How It Feels to Be Hooked

It was the late 1940s. Eastern Airline’s chair, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, had a problem. Customers were complaining because the airline was mishandling luggage far too often. When nothing else seemed to work, he decided to take drastic action. 

Rickenbacker called a special meeting of the management personnel in Miami. Eastern’s management flew to Miami and was told their baggage would be delivered to their hotel rooms. It wasn’t. Instead, Rickenbacker had the luggage stored overnight.

It was a hot and humid summer and the muggy hotel had no air-conditioning. Various corporate managers showed up to the meeting the next morning unshaven, teeth unbrushed and wearing dirty and wrinkled clothes.

There was no sign of the baggage all that day. But it was delivered that night, at 3:00 a.m., with a loud pounding on hotel room doors.

Rickenbacker opened the next morning’s session by saying, “Now you know how the customer feels when you mishandle his luggage.” He knew his team would be ineffective until his people learned to empathize with their customers. 

Psychiatrist Karl Menninger put it like this: “It is hard for a free fish to understand what is happening to a hooked one.” That is why Rickenbacker wanted his employees, starting with his management team, to experience what it is like to be hooked.

When we understand another’s problem, we will be more effective in business and personal relationships. And if we’re ever hooked ourselves and someone who “gets it” reaches out to help, something wonderful is likely to happen.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/ePi.Longo

Choosing to End Anger

Angry Bale

Imagine a fine, spring day. A man is driving cheerfully along a picturesque road, which winds through the lazy countryside. Suddenly, from around the next curve, a car barrels toward him in his lane. He brakes hard, and as it swerves past, the woman driver screams at him, “Pig! Pig!”

Furious, he shouts back at her, “Sow! Sow!” Pleased with himself, he drives around the curve and runs smack into a pig.

Anyone can get angry. But like Aristotle pointed out, “To be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way is not so easy.” Which is to say, much of the time we get angry either with the wrong person, or to the wrong degree, or at the wrong time, or for the wrong purpose, or in the wrong way.

Few of us are experts here. And there is no shortage of tried and true anger management techniques. Skilled practitioners tell us to slow down and think before we speak, to take a timeout, to find an emotional “happy place,” to use humor, to learn how to relax or meditate...you may use some of these methods yourself. And these practices certainly have a place in keeping ire in check.

But a piece of advice from ancient wisdom may be the most useful of all. It gets at what is probably the most important thing we can do when we become upset and angry. The advice is this: decide to end it. That’s right; anger should be ended. Get it out, then put it down. Biblical wisdom teaches, “Don’t let the sun set on your anger.”

Anger without end is the worst. As Frederick Buechner (Wishful Thinking) observes: “To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past ... to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back – in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you."

Anyone can get angry and all of us will. But lingering acrimony hurts everyone, especially those who pick away at it. And no anger management technique will work if we don’t finally make the decision to push away from the table and leave it all behind.

Healthy people know not to gorge on anger. At the end of the day, they walk away. They choose to end it. And it’s an easier choice the next time.

-- Steve Goodier

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Let Go or Get Dragged

Image by Lee Wright

Do you know who the hardest person to love is?

The name "Benedict Arnold" is synonymous with "traitor." But he was actually a loyal citizen of what was to become the United States, a gallant soldier and a five-star general. Wounded twice in battle, he was highly respected for his military leadership. He even enjoyed the friendship of George Washington.

Arnold never thought he received the recognition he deserved. During the American Revolutionary War, he saw five subordinates promoted over him, and the blow to his esteem was more than he could manage. The injury to his pride was far greater than those physical injuries he sustained in battle. So he laid plans for revenge.

In 1780, he attempted to betray vital West Point to the British. He later moved to England and was paid a sum of money to compensate for his property loss, but he was never fully accepted in British society. He eventually returned to trading and died a mostly unsuccessful and unhappy man.

Mary Kay Ash (of Mary Kay Cosmetics) said, “There are two things people want more than sex and money -- praise and recognition.” Benedict Arnold is an unfortunate example.

Interestingly, do you know who is the most difficult person to love? It is easy to love friends and not too difficult to love those less fortunate than ourselves. It certainly isn't easy loving enemies, but sometimes the person most difficult to love is the one who is MORE fortunate than we are. The one who receives the promotion we deserved. The one who gets the recognition we desired, the honor we sought or the affections of the lover we had hoped to win. It is easy to resent those who seem to be more fortunate – those who “get all the breaks.”

But as one person said to me, "Let go or get dragged. Unless you let things go, you should be prepared to have that thing drag you around until you have to let it go."

Jealousy? Let go or get dragged.

A desperate need to be appreciated or loved? Let go or get dragged.

A need for recognition that simply isn't coming? Let go or get dragged.

A desire to get credit for your hard work – credit that is going to someone else? Let go or get dragged.

We've all felt these things. And if we want to move beyond them in a healthy way, the answer is to let go or get dragged.

Besides, if you ever want to grab onto something good, you'll need a free hand.

-- Steve Goodier

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Finding the Way Out of Bagamoyo

You've heard the stories. Cruel slavers in bygone years trek into the African interior and capture men, women and children to sell on the slave market. Then, for weeks upon end, they march their captives to the African coast and force them to board ships bound for the New World.

During those long marches from remote villages, newly acquired slaves were made to carry their captor's heavy loads. Historians report that, at the end of an excruciating day, as evening approached, slavers sometimes shouted to their captives in Swahili, "Bwaga mizigo," which means, "Put down your burdens." Only then could they rest.

When the slaves finally reached the coast, they laid down those burdens for the last time. There they boarded ships that took them away from their loved ones and their homeland forever. Some called that place "Bagamoyo," from the words "bwaga" (put down) and "moyo" (heart). Bagamoyo translates to "Put down your heart." In hopelessness and despair, they put down their hearts and left them on the African continent.

Bagamoyo. I've been there. Haven't you? We've been to our own personal places of despair. Imprisoned by fear and worry and doubts. Trapped by grief. Or betrayed by our own bodies – left to languish in illness and pain. We know how it feels to give up. We know how it feels to desperately wonder if we can go on, or even should go on.

And more than once I've been tempted to lay down my heart and leave it behind. Haven't you? I think we've all been to our own Bagamoyos, those places of deep despair.

But here is the hope. If life teaches me anything, it teaches me that my personal Bagamoyo may be a way-point, but I shouldn't make it a destination. We will each find ourselves there from time to time, but it is not a place to remain permanently. Life cautions that I should never lay my heart down in despair never to pick it up again. There is usually a way through our personal Bagamoyo.

Author and playwright Jean Kerr put it like this. She said, "Hope is the feeling you have, that the feeling you have, isn't permanent." Hope does not deny the terrible place in which I may find myself. Oh, that's real enough. But it reminds me that Bagamoyo is only a temporary place. It may seem like a place I'll never leave, but I will. And sometimes it's just enough to know that.

So I've learned to believe in tomorrow. When I believe in tomorrow I can pick up my heart today. When I believe in tomorrow, I can find my way out of Bagamoyo.

And when I do, I'll find my way to life.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: http://www.scottliddell.com/

Laughter Is Cheap Medicine

I know a couple who works in the pharmaceutical industry. He is a sales representative and she is a pharmacist. When asked what they do for a living, he is quick to reply, "She makes drugs and I sell ‘em."

I believe it was Lord Byron who said, "Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine." And researchers are finding that to be true – quite literally.

A woman diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis wrote to me and talked about how painful the disease had become. Debra said that no drugs would touch the devastating pain. "At times I prayed to die because I did not think I could go on this way," she said. But in two and a half years she weaned herself from most of her medication, which had reached a high of 21 pills a day. This is how she did it.

"I began seeing a doctor who gave me the most important prescription that I ever could have received," she said. "He excused himself from the room. I watched him walking back and forth in the hall; he seemed to be in deep thought."

The doctor came back in with this prescription: he told Debra to get some funny movies and to begin laughing (the doc was a Norman Cousins fan, no doubt). If she didn't feel like laughing, then she should smile. If she didn't feel like smiling, she should smile anyway. He said that it would increase endorphins in her brain and help with her pain. In other words, fake it until you make it, like they say.

She did just as he suggested. She laughed when she could. She smiled when she couldn’t laugh. She smiled whether she felt like it or not. Her children teased her about her fake smile, but she told them that it was going to get rid of her pain.

And here’s the amazing thing: it did. Of course, not all of it, but a great deal of her pain eventually dissipated and in time, what was left became manageable – without all of the drugs.

Today, Debra laughs easily and is never seen without her smile. She says that she would not even feel normal without it.

It’s true that laughter really is cheap medicine. It’s a prescription anyone can afford. And best of all, you can fill it right now.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: freeimages/Jotul Oven

Tempering Our Temper

flickr.com/sami_nurmi

A young girl came into the house with a tear in her pants. Her mother was exasperated, as this had happened too many times before. At her wits end, she said to her daughter, "Now you go into your room, take off those pants, and sew up that tear!" The poor child had never held needle and thread in her life.

So understandably, a little while later her mother saw the pants crumpled on the floor of her daughter's bedroom -- still torn. She looked around for her daughter. Spying the basement light on, she called down the stairs, "Are you down there running around with your pants off?"

A big voice boomed up, "No ma'am. I'm reading the gas meter."

Of course, what parent can’t relate to her exasperation?

On the other hand, I DO have trouble understanding the guy in Los Angeles who was arrested for negligent discharge of a weapon after shooting his toilet bowl five times with a handgun (and yes, this is true). Why did he assault the commode? He apparently exploded when he couldn’t extract a hair brush his daughter flushed down.

He might benefit from the advice of one of America’s great presidents, Thomas Jefferson, who cautioned, "When angry, count to ten before you speak; if very angry, count to 100." I think it applies to discharging weapons, too.

Maybe another technique works better for you. One husband asked his wife, "When I get mad at you, you never fight back. How do you control your anger?"

She smiled at him. "I clean the toilet bowl." (Uh-oh, toilets again.)

"How does that help?"

"I use your toothbrush," she said sweetly.

It's not that anger is a bad thing in itself. A good bit of fire in the belly may be needed to right the world’s wrongs. But this isn’t about righteous indignation. It’s about tempering our temper.

I’ve seen marriages destroyed, careers derailed and relationships of all kinds decimated by uncontrolled rage. It’s no wonder all of the world’s great religions have something to say about it. To name a few, the Buddha said, "You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger." The prophet Muhammad said, "He is not strong and powerful who throws people down, but he is strong who withholds himself from anger." And in Christian scripture Jesus instructs, "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." You get the idea.

I like the motto Mahatma Gandhi hung on his wall at Sevagram:

"When you are in the right,
You can afford to keep your temper;
When you are in the wrong,
You can't afford to lose it."

I’m sure I could never say it better.

-- Steve Goodier

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Do You Want to Be Right?

I heard a funny story about a cowboy who ambled into the local blacksmith shop and picked up a horseshoe, not realizing it had just come from the forge. He immediately dropped the hot shoe, shoved his seared hand into his pocket and tried to act nonchalant.

The blacksmith half smiled and asked, "Kinda hot, wasn't it?"

"Nope," replied the cowboy, "just don't take me long to look at a horseshoe, that's all."

I chuckle because I don’t enjoy admitting mistakes, either. Nope, I’m fine…I meant to do that.

Furthermore, when I think I’m right, I usually want people to know it. And when I’m IN THE RIGHT, it’s hard to hold me back. “Hey, I’m the injured party here. I didn’t do anything wrong. I can prove it!” I don’t suffer righteous indignation quietly.

I learned of a minister who left his pulpit to go to medical school and become a doctor. An old friend saw him several years later and expressed surprise at his career change, but said he assumed it had been because he could care for people in a more physical way now that he was practicing medicine.

"Not at all," the doctor responded honestly, "the reasons were purely economic. I discovered that people will pay more money to care for their bodies than for their souls."

Several years lapsed before the friend saw him again and discovered that he had left medicine for law. "What was your reason this time?" the friend asked.

"Simple economics again," replied the ex-minister, ex-doctor attorney. "I learned that people will pay more to prove they are right than to care for either body or soul."

I suppose I’m not the only person who enjoys being right. Is that part of our human nature? In conflict, it seems most folks want to come out on top. When they are wronged, they want justice. If no justice is forthcoming, they lament about the unfairness of it all and indignantly brood in self pity. Many people will go to great lengths to prove they are right – and at tremendous cost, not only financially, but in other ways.

Do you know how difficult it is to insist on being right? And how high the cost?

Being the injured party is costly to physical and emotional health. Some people stew about the injustice of it all while their stomachs are eaten away by ulcers. While they wait for an apology or a court case to vindicate them, they grow resentful and bitter. They obsess on the cause of their pain and allow it to rob them of one of their most valuable assets – their happiness. In the end, many of them discover they paid far too high a price to be right.

An important question for me is this: Do I want to be right, or do I want to be well? And a related question is this: Do I want to be right, or do I want to be happy? Because usually I have to choose.

But it’s a choice I really ought to make.

-- Steve Goodier

The Danger Zone

Anger is just one letter short of danger -- it seems to be true in English as well as in practice. Dr. Bedford Williams at Duke University has determined that students who score high on a "hostility test" are in far greater danger of dying young than their peers. In fact, those who are prone to anger are in greater physical danger than those who smoke, have high blood pressure or even high cholesterol.

Not that we should never be angry. It is a normal part of life. We all get "worked up," "overheated" or just plain "hopping mad" at times. Those closest to us know it best. (Just ask my kids!)

One little boy said about his mother: "When she starts to act real weird, you have to look scared and serious. Don't giggle. When mommies are mad, they get madder when you giggle."

The good news is that simply getting angry does not seem to be the problem. Well-directed anger can be a helpful emotion. But STAYING angry is dangerous -- to our health and to our relationships.

Here are four simple steps that can help move us out of the danger zone when we feel as if our hostility is running the show.

1. Control it. Uncontrolled anger will take over.
2. Talk it out. Don't keep it in and let it fester.
3. Act on it. Do what needs to be done to resolve the situation. Helplessness will only provoke more anger and, eventually, despair.
4. End it. Just as there is a starting point for anger, there must be an ending. Make a decision not to prolong destructive hostility.

It can help to remember that for every minute we're angry, we lose sixty seconds of happiness and sixty seconds of peace. The sooner we get out of the danger zone, the sooner we can get back to truly living.

-- Steve Goodier


Image: flickr.com/txmx 2