It isn’t easy on the staff either. They don’t have the immediate glory of saving a life quickly or seeing results on the spot. (Although I do work at nursing homes that post the number of annual successful discharges, which is optimistic and rewarding to both staff and patients.) But by and large, working at a nursing home means long hours, constant messes to clean up, constant medical treatment to be given, and everything that goes along with managing a large building full of very cranky people who are not particularly grateful that life put them there.

Imagine trying to handle keeping a large building clean, laundry restocked, meals prepared, etc., and at the same time that building is full of people who needs medicine administered, blood tested, physical therapy provided, baths and showers and changing of diapers and bandages on a regular basis… I could go on and on. But the point is, as we saw in Part I, those are people! Real human beings with all the complex emotions and behaviors they had before they got into this situation. This complicates the logistics and problems enormously!

All old and/or sick people are not alike. There are many possible ways a person can cope with aging and illness. Dealing with the shock, grief, and trauma that brought you here is just part of the situation. Finding the courage to take new steps is difficult when all about is already unfamiliar. Personality issues you haven’t resolved may resurface or become worse. “Activities” and hobbies are not passion; they don’t necessarily contain or encourage zest, an all-consuming interest, or motivation to continue

Repetition is not a substitute for motivation. Following someone else’s schedule is not the same as having a real life. Understanding and a sense of having choices is important to healing. Cognitive limitations and personality issues may interfere with this ability. Patients may keep up a front or drop masks entirely. They may be active or withdraw completely. They may try to consolidate the old and wish to explore new and unconventional behaviors. They may be feisty or stern or always cheerful. In short, you never know how someone will behave.

Worse yet, disturbing traits are likely to be exacerbated by stress, illness, and old age. The mean get meaner, the fearful get more afraid, and the apathetic sink into near paralysis.

But it denigrates their humanness to exempt the old and the ill from personal responsibility. They are not moral eunuchs. They can still do harm, and they can still atone. They are still capable of cruelty and greed and assorted misdeeds.

The good news is that, as human beings, we are never a finished product. We can refine and rearrange and reverse and improve. Change is inevitable, but it is up to us to use what choices we make to adapt to change with grace and dignity.

How can staff help these larger issues? By seeing their patients as the human beings they are. By knowing their names and respecting their humanity. By accepting that the patient didn’t ask to be in this situation. By keeping their focus on the larger goal, and not getting lost in the messy details. In a thousand tiny ways, everyday, nursing home staff can make healing more likely.

Remember that out of Chaos, through encouragement and initiative, can come Creation and Renewal.

Everybody who works at a nursing home (by whatever name it’s called!) has a vital role to play in the healing process. Because of all the differences among facilities, I’d leave somebody out if I tried to list all the jobs. It isn’t just Medical Doctors and Primary Care Physicians. There are Certified Nurse Assistants as well as Registered Nurses. There are Social Workers and Case Managers and Psychologists. There are Psychiatrists and PPN’s who function as psychiatrists. There are Physical Therapists and Occupational Therapists, Speech Therapists and Recreational Therapists.

That’s a partial list and it leaves out Administration, who have to make sure that the whole team and the whole building functions smoothly, because lives are at stake. Don’t make fun of bureaucracies because even those who never see a patient are making sure there are clean bandages, needed medicine, accessible medical records, and all the other things essential to the survival of the patients under their care.

Yes, I know there are nursing homes that get it wrong and lose sight of the very patients they are supposed to be helping. But before we can even discuss them, it helps to understand what an enormous job it is to begin with. I’m always amazed at the number of facilities that mostly get it right! I applaud the ones whose staff maintain their respect for the humanity of patients, who encourage healing and growth, and who, even when exhausted and trying to do the work of ten, remember to smile at a patient and greet him or her by name.

I ask for reform in many areas, and healthcare is a major one. But I always acknowledge the work of people who do do their jobs well, even under the most adverse conditions. Because they prove it can be done well! And I do work for understanding between different perspectives.
In this case, as with so many others, it’s very clear that both sides have a difficult job because of the very nature of the situation. There’s no magic pill or simple solution, not even throwing money at the problem. It’s going to take thought and creativity and personal responsibility, as well as a clear understanding of our priorities as a society.

Remember that nobody goes to a nursing home because they wanted to. Call it a Rehab Center, or a Sub-Acute or Skilled Nursing Facility, the fact is that people are there because something terrible happened to them! They had a terrible injury, a life-threatening illness, or a disability beyond their ability to cope. Or they just got old and didn’t have the financial, physical, or mental capacities to handle everyday life itself. None of these are pleasant things. All of them pull the rug out from under you and knock you flat on your rear!

It can make you pretty depressed, anxious, angry, and just plain unsocial for a while.

First of all, getting old has some real disadvantages. Earlier aspects of your life do not remain the main purpose of your life. You may have retired from your career, lost your spouse through death or divorce, and your children are grown and have their own lives now. Nothing is the same, and that can feel very unsettling.

Then there is the nearness of death itself. If you were born, the only thing I can guarantee is that someday you will die. Proverbs to the contrary, death is more certain than taxes! If you have lived a long life already, death feels a lot closer. If you have just come from a life-threatening crisis at the hospital, it feels pretty close no matter what age you are. How do we prepare for contentment and peace when life ends? It’s not an easy task, even if it is a necessary one.

If the physical strength or beauty that you possessed, and the joys of the senses were among life’s greatest values, what do you do when they ebb away?

Besides, you’re still the person you always were inside. In fact, you’re likely to get more so as you age. The down side is that unresolved problems can become intensified, and some patterns of behavior that were only mildly maladaptive before are now making you dysfunctional.

I can quote from Greek, Chinese, even Ancient Egyptian sources, and show you that people have always recognized this. Did you think you would escape the fate of being mortal? Sorry, but we move from the familiarity, safety, and security of the life we’ve built to the uncertainty and vulnerability of another. And we have no other choice! No wonder we feel pain and grief.

Being in a medical care facilyt, whether hospital, nursing home, or rehab center just adds to the burden. 1) All of the burdens cited above are intensified. 2) The loss of independence, self-respect, and dignity are all exacerbated when we are struck down by physical illness. 3) We must trust our very being to the care of total strangers. 4) We loss all privacy, all choices, and have very little control over anything.

Yes, I know it’s being done to save your life. But when it happens to you, it feels more like life has been taken away. In a sense, it has.

Human beings are simple, like a piece of furniture. We are composed of many aspects, and all of them are affected by age and illness. Nothing is “all in your mind” because the last time I looked, your mind and your body lived in the same place! And they are always interacting. In fact, when I think of the human, I have to add the heart and the spirit into the mix, because human beings are feeling many more things besides just thinking and physical sensations.

Actually, you can use any schema or worldview you want. Just be sure it includes all the complexities of being human. Bear with me while I try to explain it in my fashion:

The Body is deteriorating and weakening. It is now fragile and easily sickened. It may lose control of unmentionable things like peeing, shitting, or bleeding. This is not only hard to comprehend when it happens to you, it is also terrifying!

The Mind finds that its memory and attention span are decreasing. As things become difficult, our own expectations of ourself can become negative and self-defeating.

The Heart is grieving. Many friends have died or moved. We’re in a place where the surroundings, the environment, even the language of people around us may be un familiar. Grief and loss predominate in our immediate feelings.

The Spirit may know that the need to move to an inner life is normal at this stage. Some cultures even have a description or place in life’s stages for it. But that inner life must be enriched and it must be supplemented by a full outer life.

The deepest misery comes from those who feel they are doing nothing. Patients may feel that their potential is locked up – by their illness, their physical limitations, or just by being in a medical facility.

A dear, dear friend, mentor, and colleague of mine gave me the solution. Dr. Roy P. Fairfield, educator, historian, author man of almost unlimited interests and talents, is now 90. And he, in his firm New England way, decided that this nonsense wasn’t for him. “Re-Firement, not retirement” became his motto. And so, with his permission, I share it with you.

Re-Firement is the way to avoid getting stale and cranky. The delight os self-discovery is always available to us. This is also a time when you can become more authentic and find your own identity. Exercise and movement slow physical aging and help heal illness. And even more important, activities done with real passion and a social life that isn’t superficial slow down the other aspects of aging and help the soul heal itself.

The future can always be happier! How much time it contains doesn’t matter as much as how happy it is.

In the second part of this article, I’ll talk about the other side of the situation: some of the cautions and concerns involved, and the problems nursing home staffs face in dealing with them.

Many universities abound in the area, and in Palo Alto is the Stanford Center on Interdisciplinary Policy, Education, and Research, where I hope to be able to pursue my interests in making this a safer world for all of us. I’ve been nominated to the American Board of Intelligence Analysts, and I look forward to serving Homeland Security interests in a humane and valuable way.

Meanwhile, I still pursue legal system and healthcare system reform, and have found many more resources and opportunities than have been available in other locations. In addition, I get to do more publicity regarding the sad state of affairs in legal corruption in California. It wasn’t safe to publicize the book until April10th, 2009, so I’ve finally been able to push hard to get the story out. A number of organizations are helping to get the word out, and I look forward to talks and book-signings across the area soon.

There are volunteer activities, and museums and libraries to explore, and I’m in heaven with all the doors that are opening. The welcome that I’ve received in the area has exceeded every expectation that I had, and I am delighted with a rapidly growing support system of friends and colleagues. I’m working on at least two papers fro presentation, and another (more positive!) book to be published by the end of the year.

And not to forget the spiritual side of life, I have to admit that the wealth of interdenominational dialogues here has been a source of joy and comfort. I know we have to co-exist on this world and in this country, with respect, kindness, and personal responsibility to each other. I seem to be receiving a multitude of chances to do so, and I am so grateful.

I admit it! Despite all the agony of relocation, being here in the Greater San Jose Area is balm to my soul, and therapy for my mind and body. Those who have read Surviving Human Venom will understand how incredibly healing my new life here is.

Wish me well and make prayers for me in whatever way suits you best; I welcome all your good wishes and give thanks to Creator daily!

There are patients who’ve never seen their actual M.D.’s, or only seen them for a total of 15 minutes over the course of a year. Multitudes of people are multiple medications, with no idea of which is for what symptoms or of the side-effects or drug interactions. There are patients who need to change life-style or unhealthy habits who can’t get a 30-minute consultation with their primary care physician. Well, the M.D. just doesn’t have time! He or she has to see too many patients just to pay his administrative costs, which have risen over 25 % in recent years.

I didn’t even mention paying off school loans for the arduous process of becoming an M.D., or of rising malpractice fees. I’m sympathetic to the realities of practice. As a psychologist, my own time spent on paperwork and non-patient time has risen to the point where I have to pay someone else to fill out forms, code procedures, follow up on billings and payments, etc. etc. etc. No wonder there’s a shortage of family physicians in the U.S.

And if you have Medicare or MediCal or worse yet, no insurance, it’s often difficult to even find a doctor who will accept you as a client. A government survey done in 2007, quoted by the AARP, states that the more than 1.3 million people on Medicare have difficulty finding a doctor. And since seeing a specialist often requires the referral of a primary care physician, you’re out of luck even if you have a clear idea of what you problem is.

With economic conditions getting worse, and people losing their coverage or cutting back, the situation is just getting worse. I found this out after my serious auto accident in 2004, as described in my recent book Surviving Human Venom. Even recommended treatments can be delayed or not covered, and the insurance company can cut those treatments off or raise your premiums beyond your ability to pay for reasons that often make no sense to the poor patient. I’ve seen Workers Comp patients have treatment delayed for years, while their condition worsened, because the insurance company argued with the need.

And despite the high cost of medical care, assuming you can afford appropriate treatment on a timely basis, the U.S still has much lower positive outcomes than many other developed countries. We’ve got over 46 million Americans without health insurance, and we spend over $8000 per year per capita on all Americans, but we have lower life expectancies, a higher rate of preventable deaths, and higher child mortality rates than many Western countries.

I haven’t even mentioned quality of life issues yet! Billions are spent on advertising to convince us that some magic pill will solve all our problems. But chronic conditions and chronic pain persist, and the suffering from depression and anxiety continue to escalate. To really put patients first, psychologists and other behavioral specialists should be part of every treatment team. But more often they’re relegated to the last resort of a frustrated and busy physician, who dooms you to failure by saying, “It’s all in your head! Go see a shrink!” That hardly sets up a positive expectation of success.

I hate to keep harping on personal responsibility. But it always gets back to that, doesn’t it? LBJ brought up the idea of healthcare “regionalism,” where every doctor, clinic, and hospital was affiliated with a regional medical educational center. But instead of thinking “teamwork and collaboration,” when the idea is brought up, most doctors think “oversight and supervision” and panic. Is this just ego?

Many doctors are afraid of any program that is designed to reward efficient, high-quality services because they are afraid they don’t want measures of provider effectiveness applied to them. Insecurity and a sheer meanness of spirit make them resist being accountable for the quality of their care. Integrated care approaches help cut costs while improving services, but that would mean sharing the “golden halo” with other specialists on the team. The most difficult patients often require the most care, but even they have an improved prognosis when evidence-based treatment models and a multi-person team that includes mental health professionals, nutritionists, and other specialists are used to really treat all aspects of the patient.

Putting the patient first should be the first characteristic of healing. And if that means evaluating what you’re doing, consulting with colleagues, working with emotions and thoughts and other intangibles, then so be it! Taking better care of all patients, not just the wealthy ones, should be the goal of any reform plan. Not just splinting the bone or bandaging the wound, but actually educating, reassuring, and motivating the patient, something you can’t do in a 10-15 minutes office visit!

The major psychological organizations are busy coming up with ways to integrate psychologists into interdisciplinary teams, to ensure quality in mental health practice, and to encourage support, consultation, and collaboration among providers. Let’s see that extended to all areas of medical care.

Since I’m more familiar with sub-acute and skilled nursing homes, I’ll put my thoughts into an article or two that should help both professionals and lay persons understand how these ideas of teamwork can be put into effect. Look for them next week or so, because I’ll try to explain all the parts of being human that need care if we’re actually going to heal anybody!.

For one thing the word “white” has no meaning and no real definition. As one young dinner guest pointed out recently, “I thought white was just what everybody aspired to be?”  That’s not an unfair summary of U.S. history. I still have a sign from Boston dated 1918 that says “No Irish Need Apply!” In some post-Civil War southern states hiring the :shanty” Irish was considered an nearly-acceptable alternative to owning the African-American slaves who no longer existed as slaves. Leasing convicts was about the only other option available.

And I’m used to hearing “Canuck” applied in various tones of voice to other branches of my family tree. And then there’s my great-great-grandmother, the Algonkin who married a French merchant in Quebec City, Canada. Not only did she gives up her native tongue when she married, she wore French clothes and spoke only French ‘til the day she died. How do I know? Because I was lucky enough to meet some of my great-parents when I was a child and heard stories told with some pride in her sacrifice but more embarrassment over her heritage. Only one picture (a portrait, a daguereotype?)
Existed of her because, as the family said in hushed tones, “She was a bit dark skinned, you know.”

In Canada today, which has First Nations terms not used in the U.S., I would be considered “Metis”. (Someday I’ll talk about Louis Real and the great Metis Uprising that actually got the Canadian Pacific Railroad the government funding it needed for compleion so the Royal Mounties could be speedily swept to central Canada to quell these uppity “savages.” The word Metis itself literally means mixed, but I was brought up to deck anyone who called me a “half-breed.”

And then there’s my grandfather Nikolai. I didn’t even find out his name until my father lie on his deathbed in 1995. You see, grandfather Nikolai had died in the War To End All Wars (WWI) and his memory was preserved by denying his heritage and pretending he was “Polish.” But when I worked in Poland in the 1980’s and tried to trace my family tree, my Polish friends sadly informed me that his last name was not Polish and most likely Russian. (And possibly not a “true” Russian, but a gypsy or worse yet, a Jew!) He had apparently passed for Polish when he immigrated to the U.S. because of all the languages he spoke. Lost in a semi-safe crowd at the height of the Cold War, he disappeared from family respect.

When I describe my childhood, I explain it was somewhat like the United Nations backstage, with everybody squabbling or ignoring each other in a multitude of mutually-unintelligible languages. God help the poor victim who married into the family from another background and was subject to the hostility vented on the “outsider.” My favorite maternal aunt was shunned from almost the whole family because she had the nerve to marry an “Eye-talian” whom she loved. Fortunately, he had a large family who took her in with adoration, she learned to be a great Italian cook, and they lived happily with their children for decades.

My poor mother was Irish & French-Canadian (both suspect) and was never considered to belong. Since the big goal of every immigrant to this country was to pass for Anglo-British, she bleached my fine baby hair to straw with undiluted peroxide, pinned it into painful Shirley Temple curls, and harshly slapped me or washed my mouth with soap if I dared picked up a word of the many languages spoken around me. I had to pass for “white”, as in WASP, which left a bad taste in my mouth forever after.

I was half-raised by my grandmother Mary Katherine Lynch from County Claire in Ireland, and thank God for her intervention and that of her large brood of my mother’s siblings. My ancestors sit beside me at every dinner table and I wouldn’t desecrate their lives by labeling myself “white,” a bland and vague word associated with white supremacy, the KKK, terror, and a general, overwhelming assumption of superiority and power, especially if they are male to boot!

In my teens I was “adopted” by Matchwaya Rom in New York City, and treated and taught as a daughter. I lived in Hawai’I and saw true pluralism in everyday life. I was befriended by a Japanese family who had lived through WWII, and knew how close they were to being interred in a U.S. concentration camp as an “not-white enemy.” In Nepal and India I was given a name and a caste (Matwali –that of Sherpas and foreign anthropologists) to bring me into the group, and in Haiti, my friends introduced me as their “cousine” and insisted joyfully that I must be part African.

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that I have been naïve enough to be believe that E Pluribus Unum actually means “from the many to One”. I believe we are humans, and cannot see each other in groups of “us versus them.”

And the saddest thing to me is that we as a country cannot see Mr. Obama as our first truly “mixed” president because way too many people are so obsessed with just one strain of the many rich traditions and bloodlines that make him what he is: a man with just as rich a heritage as most of us have, more truly representative perhaps than any before him of the real population of this United States!

I admit to being an idealist. I admit to having a vested interest in the topic since I tend to risk my job, welfare, or life speaking out against what is wrong. The latest book I wrote is just a recent example. But to hear these young people dismiss even the voices of Gandhi or Martin Luther King or JFK as meaningless! I was overwhelmed.

One of them even said “There were others saying the same thing. Gandhi just added to his voice to theirs.” That may be true, I acknowledged. But what if he hadn’t spoken? What if Martin Luther King hadn’t spoken? Would the course of history have been the same? At sixty years old, I’ve heard these people speak or seen the direct effect of their voices. It made a tremendous difference to my heart, soul, and mind. How could they be dismissed so casually?

One of the people at the table had recently passed the Bar Exam and was looking forward to working for Legal Aid. I asked her directly if she wouldn’t be one small voice speaking out for those who couldn’t speak for themselves. “Of course not” was her reply. I wondered how many real courtrooms she had been in, when the accused was too overwhelmed or scared or uneducated to speak for themselves. What happens when your lawyer disparages the very role of being that one voice who will speak for you?

At one point I had to go outside for some fresh air. The truth was that there were tears in my eyes, and I didn’t want to spoil an otherwise social evening. But I was terribly bothered. If you don’t speak up when there is an injustice, how do you know someone else will? What if there are other minds thinking the same thing, but afraid to speak their thoughts out loud?

Should I demean the achievements of President Obama because he only said what other people had said? Or should I applaud him for taking a strong public stance and trying for the chance to do something about what he thought was wrong? I believe that “Yes we can!” echoed the sentiments of many people but I’m still going to give credit to the man who said those words out loud and often enough that something changed. I don’t know yet how much he can accomplish in respecting what’s right about this country and fixing what’s broken, but I hope everybody begins to say to themselves “Yes I can!” when faced with something that needs repair.

I don’t want to think that “one small voice” doesn’t matter because my experience has taught me that it does!

Do I wish I had a louder voice or a bigger audience? Of course I do! I don’t have the money or the celebrity status to automatically be heard. And approaches to Attorney Generals, Grand Juries, and state representatives have just resulted in form letters saying “we don’t investigate individual cases.” I don’t understand that. If you don’t start by investigating one case, then how do you ever find the pattern of wrongdoing? But I’m not going to stop whistleblowing. To be silent in the face of venom would be worse.

I think the problems I’m working to call attention to are serious ones. They require resources and power to fix that I just don’t have by myself. So I do what I can, speak up whenever I can, and try to find the resources that can (and have the guts to!) investigate and fix a broken system.

By the way, I have no grandiose illusions of being Gandhi or any of the inspiring people I mentioned. But they are my heroes and they taught me that the worst sin of all is to be silent when you see what is broken or wrong. Those who don’t speak up become accomplices in the evil, whether it happens in Nazi Germany or your local street. One small voice it may be but I’d rather be small than silent!

And I’m going to use his individual name throughout this article because I don’t want to fall into the trap of labeling and then assuming everybody in that category is bad. This isn’t about political affiliation, gender, ethnicity, or religion. It is about a type of pathology. Whatever your background or characteristics, grabbing for power and money at other people’s expense is wrong! Period! Wrong! 

True patriotism means working to keep this country living up to its stated ideals of human dignity, fair play, and civil rights. Walk your talk, Cheney! Because I don’t see you doing anything to help improve the widespread violation of human rights committed on everyday citizens. 

This isn’t about Gitmo. It’s about you and me! I don’t see any evidence that Cheney or his cronies encouraged an atmosphere of “to serve and protect” the U.S. public. In fact, quite the opposite! Corruption and destruction of the average citizen has run rampant. Just look at the headlines! And it’s because of the lies, hypocrisy, and attitude of ‘”I’m always right; you’re always wrong.” 

What rights do U.S. citizens still have? The Attorney General, the SED, the FDA –all government bureaucracies don’t investigate “individual cases” of misconduct. That way they don’t have to discover or face a pattern of widespread malfeasance! It took ten years for the whistleblower on Madoff’s case to even be heard!  

How are you and I, the average citizens, supposed to have the resources or information to prove a “pattern of misconduct” when we don’t even have the resources to understand our individual case?!!! So people die of salmonella, lose their life savings, send their kids to battlefields, and are shot, tortured, or destroyed by their own government officials.  

In the minds of people like Cheney, it appears to be all right to bully and lie to U.S. citizens.  As long as he had money and power, he turns away from the “trivial” concerns of ordinary citizens. Under the guise of “national security” he has helped to undermine the very foundations of American ideals. I guess he thinks we’re too stupid to understand the facts. I guess he thinks that our concerns about paying bills, living in a safe and clean neighborhood, and being treated equitably by our legal system are too small for people like him to worry about.  

I have two sons in the Army. I’ve worked with law enforcement, and with the Army. I thought we were all defending the principle of human dignity and the sanctity of human life. Is Cheney the kind of person who thinks that just pasting a label on someone gives you the right to ignore due process and humane behavior?   

He reminds me of the callous people who invented a particularly dumb slogan back in the 60’s. They’d say “America: love it or leave it!” What happened to the idea that loving your country meant staying to correct injustice.  Jack Kennedy and Martin Luther King didn’t just give up and leave. Neither did Gandhi. Why then should we even consider not helping to improve the country we love? What can you do for your country? Improve it!  

I’m trying to do psychotherapy to help people make better choices, live happier and healthier, and maintain caring connections with others. I help them to not feel helpless and victimized. I want people in positions of authority should be better role models. Is that too much to ask? I’m tired of false patriotism masquerading with hypocrisy and lies. I’m against corruption. I think that makes me more patriotic, not less. 

If one of my patients was paranoid and greedy, lied to his family, and ignored all rational values, we’d consider him mentally disordered. If a family ignored budget constraints and insulted and assaulted their neighbors, if they spent their neighbors’ money on their own bad behavior, we’d consider them disgraceful. Why then do so many bureaucracies get to behave this badly? 

It’s hard not to feel discouraged. But each of us, with our individual actions and individual voices, can add up to a powerful force. We must. Because change and repair are necessary, and constructive disagreement is the only way we are going to have a future. But let’s put a time limit on the discussions, and get some positive actions started. Please? Soon?

Oh yes, I’ve found some television shows that I like. I’ve even found one stations that advertises “characters welcome.” I just don’t think they’ve been to my neighborhood. Characters around here are frowned on. If you don’t fit into a mold, you’re shunned. Sometimes it’s done politely and hypocritically, sometimes not. But you’re definitely treated rather like one of the non-pod people in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”  

The problem with not fitting into any mold is that the specifications of those molds are usually decided by people on the basis of little-to-no information. Someone takes a look at you and decides “you’re not one of us” without a second thought. It’s not just me I’m talking about. I hear stories from friends and clients all the time. And they don’t just mention skin color. One brow piercing or turquoise hair streak is enough to elicit a pointing and screaming that outdoes the body snatcher movie! 

I remember when the only quirky people on television were William Petersen (CSI) and Vincent D’Onofrio (Criminal Intent). (I know ‘cause I had a crush on both of them.) Now there’s quirky people everywhere, many of them women! There’s an Israeli ex-Mosad agent who mangles every metaphor, brilliant flaky artists with strong scientific skills, lab rats who dress Goth, forensic anthropologists with esoteric specialties, – most of them with high IQ’s who don’t get popular culture any more than I do. (Whoops! I mean “did.”)  

There are people almost too young to be working and people old enough to remember cultural references I can remember! There are also FBI agents who remind me of people with whom I’ve worked. Yes, there’s vain, shallow people, but also surprisingly complex people. Sometimes they can be obnoxious but they are very human. They care about humans and puzzling human behavior. They like to argue with those who think differently for the fun of learning. They are, all in all, very interesting. They are not one-dimensional, and they can’t be defined by one physical characteristic. 

But I still don’t get some things. I don’t understand jokes about “shoes.” I find “dishing” distasteful and boring, and the word “fashionista” makes me cringe. And there’s some shows I don’t understand any more than I understand people laughing over old Seinfeld episodes. 

Once at a mental health training I made the mistake of asking why people would watch a show after work that showed people behaving so badly that you wouldn’t want to work with them during the day. A female psychologist (yes, a psychologist, and one older than I am!) tartly responded that I was a “freak” from “another planet.” But that only made me feel more shunned and didn’t help my understanding of the issue at all.

If the people on that show were considered “normal,” it just didn’t seem like good advertising for being “normal.” Rudeness, hypocrisy, and human venom just didn’t seem funny to me. They still don’t.  

So I think I’ll stick with today’s characters. And if you know a place where quirky and interesting people are not shunned, please let me know. I’d love to move there! Meanwhile, I have some friends nearby who today are celebrating Groundhog Day, Imbolc, and Dia e la Candelaria. I think I’ll head off to celebrate with all of them! Fooey on “normal”!

I feel sorry for President Obama. He’s in the same boat. He seems to understand that some fundamental systems in this country don’t work well. But he also seems to realize that “deliberate and prudent” are not bad words. Decisive action implies making a decision, which in itself implies thought and choice. 

I’ve also worked for change and improvement my whole life, sometimes with exhausting results and sometimes with very few results. (See my last book if you don’t realize how difficult it can be!) So the young people I know ask the legitimate question:  Do you really believe you can reform from within?  

They ask if it’s evil, isn’t it better to destroy it? Well, if it’s evil because it destroys the minds, bodies, and souls of people, how are you any better for acting in a destructive way? You become the very evil that you fight! Decisive action implies making a decision, which in itself should imply some thought! 

I’ve spent much of my life feeling like I had no patience. I was always the one being called a troublemaker for pointing out when something is being done badly. (i.e. hurtful to humans!) I’ve suggested and implemented ways of improving poorly run systems, either individual or agency-wide. And I still feel like the wait to see change is endless.   Even lately I tend to complain “So many good leads to follow, so little instant gratification!” 

The protagonist of “Fight Club” never gets it all together. He never comprehends that there needs to be a coherent whole to give value and meaning to a life. All the pieces of a human are important: body, mind, heart, soul, -however you want to define them, a human life is more than the sum of its parts. But “Jack” continues to keep the pieces apart.  

He acts like he can find unrelated (and un-authentic!) outlets for the various parts of himself. Then he wonders why he feels dissatisfied. He lacks purpose and meaning, passion and energy. And even when he finds some energy, he isolates it in the person of Tyler Durden. What a waste! He watches mindless cretins fall into Project Mayhem, where once again they’ve chosen the path of notthinking. 

It takes real courage and hard work to make good conscious choices and make them manifest in reality. It takes hope and faith and a real concern for other human beings. Haven’t we learned anything? We’d better develop a new stage of human consciousness because some realities are hitting us upside the head at this point. 

One reality we all refuse to face is that there are an enormous amount of people in the world today. Dealing with each of them one-on-one seems like just too much work, so we opt for the easy way out. Like the time of the invention of the assembly line, we’ve created too many stupid mindless jobs filled with people who don’t know why they’re there. (I’m not talking here about job description, I’m talking about Purpose!) 

I see it all the time in my patients. People act badly when they feel powerless. They tend to either give up entirely or act out violently. That’s when they hide their pain behind labels, dichotomous thinking (you know, either-or – no alternatives), or behind the masks of hatred and violence.  

Well, poor choices are not better than no action. Sometimes they’re far worse than a moment of sitting still and being reflective. Yelling, cursing, and calling people names are stupid actions. And they don’t accomplish real positive change. Destroying people and objects is just more of the same violence. And it makes the actor as evil as the thing he or she is trying to destroy. 

There are labels of which I’m darn tired, because they’re just a substitute for actually thinking and working. I’m so sick of labels substituting for understanding.  Socialism and capitalism are simply the labels of two extremes on a continuum of economic systems. Both are being given bad names because of stupid uncaring power-mongers who used both systems badly. If you’re too lazy to discuss a middle ground, sit down and shut up. 

I remember television before it was overloaded with commercials. I dream of public television for all, and programming that was based on fun and learning, not who wants to sell the most. I sometimes see why people think it would be nice if everything worked free. That’s why people for centuries have dreamed of Heaven as a place of abundance, there for the taking.  

So here we go from one extreme of pure consumerism to one example of pure taking-care-of-everybody equally. Oh for heaven’s sake, if we dropped the labels and actually discussed the risks and benefits, we might come up with a sane and healthy compromise. But again, that takes thought and work. And where you put the emphasis affects what you get back. 

All too often religion ends up falling into this same category. It comes from the root word meaning connection or linking. But now it often seems an excuse to grab a label and claim you’re “saved.” Saved from what? All too often it appears to be saved from having to think! Getting lost in cursing people who won’t use your name for God or your type of prayer just means you aren’t thinking about really being connected to other human beings or the planet we live on. 

Followers of Tyler seem to fall prey to another misconception. In the blogs I’ve read people seem to confuse creativity with procrastination. We’re talking apples and oranges here, folks! I’ve been writing, teaching, and counseling for over forty years on how to get results, especially at your job and in your personal life. I wrote a book about spirituality over twenty years ago, arguing that it was needed to be included to build a life of health and happiness. I wasn’t talking about labels. I certainly have never claimed it was easy. 

The things I’ve spent my life encouraging are just as essential as they ever were. The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy concept relates to how you maximize putting things into action. Creativity comes into play finding new ways to do this. It means finding new paths in better direction. But without following those paths, acting with thinking, feeling, and doing, you won’t find change. Acting means making the best of your thoughts manifest themselves in deeds and achievements. It means thinking about meaning, communications, and consequences. It doesn’t mean doing nothing. But it doesn’t mean acting violently and mindlessly. 

Take that, Tyler Durden. Wake up “Jack” and get it together. May you who read or see “Fight Club” for what it is: a desperate desire for a better life but also an illustration of how not to get it!  

Actually, using the term “senseless violence” just mean that the violent action doesn’t make sense to us, the viewer. After nearly forty years of working with the most bizarre, in prisons and in jails, in closed wards (when they still had mental hospitals!), in short, with every variety of strange and “senseless” behavior that can be observed, I have had the chance to observe many “reasons” for violence. None of them really make sense to me. 

Please let me be clear that I do not condone or excuse violent behavior. No matter how strong the emotion, the action is still a choice. No substance use or psychiatric disorder, in my mind, excuses the wrongness of behavior that hurts other people. In fact, it is exactly that element of choice upon which this article is focused.  

Many academics have written about the idea of innate aggression as a characteristic of being human. Anger and rage are seen as built-in responses to threat, with aggression and violent actions a result. I am convinced that, while the emotions may be a natural part of the human response to fear, the actions we do are always a choice we make. Whatever your reasoning is, you still have a choice of how you express it. 

I have found over the years that to help people heal, it is necessary to understand the internal pattern behind their seemingly bizarre behavior. Only then can you help build a path out of the morass and into healthier patterns. But when it comes to anger and people who commit horrible violent acts, I have seen a growing tendency to skip the more difficult path and just retaliate with vicious vengeance. 

The problem is that this only continues the cycle. The consequence of acting with venom against those who hurt us only creates a world with more violence and more venom. So what would happen if we tried to figure out the twisted trail that leads to aggression so that we could turn it in another direction? I’m not talking about simply getting into the criminal mind, with the corresponding danger of getting lost in that landscape. No, I’m talking about actually trying to understand. 

Understanding the seemingly twisted logic of another doesn’t excuse evil. Hopefully, it might give us clues as to how to prevent similar destructiveness in others in the future. But the first step is a comprehension of the rationale behind the violence. If common sense means widespread, then, as the saying goes, common sense isn’t all that common. But understanding the un-common reasoning of the violent may lead us to some ways to stop it.  

When it comes to violence “common” sense just doesn’t seem to exist. The reasons humans give for acting badly boggle the mind. Thank goodness everybody doesn’t think the same way or the human race would have destroyed itself by now.  But there are moments when I feel the species is headed in that direction.  

My professional experiences with violent felons over the last fifteen years, as well as my personal experience of the last five years, has made me want to explore the topic of why people do bad things in more depth and with more objective analysis of all its parameters. I feel like I’m just beginning on a jigsaw puzzle and I have to admit that there are pieces that completely elude me at the moment! There are problems in this whole area of study that totally baffle me.  

For example, some people cannot resist the temptation of the delusion that causes others to suffer equals “power.” In my writing and teaching over thirty years ago, I defined power as the capability of getting things done. All these years later, I still see more sense of achievement in actually accomplishing a project than in just being able to force people to do things. I assumed that over the years more people would come to this realization. (Well, I never said I wasn’t naïve!) 

With all the misconduct and theft in government and financial officials growing daily, 

Trying to understand why some people want power and money and will hurt others to get them makes my head ache. I understand wanting to make a living and provide for your family and future, but conspicuous consumption just seems so boring to me. At some point, enough is enough. At any point, forcing others to suffer should detract from your self-esteem not bolster it! 

Then there’s the problem of people who crave anger. I’ve written a lot over the years about how to manage anger. But I’m finding there are people who don’t want to manage their anger. Instead they just want to feed it. They say things like “I get my energy from being angry” or “I don’t feel like myself if I don’t get angry.” Of course, I don’t understand! That’s because I’ve always felt that I get my energy from love and sex, art and play, life-nurturing rather than life-destroying activities. 

That’s the kind of statement that really worries me because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in sixty years, it’s that fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to destruction and suffering. In the last fifteen years of turning more and more into the study of how to prevent gangs and how to prevent terrorism, it’s clear that just responding with anger means turning into the evil that one is trying to avoid.  

There has to be a better way! As a therapist I’ve helped people survive the evil done to them by others. I’ve studied evil itself. In individual cases, I’ve been asked over and over to assess the effects of trauma and the risk of re-offending. Over and over I’ve tried to create and facilitate ways to repair damage. I thought I had come to some understanding of the extremes of good and evil. 

But now I find that the gray area between the extremes is even more dangerous! I want to find an antidote, a tonic, that will ameliorate the damage poison and venom can do. The horrible middle ground between pure good and pure evil is composed of the lazy, mean, and petty actions that ordinary people choose every day. Hypocrisy and selfishness do as much to nurture violence as does anger itself. 

I refuse to believe that most people choose evil. Rather I believe they simply don’t think of the consequences of their actions. Thinking takes energy, and sometimes it appears that too many people don’t spend their energy on solutions. While the news media focuses on the extremes of bad behavior (such as children beating children and people raping and murdering) I believe it sometimes fosters a complacency about the petty forms of bad behavior (such as people lost in legal and medical systems they don’t understand and whole generations lost to our nation due to lack of education, health, and employment.) 

I know some of this echoes the themes I explore in my new book. But I know that simply reliving a trauma is not the same as getting over it. Simply remembering the worst can just re-traumatize. But finding a way to build a world that discourages evil – now that’s a way to heal! 

And it starts with individuals! If each of us begins to look at what we are actually doing, that’s a way to begin. If one small voice starts pointing out what needs to be fixed, others will join in the repair job. At least that’s my hope.  

Can we create a world in which Evil is discouraged? Yes, we can! But it’s going to take many small steps from each of us to get to that place. Because first we each need to acknowledge what can be done better in our daily lives. Then we need to take those actions that will accomplish that. Big plans are useless without little actions. The architects needs the carpenter’s hammering or there’s no house to live in. And I’d like to see this planet be a good and healthy home to live on! 

(Explorations & thoughts to be continued.) 

I think I had this fantasy that as I got older, things around me would make more sense. And looking at personal events in my life didn’t help! When I first wrote the original bio sketch below, I had no idea that I would end up writing a book about the worst in human beings and an example of a legal system gone toxic.  

The last four and a half years has been a maelstrom of disillusion and despair in everything I had believed in. Since I covered the worst events in the book, I wanted to find some of the idealism, hope, and optimism that had always led me. I even had the courage to put a photo of myself on this website. Granted, it was from my 50^th birthday. I’ve been rather camera-shy since the accident described in the book.  

My friends said the winds of change were blowing through the country. I’ve been working hard to find hope and new enthusiasm. 

Then I spent Martin Luther King Day watching a two-hour special by Tom Brokaw about “1968.”  Reliving the events of that year and remembering the effect they had on my personal life shocked me into tears. I heard Tommy Smothers say “I miss the optimism.” I heard Arlo Guthrie say he too thought we would “begin to relax as human beings and get along.” 

And I began to understand why I was having trouble answering my sons’ question. It wasn’t the venom I’d experienced since 2004; it was that venom hadn’t gone away. I have no idea whether we cover up more corruption now or then. I have no idea whether there is actually more violence. I just know there was too much venom then and there’s too much now! 

Someone interviewed complained about those foolish young people who “thought what you thought was right” and would go to any lengths to change the system. Someone else said the “culture wars began” then. But class disagreements have always existed in this country. My impression is that the 1960’s were just the first time people complained loudly in public instead of griping in private. 

And I can’t blame one generation of youth. I’m not certain there is a difference between the instant changes demanded by the radicals of the ’60’s and the demand for a magic pill, cure-all surgery, or financial bailout of this generation. Both want instant gratification. If the baby boomers are sometimes called “spoiled and self-indulgent,” then what is the characteristic of this nation listening to a constant barrage of commercials promising instant cures for pain, age, and fear? People today who hate those who disagree with their beliefs are no less venomous than officials of the Inquisition! 
 

Mr. Brokaw asked what was worth keeping and what should be thrown out? The first thing I thought of was that silly old slogan “Love it or Leave it.” I had the idealistic notion that if you loved this country, you should stay and try to improve it. I still do. I still prefer troublemaking whistleblowers to polite hypocrites. There are things wrong that need to be fixed. Love means having the courage to tackle the job of repair. 

We went to the moon that same year. One of the astronauts recalled seeing the earth rise over the moon’s horizon and realizing for the first time “really how fragile the Earth is and how limited our resources.” Amen! That’s still true. And it’s as simple as this: if we’re not doing things to improve conditions, we’re allowing their destruction. That’s as true for the welfare of human beings as it is for the physical environment. 

No matter what your politics, no matter what your religious beliefs, no matter what your race, no matter what you see as differences, we are all human. There’s only one way for us to survive: Co-exist and Cooperate!  

Mr. Obama, I wish you well. Don’t let the venom discourage you. Keep trying and we’ll all find hope. Because the alternative is despair!

Words have become tricky these days! During the election the situation reached nearly intolerable levels, but, let’s face it, it’s a general epidemic. For example, in the months leading up to the election, if I looked at how bad things are and said I wanted to see a “change”, it was no longer considered a simple statement of fact. It became an excuse for others to attack. And I never even had to mention my political leanings! 

Why do so many words have a hidden agenda today? Why do people talk about a word as being a “code” for a whole set of ideas? 

Words have been usurped. Euphemisms have become coded messages that take on implications that were never intended. “Pro-life” is a classic example. Originally meaning “in favor of the value of human life” it has become a term that carries the hidden message that a woman, whether poor, raped, or otherwise traumatized, has no right to the value of her life or the life of her other children. In fact, it sometimes appears to carry the meaning that sex-education and knowledge about preventing unwanted pregnancies should be banned. I’m confused. 

Why doesn’t “pro-life” mean providing better living conditions in wretched neighborhoods? Better education and nutrition for the children already born? Better employment opportunities than the local gangs, drugs dealers, and extortionists? Better health, more hope, and a high possibility to be productive and prosocial members of society? When did the focus get shifted away from these needs for living human beings?   

Let’s take some other examples from dictionary definitions. “Right” and “Left” as political terms come from the European habit of seating more conservative members to the right of the assembly, and those more interested in reform to the left of the assembly hall. Okay, so some people are slower to change and others want change faster. Sounds like a debate between the two desires is what leads to a reasonable middle ground. 

But for months (years?) now I’ve heard these words used as insults in a venomous tone of voice that totally disrespects the other viewpoint. Why bother to listen to each other’s reasons and debate the best choice? It seems easier to dismiss the effort of thinking by simply making it clear that the other person is less than human and doesn’t deserve to be listened to. 

Before you get any angrier with my questioning of these words, ask yourself why you’re angry. Anger is an emotion produced in response to a threat. By definition, it’s not a rational decision, but rather a gut response to feeling hurt. So are you reacting by feeling hurt that I am suggesting that some people are too lazy to listen and then think? Are you feeling threatened by the accusation that you might be one of those lazy venomous people? 

I know that trying to be logical or rational about people’s pet causes might irritate some people. But I think it’s worth the risk of irritating some readers because I am more afraid of the damage caused by not thinking. Language misuse, without thought as to what a word really means, leads to assumptions. And when we assume we’re right and everyone who disagrees is wrong, that leads to bias, bad action, and poor choices. In fact it can lead to violence and abuse. 

People not only don’t know what words really mean anymore; they actually use them in ways almost diametrically opposed to the word originally meant! Elitist has become a dirty word. But it used to be a compliment. It used to mean that someone had more knowledge, education, or skills than the average.  

Acronyms and the need for short “sound bites” aren’t encouraging us to think more; they’re encouraging laziness to the point of non-thinking. Popular culture is beginning to recognize this. Let me give you an example: LOL developed as a shorthand, an acronym for finding something funny enough to cause you to laugh. (Whether it was a belly laugh, a chortle, or a mere chuckle wasn’t specified.) Now’s there’s a television commercial that suggests you need a better way to explain the thought in your own words. In other words, we’re beginning to realize that synonyms aren’t thesame word. Instead they carry different subtleties that affect what we are actually expressing. 

I’m frightened because I know that labeling and venom go hand in hand; the former encourages the latter. We’ve come to see that in racism, sometimes even in sexism. But now it seems that political views have become the new arena for slurs, violence, and disrespect.  

With language being such a unique and important characteristic of humanity, it grieves me to lose the richness available in expressing ourselves just because we’re sometimes too lazy to bother to think. In my recent book, I detail four and a half years of people acting badly because they were too lazy to think about the consequences of their actions and words. You can’t blame me for worrying!

You see, any flood is worse if it’s sludge that rising around you. Not simple survival problems, but a toxic brew of greed and power-hunger that leads to corruption and ethical violations by the very officials in whom we trust to preserve our security. Mix that with apathy and feelings of helplessness, and you’ve got an overwhelming mess indeed.

Lately when I work with depressed clients, they often ask, “In a world where evil and injustice surrounds us, how can we regain hope? How can we restore our faith in the good of humanity?” The recent election campaign seemed to make everyone rise to a new level of unthinking assumptions and raging anger. New stories of political corruption and senseless violence assault us daily. What’s going on?

The fact remains that your happiness is intertwined with your outlook on life. If you feel helpless and hopeless, you will see everything through the filter of despair. The worst part is that it becomes a Catch-22 situation. If you don’t speak up for change, than nothing changes, thereby re-affirming your already grim outlook. We’re talking about keeping on striving instead of just giving up.

I’ve heard anger described as “a desire for vengeance.” But I’ve always seen anger as a response to a threat, that energizing emotion that pushes for change. The example I give my clients is to imagine someone is standing on your toe. Your polite request that they move doesn’t get any response. Finally you lose your patience and shout “Get off my toe” while pushing them hard. Results achieved!

But if you go beyond that level of energy and inflict damage on the other person, I think you’ve lost your battle. You’ve wasted more energy than it took to make the change, and you’ve lost your high moral ground because you’ve escalated the violence. (Okay, okay, I admit to being heavily influenced by Gandhi and Martin Luther King. But they still make sense to me. Anger isn’t something you want to have; it’s just an emotion of last resort. Better to not waste more energy on it than it takes to be productive.
The question is really how long can you keep at a fight that is does not have one clear victory. Life is more like a series of small choices that will steer you in the right direction. Sometimes those tiny decisions and actions can make you feel like you’re banging your head against the wall. What keeps you going? How can you not be hurt by it? Hope is the antidote to fear!
Having just been absorbed in writing about my own true story of life-changing disaster and the recovery that followed, I began to realize that the whole process was more like white-water canoeing. The point is to arrive in one piece at your destination. Yes, there are bumps and bruises along the way but each small push in the right direction will help you achieve that final goal. The funny part was that I realized how exciting canoeing is and how I used to enjoy the ride itself. The process of getting there was part of the joy of arriving.

So maybe hope is what keeps us buoyant! Fear makes us flinch and cringe; it stops us from doing what we know is right. Hope that we can affect a change is what helps us keep moving. One small action can increase momentum; it can increase the chance of a good outcome. No action is just apathy, and that leads to inertia – no change at all.

I know the world isn’t perfect. Sometimes people behave in ways that are downright wrong. So I’m hoping that one small voice, one tiny choice, one daily action, will help create the changes that will make the world a better place for all of us. Wish me luck! And please, join me in my efforts.

My new book is available now at Amazon.com!

And for those loyal (and impatient!) readers, we’re offering a 20% discount if you order in advance through this website. That’s just $ 11.96! (Add $ 3.54 for shipping costs –2-3 day delivery in a cushioned envelope. Total: $ 15.50!)
When it hits bookstores, the list price is $14.95 US (9.50 GBP or 11.75 E + VAT). And copies will be available through this website as well as though your Amazon U.S. and Amazon U.K. But if you are reading this now, the above advance discount is available to you. Orders are already coming in, so don’t miss out. Order now.

And because of all your requests to read my other books all at once instead of in installments, we will also be reprinting both Realistic Leadership and Living Your Religion in the Real World within the next year. Meanwhile, we have limited copies of the original paperback editions. So if you can’t wait, feel free to order now. Also soon to be in print is a follow-up book, tentatively called Expecting the Best in People: An Antidote to Human Venom.

For nearly forty years, I’ve been working to bring out the positive potential in people. Through books, teaching, in-service training, and my clinical work, I’ve striven to bring to life the concepts of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies and realistic solutions to difficult problems. I kept that faith and hope through numerous adventures in some strange and dangerous situations. Imagine my horror to have my world turned upside down by events in one small California county!

In spite of a heavy schedule (explained in detail in the new book) I’ve tried to keep up on articles for this website. If you’ve wondered why they are sometimes more pensive than current, it’s because I needed a break from the study of evil in all its forms from the vicious to the pointless. After all these years of studying and expecting the best from people, I found myself immersed in a nightmare of petty maliciousness that I call human venom.
Sometimes there were so many comments and requests coming in that I could not answer them all. If they were similar in content, I’ve tried to respond by writing about the subject. From now on (and with the help of my new team of Site Managers!), I’ll try to answer more individual queries. With the book manuscript finished and approaching press time, in the future I should be able to be more interactive and more current.

Only now am I beginning to find the energy to emerge from the gloom and reunite my understanding of the worst in people with my previous work in finding the best in them. Thanks to my colleagues, my patients, my family, and my friends, I’ve been able to begin to make sense of an epidemic of apparently senseless violence and corruption. And I’m finding a way to build an antidote to this epidemic of petty evil. But more about that later, as I try to share what I’ve learned in the last few years. Because evil doesn’t have to happen everyday. And WE can stop it!

Self-Deceiving Prophecies occur when you believe the worst about others and your own future, and then act in ways that make them come to pass. Current news stories and this current election appear to be full of examples of this. I admit that having just finished a book on the venom humans can spew at their worst has made me sensitive to such examples. But the mundane but malicious evil that I call “human venom” seems to be turning into an epidemic. Unreasoning hatred of others appears to be an epidemic!
Let me give you an example of this phenomenon. Last week I walked into a local store. I said a cheery hello to the clerk (let’s call her “Corky,” a pseudonym to save the real person embarrassment.) I’d had many friendly conversations with her before, mostly about our favorite movies and the difficulties of life in a rural area.

But something was different this time. Her radio was tuned to a station whose announcer was sounded loud and angry. I couldn’t even make out the subject of his rant, but when I suggested that she turn that station off, an amazing thing happened. My friendly neighborhood shopkeeper started yelling something about a presidential candidate lying. I smilingly and non-committedly said I wasn’t sure I trusted anyone politician.
Whereupon “Corky” started yelling that documents had been forged, the candidate wasn’t even a citizen, and how could he be allowed to run for office! The extreme statements were of such an intense hostility that I couldn’t resist asking her where she had gleaned this information. She furiously informed me that if I read the blogs and emails, I’d know the facts too. I suggested that chatting on the Web did not always yield reliable information, and asked for her sources.

At which point she turned on me, indicating that my very calmness proved I was the Enemy! She yelled at me, “Well, at least I’m not a Socialist! I work for a living!” Confused, I pointed out that I did too, as she well knew. Furthermore, I had never been a registered member of any Socialist Party, so I had no idea why she had turned on me so suddenly.

Remember, so far, I had not even made a statement for or against either presidential candidate. My worst crime appears to have been that I was calm when she thought I should have been angry. Under the watchful eye of a seemingly just-as-confused young customer, I dropped the few items I intended to pick up and fled the store. Out in the parking lot, I found I was still shaking from the intensity of the hostile verbal assault.

I had the oddest feeling that even if I walked back into the store waving the American flag, I still wouldn’t know what to say to her to get us back to friendly conversation or to be safe from further attack. She knew that two of my three sons had spent years with the Army in Iraq. (In fact, one of those sons is career military.) Two of my sons appear to be supporting one candidate, one was leaning towards the other candidate, and I was still making up my mind. So what was all that anger about?

I’m still afraid to go back into that store, and I’m pretty sure that “Corky” retains ideas and stereotypes of me that just aren’t true. But where did they come from?

Back to speaking of American democracy and reasoned debate. (Well, we were talking about presidential elections, weren’t we?) I realize that something has changed over the sixty years I’ve been alive. I thought that political campaigns were a time for gathering accurate information and having serious discussions, then making a choice while realizing that no one can predict with 100% accuracy what crisis will occur and what any human being will do when faced with that crisis and a gaggle of other politicians who all have different opinions on what should be done.

But I didn’t think that democracy meant that if I said I like strawberry ice cream while you preferred pistachio, that it might result in your picking up a chair and bashing me over the head while screaming insults. Is that what our society is coming to? Are we headed for Nazi Germany and the overnight stereotyping and vilification of anyone who disagrees with you? Is what a Self-Deceiving Prophecy leads to?

Is history in danger of repeating itself? Has it become okay to label a person different and then make them a criminal and a scapegoat? Remember, we’re talking about vilification NOT based on evidence but on assumptions!

It makes me glad I took a break from writing timely articles during this election season. I’m not sure I would have been prepared for the mindless stereotyping and vicious vilification that is everywhere! As my new book describes, I’ve been dealing with a county-level version of this maliciousness for the last four years. We’re all in serious trouble if human venom has become a terminal infection!

P.S. And for those of you who are interested, the only practical result of the incident I described above was to convince me that I could never vote for a candidate who inspired such mindless anger and hatred in his supporters!

Love is when your partner catches you without makeup, wearing bluejeans and a flannel shirt and says, “Gosh, you’re beautiful!” Love is when you kiss your partner when he’s sweaty and dirty from fixing the spark plugs on your car while ignoring the fact he’s worn his best shirt doing it.

Love is saying “Good work!” to your teenager when he’s gotten two B’s and three C’s on his report card and you know he has the ability to be an A student. Love is when your teenager breaks curfew on Saturday, and you remember when you were 14 years old, and you only ground him for 48 hours.

Love is video-taping your third-grader’s recital and watching it three times. Love is helping him clean his room (for the third day in a row) when you think the job could have been done in half the time, and you are not being an old grouch about it!

Love is the first time your 2-year-old says “Goo’ night, mama” and kisses you before he goes to bed. Love is not using your temper when he calls you a “bad guy” because you said he can’t eat chocolate chips before dinner. Love is teaching someone you care about to drive — without flinching.

Love is packing your family’s lunches at 6 in the morning when all you want to do is stare at the wall and drink your daily dose of caffeine before you head off to work. Love is letting the kids make cookies when you know you’ll get stuck with the dishes.

Love is getting up at 4 AM to catch a plan at 7 AM, so you can spend time with your sister in New York, when you could have slept until 10 AM.

To all of you I wish love, and gifts from the heart, no matter when you receive them. And most of all, I wish you the ability to recognize those gifts and be thankful for the treasures they put in your heart!

I have to admit he touched upon the roots of despair: the repetition of disaster. Oh sure, we can all deal with the occasional crisis, the one-time emergency. Even an out and out disaster can bring out the hero or heroine in us, the chance to show we have the right stuff. But give any of us a series of even minor failures, and the staunchest optimist begins to have trouble finding the silver lining.

People cope with these times in various ways. Some talk about “a run of bad luck.” Others blame it on “bad karma” and try to figure out what they did to deserve such trials. But eventually, faced with a long enough series of unexpected blows, most of us end up like Job wailing out a despairing “Why Me?”

There isn’t any good answer, of course. Well-meaning friends who spout off lines like “Into every life a little rain must fall,” are asking for a black eye! Let’s face it: everybody has times of despair when nothing will cheer them up. Climbing out of this kind of hopelessness doesn’t happen overnight. But there are steps you can take to nurture the seeds of hope, and to slow down the sense of impending doom.

The best kind of hope is based on reality. Trying to cheer up by pretending that a miracle will occur will only make things worse in the long run. Building your hopes on illusion will only set you up for a bigger fall. If you’re $20,000 in debt and your spouse has filed for divorce, don’t count on winning the Lottery this week, or on your spouse’s having a change of heart.

Above all, don’t fall prey to the Scarlett O’Hara Syndrome of “I won’t think about it now. I’ll think about it tomorrow.” If you’re sliding downhill into despair, complete denial of your problems will only rob you of a chance to minimize their destructive effects. Imagine what a different ending “Gone With The Wind” would have had if Scarlett had only thought about the effects of her actions!

Start by getting your problems into some manageable framework. Write down a list of the crises facing you. Such a list has limits: you’ll find it is not endless, and that itself can bring a sense of relief. Now list the worst possible effects or outcome of each problem. Find out exactly what it is you are dreading. Vague fears are often more unsettling than knowing exactly what it is you fear.

Now go over your list to see what you might do to deal with each situation, or at least to avoid its worst consequences Write down each idea that occurs to you. Remember that chances are that you could handle each situation on its own. It’s only their combined effect that has you feeling overwhelmed. Break them into small manageable pieces, and promise yourself to do at least one thing daily to improve the situation.

You don’t have to believe that things will get better overnight to build hope. Be realistic about accepting how bad they are, and start improving the situation one step at a time. You don’t have to pretend a cheeriness you don’t feel. Cry if you need to. Then start taking steps to make sure you have a little less to cry about tomorrow.

Who knows? One day soon, you may wake up and find that things are no longer getting worse. You may even realize that they seem to be getting better. And that day is worth working for!

Everybody who has tried to break a habit like smoking or chewing their fingernails knows this paradox. Every therapist who has watched clients resisting the very changes they said they wanted can attest to the strength of this dilemma.

We can often see clearly what we want to change, and yet have a devil of a time actually making those changes. Why?

There is an explanation. The process only seems mysterious because most people fail to realize how interconnected the parts of their life are. We tend to see things in separate pieces, as if they were in categories that existed in a vacuum. We don’t always make allowances for the way we have fitted all those pieces together. Changing one piece can disturb a subtle balance we have achieved. And that disturbance can be enough to derail our attempts to change.

Many people who complain of man unhappy marriage, for example, fail to realize how many adaptations they have made in order to keep that marriage going. People who have developed apparently self-destructive behaviors in order to cope with an abusive or severely disturbed spouse may find their marriage deteriorating as their personal health improves.

People with severe work or stress problems may find that the situation in their workplace is working against their attempts to build a satisfying life. People in families with unhealthy behavior patterns may find the rest of their family complaining as the so-called patient gets better.

We all live in a complex set of relationships. Trying to improve the parts of our lives that cause us pain requires that we also make adjustments in the parts of our lives that give us satisfaction. This doesn’t mean that we can’t change. And it doesn’t mean that we have to choose between old relationships and new ones.

Many people panic and stop making changes because they are afraid of suddenly having to choose between their old life and a new one.

Any program for change, whether done by yourself or with the aid of therapy, requires a careful evaluation of both the good and the bad parts of your life. Don’t expect the people around you to wholeheartedly accept your ‘improvements.’ They may see these changes as threatening to the status quo that they have come to depend on. You yourself may sometimes feel threatened by the changes you thought you wanted.

One reason that long-lasting change occurs slowly is that going slowly gives you time to make adjustments everywhere in your life. You can bring the best of the past with you, even as you build new ways of behaving. Let the other people in your life share in the process. Find out what adjustments they need to feel safer with your changes.

Evaluate your own priorities, and don’t be upset when you can’t change unwanted habits overnight. Working slowly to adapt your whole emotional and social environment can make changing easier and smoother. You don’t have to be a different person to improve your life. Subtle changes can be more rewarding than overnight makeovers!

Without humor, life would be unbearably flat, and our conversations exceedingly dull. Our lack or perspective and balance would make our world seem too grim to bear.

I’m always amazed when people complain about my humor. I accept that my jokes aren’t always terrific. But I’m really shocked when the reason turns out to be because some people don’t feel it’s ever appropriate for a professional to ever be funny. Some people think that adults, especially doctors, should take life seriously. No laughter, no frivolity, just the facts, ma’am. (By the way, if you’re too young to recognize the reference, check out any version of Dragnet. Those detectives are so serious they’re funny.)

While there are some topics I never make light of, I have to admit that generally I find life pretty funny. Laughter is one way of admitting we don’t know all the answers, and that we often get our priorities mixed up. The ability to laugh at ourselves is very special. Without it, we take ourselves much too seriously.

If you can laugh at yourself, you can admit there’s room for improvement. When you laugh at life’s ups and downs, you are acknowledging that it isn’t perfect. I like the older satirists like Tom Lehrer and Mark Russell who made us realize how funny politics can be. Or Erma Bombeck and Peg Bracken who made us smile at home life. (I found them especially useful in those years when I was raising three sons!) While world politics and family life are serious areas, laughing at them can keep us from despair.

Despair makes us apathetic, but laughter doesn’t. Hopefulness keeps us moving towards change. Laughter is hope. It makes us realize that we are smart enough to see through the problem, and strong enough to do something about it. Even in situations that seem overwhelming, laughing at something silly can do more to create energy for a change than crying over the inevitable. And nothing defuses a fight faster than when both parties suddenly start laughing over the silliness of it all. Laughter can help reduce pain, improve your immune system, and increase your overall health.

People who are anxious and depressed have often lost the ability to laugh, especially at themselves. Everything seems serious and dreary. You don’t have to be a Pollyanna, always looking for the good side of bad things. Nor should you plaster on a fake smile and pretend things aren’t as bad as they seem. We’re not talking about that old advice to count your blessings, although that can certainly be helpful. No, we’re talking about the fact that we can all look pretty funny when we’re climbing out of the pits.

The best kind of humor can help us feel closer to other people, not farther away. It can give us hope by refreshing our perspective. It can keep us from being pompous or self-righteous. Laughter makes us part of the human race, and that’s a pretty funny race to be running!

I personally feel that the opposite is usually the case. Someone who enters therapy is often healthier than average because they recognize their problems and are trying to work on them. Furthermore, they are smart enough to seek the help of an objective and experienced professional. But the old stigma attached to ‘emotional problems’ continues to haunt all of us.

Many people feel that they ought to be able to solve their problems all by themselves. They bottle up their anxieties until they are like a pressure cooker without a safety valve. They develop signs of stress, such as irritability, depression, or even physical complaints like headaches or ulcers. They may turn to alcohol or drug abuse to further mask the pain of their unshared problems. No one is an island, and none of us is so perfect that we can solve all out problems alone. It just doesn’t work!

Other people believe that it is a sign of weakness to consult an ‘outsider’ about their problems. They unburden themselves to family or friends. Unfortunately, those close to us are usually too close to be of much help. Our friends may not have the objectivity to help us choose between alternatives. They may not have the knowledge to know how to help us, even when their intentions are good.

No one can ‘tell’ you the answer to your problem. A good therapist will help you explore and understand your difficulties. He or she may even suggest things to try, and help you experiment with new behaviors and evaluate the results. But competent professionals know that you cannot wave a magic wand and solve problems instantly.

All too often our friends, precisely because they don’t like to see us in pain, offer advice or suggest simple solutions without really encouraging us to figure out exactly what is happening. This can be very dangerous. We may become more frustrated trying out ‘answers’ that don’t fit our specific situations. We may begin to resent friends who try to simplify problems we have been suffering with for weeks or months.

The next time you find yourself struggling with pent-up feelings and continuing unhappiness, ask yourself the following questions:

If your car had engine trouble, would you take it to an experienced mechanic or ask all your friends to offer their opinions on what is wrong?

If you broke your leg, would you insist on handling it by yourself?

The way to save time, money, and hassles is to invest in the services of a professional who has worked with these kinds of problems before. Are your health and happiness worth less than your body or your car? Think about it!

It can seem like visiting a well-planned flower garden, or a fearsome jungle filled with quicksand. I know people who look forward to the chance to renew family ties, and people who dread the very thought of seeing Aunt and Uncle So-and-So again.

It’s all relative. (Pardon the pun.) The more you like the people you’ll be seeing, the more fun you’ll have. But sometimes a sense of obligation gets in the way of just enjoying people.

When you go see your friends, you’re conscious that you choose them because of what you like about them. Sometimes we forget there are things to like about our families because we’re so busy thinking we ‘have to’ be nice to them.

It’s true there are many different kinds of people in every family gathering. Nowadays the problem is complicated by the variety of lifestyles. Divorce, remarriages, and blended families make for a multiplicity of personalities and interests. But instead of getting hung up on having to like all these people, why not relax and try to see the good things in each of them?

You may be so used to your own relatives that you haven’t given yourself a chance to see how you’ve all grown over the years. You may be so familiar with your family that you have your own expectations about them. And these assumptions become Self-Fulfilling Expectations, making us see the glass half-empty instead of half full.

Take the time to listen and look with the same courtesy you’d give a stranger. You might be surprised at how much more interesting they’ve become. Meeting new relatives through remarriage or family blending can make you nervous too. But don’t think of it as a chore or obligation. Pretend it’s a club or party that you’re thinking of joining. Instead of worrying about how they see you, look for what’s fun about them.

I was lucky enough to be welcomed into a family that already had a lot of love and tolerance for all its members. They taught me a lot about how families can let people grow and change, while still holding on to the special relationships developed in childhood. New members came and went, each judged on their own merits and each given the benefit of the doubt.

But even if your family has trouble adapting to changes, you can take a big role in encouraging a better family atmosphere. Start the ball rolling by taking the time to let your favorite relatives know how much you appreciate them. Then practice listening to your least favorite relatives and make it a treasure hunt to find something to like in every one of them.

See your family as a garden, with new plants coming up all the time. Stop worrying about your own image and don’t feel forced. Make it a conscious choice to weed out the negative thoughts and feelings that have sprouted over the years. You’ll be surprised at the richness of the crop you’ll harvest when the summer season is over.

Choosing to have a good relationship with your relatives takes effort on your part. A little consideration goes a long way toward ensuring pleasant family get-togethers. Look at your family members with a new perspective, and see them as potential friends. Find something to like in every one of them, and watch the family garden burst into bloom.

When exposed to the particular vagaries in this state (i.e. a million microclimates), you learn fast where your escape hatches are. Temperatures and humidity levels vary widely from town to town. Add summer heat and water shortages and you have a simmering cauldron of discomfort if you’re not careful.

Temporary breakdowns are so common that they’re not even considered creative around here. The number of people going home from work because they just can’t cope reaches epidemic proportions this time of year. While sunshine is a positive characteristic, it can be a bit too much of a good thing, especially when accompanied by triple-digit temperatures.

Some people recommend technological coping strategies, but these tend to be impractical. Air conditioning, as we all know, was designed to test your adaptability by plunging you from tropic heat to sub-arctic temperatures instantaneously. Besides, apart from putting you into shock and making it necessary to wear a winter coat over your summer suits, who can afford the electricity? Who can afford the gasoline, if you happen to spend hours in the local traffic jam?

Scientific studies have shown that the low pressure areas preceding a storm result in increased depression in the general population. Scientists are not clear whether this is a result of being trapped in a temperature inversion along with all that air pollution, or a result of being trapped in your office with 20 or 30 other hot and steamy people who’d rather be at the beach. Lethargy and apathy combine with staring out windows for a scene right out of a zombie horror movie.

And it doesn’t take a scientist to see the increased anxiety in those living in areas prone to fires. Crankiness and terminal irritability can accompany any of these patterns. Calling in sick by pleading a summer cold is the best coping strategy for not spreading the epidemic of poor mental health, unless, of course, you really have a summer cold. In that case I’d advise going in to the office. After all, you can be miserable there as well as anywhere else.

The list of creative pathologies, however, is both long and fascinating. For example, the sudden compulsion to take one’s clothes off and lie motionless until one is the color of a fresh-cooked lobster. Or the less anachronistic alternative of wearing paper goggles while being sprayed from all sides with sunless tanner, so you can turn terra-cotta instead of orange. Then there is the obsession to find out exactly what causes heat prostration by jogging on the side of the road until the sweat leaves a tangible trail behind you.

More creative (and lazier) souls may develop the hobby of driving down well-jogged paths while rating participants on a scale of one to ten. The muscular hunk in skin-tight shorts? 10 of course! The stout gentleman puffing along with a red face? You guessed it! Or grab a board with wheels or wax and get hit in the face with water or wind (or both) to lower your body temperature.

Some creative responses boggle the mind. Many of us put on woolen suits or corsets and petticoats to recreate the Civil War. Then we battle for hours in the hot sun while inhaling clouds of black powder smoke. Why we do this in the heat of summer is a good question. Although having to dry a rain-soaked canvas tent does put a damper of recreating in cooler seasons. Ren Faire addicts are in a similar dilemma, with heat stroke coming in only barely ahead of damp and muddy.

Affordability is the only obstacle to backyard swimming pools, month-long vacations in other climates, and similar escapist strategies. But those are so average. Let’s all hear it for the creative and somewhat crazy ways to survive the summer!

A lot of readers found a chord touched by the book excerpt on Self-Fulfilling Prophecies (SFP). But I wrote that book from the perspective of a manager working with other people. Being a business manual, it was focused on the Other rather than the Self. It’s important to look at what we expect of ourselves, and how we fulfill that prophecy. In this article, we’ll explore the effect of high expectations; next time, we’ll explore the effect of ones that are too low.

But what about the expectations we have of ourselves, the SFP’s that affect every day of our own lives? Let’s talk today about tending your own garden. (With apologies to Voltaire.) I don’t mean literally, of course, but figuratively. Nor am I referring to those people who should be told to ‘Mind your own onions,’ as the French would say. (Of course, they say it en francais, naturalement.) No, I’m talking about setting limits to what you can expect from yourself.

Sometimes people forget the value of their own gardens. Instead of focusing on the joys and achievements of just getting through an ordinary day, they feel guilty because they haven’t been awarded the Nobel Prize or made the front cover of Time Magazine. They measure their self-worth by a mythical ideal of fame and fortune. (No, 10 seconds on YouTube doesn’t count!) The unreality of this boggles the mind. (I can say it this harshly because I often fall into this trap, and I’m the pot calling the kettle black.)

You can’t judge yourself by how many people are cheering for you. Hitler got millions to cheer for him, which doesn’t say much for the value of public opinion.

You can’t judge yourself by how much you’ve accumulated. Do I even have to mention Howard Hughes or Ferdinand Marcos?

You can’t judge yourself by age comparisons either. As the musical satirist Tom Lehrer once exclaimed in mock dismay, ‘When Mozart was my age, he’d been dead for ten years!’

Do you have to be perfect to matter in this world? If so, then no one matters, because famous people are not more perfect than the rest of us! (As recent news stories confirm!)

Making a positive impact on your small corner of the world may do more for world peace and happiness than a thousand famous efforts. Why make yourself a martyr to unrealistic expectations? If you compare your achievements to impossibly high standards, you are setting yourself up for low self-esteem and chronic disappointment.

I have found that reading honest accounts of famous people’s lives to be a good corrective for this kind of self-abuse. Measure for yourself decades of struggle against a few moments in the limelight. Can you really say that isolating a specific chemical is more valuable than raising a couple of happy, healthy children? What about heroes who neglected their families while they pursued a single goal? And then there are heroes who pursued lofty goals because they had lost someone special.

It can be an easy way out to ignore mundane responsibilities while pursuing lofty goals. If you do both, then you’re a rare person. As a veteran of the sixties, I have to admit that I feel I’ve accomplished more in raising three sons and helping my clients understand themselves than I ever did at marching and protesting. In the long run, my actions in my sphere of influence, my garden, have had more impact on the world than all my protesting over other people’s actions

Protest what’s wrong with public actions if you don’t approve of them. But don’t neglect your own impact while you do. Be fair to yourself. Give yourself credit for tending your own garden. You don’t need blue ribbons to prove it’s a beautiful place to be.

Suddenly we want an ‘Easy Button’ — a minister, a therapist, a book — any magic potion that will take away the pain and make all the bad things less overwhelming. But nothing is easy at that point! And don’t let your friends fool you. Someone says ‘ But it will end,’ as though that makes the current pain go away. But it doesn’t!

One of the phrases I personally hate most is ‘God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.’ I find that highly debatable, especially since I can’t read Creator’s mind and right this minute may be totally unable to figure out what He/She was thinking when She/He decided to dump all this stuff on me at once!

It’s always fun to find like-minded people, and recently I read some great thoughts on the subject, so I’ll quote from Ellen Degeneres’ book ‘The Funny Thing Is.’ On page 126 she says:
‘1) What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. (Translation: what doesn’t kill you puts you in a whole lot of pain and makes you cry a lot and want to crawl into a hole forever and live with rodents.)
2) Adversity builds character. (Translation: you become bitter and angry and people hate you even more.)
3) God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle. (unless God’s in on it and doesn’t like you either.)’

Besides, most of your friends are going to get tired and cranky themselves because you don’t just cheer up at the sound of platitudes. Nobody likes to feel powerless to help. Well, sometimes we just have to grieve! Like it or not, we will have to cry it out, and nobody can say how long that will take.

And part of what makes the grieving so tangled and agonizing is that your feelings aren’t simple. They are all mixed up with sadness and grief, and even actual physical pain. You know, like ‘kick in the stomach’ or ’stabbed in the back’? Then add in the anger, the fury, the rage over how unfair this all is. Why me?! Multiply by the agony of wondering whether it’s happened to you because you did something wrong, you didn’t see the danger signals, or worst of all, the nagging fear that you are just so bad and worthless that you deserve all the rotten torture the universe can throw at you! Did I mention the feeling of powerlessness that compounds the problem?

These complicated feelings are what makes it so difficult to somehow swim past the hurricane around you. Your fear itself may add to the pain, agony, and guilt to make your feelings overwhelming. And let’s face it, it’s really your feelings that are overwhelming, not the outside events.

While there is no ‘Easy Button, ‘ there are things that can help. The most important to remember is that if you can make a 10% improvement in several areas, the cumulative effect may get closer to a 100% improvement!

Summoning every resource available to you is the beginning step, as long as you don’t assume that any one of them is the only solution. Talking to a psychologist or counselor helps. Choose a professional with a great deal of experience. Since they are not emotionally involved in your situation, they can use that objective view of options to help you plan your strategy for climbing out of the barrel. Their compassion and understanding of the ranges of human behavior can also be a comfort to you. You are neither alone nor unique. Human beings get upset when they are overwhelmed.

If you have a spiritual advisor or group that you respect and trust, you may also find some comfort in speaking to them about finding a broader meaning to the catastrophe that is happening to you. Talking to someone or reading books may help you remember that there is a greater meaning in all our lives. You may not figure out what lesson you are supposed to learn, but just considering the possibility that there is a greater lesson may bring about a small measure of reassurance and stability.

When I’m knocked on my butt by some terrible events, I personally find comfort in remembering the Chinese proverb: ‘Those whom the gods love, they teach with a heavy stick.’ I may wish the blows to get my attention weren’t so heavy, but it comforts me to believe that someday I will understand the lessons that seem so invisible right now!

As we’ve discussed before, this is a good time to make a plan. Break the overwhelming into small pieces and pick one small thing that will improve just that one piece. Setting priorities is important, but don’t be afraid to start with the lesser problems first. Getting back some sense of control will help you get your footing again.

And don’t listen to the ‘crabs’ who try to pull you down with discouraging words. Or to well-meaning friends who say ‘you’ve cried enough. Get over it.’ If you hide your pain and anger, and force yourself to move on before you’re ready, you may lose the chance to learn the lessons and find the meaning inherent in your current catastrophes.

It’s your life and your pain, and little by little, you’ll find yourself reducing some of your suffering to a manageable level while you learn just how powerful you can be in the case of disaster. Take it one step at a time, cry when you need to, and take the time to look at the things that have happened. Just don’t listen too much to those who tell you what you should do. Consider your options and choose for yourself.

Why donate? This site has a real cost associated with maintaining it, and Dr. Daniels would like to continue providing it to all who are interested for as long as possible. Additionally, the more income that Dr. Daniels can generate from this site, the more time she will be able to devote to adding content to it for the benefit of all.

To make a donation via PayPal, click the button below.

Thank you for your support and encouragement!

You see, Zen is really an attitude towards life. It encourages people to be natural and spontaneous, yet controlled. It is a creed of doing yet not doing, of relaxing to create energy rather than trying too hard and wasting energy.

A lot of people seem to waste a lot of energy being tense about money. Yes, I know that jobs and resources are scarce. But nowhere in nature does any animal have access to unlimited resources without effort. Why should we expect things to be any different for humans? And is that sufficient reason to be so tense that you cease to enjoy the resources you do have?

I also know that the unexpected expense or catastrophe can come along at any time and wipe out savings. (Do I ever known that! Remind me to tell you about my catastrophes sometime!) But that only means it’s even more essential to develop a healthy attitude towards money that will carry you through the hard times as well as the high times!

Let’s face it. There’s been plenty of research that shows that while having a little more money may help you be happier if you have been struggling below the poverty level, if you’re already middle-class or higher, more money does not automatically result in more happiness.

How do you allow yourself to feel rich when your bank account says you’re not?
By relaxing and accepting your limitations with a certain Zen tolerance, and then letting yourself enjoy what you do have. Build in things that are fun. Don’t let your thoughts about money dominate you just because it’s scarce. If that seems too esoteric and mystical for you, try these tips:

1) Plan ahead and take stock of your assets. Many people find this the most difficult step. List all income, and don’t forget possible income and hidden assets, like things you can sell or services you can barter. Don’t be afraid to know where you stand financially. You might be better off than you think.

2) Set your priorities. Make note of all necessary outlays. And I do mean necessary! Check to see what’s really essential to your survival. Rent or mortgage may be fixed, but many other things are flexible. Look for creative ways to reduce expenses. There are many articles and websites that offer tips on how to cut food, utility, and other bills.

3) Keep a positive attitude. Make it a game to live well on less money, and be cheerful about it. This is a chance to show how much you can learn, and a chance to prove how adaptable you can really be. Make it a challenge to economize, not a choice. It’s really an adventure to see how much you can create from what you have already.

You may not have a choice about how much money you can make, but you do have a choice about the attitude you’re going to have towards money. Planning ahead, setting priorities, and keeping a positive attitude are things you can do. When it comes to money, a little Zen goes a long way. Don’t work so hard you forget to enjoy the adventure!

When I talked with some 13 and 14 year olds that I know, I found that they had a distorted view of child abductors. They felt they were too smart to be lured by promises of candy and too big to be forcibly abducted. They became more thoughtful when I pointed out that grown men could be mugged, and that no one was immune to a gun or a surprise attack.

Rapists and child molesters do not necessarily look seedy or suspicious. They would rather offer a ride to a hitchhiking youngster than resort to a public show of force that might be witnessed. They might stop to ask directions, or for help with reading a map.

They aren’t relying solely on the physical weakness or inexperience of a child; they are relying as well upon the trust of children towards adults. This makes the crime even worse, and the need for educating children even more imperative.

Children should be taught to recognize a potentially dangerous situation, and what to do in such an event. No matter how pleasant a stranger seems, a child should never go over to their car, or even within touching distance.

Teenagers need to be reminded that it is not ‘cool’ to be macho in a case like this. However grown up they feel, they will be helpless against a well-planned or well-rehearsed attack. A real hero will run and get help, not try to fight alone.

Families can help by having a Secret Code Word that only the family knows. Teach them not to go off with anyone who claims to be sent by their parents unless they know the family Secret Code Word. This applies to people with official identification, since ID’s can be forged. (It’s harder to fake a uniform and patrol car, although not impossible.)

And with the growing number of sexual abuse cases within families, teach them that this Code Word is the only secret a family member should ask them to keep! If someone tries to touch them, they should never keep that a secret. All children should be aware that they have the right to say ‘no’ to an adult.

Unfortunately, it isn’t just strangers who may try to molest children and young people. Babysitters, relatives, or the friends of friends may be guilty as well. The most important thing to teach your children is that they should tell an adult they can trust about the assault. No one has the right to touch them in a way that feels bad. And they are not ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ because someone else assaulted them; they are not at fault! Let them know that they are not to blame, and that they will have your support and protection.

There is no simple way to be sure that your child understands these suggestions. You will need to sit and discuss these carefully to be sure your children understand them. Open the lines of communication with your children and keep it an open dialogue, and you can increase their safety without frightening them unnecessarily.

I’m trying to decide whether it’s something I should feel guilty about. Oh yes, being guilty is a choice we make. Deciding to make a judgment that we are wrong is a choice, and feeling rotten enough to punish ourselves takes energy. Before I start feeling like a failure, I think I’ll follow my own guidelines.

Am I angry or resentful? Who’s telling me I have to grow dinner’s vegetables anyway? Is anybody else pressuring me to take over this job, or insisting that it be done? No, I guess not. It’s me that telling myself I ’should’ have done it.

Can I develop a sense of perspective about it? Why do I think I should have done it? I’ve been working hard every week. It would take several hours to plant the garden, then several more to weed and tend it daily. Do I really have the time? Is it really worth it?

Why do I feel responsible?

I guess I’m feeling like I’m supposed to do everything. I remember when I was younger and that tape would play ‘A good wife never lets her family down.’ A real woman could work a 60 hour week, clean the house, pamper her husband, spend time with the kids, entertain her friends, milk the goats and still be able to tend the garden. Hey! Wait a minute! Nobody could do all that!

Let’s be reasonable. Even Superman takes a break just to read a book sometimes. I admit that these days, there’s a few less chores and less people to take care of. Still, I do hate admitting that I’m human. Maybe I’m really telling myself that somebody else could do all these things. But that’s just not being realistic.

What would happen if I didn’t feel guilty?

I don’t think my family or friends would stop loving me. After all, they’ve put up with me this long. Besides, they’re not perfect either. And I love them anyway. I wonder if anybody even notice. My friends will take fresh lettuce that’s store-bought, and nobody else likes weeding the garden either. I bet they’d rather I had the time to bake fresh bread and share that and my time with them instead of weeding the silly garden.

One more thing before I let myself feel bad about myself. I can count my good qualities! Let’s see. I do earn enough to buy fresh vegetables. I do enjoy most of the work I do, and I smile a lot. Maybe the garden isn’t neat, but the house is livable and we all had a great time camping last weekend. I guess I’m not such a bad person after all.

Hey! It works! I don’t have to choose to feel guilty at all! I think I’ll go take a break and bake some homemade bread. I can even read a book while it bakes!

[Addition by Webmaster, NOT Dr. Daniels]:

Here are some related articles:

Dr. Daniels’ Break The Procrastination Pattern

This one from Web Worker Daily discusses taking a break without feeling guilty about it: Be Productively Unproductive Online. Without Guilt.

This article from requiem.net.au discusses the source of guilt in Is Guilt Innate?.

An article from WomenOf.com (a site targeted to women, but with useful information for all) has Get Rid of the Guilt, which discusses steps to overcoming procrastination and guilt.