my 'anxiety' was a large part of the problem.   

Now, some would say, why did you let this happen? The only thing I would say is it is easier to say that looking for the outside.  Beyond that, manipulative people don't show their cards all at once.  They reveal it slowly over time.   But, I digress.  What did I learn from this circumstance?   What have a I learned along the way?   Glad you ask!   I called this post, "Bad Days and Mondays..." to indicate what I learned from that relationship (and what I've observed over time).

• Unless you live an utterly charmed life, you will likely have the following at some point(s) in your life:
• Bad moments
• Bad days
• Bad periods
• Challenging circumstances. 

Now, if you want to have a healthy relationship with others, you have to take into account their bad times.  If you want to have a strong relationship with someone, you have to be able to empathize with them.   In short, you have to be there for them and with them.   Sometimes that can be as simple as holding off your 'good news' for a little while until they are in a better place to hear it.  Sometimes, that means listening to them for a time rather than them being your sounding board.  What it doesn't mean is completely minimizing yourself and your needs to deal with their neediness or selfishness, even if they can't see it.  It doesn't mean allowing them to dictate the terms of the relationship to suit their needs even if their circumstances 'are more trying'.  It doesn't mean allowing yourself to be mistreated and then allowing them to excuse it on 'having a bad day". 

I had realized that I had over time allowed her to take the circumstances of her life and situation to dictate the terms of the relationship.  I had allowed her to elevate her needs over mine and justify it by invoking the pressures of her full-time parent/employee life.  I had allowed her to elevate herself over me by focusing on approval from her family (as if approval from me wasn't near as important).  She was so focused on HER needs being met that she didn't give enough space or consideration of mine.

So, here are a few takeaways I learned.

• You can empathize with someone's bad day or circumstance, but you cannot be held hostage to it. This is especially true if you had nothing to do with creating it.  Yeah, I can be there for you, but that doesn't mean you get to completely ignore my needs in the process.
• I wasn't part of the problem, but I can be part of the solution.  Being part of the solution, however doesn't mean shutting me down or shutting me out either.
• People can have a bad day or time, but provided you are dealing with them with respect and in good faith, they don't have a right to 'punish' you for it.  
• They don't have a right to shoot first and apologize later.  In other words, you don't get to go after me misguidedly if I dot an 'i' or cross a 't' imperfectly because you are already having a bad day.  You don't get to excuse it later as a I was just having a bad day.
• They don't have a right to ignore or belittle your concerns because their concerns are 'so much bigger'.  This is especially true if you have zero culpability for their issues.  I can empathize with your concerns or situation, but that doesn't mean that I lose voice in the process.
• They don't have a right to overreact and treat a little issue as if you have ruined their life.
• I have bad days too.  I have feelings too.  I have rights and needs too.  Just because things aren't easy for you doesn't mean you get to ignore that.  I am willing to be there for you, but there has to be reciprocation and most importantly respect.  

Most people have the capacity to be there for family, friends and other loved ones.  However, it has to go both ways.  If someone is having a bad day or period, it is important to be able to read that and react as needed.   Sometimes that means asking if there is anything you can do to help, sometimes it means listening and sometimes it means just letting them have time to decompress.   What it doesn't mean is taking abuse from them.  It doesn't mean that your needs suddenly don't matter.  It means being there without losing yourself in the process.  Just remember you can't help others if you aren't taking care of yourself and sometimes that just means securing your boundaries before you walk along with them.

Thank you for reading,

Rich

Losing everything else, but keeping ourselves

In a previous blog entry, The Fine Line: Failure takes no effort, success takes a lot of work, I observed that failure is a essentially a default position.  That is to say, failure comes 'naturally' by effectively doing nothing.  Success typically takes a lot of effort.

It occurs to me that a corollary of that point is in this life, if we live long enough, we face profound loss.  Loss is hard to avoid.  Also, even when we gain, it is usually temporary.  Even the 'permanent' gains can lose some of their edge.  In other words, there is always a degree of loss, even profound loss.  However, we don't have to be lost.

I will go over my concept--losing everything else, but keeping ourselves--and give what I see as a backstop to looking at life as hopeless.  First, losing.  On our travels through life many things pass. These are just a few of them:

• Most people when they are born, spend a lot of time around one or both parents.  We get the attention and love, warmth, the security, the attention of them.  In time, as kids get older, their parents realize that they can't just hold onto their 'little one' forever.  They must allow their little angel to fly.  From the perspective of a kid, it is gaining their freedom.  From the perspective of a parent it is the loss of sharing joy and love with their child.
• People come and go in our lives.  It is hard to lose someone we thought was our friend.  Sometimes, it is in a dramatic destructive fashion. Sometimes, people just drift apart. Other times, they just stop reaching out or back to us and we don't know why.  Even when it is not a dramatic exit, it the sense of loss is still present when friends just move away or fade out.
• Loved ones pass away.  It can be the loss of those very close such as close family or friends.  It could be a friendly familiar face.  It could be a beloved fixture in the background we never got to meet such as Carrie Fisher.  Regardless, a passing still has a sting to it.
• Our youth, our energy, our health fades.  The carefree nature of youth is lost to adult problems to where we miss the romanticized version of our youth.

These things, if we let them, can make our glass seem half-full or less.  These things can make us seem like we've lost more than we've gained or have.  But, I have learned in a much less dramatic fashion than Job, Anne Frank, or MLK that there is one thing that we can only lose--and therefore feel lost--if we choose to give it away or let it go.  That one thing is OURSELVES.

We can lose a lot in our lives, but we won't lose ourselves and be lost if:

• We keep our self-respect and dignity.
• We keep our honor.
• We keep our basic sense of fairness and decency.
• We keep our sense of who we are (our roles).
• We keep our faith and purpose.
• But most of all we keep our relationship between us and God (our Higher Power). All else flows from this.

So, let this world and this life try to keep us down.  Let this world and this life try and defeat us. We can lose everything, but we are only truly defeated and lost if we lose ourselves.  

* If you like this blog post, I think you'll like:
Always darkest before the dawn: Cleaning requires a bigger mess first

In the spirit of a man who lost everything (his life), but did not lose it all.  MLK kept his pride...