Just Seeing What Life Brings

You’ve heard it said that what you see is what you get. But what I’ve discovered is that it’s not what you see, but what you think you see, that determines what you get.

In the “Journal of the American Medical Association,” Dr. Paul Ruskin demonstrated how our perception of reality (not actually what is going on, but how we perceive it) determines how we feel about it. While teaching a class on the psychological aspects of aging, he read the following case to his students:

The patient neither speaks nor comprehends the spoken word. Sometimes she babbles incoherently for hours on end. She is disoriented about person, place, and time. She does, however, respond to her name. I have worked with her for the past six months, but she still shows complete disregard for her physical appearance and makes no effort to assist her own care. She must be fed, bathed, and clothed by others. Because she has no teeth, her food must be pureed. Her shirt is usually soiled from almost incessant drooling. She does not walk. Her sleep pattern is erratic. Often she wakes in the middle of the night, and her screaming awakens others. Most of the time she is friendly and happy, but several times a day she gets quite agitated without apparent cause. Then she wails until someone comes to comfort her.

After presenting the case, Dr. Ruskin asked his students how they would like caring for this person. Most of them said they would not like it at all. He then said that he believed he would especially enjoy it and thought that they might, also. He passed a picture of the patient around for his puzzled students to see. It was his six-month-old daughter.

Most of the students thought that what they saw, in Ruskin’s description, was the task of caring for a difficult elderly woman with severe dementia and loss of bodily control with little or no self awareness. But when shown the picture, they realized that what they thought they saw and what they now clearly saw were quite different realities.

I have numerous tasks ahead today. How will I see them? Am I already seeing something I think I’ll dread without giving it a chance? Am I seeing something as negative when it could turn out to be rewarding or even a great opportunity for some growth? And what if I chose not to expect the worst and just see what life brings me?

I feel better about my day already.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/Jason Hoang

When You Judge Yourself

If you're going to do it, don't lose sight of the main fact.
 

Charles Allen (Victories in the Valleys of Life, Fleming H. Revell, 1981) tells the story of a man who, one wintry day, went to traffic court in Wichita, Kansas, not knowing court had been canceled because of a blizzard. A few days later he wrote this letter:

“I was scheduled to be in court February 23rd, at 12:15 pm., concerning a traffic ticket. Well, I was there as scheduled and, to my surprise, I was the only one present. No one had called to tell me that the court would be closed, so I decided to go ahead with the hearing as scheduled, which meant that I had to be the accuser, the accused and the judge. The citation was for going 46 miles per hour in a 35-mile-per-hour zone. I had the speed alert on in my car, set for 44 miles per hour; and as the accuser, I felt that I was going over 35 miles per hour, but as the accused, I know that I was not going 46 miles per hour. As judge, and being the understanding man that I am, I decided to throw it out of court this time. But it had better not happen again.”

He had a rare opportunity to officially “judge” himself. But don't we all judge ourselves all day long? We judge ourselves too fat or too thin, too old or too young, unworthy, unlikeable, undeserving, inadequate ... you get the idea.  And how often do you react more harshly to your own mistakes and errors than you would ever react to those same shortcomings in others?

A speaker started off his seminar by taking a bill from his wallet and holding it up high. He asked his audience, “Who would like this brand new $20 bill?” Hands shot up.

He continued, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you, but first, let me do this.” He crumpled the note. He then said, “It's crushed and wrinkled – now, who still wants it?” Again, most of the audience held their hands high.

He was relentless. “What if I do this?” He dropped the money, stepped on it and ground it into the floor with his shoe. He then held up the now dirty and disreputable bill. “Now who wants it?” Hands still waved in the air.

“My friends, here is the lesson,” he said. “No matter what I do to the money, you still want it because it does not decrease in value. It is still worth $20.” Then he gave it to someone in the audience. “How often are we crushed by life? Sometimes we are ill-treated and discarded. It can even feel as if we're ground into the dirt by poor decisions we make and circumstances that come our way. We may feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, we never lose our innate value. Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, used, refused or abused, we are still priceless.”

We judge ourselves all day long. But next time you judge yourself, don't lose sight of the main fact. No matter what you think of yourself today, you are still priceless.

-- Steve Goodier

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Losing the Desire to Judge

Image by Ahmed Al-Shukaili

“Whenever I dwell for any length of time on my own shortcomings,” says writer Margaret Halsey, “they gradually begin to seem mild, harmless, rather engaging little things, not at all like the staring defects in other people's characters.” That's funny, and more true than I care to admit. It must have been so with members of the US Congress in the early 20th Century. Many of them seemed less concerned with their own piddling shortcomings and preferred to wail about a staring defect in the senator from the state of Utah, Reed Smoot. So outraged were they, Smoot almost was not seated in the senate.

Reed Smoot was a leader in the Mormon (LDS) Church and, back in those days, his church was accused of secretly allowing the practice of plural marriages (polygamy). Although Smoot had only one wife, some of the more sanctimonious members of the senate argued that he should not be seated, given the beliefs of his church.

But the issue was settled when Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania strode to the podium and looked directly at some of his colleagues who, though married, were known to “womanize.” He stated emphatically, “As for me, I would prefer to have seated beside me in the Senate a polygamist who doesn’t polyg than a monogamist who doesn’t monog.” End of matter.

I understand there are times we have to be discerning. But I don't want to be known as a judging person. There is good and bad in all of us and I have plenty to work on in my own life.
  
Besides, I think Mother Teresa got it right when she said: “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.  And, it should be added, if you love people, you have no desire to judge them. Substitute the word “love” with the words “understand” or “know,” and it works just as well. If you understand people, if you know them, truly know them, you have no desire to judge them.

Losing the desire to judge – now that can change a life.

– Steve Goodier 

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The Gifts of Age

I love young people. I feel the same way as Archbishop Desmond Tutu who once said, "I have the highest regard for young people… Young people are idealistic. They dream dreams about a better world."

They not only dream dreams, they have the audacity to believe in those dreams and often enough enthusiasm to nurture them into something close to real life.

I love young people. What fun I could have "back in the day" – ridiculous fun. And what hope. I was changing so quickly and it seemed I could be limited only by my dreams. If I believed it might be possible, I felt I could make it so.

There are tremendous gifts that come with youth. Like optimism and the ability to change. When anything seems possible, more than a little of it becomes possible if one only believes enough and adapts quickly.

And then we age. Please don’t hear a note of discouragement – it’s just that aging is something I am only slowly coming to embrace. It creeps up on a person like silent fog in the night; we awaken one morning in the midst of it and wonder how it got there.

We age, whether we choose to or not. And some people dread it. Singer Doris Day once said, "The really frightening thing about middle age is that you know you'll grow out of it." That fear can be all too real.

Some people dread aging. And some people deny it. They try to avoid the fact that they are growing older and their bodies are in decline. One woman who had ignored her failing eyesight for too long was asked, "How long have you worn glasses?"

"Since yesterday," she replied. "As I was baking some tollhouse cookies I picked up the fly swatter and killed four chocolate chips." Some people deny aging and live as if nothing has changed.

And some people avoid it – or try to. They idealize youth and never become comfortable in their older, looser-fitting skin. One man quipped: "A few years ago my wife started to wear tight jeans. I went out and bought a convertible. Then she bleached her hair. I took a lot of multiple vitamin shots. Just a few months ago, she had a face lift and a "tummy tuck." I got an implant. And that's the way it’s been for the two of us: side by side -- growing young together."

Since age can’t really be avoided, there are those, also, who learn to laugh at it. Humor won’t chase old age away, but laughter certainly makes it more bearable.

A parody of the musical hit "My Favorite Things" is making the rounds among oldsters. The song, inaccurately attributed to Julie Andrews, reminds us that it helps to laugh at what we can’t change.

"Maalox and nose drops and needles for knitting,
Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings,
Bundles of magazines tied up in string;
These are a few of my favorite things…"

You get the idea.

We may try to deny it or avoid it. We may dread it or learn to laugh at it. But unless an accident or illness robs us of the chance to grow old, we’ll all experience it.

Which is okay. For if youth has its gifts, I believe age does, too. When aged well, the idealism of youth is tempered now with solid experience. Youth’s enthusiasm is made more valuable when combined in old age with good judgment. And youth’s ability to become anything they can imagine, in old age takes the form of character; trustworthy and reliable – character so rich only decades of living could ever grow and refine it.

These are the gifts of age. They are gifts found in those who live their lives intentionally and well. They take a lifetime to acquire and they are precious beyond belief. 

-- Steve Goodier